by James Goss
‘True,’ said Abesse, and raised her gun towards me. I tried not to flinch, and failed. ‘Well, perhaps a tiny agenda,’ she admitted, and lowered the gun.
Abesse pulled back a curtain. Behind it, slumped in her chair, was Marianne Globus, fast asleep. Poor Marianne.
‘She’s sedated,’ announced Abesse. ‘I presume you’d like her waking?’
The Doctor considered the slumbering form. ‘When she’s awake, she’s in agony, isn’t she?’ His voice could be very gentle sometimes.
Abesse nodded. ‘Her condition is getting worse.’
The Doctor stepped forward. ‘Well then, let’s not wake her,’ he whispered. ‘I’ll just try and talk to her telepathically.’
As though people said that all the time.
Abesse shot him an uncertain look. The same look I’d worn since I’d first met Prisoner 428. Were any of us right to trust him?
His hand rested softly on an unblemished area of Marianne’s forehead and his eyes closed in deep contemplation. He let out a long, steady breath. Somewhere, a long way away, lost in a hopefully dreamless sleep, Marianne stirred. Her hand twitched slightly. Her dribbling mouth made a tiny murmur.
The Doctor nodded to himself and then closed his eyes. A muscle in the side of his cheek twitched. Apart from that, the rest of him was still.
The Doctor spoke.
‘You’re all the way over there, Marianne. It’s all right. You can stay there. If you want to. It’s fine. Between you and me there’s a lot of pain. Some of it mine, I will admit. Most of it yours. It’s all right. You don’t have to cross it. I’ll come to you. No, don’t worry. It’s fine. I’ll bring biscuits.’
The slight twitch in his cheek became more pronounced. He let out another deep breath, ragged as the edge of saw. All the time, the Doctor’s voice, soothing and delicate continued. I noticed his lips weren’t moving.
‘Do you mind if I join you? There seems enough room for two over there. Yes. So. Hello. We’ve not been properly introduced have we? You’re the famous Marianne Globus. Well, I’m the Doctor. Pleased to meet you. It’s been a while since you’ve had a visitor, hasn’t it? Well, then, let’s do all the gossip shall we? Let me see—
‘No, no, it’s all right. There’s no need to cry. There’s no need. It’s all right. Come here. This isn’t really a huggy body, but what’s the harm, just once, eh? There now. It’s fine, Marianne. What happened to you was bad. But no one’s fault. It was an accident. You didn’t deserve it. No, no matter what you did. Listen – we all do bad things. But we also do good things. And that’s the fun stuff. Always think about the bacon sandwich and not the washing-up.’
He frowned again. ‘Oh … oh I see. Really? I’m so sorry. I’ll get back to that. No. It’s a promise. I will deal with it. So, yes. Of course I’m here because I need your help. I know I said I’d brought biscuits, but that was just me using my charm. Oh, shut up. I do have charm. This is me doing charming. It just gets mistaken for indigestion. Normally by Clara.
‘Let me tell you about Clara. She’s one that’s worth saving. Once I got so lost she walked the universe looking for me. So, the least I can do is find her in a cold lump of space rock. And I need your help for that. Because of what’s down there. You’ve seen it. You’ve survived it. Which makes you amazing and very important. So I’m wondering if you’ll come with me? Sounds like we’ve both got a score to settle.
‘You will? Brilliant! Come on then, Marianne Globus, let’s get out of here.’
He gently took hold of the back of her chair, where Marianne met the base of a Custodian, and set off.
If I’d ever fooled myself that I was in command of The Prison, well, I really wasn’t now. I was just tailing behind this strange man, pushing all that remained of a once good friend of mine, the two of them guarded over by Abesse. The mercenary with a really big gun she was just itching to use. I didn’t even have a gun. I know the Doctor said he didn’t approve of them, but perhaps if I had one, then I could have helped. Even though I’d never fired a gun.
We made it down a level before the Custodians came for us. They waited until we reached a hallway. Walls on every side. They emerged, gliding from docking ports, surrounding us.
Abesse started firing.
