Doctor How and the Deadly Anemones (23 page)

“Emotional control is one of the keys to self-mastery, Kevin.”

“And that’s why I’ll keep recommending you go to this talking therapy, Doc.”

“Very droll. Now, you stay there and don’t do anything stupid. I know that’s a big ask, but please just don’t.”

“Sure.” He looked around and got comfortable with his surroundings, imagining what he’d do if a threat emerged from any of the tunnels and playing through scenarios in his head.

After a minute of standing knee-deep in raw sewage he changed his position to a karate pose and swung his Con-Bat at an empty plastic bottle that had found its way into the system. It disintegrated with a deafening bang that made him flinch, sending a plume of semi-vaporised sewage splattering against the far wall. The sound reverberated around the chamber and pipes for what seemed like an eternity.

“I said don’t do anything
stupid
,” came the voice of the Doctor in his head.

“Sorry, Doc,” said Kevin meekly, and put the Con-Bat in its side holster.

Trinity could smell the polyp. It had been down this way recently. She came to an intersection and let her olfactory organs have a good sniff. The smell in one pipe was much more recent than the other. She chose the pipe with the most recent trail and scuttled up it, clinging upside-down to keep out of the liquid and gain maximum speed.

The Doctor informed her she was now in the very heart of the MI6 building, at basement level. She could hear machinery in the distance – some of the sounds were coming through the surrounding pipe and at least some was from inside the pipe itself. She slowed down and let her senses analyse everything around her, learning what the expected background noise was. She could see nothing except in her infra-red vision. The polyp would be around the same temperature as the surrounding environment, so she was almost fighting blind. At best it might show up as a dark area if the outside of the pipe was warmed by the building. However, she could sense that the polyp was close by, doing almost exactly the same thing – sitting and waiting; filtering out the background vibrations and analysing the remainder for danger, or a meal.

She sensed that there was machinery inside the pipe itself – perhaps some kind of macerator – which meant that she had the polyp in a dead-end. Her mandibles twitched at the prospect of a quick kill and a good feed. She was just about to move forward when there was a grating noise up ahead, just like the one she’d heard in Brixton Market. The shaft was suddenly flooded with light as a manhole cover was slid back.

The polyp was between her and the area flooded by the light from the manhole. It had its four long tentacles splayed down the pipe towards her. The other four were shorter and splayed in the direction of the manhole cover. Trinity thought about this new information for a moment. Had it lost the ends of its tentacles in the macerator? Surely not all at the same time.

The polyp clearly knew she was there – she could sense its physiology changing as it tried to process which was the bigger threat: Trinity, or the activity further up the pipe.

“Well, if you’d asked me before the building was designed,” said an arrogant male voice, “I would have told you this was a serious vulnerability.”

Trinity recognised the voice immediately: Thickett. She bottled the surge of anger she felt towards the man and concentrated on the task in hand. The Doctor’s orders were that the polyp must on no account fall into the hands of the humans. She crouched in readiness for whatever was going to happen next. The limited space meant she couldn’t pounce, but she hunkered down ready to race forwards.

A muffled explosion behind her caused the polyp to twitch. A split second later it withdrew its longer tentacles and splashed towards the manhole.

Trinity leapt forwards and amputated the rearmost of the tentacles with a quick bite.

“I don’t know what that was. Do you, Miss Peterson?”

“Maybe the Yanks have gone in with stun grenades,” said another male voice. “You know what they’re like – love their door-to-door house-clearing. Joe said they weren’t going to try anything hasty. At least not yet.”

“What’s – ?
Argh
!”

Trinity allowed herself a nanosecond to delight in Thickett’s agony. He’d been stung by one of the shorter tentacles, which had grabbed his hand.

Seeing her chance, Trinity flipped upside down, ducked in and severed the offending tentacle. With one of her front legs she snatched it off Thickett’s hand and flicked it back into the sewer.

The polyp swung a couple of its longer tentacles in Trinity’s direction and they wrapped around her body – its first and final mistake. Trinity’s hair and exo-skeleton protected her from the stings. She grabbed the body of the polyp close with her middle four middle legs, crushing it. She injected it with venom at the centre of its primitive nervous system and then made a clean slice through the head, being careful not to cut it in two – she already had a couple of dismembered tentacles to deal with.

She retreated several yards with the remains of the polyp. It was too much to carry, so she wolfed down the longer of the two tentacles that she’d amputated, then the smaller, relishing the stinging sensation in her mouth. That left her with just the body to carry back. She reported back to the Doctor.

“That’s my beautiful girl,” he said.

“What the hell was
that
?” said Sir Adrian.

“Get me a medic!” screamed Thickett. “I’m going into toxic shock.”

“You can’t be in toxic shock if you’re able to talk,” said Peterson, calmly. “I told you it was a pretty bad idea to take a look in the sewer.”

“I told you I could sense that there was something there,” said Thickett. “And I was right!”

“I swear I saw the shadow of a spider,” said Sir Adrian. “I’ve seen my share of scorpions out in the desert, but that’s the mother of all arachnids.”

“It proves the authenticity of the spider photo,” said Commander Bunce. “But it begs more questions than it answers. Maybe these things are all fighting it out and the victims are just innocent casualties?”

“You mean like a drive-by shooting? Or eating?” asked Sir Adrian.

“For the love of God, get me a medic!” yelled Thickett. He had grabbed the wrist of his wounded hand and was hunched over, squeezing it between his legs.

“Always worry most about the casualty who’s not talking – that’s what we were taught in the army, Thickett. You’ll be fine. Lucky that spider thing managed to cut it off you.”

