Doctor Who (26 page)

SWAN IN BACK, said the note.

Swan emerged from the back door carrying a shotgun. If I had thought fast enough, I could have slammed the door on her. But I didn't. Which meant I was on the business end of the gun a couple of seconds later. I'd been there just once before in my life, when I was fifteen years old and caught with a farmer's daughter. The same instinct possessed me then as it did now: I froze and shut up.

‘You know what I want,' she told me.

I must have hesitated. Or maybe Mondy made a move she didn't like, I don't know. Swan turned and gave the Escort both barrels. The windscreen burst inwards, showering the front seats with glass. ‘Holy crap!!!' announced Mondy. He shot out of the passenger side door and disappeared into the trees at the side of the road. His car rolled forward until it bumped into the Travco and idled there.

Swan cracked the gun to reload it. I grabbed the barrels, burned hell out of my fingers, and snatched them away. She flipped the shotgun closed as though she'd done it a thousand times, laughing as I blew on my fingers.

She gestured at the Travco, moving the gun in a small oval from me to the campervan and back. ‘Open it up,' she said.

I did it, moving in slow motion, partly so she could see everything I was doing, partly to give the Doctor and co a chance to react. I had caught a glimpse of the Doctor watching in the rear view mirror, but I didn't dare look back there now
in case Swan took it the wrong way.

Nobody, but nobody, stopped to see what was going on. I don't think anyone even slowed down.

I opened the narrow side door. Swan peered in at Luis sitting on the bunk bed, clutching the Savant like a dozing four-year-old.

‘Hand that over or I'll blow your frigging head off,' she told him.

‘
Que te jodan
,' he said, clutching the Savant so tightly I was worried it couldn't breathe.

‘You know I'm not joking,' said Swan. ‘You know just how I feel. You can either hold onto that thing and lose your skull, or you can give it to me right now.'

‘You don't feel!' Luis was weeping. ‘You're not attached to this thing as though it was your own arm or your own hand.'

I said, ‘For God's sake, man, hand it over. It's not worth your life.'

‘Maybe we can work together,' he begged her. ‘I could come with you. I'll look after it for you.'

‘You know that won't work,' said Swan.

‘You'll kill it!' screamed Luis. He folded up around the Savant as though his own flesh and bones could save it from a shotgun blast.

That was when the Doctor hit the button.

The Savant didn't make a sound. It froze in position, one of its stubby hands still clutching half a Rubik's Cube.

Luis didn't make a sound. He was already half-slumped on the bunk bed. He just sank down further, like a child falling into sleep. The Savant slid from his lap like a living statue.

Swan screamed her head off.

The Doctor was out of the Travco with incredible speed. He slapped Swan's arms as she fired the shotgun, the pellets flying
off wildly, the explosion turning the world silent for a long ringing second – punctuated by Peri screaming in the passenger seat.

The Doctor and I both grabbed for the gun, and found ourselves grabbing each other instead as the length of metal spun around in our grip. Swan had darted into the side of the Travco to grab the Savant. The Doctor pounced on the little yellow body. But she didn't even look at it. She grabbed Luis and dragged him onto the gravel like a side of meat.

And Luis had a gun. Swan fished it out of his jacket pocket and aimed it up at us, crouching over his limp body. She suggested strongly that we depart. The Doctor looked at them and decided to comply.

Luis sat in the passenger seat of Mondy's car, gazing evenly through the remains of the windscreen. Drops of rain were forming an intricate pattern on the surviving glass, glittering dots and spaces. Luis's shoulders had unknotted for the first time in days, his hands lying loose in his lap.

Swan said nothing. She drove through the gathering darkness, through rain that turned from spots to lines to a constant sizzling haze that dripped in through the broken windscreen. From time to time, when they were stopped at lights or when nothing much was happening on the road, she would glance at Luis. He watched the road with nothing to say.

It was hours later when the garage doors yawned for the Escort. Swan opened the passenger door and herded Luis into the house. Upstairs, she cleared all the junk out of the tub and ran a steaming hot bath for Luis. While he got undressed she laid the loaded shotgun across the little desk in the guest room.

