Doctor Who: Paradise Towers (13 page)

‘Well, Red Kangs, I have to say I’d never imagined I’d be glad to see this place again.’ The Doctor took in the familiar details of the Brainquarters and was surprised by how comforting it seemed now after the lair of the Chief Caretaker. The Kangs were sometimes difficult and unpredictable but they were not mad, bad or totally ruthless. That meant a lot in Paradise Towers.

‘Be seated, Doctor,’ Bin Liner invited.

‘And drink.’ Fire Escape produced a can of Fizzade from the machine and pulled off the metal tag. The Doctor and the other Red Kangs laughed at the reminder of their last encounter as they all settled down to talk.

‘Thank you, Fire Escape.’ The Doctor graciously accepted the can and thankfully downed half of it. While the rest were being served, however, he felt he had to press on. ‘Before we doing anything else,’ he told his hosts, ‘we must look at the Illustrated Prospectus.’ He reached in his pocket to pull it out but it was the wrong pocket. Quite a few pockets later, however, the Doctor finally brought the precious disc to light.

‘You do have something we can look at it on, I presume?’

the Doctor enquired.

Fire Escape pointed nonchalantly to what looked like a large fire extinguisher with a screen fitted to its top.

‘Ah, the wonders of Paradise Towers technology,’ the Doctor muttered to himself. It appeared to be junk but the Doctor had sufficient confidence now in the Kangs to believe it would work every bit as well as the talkiphones.

Setting up the Picturespout, as the Kangs called it, took a little time, and, while Bin Liner worked at this, the others huddled round the Doctor, eager to ask questions of this strange being who had entered their enclosed world.

‘Is it true that there are other places, not like the Towers?’

‘Oh yes,’ the Doctor replied. ‘Many other places. More than you could count if you started counting now and went on until you were unalive. All with different languages and different clothes and different customs.’

‘Do they all have Rezzies who eat Kangs?’

The Doctor shook his head.

‘But Kangs,’ one of the smaller Reds protested, ‘they all have Kangs, don’t they?’

The Doctor shook his head again. ‘No. No Kangs. No Red Kangs. No Blue Kangs. No any-colour Kangs.’

‘No Kangs.’ Fire Escape repeated the words wonderingly and the Kangs looked at each other in surprise. That there were other worlds had never occured to them but then nobody had ever attempted to explain the facts before. That these worlds operated on different principles from the rules of the Kang game and the harsh facts of survival in Paradise Towers amazed them. And gave them much to think about and discuss in the days to come.

‘We want you to tell us about such places.’

The Doctor was happy to agree but at that moment Bin Liner announced that the Picturespout was ‘all shape-ship and ready’ and they could view the Prospectus. They all realised that delightful though it was to talk of other places, their immediate concern was the state of the Towers.

Everyone shifted on the floor until they had a good view and the Picturespout went into action. The opening images were already familiar to the Doctor but they so fascinated the Kangs, who had never seen pictures of the Towers as it was first completed, that he did not have the heart to hurry on through.

At last, however, they came to the part of the Prospectus he had been studying when the Kangs had rescued him. The cheery voice framed that tantalising sentence and this time he was going to hear all of it.

‘Paradise Towers,’ the voice announced, ‘has been specially designed for you by Kroagnon, universally known as the Great Architect, the genius responsible for Golden Dream Park, the Bridge of Perpetual Motion, Miracle City...’

‘Miracle City!’ The Doctor’s eyes were agleam. A name had finally jogged his momory and the whole thing was suddenly falling into place. The name Kroagnon on the coin. The Great Architect never seen since the Towers were built. And now a list of his achievements had mentioned Miracle City. The Doctor knew all about Miracle City and he intended that the Kangs should know the whole story too.

The indicator said Mel and Pex were going up now. So far they had stopped at the 9th floor, the 102nd floor, the 56th floor, the 239th floor, the 9th floor (again) and the 173rd floor but the doors had not opened on anything alarming like a Cleaner waiting outside and they had always shut to order.

‘Well, I suppose it is one way of seeing Paradise Towers,’

Mel announced philosophically, now that Pex had fully informed her of the dangers of Cleaners and Caretakers. ‘Just so long as nothing goes wrong with the lift.’