The Doctor was shouting at her, telling her not to. But she was a trained mercenary. Mercenaries sometimes act purely on finely honed instinct. Her bullets rammed into the carapaces of the machines. They juddered but kept on coming.
The Doctor was launching into a speech about it being a waste of bullets, not that all bullets weren’t a waste or something. You know, sometimes, he could be a bit monotonous. When I ruled the HomeWorld System, you’d get people like that coming in to see you from time to time. Open Government. You’d dodge most of the meetings, but it looked good to see the odd crank. Funny that. If I’d met the Doctor in real life, I’d have run a mile. But suddenly, right here, trapped in a dying space prison surrounded by lethal robots, he seemed quite the best person to be standing next to. Even if he did like the sound of his own voice.
The Custodians moved towards us, gliding and bumping, the bullets whizzing off their bodies. Their antennae were out, claws and pincers snapping, blasters charging. The air crackled dangerously. They’d electrified their casings.
I looked at poor Marianne, lost in distant dreams in her chair. She was almost smiling. For once, she wouldn’t feel a thing. Not when the end came. That seemed a good thing. Poor Marianne. I’m so sorry.
The Custodians closed in.
What happened next was a bit of a surprise.
We will ignore Abesse catching me in the shoulder with a stray blast. She really didn’t mean to, and anyway, it was more of a flesh wound. It was simply that she didn’t expect me to suddenly walk forward and stand in front of her gun. Between her and the Custodians.
The Doctor was staring at me in horror. I didn’t need telepathy to know he thought this was a very stupid thing to do.
I stood there. Between my … my friends and the Custodians.
‘Custodians,’ I said. ‘What are your orders?’
The Custodians don’t, as a habit, speak. Some units had various simple vocabulary banks.
‘Halt,’ said the one in front of me.
‘Halt? Halt me? I am your Governor.’
‘Halt. Prisoners. Stop.’
‘Stop all of us?’
‘Command. Halt. Prisoners.’
‘You think we’re all prisoners? Is that it?’
I was painfully aware of how close the Custodian was to me. The air around it stank with electricity. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. It was still coming towards me. Slowly.
‘Prisoners. Halt.’
‘I am not a prisoner. I say again, I am your Governor. I order you to halt.’
‘Priority Command. Governor Protocol not recognised.’
The thing is, life sometimes offers you clarity. I’d got a lot wrong. But as the Doctor said, everyone must get something right occasionally, too. Sometimes. ‘Define your Priority Command.’
‘Priority: Once cascade systems failure initiated, the definition of Prisoner is extended to all life forms in The Prison. All Prisoners are to be restrained with lethal force. That is Emergency Protocol.’
The Custodian glided a little closer.
Abesse pulled up her gun, ready to fire again.
The Doctor’s hand was on my shoulder, ready to pull me back.
The Custodian was now so close the field around it tugged at the skin on my arms.
‘Emergency Protocol is superseded in one case,’ I said. I gestured to the people behind me. ‘This is a Medical Evacuation. She –’ I gestured to Marianne –‘is a critically ill patient. Scan her. I and Abesse here are her two guardians, and this –’ I tapped the Doctor
– ‘is her appointed physician. That’s a squad of four. As per the Protocols.’
The Custodian checked this. ‘Medical Evacuation is superseded—’
‘No,’
I insisted. ‘Isn’t that right, Doctor?’
‘Yes.’ The Doctor suddenly sounded very sure of himself. ‘Medical Evacuation is also an Emergency Protocol.’ He nodded emphatically. I wondered how – when – he’d read the manual. He just winked at me and suddenly that felt enormously encouraging.
‘And,’ I continued, ‘since this Medical Evacuation was already enacted before your Emergency Protocols, then it cannot be superseded. It’s a Prior Operation.’
The Custodians surveyed us. ‘Where is the Medical Evacuation taking place?’ the lead one asked.
‘We are removing this prisoner to Level 6. To …’ I faltered.
‘To the Secure Area,’ finished the Doctor approvingly.
