Part 9 (1/2)

Mel thought about that, but she was interrupted from her cogitation as a shattering roar sounded close to the window.

'Doctor?' she called, her voice trembling.

'Just the local fauna,' he a.s.sured her. 'Sort of.'

'But I've seen those things. I stood the bed end-up by the window and climbed up to see out. They look like Earth dinosaurs, huge meat-eating ones.'

'I know, I encountered a couple of their kind an hour ago.'

'When you escaped?'

'Something like that.'

Mel frowned again. 'Why are you being so evasive, Doctor?

It's not like you at all.'

'What did you think of them? The dinosaurs, I mean.'

'They looked . . . well, weird. I don't know how to describe it.

It was like they'd just been . . . superimposed on the landscape.'

'Observant as ever, I see,' the Doctor approved. 'And memory like an elephant's, if I recall.'

'The nearest one was sort of hovering,' Mel pressed on, 74 remembering, 'as if it wasn't really here at all. And I think it had a thin yellow line around it.'

The Doctor laughed. 'Don't worry, I've faced monsters exactly like that before.'

'What happens if they . . .? No, never mind.'

'What?'

'It's just that . . . well . . .' Mel faltered uncertainly and smiled at her own superst.i.tions. 'Whenever I conjecture about something awful like that happening, it always seems to.'

She could almost see the Doctor's Ches.h.i.+re cat grin through the wall. 'And you've noticed that, if those creatures wished, they could bring this whole building down around us in seconds. Well, I think it's unlikely. Jason conceived of them as an extra layer of security. They'll have no interest in attacking.'

Mel breathed a sigh of relief. 'That's comforting. So those things aren't real then?'

'Not as such, no. But they're certainly solid.'

'And they're being maintained in the same way as this place is? By Jason's thoughts?'

'That's right.'

'But . . . what if Jason forgets the prison?'

The wall s.h.i.+mmered momentarily.

'And . . . remembers all about the dinosaurs?'

Another great roar sounded from outside.

'Wouldn't that cause the whole building to disappear and leave us with no protection whatsoever against them?'

The White Knight swooped low over Metro. Bernice clung tight to his neck, dug her knees into his ribs and tried to avoid being sick as he performed a barrel roll to circ.u.mvent a manoeuvring airbus. 'I never thought I'd miss that computer,' she said queasily.

'He's below us,' the Knight reported, oblivious to her discomfort.

The Quiz was standing in the open back of a hovercar, waving over his shoulder whilst guiding the vehicle with one hand.

'Put me down before you start fighting, won't you?'

75.The White Knight laughed and stared intensely at the silver-garbed figure. A moment later, the Quiz jumped, startled, and turned his full attention to steering. His hovercar was going down.

'What did you do?'

'I used my heat vision to fuse his navi-chip.'

'You'll kill him!'

'So? He'll be inexplicably resurrected next issue, won't he?'

'If you say so.'

The car was out of sight now beneath six levels of congested traffic. A plume of black smoke marked its trail. Benny groaned as her carrier spotted a gap and plunged through it.

The wreck of the Quiz's vehicle had stalled cars on six lanes of the ground-level thoroughfare. Amazingly, its occupant had escaped unscathed. However, the Knight's sidekick had appeared from somewhere and joined the action; the pair were grappling now at the roadside.

The White Knight dropped Bernice and leapt into battle without a thought. 'Thanks for keeping him occupied, chum,'

he addressed Sparky. Then he took hold of the Quiz's throat, held him immobile and drew back his fist to land it across the villain's jaw. Sparky giggled excitedly - and unnecessarily, Benny thought.

'That's it!' she said as the Quiz landed in a pile beside her.

'I'm out of here.'

The White Knight called her back. 'Hold on, don't you want to see who's under his mask?'

'No need. I remember now. I remember everything.' Which meant, she thought, that she must be near the surface of the crystal. A few steps more and Metro City, its traffic and its super-powered protector would all be so much fictional dust.

The White Knight unmasked his fallen adversary, and Benny looked despite herself.

He had the Doctor's face.

'I'm sorry for staring,' she said, when she had done so for a moment, 'but I didn't know this story had a multiple choice ending.'