At that moment the lights inside the lift started to flicker and then the whole lift started to judder alarmingly. Pex was immediately on edge. ‘What did you say?’ he asked, too nervous to really listen.

‘It doesn’t matter really,’ Mel replied, still trying to make the best of the situation. ‘Unless, of course, the lift sticks completely between floors.’

She should have known better. The lift promptly juddered to a complete halt, stuck between floors.

‘Well, at least the lights haven’t gone out,’ Mel insisted brightly.

Then the lights went out too. They were stuck there in the blackness unable to get out or summon help. They couldn’t even tell which floors they were stuck between. It was too much for Pex.

‘I hate the dark,’ he whimpered quietly.

To be honest, Mel wasn’t too keen on it either. And it was fortunate for both of them that a small red emergency light now came on, allowing them to see just a little in the semi-darkness.

Both of them started to feel around for the control panel. It was Mel who found it first.

‘The controls are really stiff, though,’ she panted, trying to get them to work. Something had clearly jammed and she made no impression at all.

‘Here. Let me.’ Pex may not have been the braver of the two but he was undoubtedly the stronger and Mel pulled back as far as she could in the confined space in the lift to let him get to the control panel.

In the flickering red light, Mel saw Pex go through the same extraordinary preparatory routine he had used when he bent the street lamp. It seemed like that had happened days ago but she realised with a shock it was probably only a matter of hours.

But here again was the same flexing and the same deep breathing. And then Pex came right up to the control panel and brought the whole force of his hand down on it with a strange warlike cry.

They waited for a moment and then the main light came on.

It was a hopeful sign.

‘Well done, Pex!’ Mel exclaimed. In the full light she could see he was looking pleased with himself, and, for once, she did not begrudge him his complacency. And a moment later the lift mercifully juddered back into action.

The floor indicator, however, started to go crazy and Mel had a tremendous sinking feeling in her stomach. ‘The only snag is,’ she called to Pex over the juddering, ‘that we seem to be going down. Very fast.’

And indeed the lift was all too obviously plummeting down the floors of the Towers at a phenomenal rate. Neither of them cared to discuss when and where the lift would come to a halt.

The Chief was walking along the 48th floor on his way to the Basement when he saw it. A Megapodic Mark 7Z Cleaner standing by one of the few functional lifts with its corkscrew attachment in action.

‘What are you doing here, Robotic Cleaner 479?’ he demanded as he came up and could see the registration mark on its side. ‘I didn’t order you to stand there. Get back to the 67Y

Depot at once.’

The Cleaner did not move.

‘Do you hear my orders?’ the Chief barked. It was the first time he had faced an insubordinate Cleaner although reason told him that they had to exist for all the unauthorised killings to have taken place. But he felt certain a little firm handling would soon put matters to rights.

It didn’t. Instead Robotic Cleaner 479 did something totally unexpected. It turned to face him and then started to force him back down the corridor. Its corkscrew rotated so ferociously that the Chief did not feel like confronting it directly. Instead he was forced to employ gentler means.

‘What’s going on, Robotic Cleaner 479?’ he asked plaintively as he was edged back down the corridor. ‘Look, there’s no need for this. Really there isn’t.’

And then the ghastly truth of what was happening struck him. He wasn’t any longer going down to the Basement to see his pet under his own steam, choosing his own time and his own route. He was being forced to go there by some greater power.

The Doctor had the total attention of the Red Kangs as he talked. It would have been possible to hear a pin drop. And no wonder. He was telling them how the world in which they had lived all their lives came into being.

‘Kroagnon,’ the Doctor was saying, ‘was a brilliant architect who created a number of projects around the Galaxy. But, for all his brilliance, a lot of people didn’t trust him. Miracle City was his masterpiece. But the architect showed a great reluctance to finish the building and move out so that the people could move in. He thought they’d spoil the beauty of his creation. They got him out in the end, of course, but the people who moved in lived to regret it.’

Fire Escape gasped. ‘He made them unalive?’

‘Faults occurred and lives were lost,’ the Doctor answered,

‘but his responsibility could never be proved so he got away with it. There were many who believed it was some sort of revenge for not being allowed to have his own way.’

The Doctor took a deep breath and pursed his lips. ‘But, you see, my dear Kangs, space is a big place. And he was brilliant and so he got other work including, of course, Paradise Towers.’

