Doctor Who: Drift (11 page)

Shadows generally went unarmed and were a deal less scary for the fact.

The door at the foot of the stairs was wide open and the darkness beyond looked empty enough. The stairs were positively geriatric though, and if anything was lying in wait for her down there it surely would have heard her coming.

Joanna allowed herself a sense of relief when she touched bottom. She advanced out to her left, sweeping her beam over the room in a steady arc.

Darkness clung to the walls like moss and lichen, drinking up the torchlight.

Details bounced back in glimpses: dusty shelves, some sloping dangerously, others warped with the damp; the greens and browns of old bottles; a large table in the centre of the room, its surface a mess, standing on bare and rotting boards. Directly opposite there was a sink, a dripping faucet and greening copper pipes running a gauntlet of cobwebs along the wall above; the bench top stacked with plastic containers, weapons parts, heaps of other tools and clutter that the platoon had seen fit to leave behind.

There was a slim chance the junk had been stored neatly before the platoon had done sifting through it all. but she strongly doubted it. For survivalists, maintenance and basic hygiene didn‟t look to be one of this group‟s fortes.

There was a doorway, the remnant of a wooden frame, leading into another room at the far end. A faint promise of daylight hung in the air in there and Joanna could see snow blowing in. The stench of mould was the only thing to jump out at her. That, and the cold.

No danger of condensation on her weapon in here. This house was like an icebox.

Literally. As she moved, there were occasional patches of ice underfoot, and her flashlight was finding clumps of crystal

white in the corners of the floor and ceiling, or clinging to some of the fittings. Give it time, this place could end up looking like that house in
Doctor Zhivago.
Omar Sharif and Julie Christie, arriving in a sleigh to find a regular winter palace.

Relocated to this New Hampshire derelict, the romance of that scene would be stillborn.

Joanna circled the room, scanning the labels on the bottles and containers: developers and fixatives, inks and toners, paint strippers, lubricants and cleaning fluids, domestic and photographic chemicals, plus a few for cleaning and maintaining firearms. Plus zoom leases and other apparatus.

If there‟d been any other photographic equipment lying around, then Morgan had certainty ordered it taken along with the aircraft debris. Cameras might have film in them.

A necklace of starlight slithered across the corner of her eye. She swung around, heart set to gallop. But there was nothing.

Only the random reflections of her flash in water. Depthless puddles patched the floor, old spillages diluted with the ice brought in on the boots of White Shadow troopers.

Joanna sighed. What more did Morgan expect her to find?

Her torch alighted on the table, where a few home-printed pamphlets lay strewn to one side and, under a thin scattering of automatic weapons parts and mechanical components, a sprawling map of the Granite State had been pasted.

A few marker-pen scrawls drew Joanna closer. Flashlight held at shoulder height, she brought the White Mountain range under a spotlight. Mount Washington was marked for special attention, a small collection of red rings with scribbled annotations in black obscuring some of the surrounding terrain. The scribbles might have been hieroglyphs, but Joanna knew a file reference when she saw one.

A beam swept over the map and it wasn‟t hers. She jumped out of her skin.

„Hey, sorry. Didn‟t mean to scare you.‟

Ben McKim. right at the foot of the stairs. Jesus. „You didn‟t - not exactly. This house gives me the creeps, is all.‟

„Yeah, well, you‟re not alone there.‟ Ben‟s eyes roved the expanse of ceiling, coming quickly back down to the table and the map.

„Here, come and take a look.‟ Joanna‟s finger stabbed the ring around Mount Washington. „I think these are references to other documents, other maps. The Captain didn‟t mention any being found. We might be onto something here.‟

„You might be,‟ conceded McKim. „Unless that fugitive gabbed it all when he ran.‟

Joanna licked her lip, shook her head. „Uh-uh. They‟d be somewhere close by. He went out through the parlour window.‟

She started her flashlight dancing about. „If you‟re not busy right now, Ben-‟

„Everyone‟s alert, I got the patrols set for the next thirty minutes, and if you ask me, nothing‟s going to be heading our way.‟ Ben rounded the table slowly. „You know how it is, these squads run themselves most of the time. I‟m all yours.‟

Joanna nodded, „In that case, you can give me a hand.