“That’s the Doctor’s assistant!” said Thickett, squeezing the words out between his clenched teeth. “I told you he’s at the heart of this!”

“I’d better warn Joe not to send his troops in. Looks a tad too dangerous. Trouble is with the Americans is that you give them a bit of advice and they tend to do
exactly
the opposite. They’ll be itching to send out a posse to head it off at the pass. But I do have to be able to say I warned them.”

“Please,” gasped Thickett, “I need medical attention.”

“Come on, then,” said Peterson. “Let’s get you to the medical bay. Maybe we need to relocate your office – you never seem to be out of there at the moment.”

“Trinity’s coming your way,” said the Doctor. “Be aware.”

“Roger,” said Kevin. He turned to face the pipe that led to the MI6 building. A few seconds later he saw the body of the polyp emerge, apparently dangling in mid-air until Trinity turned down her camouflage. It looked pathetic in death to Kevin’s eyes – a blubbery grey-green blob. “What are we going to do with it, Doc?”

“Trin doesn’t want any more after eating the tentacles.”

“Wot, did she, like, get stung in the mouth?”

“No, no. They’re one of the best bits – all muscle, you see. You know how donkeys like to eat nettles? Same sort of thing. Bit of a treat for her.”

“Well, we can’t leave the body – you said nothing was to be left. You coming to collect it?”

“No, if Trin just pops it down the Effra route, the rest of Tim will get it.”

“Yeah, but he – they – won’t be expecting it.”

“They’ll smell it coming in the water. They know their orders. Be glad of a bite to eat, I shouldn’t wonder.”

“Gotcha.”

Trinity climbed along the wall to the brick sewer that led down to the Effra’s exit to the Thames and dropped the remains of the polyp in front of it with a splash. The current caught the body and it disappeared into the pipe.

“She’s going to go and help Tim in the US Embassy now – provide a back-stop if anything goes wrong. You just stay put.”

Kevin saw Trinity vanish as she headed towards the pipe that led to the US Embassy.

“Good luck, Trin!” he called. And then he was alone again, with just the odd sounds of the sewers. He muttered to himself about the lack of action.

“I heard that,” said the Doctor. “Try to maintain radio silence – essential communication only.”

“Whatever,” said Kevin. He saw a half-submerged soda can and his fingers twitched on his Con-Bat.

Trinity could smell the other polyp in the water. There were other notes in the water too – fresh human blood and the scent of Tim. She would have no difficulty at all in catching up with Tim, and possibly overtaking them to catch the polyp. She decided in advance that they’d split the body fifty-fifty, and enjoy a fresh kill together for the first time in a long while.

As she grew nearer to the building itself, she began to tune into the vibrations. Road traffic was less of a problem because it was set so much further back from the road than the MI6 building. Something didn’t feel quite right, but she dismissed her concern because if things were perfectly alright she wouldn’t be there. And she couldn’t stop her mission on the back of every shred of doubt in her mind.

A dull explosion echoed down the piping. She stopped and splayed her legs out to maximise reception of the vibrations. Before the reverberations and echoes had faded there was another, and then another close together. She tried hard to build a 3D map in her head of where they were coming from, but the sewer system was too complex and the reverberations too muddled to let her do it.

Tim signalled that they were in trouble – the explosions were gas canisters. And it wasn’t tear gas – this was something deadlier.

A grating opened up just ahead of her and a canister was dropped in, and the grating replaced. She scuttled backwards as fast as she could. The flash and blast of the explosion was disorienting. She had to get away from the gas. Tim cried out for help, but there was no way through for her. She had to go back.

Kevin heard the muffled explosions and perked up. He was quite certain it had come from the direction of the embassy. He took the Con-Bat out of its holster and stood ready for whatever was coming his way.

Ten seconds later he saw Trinity pop out of the tunnel.

“Doc! What’s happening?”

“Gas, lad! Bloody Americans. Didn’t I tell you they were going to have a shoot-out?”

“What are we gonna do?”

“Trini’s not got any breathing apparatus. She’s going to join the other Tim down by the Effra’s exit to the Thames. Safety in numbers. They can exit there if needs be. Tim can slither out and go for a swim. Trini can either wait for me there or just be a big cat on the foreshore.”

“Can you not, like, extract us with the Spectrel?” asked Kevin. Trinity waved a hind leg at him and disappeared down the tunnel that led to the Thames.

“No, I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because the Yanks are just about to –”

There was a grating noise above Kevin, a brief flooding of light as the manhole was opened and closed quickly. Two canisters dropped into the water.

“– head ’em off at the pass.”

The canisters exploded, sending gas bubbling out from beneath the surface of the water, forming a large white cloud, which drifted towards Kevin.

“Didn’t I tell you they’d do that?” said the Doctor.

“Yes, but what about me? I’m gonna die here!”

“Relax,” said the Doctor.

“
Relax
? Get me the hell out of here, Doc!”

“You’re the only one with a gas mask. That balaclava – remember?”

The chamber was filling with white gas. There was a slight chemical taint in Kevin’s nostrils – the balaclava giving him information about his environment.

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Head up the tunnel to the US embassy and nail that polyp. Bring back the body.”

“What about Tim?” Kevin waded over to the pipe’s entrance.

“Nail the polyp first: that’s the operational priority.”

There was a sudden loud grating noise and a
clang
reverberated around the chamber. A shaft of light shone down from the manhole. The beams of flashlights arced through the gas. Three ropes uncoiled, and their ends splashed into the sewage. A black-clad figure wearing a gas mask and holding a carbine with a flashlight on it started sliding down a rope. As soon as he was a few feet down another began descending, and then another.