‘Blank walls and cleaners!’ It was an exclamation the Doctor had not heard before. But it was apparently the only one strong enough to express Bin Liner’s feelings at the implications of what the Doctor had said.

‘Of course,’ the Doctor continued gravely, ‘after that, he disappeared. The Chief Caretaker told me that. But mayhaps, my dear Red Kangs –’ he paused to take in their anxious and intent faces. ‘Mayhaps your parents thought they were being clever by leaving him here trapped in some way in his own building. Perhaps to guard its secret. Perhaps to stop him capping it with a greater project. Most likely to prevent the sort of problems there had been over Miracle City.’

The Doctor paused again, the gravity of what he was saying having an effect on him too. ‘But if your parents did do that,’ he then concluded, ‘they did a very foolish thing. Because, no matter how deep they buried him in Paradise Towers, he’s bound to get out in the end.’

There was a long silence. Bin Liner broke it.

‘What must Red Kangs do, Doctor?’

‘We’ll fight for you,’ Fire Escape added. And there was immediately a chorus of other offers to fight.

The Doctor held up his hand gently. ‘You must do something more difficult than that. You must tell me all you know.’ His eyes met Bin Liner’s. ‘I mean, that door with the smoke coming out of it. Where is it?’

Bin Liner hesitated. ‘Please,’ the Doctor insisted, ‘it’s important.’

‘In the Basement,’ Bin Liner admitted. ‘The Cleaners have a secret alleviator. Red Kangs have used it and seen –’

‘And seen what?’

‘Things they could not speak of,’ Bin Liner mumbled shamefacedly.

The Doctor decided it was again time to take action. The Kangs too were happier with that than providing explanations.

‘I’m going down to the Basement to find out what’s going on,’

he announced. ‘I’m sure for a start that the Chief Caretaker knows a lot more than he’s letting on.’

‘I’ll go outlook with you, Doctor,’ Bin Liner immediately put in, delighted the conversation had taken this turn.

‘And me,’ put in Fire Escape eagerly. Again there was a babble of voices offering help.

The Doctor held up his hand once more to command silence. ‘All right, all right. Bin Liner and Fire Escape, you come with me. I’m sure there’ll be work for the rest of you to do in time. Stay here for the moment though. The three of us must go immediately.’

‘No!’ It was the voice of the Blue Kang leader. She and the rest of her Kangs were massed at the top of the narrow stairsand were pouring down now, crossbows in hand. So intent had been the Red Kangs on the Doctor’s story that they had been able to force an entry upstairs without being noticed.

The Blue Kang leader was triumphant. ‘Red Kangs leave no outlooks,’ she jeered. ‘Blue Kangs have got into their Brainquarters and won the game. Blue Kangs are best!’

‘Blue Kangs are best! Blue Kangs are best!’ the others joined in with victorious pride. Not surprisingly, perhaps, a counter cry of ‘Red Kangs are best!’ went up from the ambushed.

The quarrelling was deafening and the Doctor had to raise his voice to a shout to make himself heard. ‘Please!’ he cried when some semblance of quiet had been created. ‘The future of Paradise Towers is at stake. We all have to work together.’ He turned to the Blue Kang leader. ‘You have got to help us.

It took precious minutes for the Blue Kangs to calm down and listen. They were so excited by their victory that at first they could not take in what the Doctor was saying. But eventually they grasped its import.

‘Look,’ urged the Doctor, ‘you’ve got to believe me. I’m sure the Red Kangs will agree that you’ve won this round of the game. But there won’t be any games worth playing if we don’t discover who’s been ordering the killings. Will you let us go to the Basement?’

‘More,’ the Blue Kang returned, convinced at last. ‘I will go with you.’

‘Good,’ the Doctor said approvingly. ‘Then you’ll see with your own eyes what’s going on.’

‘Blue Kang Eye-Spy saw the Chief Caretaker footing it there too,’ the leader added, indicating one of the others, who nodded agreement.

‘Then we must hurry.’ The Doctor turned back to Bin Liner. ‘What’s the quickest way to get there?’

‘We must use the Cleaners’ secret alleviator,’ Bin Liner replied.

‘Excellent.’ The Doctor and his three companions turned to say farewell to the rest of the Blue and Red Kangs gathered together in one space for the first time in their young lives.