There are two rooms to go over down here.‟ She met him head-on. „By the way, I‟ve never known anyone move as quiet as you.‟

„Thanks, Hmieleski‟

As Joanna turned, she smiled for herself. She hadn‟t meant it as a compliment.

Leela had stared this death in the face once before. It was death exploded into countless tiny fragments, but it was death nonetheless; each splinter as vicious and merciless as its monstrous parent. That time before, Leela had stood in the mouth of a metal giant constructed by men to battle with death in its cloud form. The giant was called the Sandminer, and that storm had glimmered with the promise of untold riches. The storm that bore down on them now shone in a way that threatened to blind long before it fell upon them to tear them apart.

On any world, nature crafted foes that could not be fought.

And faced with enemies of nature‟s making, honour was never an issue. To run or to hide: those were the only choices.

And yet Kristal chose to run and fight.

Breaking away, she drove them flat out back across the level plain. The other snowmobiles followed, digging riverine furrows in the snow. The white fury poured into the basin after them: death as a cloud, too heavily laden to reach the sky.

There was no shame in this hasty retreat, only dire uncertainty. Kristal strained Leela‟s trust to the limit, driving one-handed while she shouted into her radio. Marotta, give us all the covering fire you can, then fall back after as!‟

A moment‟s static seemed to scoff at her.
‘You want me to
shout at the storm?’

„Save your questions! Have Landers drop some shells in there for good measure!
Now!’

Leela fancied she had many more questions than the Sergeant, but she took Kristal‟s command to include herself.

She held on in dread silence, prepared to endure the chaos of her thoughts so long as the chaos behind them was determined to give chase.

„Typical: playing with dynamite before you‟ve discovered fire.

A few decades attempting to turn out psionic James Bonds and they think they can command the weather?‟

Morgan Shaw had been trained to withstand interrogation, but the Doc‟s interview technique was relentless and curiously wearing. Still, the guy had summed up the essence of Operation Grill Flame pretty accurately: it had all been about psi spies back then.

This convoy was taking its own sweet time. There were two-thousand-and-one things he‟d rather be thinking about instead of arguing ethics with some mad-professor-type from UNIT who‟d wandered into his investigation unsolicited.

Whether McKim had been the right choice for watching the house, whether he‟d been right to take Kristal‟s sixth-sense report at face value, for a couple of instances.

Morgan cleared his tired throat and hoped each answer would be the last required.

„Not command exactly. Just give the occasional nudge. It‟s no more than Bernard Vonnegut‟s cloud-seeding experiments back in the 40s. right? Just a hell of a lot more precise and effective. We‟re talking about the potential to end drought in the Third World, all of that. You‟re not about to tell me that‟s immoral, are you?‟

The Doc looked surprised. Oh. I‟m not debating the morality. I‟m talking about the danger - to everyone and everything on this planet.‟ Morgan glanced at Derm to see what he was making of this melodrama. But the Doc hadn‟t done with his lecture: „Even based on what you‟re choosing to tell me. this Operation Afterburn of yours amounts to a great deal more than firing silver iodide into the sky. You‟re talking about herding clouds around like sheep and I can assure you. Captain, the weather is a very ornery beast indeed.‟

„Listen, Doc,‟ Morgan levelled with as much patience as he could muster, „we appreciate the environmental concern, but the boys down at Fort Meade must have thought this through before they handed it down to us.‟ He settled back and let the vibrations of the Snowcat‟s engine pummel him a while. He tried to think of it as a rough kind of massage after a morning jog. They gave us Kristal. and I‟m telling you I‟ve seen her work miracles with that Stormcore: she taps into the Earth‟s biorhythms, whatever she does, and she never has to do another raindance.‟

The disapproval was evident in Derm‟s impassive silence.

