Part 45 (1/2)

'Good evening. I'm the Doctor and this is my friend Rita.'

Two George Limbs looked up in surprise.

'Doctor,' said one.

'What a delightful surprise,' said the other.

A huge gorilla turned towards them and gave a shattering roar.

Rita fainted.

Davey O'Brien had no trouble getting the sweating, twitching Dr Bure to take him up to the garret in which his tortured other-world counterpart lay dying.

He tried not to look at the creature.

'What do you want?' the dying cyborg said.

His voice Davey shuddered. voice Davey shuddered.

'We've come to get you out,' he replied.

'Why?'

'In case you hadn't noticed, we're under attack. I'm trying to save you.'

'Why?'

'I don't know. But if our positions were reversed, I know you'd have 222 to do the same for me. Us.'

The thing took an awkward step towards him.

'Steady. uh... mate.'

Davey tucked himself under his alter-ego's gaunt, wire-threaded arms and tried to support him as they walked. Bure scuttled along just in front of them.

Davey stopped. He could hear movement. He struggled behind some pipes with his patient. Bure squeezed in behind them. He could see the silhouettes of two enemy troops.

He motioned to his companions to keep silent.

'Over here!' the other O'Brien bellowed with as much strength as he could muster.

McBride stepped out of the hospital into a cold, wet November night, wincing at the shock of the freezing rain. The hospital grounds were awash with other-dimensional troops. Overhead a futuristic Zepplin hung low and silent.

A searchlight from the airs.h.i.+p swept across the car park and McBride saw the rubble and broken gla.s.s left by the tremor.

A sharp shove in the small of his back set him stumbling over the wet pavement.

'Hey, bub, watch the coat.'

McBride glanced back at where two soldiers were manhandling Mullen and his wheelchair out of the hospital. The police officer looked pale and old and McBride felt his heart sink. He'd failed.

Instead of getting Mullen somewhere safe, he'd dropped him in the middle something worse.

'Hey, it's all right. I'll take him.' McBride caught hold of the handles of the wheelchair and stared at the soldiers defiantly. He looked around for O'Brien. Perhaps he'd managed to get away...

Hark pushed his way out of the door, protesting loudly.

'I tell you I'm not with these men! I'm a doctor, you have no right '

McBride gave a wry smile as one of the soldiers clubbed Hark casually over the back of the head and pushed him forward roughly.

The three of them were marched over to where a mobile command centre was set up in the middle of the square. One of their escorts saluted smartly.

'Three civilians found in the building, Captain Williams, sir!'

A young man in a captain's uniform raised himself painfully from his chair, supporting himself on an inelegant military crutch. He was badly bruised, one eye so swollen that he could barely open it. His uniform was ripped and McBride could see blood-soaked bandages 223 through the tears. One arm was mangled and twisted, and McBride could see the pain in his face.

Williams regarded the three of them carefully with his good eye.

'Medic. Check out the man in the wheelchair, see how he's doing.'

McBride stepped forward protectively. 'He's lost both legs. He's in a lot of pain.'

'Then if you get out of our way and let our medic take a look at him, perhaps he can help.'

McBride paused for a moment, then nodded. 'Thank you.'

'Don't thank me yet.' Williams snapped. 'Civilians, are you? So you wouldn't know anything about the apes that killed most of my men and beat me to a b.l.o.o.d.y pulp.'

McBride said nothing.

Williams lowered himself painfully back into his chair. 'No, you wouldn't, would you? Just like you wouldn't know about a heavily armoured group of men who broke out of here an hour ago, and a rogue helicopter that slipped away at the same time.'

McBride shrugged. 'Like you said, we're civilians.'

Williams pulled an odd-looking service revolver from its holster and placed it on the desk in front of him.

'I am in command of a rescue squad. I currently have over a quarter men either dead or in a field hospital suffering from wounds inflicted during the battle to secure the area. And now there has been a seismic disturbance, which my technical staff inform me is due dimensional instability. An advance unit by the Thames has had to ward off an attack by lizard people emerging from an energy tear near Battersea. A sapper unit working on the bridge has had to destroy a number of heavily armoured robot creatures using blasting explosives.'

'Then I guess you've had better days.'

Williams pointed the gun at McBride.

'This city will soon be under martial law, and at the moment I can't think of a single good reason why I shouldn't have you shot.'

'There's a man who calls himself the Doctor,' blurted Hark.

'Shut up,' hissed McBride.

'He's not from here, he's different. Alien.' Hark was babbling now 'His X-rays were all wrong, a cardiovascular system unlike anything I've ever seen. It was he who set the apes loose. He did the adaptations, he...'