‘Once Medical Evacuation is completed, then Termination Protocol will be activated,’ the Custodian informed us.
‘Yes, yes, of course.’ The Doctor sounded only a little testy. ‘Once we’ve saved her, then by all means kill us all. Perhaps, you know,’ he leant forward confidentially to the Custodian, ‘if you conveyed us directly to the Secure Area, then we could pick up the pace, eh?’
The Custodians conferred and then agreed.
And so, unbelievably, the Custodians acted as our escort to the Secure Area. It had been hidden from the entire prison population, but the Custodians had known where it was all the time. You just had to ask.
‘Machine logic,’ chuckled the Doctor, ‘Never fails.’
‘You have mobility issues?’ A Custodian had noticed the Doctor hobbling. Antennae shot out of it.
‘It’s just a toe, it’s fine,’ he reassured it. ‘There’s no need to execute me now. If you did so, my patient’s health would suffer.’
The Custodian considered this, but also remained fascinated by the Doctor’s toe. ‘Your progress is impeding the Priority Medical Evacuation.’ It moved backwards. ‘Stay there.’
‘What are you going to do?’ the Doctor demanded. ‘Don’t think you can dispose of me and order a replacement. There aren’t any other medics on The Prison. You’ve killed them all So, you’ll just have to put up with me hobbling a little. It’s not too bad.’
The Custodian considered.
‘Just a little delay,’ repeated the Doctor, gesturing towards the stairs. ‘Shall we?’
The Custodian considered. And then shot the Doctor in the foot.
He screamed and fell to the floor.
‘Now you are injured enough for us to carry you,’ announced the Custodian smugly, and picked the Doctor up. A lift opened. ‘Efficiency improved.’
‘Machine logic,’ I couldn’t resist saying to the Doctor. ‘Never fails.’
You can tell a lot about a building by taking a journey in a lift.
The lifts in HomeWorld Parliament were impressive glass boxes designed to create a sense of awe.
The lift through The Prison was for emergency freight transportation only. A dull grey box. Prisoners and Guardians could use the stairs. Only Custodians had the pass key to the lift. Hindsight’s an interesting thing – it told you who’d really been in charge here all along.
I looked at my fellow passengers. They really didn’t tell me much. The Custodians were impassive. Marianne was asleep. Abesse looked straight ahead, and actually, I didn’t really fancy looking the Doctor in the eye.
Instead I watched the floor indicator lights crawl by. We were on Level 4. Level 6 was the bottom. Beneath that was a light for the Level 7 docking bay. We reached Level 6. And halted. Then the Custodian’s claw extended into a socket and, with a tiny judder, the lift shook and moved further down.
Now it was impossible to ignore the look on the Doctor’s face. It was triumph. Triumph and ‘I told you so’, mixed, just a little, with ‘I’ve been shot’. I’d never really considered that there were more steps down to Level 7. It had always seemed appropriate that it was a tiny bit further away. It wasn’t really part of my job to wonder about it. Don’t think too hard. That wasn’t my job.
The lift scraped and juddered to a halt. And then the doors opened.
We walked out into a space that shouldn’t exist.
‘Oh my,’ said the Doctor.
13
The thing about the Blood Cell was just how wrong it all was.
The easy thing to describe was the room’s shape. It was a large cube hewn out of the rock. What had happened to it after that was as though a madman had been told to go enjoy himself.
The simple wrongness of the room was that it was.
I’ll try again.
Everything happened at once. Everything sort of happened. Everyone moved. Everyone stood still.
I can tell you that the Custodians glided from the lift to stand either side of us. As an escort, they looked absurdly like a wedding arch. The last time I’d been through one, my friends had been standing on either side of me, grinning wildly, and I’d been walking hand in hand with Helen. There’d been confetti. It had been the happiest day of my life.
Now I was travelling through a barricade of lethal robots. I was in procession with a trained killer, a comatose ex-friend, and behind us came the Doctor, carried wriggling in the arms of a Custodian.
The whole situation, the whole sight of the Blood Cell was such that the Doctor somehow did two things simultaneously. Looking back, I’m not sure how this can have happened.