She sat on the lid of the john while he soaked, both of them warming up after the long cold drive. When he was done she
made up the guest bed and tucked him into it.

She sat on a wooden chair in the dark, turning a pen around and around in her hands, clicking the nib in and out. Luis sat quietly, propped up with three pillows. His eyes wouldn't close.

She brought him some of the Lego in an old plastic ice-cream container. She put it in his lap on top of the blankets.

Luis's hands dived into the container and started feeling the shapes with their fingertips, turning each one around and replacing it. Swan switched on a small lamp on the desk, dragged her chair to the edge of the bed and watched. In just a few minutes, those probing fingers had worked out how to stick two Lego pieces together. Soon Luis was building more and more complicated structures.

After half an hour Swan took the plastic container away. They were both going to need some rest. Tomorrow would be a big day for both of them.

THE DOCTOR DROVE
us to a gas station and pulled the Travco into the parking lot. Peri and I were both still vibrating with adrenaline. I was just starting to discover the little scrapes and bruises I had accumulated during those few dramatic seconds on the shoulder. A couple of police cars passed the station, heading back the way we'd come, sirens blazing.

‘They'll get her,' said Peri. ‘She must be driving the car with bullet holes in the windshield!'

‘Unless she hijacked somebody,' I said.

‘I doubt that.' The Doctor was perfectly calm. ‘Swan will not want to involve anyone else if she can help it.' He wasn't even breathing fast, as though nothing unusual had happened at all. He climbed into the back of the Travco to examine the Savant.

Peri peered at it from the passenger seat. Its stiff, stretched-out shape reminded me of a cat I'd had as a kid, poisoned by a neighbour and found in frozen running position underneath a bush. We'd had to dig a very long grave for it.

‘Is it OK?' said Peri. ‘You didn't kill it, did you?'

‘No I did not,' the Doctor replied. ‘It has been thoroughly interrupted. In fact, it's quite comatose.'

‘Now what do we do?' said Bob.

‘I've arranged with its owners that they will collect it.'

Peri sat down on the bunk bed next to the solid Y. She tentatively stroked its fur. ‘Maybe we should keep it,' she said. ‘I don't trust those guys to look after it.'

‘You don't establish an infraluminal interplanetary civilisation by being wasteful. I'm sure the Eridani will find some use for it, even though it's run off the rails of its original genetic program.' The Doctor didn't sound entirely convinced. But at least the little yellow bugger wasn't a threat to anyone any more.

I said, ‘Didn't you say something about it being born pregnant?'

‘Yes, well, it's best if they collect it sooner rather than later.'

‘So we win,' said Bob. ‘We've deactivated the Savant. We've stopped the threat to Earth. We, in short, rock.'

‘What about Luis?' said Peri.

‘Don't forget Mondy,' I added.

The Doctor said, ‘I suspect Mr Mond is capable of effecting his own rescue. Luis Perez, on the other hand, will need more help than the police can give him, even assuming they can catch up with Swan.'

‘She's crazy,' said Peri. ‘I thought we were all dead. I thought she was going to shoot holes in the campervan until she got all of us. Like playing a video game.'

‘There's method in her madness, rather than the other way around,' said the Doctor. ‘Swan hasn't lost control. Her threats were very calculated, even though they're driven by her obsession with the Savant. No, she knew just what she was doing.'

‘You mean she planned to kidnap Luis all along?'

‘Now that is interesting . . .' The Doctor was staring off into the distance, as if watching a TV show only he could see. ‘She switched targets almost the moment I activated the Interrupt. But she couldn't possibly have known I had the device, nor what it would do. So why the sudden change of plan?'

‘Maybe she just wanted a hostage,' said Bob.

‘That doesn't make sense,' said Peri. ‘Why grab someone you'd have to carry? She could have got Chick, or the Doctor.'

‘Something is going on here that we don't understand,' said the Doctor. ‘And the reluctance of our friends the Eridani to be more specific is the root of our troubles. But there's not much we can do about them. What was that program that attacked the Apple II? What has she cooked up with alien help? Swan's our target.'

