Doctor Who: Lights Out: Twelfth Doctor by Black Holly

Author:Black, Holly
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141354996
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2014-09-24T16:00:00+00:00

4

The control-room door opens when I push it, which doesn’t seem right. A room like that should be locked. When I look down, I see that it probably was locked once, but there are scorch marks around the locking mechanism, as though someone fried it. It’s cool to the touch, though.

Inside the room, I can barely see. The wash of light from the corridor reflects off the central control panel and for a moment I think I am looking at a masked face reflected back at me in the shining metal. I turn, but there’s no one behind me, no one else in the room.

Except the two bodies lying on the floor.

They’re sprawled out as though asleep. But I know they’re not. I know they’re dead.

I take a step closer and fumble with the light panel. Overhead, the fluorescents flicker on, illuminating the pale faces of the technicians. All their blood has congealed beneath them, purpling the backs of their necks. Their eyes are cloudy and pale, their bodies stiff.

The Doctor has followed me in. He flares a single nostril the way another person might arch an eyebrow. ‘I think we can agree this room has been tampered with.’

Behind the bodies, a wall-sized control panel flashes red and yellow lights. A hole gapes in the middle, between labels marked COFFEE DISPENSER and LIGHTING SYSTEM. Wires stick out like messy curls and shards of twisted metal protrude from the hole like jagged teeth. The whole thing is hot enough that the air ripples around it. Above the mess is a timer, the numbers reading 00:00. A bomb, rigged to go off when we were in the coffee shop.

The scientist, I think. The scientist did this.

I reach out and tug a piece of metal shrapnel free. It’s warm in my hands, my skin being engineered to be resistant to heat, but, when I drop it, it makes a scorch mark on the floor.

The Doctor waves his sonic screwdriver over the bodies. ‘They’ve been dead for about fourteen hours. Which means this started before it began.’

‘What?’

‘I mean the beginning began before the start – when that girl collapsed in the queue, she wasn’t the first victim. So the new question is, who was the first?’ A single long finger taps the cleft above his lip.

‘Do you know?’ I ask. I’m honoured he chose me to be his companion. I believe he can solve this. I believe he’s going to turn round and tell me what to do about the scientist.

‘You have a ship here, right?’ he says, pointing to a sign indicating the direction of the docking bay. ‘Take me to it.’

He starts down the corridor. I run to catch up, puzzled. ‘We can’t go down there.’

‘Of course we can,’ he says. ‘We’re not allowed to, but that just makes it a bit more exciting, doesn’t it?’

‘I’m not sure I can deal with any more excitement,’ I say, trying to keep up with him. His coat is flapping around him like he’s some tall, angular, sinister bat.

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