Grill Flame was old news - and the aims of the project, if not the true results, were public knowledge. Even the limited stuff he had let slip about Afterburn could have Morgan court-martialled and watching his back for NSA hitmen for the rest of a short life. But he tried to view each serving of information as an investment in the Doc‟s eventual productivity.

„That‟s all very well and good, Captain, but the gentlemen at Fort Meade appear to have overlooked one vital consideration.‟ Captain Shaw glanced out the window opposite, hoping to recognise some landmark that would tell him they were nearing journey‟s end. There was zip. The Doctor held his audience captive and he knew it: „Whatever miracles your scout is capable of performing with the Stormcore, didn‟t it ever occur to you there might be someone out there who could play much more impressively?‟

Humanity had few examples on offer that hadn‟t, at one time or another, passed through Melvin Village, or even stayed a week or two. And they all wandered into the store.

As much to suck in the old-world atmosphere as to buy anything. And Hal Byers was happy to have them browse and walk out with only a memory in their pocket, if that was all they wanted. Normally they‟d pick up something, and stop for a few words besides. For Hal, that was the best part of the trade. The store was the focal point of the village for visitors and townsfolk alike; with the church a close second.

Makenzie had talked to him before about a CCTV system.

Like hell, he‟d said every time. The mirrors were adequate for a store this size and a camera spying down from every corner wasn‟t part of the charm folks came looking for.

Of course, there was that biker who‟d tried stuffing his jacket with a couple of six-packs, while he‟d sent his girl over to keep Hal busy. Makenzie had seen that as meaning something, like,
what’d I tell you.
Hal saw it as just another anecdote for the bar of a Saturday night. The way that girl had draped her chest further and further over the counter, giving out her best small talk. And Hal smiling and saying uh-huh a lot, while he looked over her head and watched the idiot biker fumble the cans.

Before he sent the pair packing he‟d told the girl she was pretty, but maybe she should hit on guys more her age.

Makenzie, Hal figured, was Just sore for having missed out on an arrest.

A scrape of boot on the boards made Hal look up from his magazine.

Since this one customer came in, begging for the phone, he‟d been doing lots of nothing as an alternative to watching the guy like a hawk. Hal preferred to give folks the benefit of the doubt, but this particular guy looked so wired. And his breath smelled like Saturday night. Day like today, anyone might take a swig to warm up their insides, but Jesus.

The mirror opposite showed an empty aisle. His customer had found the blind spot.

By accident? Hal didn‟t think so.

Hal shook his head. Another sorry son-of-a-bitch, probably thought because everyone in a small town moved slow they thought slow. Hal didn‟t feel like being so lenient with this one.

He went back to leafing through the magazine, thinking about his poor boat locked in ice down at the marina. Damn, but he should have seen that freeze coming. She was going to need plenty of TLC before he could take her out again come spring.

Hal caught the movement as a shadow crossing his page.

He sighed and flipped the magazine closed. His customer had just rounded the end of the back aisle. Moving slow,
because that’s what we do here,
he wandered to the end of his counter and stepped out as though to hold the door open.

The man stopped and his eyes twitched.

Hal wanted to laugh. The guy‟s suit had inherited some bulk all the time he‟d been browsing. Amateur didn‟t even cover It. But this one wasn‟t some kid like that biker. Hell yeah, he‟d give Makenzie a call on this one.

„You mind showing me what you got there, sir?‟

The guy was twitching under the skin now. His only exit was through Hal and Hal was closed for business. „I got all day,‟ he added helpfully. „How about you?‟

„I haven‟t got anything,‟ the man objected, like a kid caught with his hand in the candy jar. Southern boy too, which figured. „What? I didn‟t want anything okay? I didn‟t see anything I liked in your dead-end store. What, is that a crime in this hole?‟