On the one hand, he shouted out Clara’s name.
On the other hand, as we came gliding through that dreadful arch of robots, he hummed ‘The Entry Of The Toreadors’ from Carmen. You know, tum-tum-ti-tum-tum, tum-ti-tum-ti-tum …
I would have laughed, only the Blood Cell was … No. I still can’t quite describe it.
You could tell, right then, that the Doctor had been to places like this before, places that exist only in nightmares.
One thing. Abesse, who had led several battles, swore and turned away, revolted. I’m not sure that that helped her. The smell, that rich, metallic smell, it clogged the air.
My brain kept returning to it. Trying to step around it or through it.
Tiptoe past the sleeping giant.
Fee fi fo fum. I smell the blood
No no no.
Start again.
This is getting us nowhere. I’ve managed fine so far. I’ve told you the story. I’ve not spared myself. I’ve told the truth. Even when notes that I’ve written earlier have made me out to be an idiot or a liar. I’ve done my best. But something about the Blood Cell. About how it could have happened.
The best way to approach it is to look at it another way. The whole room had been decorated and filled not by a madman, not even by a man. By something that sought to understand a man.
Perhaps, once you appreciate that what had happened there had been done by a machine, it might make more sense.
The Doctor later told me of a race of clockwork robots that viewed people as little more than a source of inferior spare parts. He also told me of a race of living silver suits of armour who viewed the people inside them as little more than a bad start. The Doctor talked, and these things all sounded like fairy stories. Fairy stories you’d tell particularly badly behaved children.
The room had been filed.
The Prison had been filed.
There was a reason the bodies of the Guardians had been left behind. There was no use for them. The owner of the Blood Cell had been happy to leave them to be wiped out by the Custodians. It had only been interested in the prisoners.
Survivors are an odd thing. A handful of pages ago, I was delighted for the prisoners who’d managed to escape on Level 7. Then I was distraught when Level 7 was blown up. Then I was happy to learn that they’d survived.
Over a hundred prisoners had been left behind on The Prison. Once I’d regretted they’d been left behind, then been glad for them, then worried about the lingering fate that awaited them. Now it was too late. They’d all come here. Where they’d been processed. My latest failure.
When an inmate arrives at The Prison, they are entered into the system. It is a
ritual. It serves the useful purpose of telling them that we are in charge. We take away their clothes, we take away their personal effects. We give them clothes and a number. We have logged and filed and sorted them.
The same thing had happened here in the Blood Cell. The remaining prisoners had been processed.
‘Processed’ is a good word. Logged and filed and sorted. Entered into a system. These are all reasonable phrases. When you are talking about objects and clothing. But not about bodies.
A fair amount of each prisoner had been taken away. And placed … placed into piles.
I hope you’re squeamish. I know I am. So I shan’t describe it any further than that. Unless I have to.
This is no fairy tale for naughty children.
There were three other things in the room. Bentley seemed fine. Clara seemed terrified. And then there was the creature itself.
It was the same thing that we’d encountered twice before. The thing that had attacked Lafcardio. The creature that had come for us on Level 6. But it was much bigger now.
It was basically a Custodian. In the same way you could argue that Marianne was basically a Custodian because her wheelchair was made out of one. But this was a very large Custodian. Previously it had been shrouded in plastic sheeting. Most of that was now gone. The bits that remained were splattered like a butcher’s apron.
This Custodian had grown. It had stolen several other Custodians and augmented itself from them, making itself considerably larger. But it hadn’t stopped at Custodians.
At first the Creature didn’t acknowledge us, simply moving between various unmentionable piles. Sorting. Adding to itself. Discarding.
‘Revolting isn’t it?’ called Clara.
‘Clara,’ the Doctor waved weakly, ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yeah,’ she said.
She clearly wasn’t. She was fastened to a grimly stained bench and she was clearly terrified. ‘It’s ignored us so far. What about you? You got a robot nanny to carry you about now? Seriously? Because of your hurty toe?’