‘Uh, excuse me,' said Bob, ‘but she just tried to use
us
for target practice.'

‘We have to know what's in her computer,' said the Doctor. ‘All our sophisticated attacks have failed. I think it's time to try something a little cruder.'

Swan had two phone calls to make. Luis seemed happy to keep playing with the Meccano set she had given him, so she went downstairs, settled into the chair at the kitchen table, and picked up the receiver.

The first call was to my editor. ‘There's someone I'd like to suggest you talk to,' she said. ‘A former colleague of Mr Peters. Oh, of course, it's up to you. But let me give you the details.' She did, and then listened while my boss told her he had no intention of calling some guy long-distance and interrupting his Christmas break. ‘Come on,' she said. ‘Aren't your journalistic instincts itching? I just spoke to him myself. And do you know what he told me?'

She told him. My editor made that call.

Swan's second call was to Bob Salmon's boss. He didn't answer his work phone, so she tried his home number. After three rings he picked up.

‘I'm afraid I have some bad news about one of your employees,' she told him. ‘Robert Salmon was caught
trespassing in my company's offices and in my company's computers. Now, I am willing not to go ahead with charges if you'll take action against him yourself.'

‘I'm very shocked to hear this, Miss Swan. Bob has been an excellent worker. He's a bright young man. If the department decides to dismiss him, I'm going to be very sorry to lose him.'

‘It's up to you, of course,' said Swan. ‘I understand you may not be able to make a decision until the new year. Just call me back at this number when you do.'

Swan hung up and sat back in her chair. She was back in control, she was on top of the world. She had Luis and we had nothing. She had hurt us, and she could go on hurting us. She had been on the police radio on the way home, using a device which lowered her voice's pitch until it sounded like a man, confusing the reports until they would never know who the crazy lady with the shotgun was. She was untouchable.

Back at my flat, Mr Salmon was staring at the phone. ‘I cannot believe I just made a prank phone call.'

‘You didn't make a prank call, Dad!' said Bob. ‘A prank call is when you phone a guy at the bowling alley and ask if he has ten-pound balls. Swan called us.'

Mr Salmon took out his handkerchief and dabbed his forehead. ‘She sure was fooled,' he said. ‘That's bought you a few more days, son. But she's going to be even madder when she realises she was tricked.'

The Doctor said, ‘Miss Swan is going to have more important things to deal with. I guarantee it.'

Mr Salmon patted Bob on the head and went back to work.

Mondy emerged from the street after fifty-seven minutes, pushed the manhole lid back into place, and walked over to my
car carrying his tapedeck and his trio of traffic cones. He sat down in the back and thumbed the ‘play' switch. The tapedeck served up a bunch of beeping, roaring, and hissing. He was waiting for me to ask him what it was. But I already knew: it was the sound of a modem, the sound of someone dialling up a computer from a distance. Computers talk over the phone in what sounds like static or an angry cat, but is actually a firehose explosion of zeroes and ones blipping over the lines.

‘You taped Swan calling up her work account from home,' I said. Mondy nodded. ‘How does that help us? We don't speak computer.'

‘Yeah, but other computers do. As soon as I play this back in my computer, we'll have Swan's password. It's a crude method, but I can usually get it to work. Then we just stroll into her account through the front door.'

And grab the Savant program. ‘Perfect. Let's get to your mom's house.' I pulled out. The late-night traffic was quiet.

After a while, Mondy piped up from the back seat. ‘Is it true?'

‘Is what true?'

‘What Swan said about you. I listened to her talking to your boss.'

‘You tape that?'

‘Nah,' said Mondy. ‘No, seriously, I rewound the tape and recorded over it. The computer was all I was interested in.'

There was a long pause. ‘Well, is it?'

‘What do you think?'

‘I think it's obvious bullshit. I think your boss will say it's obvious bullshit. I don't think you have anything to worry about, man.'

‘Hope you're right,' I said.

Mondy played the recording again, as though he could fish Swan's password right out of the meaningless hiss with modern
ears. ‘The really simplest thing to do would be to play it back over the phone to her own computer. I've done that when I was in a hurry. It even worked a couple of times.'