Doctor Who: Virgin New Adventures [010] - Transit by Ben Aaronovitch

Author:Ben Aaronovitch
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Science-Fiction - Doctor Who
ISBN: 9780426203841
Publisher: Doctor Who Books
Published: 1992-10-10T23:00:00+00:00

Acturus Station (Stunnel Terminus)

A drone with Dogface’s personality met her at the entrance to the station. It was a Kenyan job, an upgraded version of the drones that the Floozies used for routine jobs. Dogface had at least thirty scattered around the transit system. This one had a spray-painted basset face on its nose. The standard joke amongst the controllers was that the drones were more attractive than the real Dogface.

Not that that’s much of a challenge, thought Ming.

‘You’re going to love this,’ said the drone. It had a chipped voice worked up from samples of Dogface’s own. The speech pattern was derived from years of association with bad company. Ming hated the damn things, one Dogface was more than enough.

She stepped on to the station for the first time since the accident. The KGB had cleared the floor and walls. They’d been forced to lease a scrubber from a cleaning company that specialized in scouring spacecraft. It used high-pressure jets to liquefy the human remains, and then hoovered them up. There were four big tanks of the stuff now and there was a lot of debate about what to do with them. Ming suggested painting the tanks black and half embedding them in puff concrete. Line them up in Constitution Plaza, put up some plaques and you have an instant memorial.

Some wag of a pundit had suggested that since most politicians were slime, death had merely caused them to revert to their natural state. The Justice Ministry was probably raiding its databases right now, looking for a law to arrest him with Ming put her money on Seditious Abuse, five to ten with time off for good behaviour. Politicians had no sense of humour.

The scrubber had left melted-looking score marks on the floor, particularly bad to the rear of where the podium had been. Where the rented crowd had been standing the slime had been three centimetres thick. Event Horizon had lost three hundred of its best performers that day and was threatening to sue the Transit System for negligence.

Lambada was waiting by the Stunnel gateway. She had the left-hand access panel open. Colour coded bundles of fibre optics sprouted from the open panel and merged into a braided cable a handspan across at the base. The cable went into the back of a stack of portable monitors.

The gateway looked just as greasy as Ming remembered it and just as unpleasant. She made a point of keeping out of its line of sight. The drone hummed along behind her.

‘You’re going to love this,’ repeated the Dogface drone.

‘You just repeated yourself,’ Ming told it.

‘Who gives a shit?’ said the drone.

‘Piss off,’ said Lambada and hit the drone with the live end of a power cable. The drone backed off two metres and hung about looking sullen.

Say what you like about Dogface, thought Ming, when he gives a drone a personality, it’s got a personality.

‘All right Lambada, what’ve you got?’

Lambada punched up a graph on one of her monitors. ‘Spin rate,’ she said.

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