Secret Histories 10: Dr. DOA

  I fought to guide the ship down, using all my strength. The armour could do only what I told it to do, multiplying my strength and intent. And the ship’s weight, speed, and sheer inertia fought me every foot of the way. Systems broke down all around me, workstations exploding one after another and bursting into flames. Black smoke drifted across the bridge. Molly found a fire extinguisher and ran from station to station, fighting the fires. The ship groaned loudly as its whole superstructure began to buckle under the strain. I held the wheel and kept the prow up. My back was screaming at me, my arm muscles howling with pain. Sweat was running down my face underneath my mask.

  “Molly?”

  “Yes, Eddie? I’m here.”

  “If you can scrape together enough magic to teleport yourself off this ship, do it.”

  “I won’t leave you, Eddie.”

  “My armour will protect me.”

  “After a crash from this height?”

  “Yes. Theoretically . . . Molly, you have to go. I’m serious. I think the ship is breaking up. The best I can hope to do is crash-land it somewhere it’ll do the least harm.”

  Molly moved in beside me. “I won’t leave you, Eddie. I’ll never leave you.”

  We stood together awhile as I fought the falling ship.

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “Look out there, up ahead . . . Is that an open body of water?”

  “It can’t be the sea, can it?”

  “No, we’re not that lucky . . . I think it’s a reservoir! Yes! Any port in a storm . . .”

  I guided the ship as best I could, working with the few systems still cooperating, but in the end, all I could do was aim the ship at the water and then just let it drop. I held on to the wheel for as long as I could, and then turned away and grabbed hold of Molly. I concentrated, and my golden armour swept out to envelop her as well. The strange matter sealed us in together, and we held each other tightly inside our golden cocoon as the aircraft carrier smashed down into the reservoir.

  Somehow, the ship held together. When the noise and reverberations from the impact had finally died away, I armoured down, and Molly and I rolled away from each other and scrambled to our feet. I hurt all over, but I was alive. I grinned tiredly at Molly, and she whooped loudly.

  “You did it, Eddie! You brought her down! Damn . . . You know, I would have bet good money against that. But you did it! You saved the ship!”

  And she grabbed hold of me and danced me round the bridge. I went along, forgetting my aches and pains in the triumph of the moment. It’s good to celebrate the little victories in life. Finally we stood together, looking out the windscreen at the calm and placid surface of the reservoir.

  “We can’t just leave the ship here,” I said. “People would notice.”

  “Of course,” said Molly. “It’s illegally parked. I hear they can get very tough when things like that happen on reservoirs.”

  “Most of the ship’s protections should still be working,” I said. “Enough to keep it hidden until my family can get people here.”

  “What will they do?” said Molly. “Break the ship up for scrap metal?”

  I grinned. “Why waste it? Haven’t you ever wanted your very own flying aircraft carrier?”

  “Your family is weird, Eddie.”

  I looked around me. “All its future predictions, and Cassandra Inc never saw this coming.”

  “Cassandra Inc never saw us coming,” said Molly.

  “Damned right.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Deadline

  So I called home, and my handler assured me the family would send a Blackhawke to pick us up. After it had landed back at Drood Hall, refuelled, and loaded up with all the people necessary to take care of business at my end. I politely pointed out that this would undoubtedly take some time, and what were Molly and I supposed to do till then? Kate just sniffed. You’re on a boat, aren’t you? It’s hardly going to sink. This typical example of Drood tact and consideration is why I ran away from home first chance I got. And yet, I keep going back. I think one of us assumes the other is going to change someday, and I don’t know which of us is the bigger idiot.

  Fortunately, Molly’s magics returned long before the Blackhawke, and she teleported us back into the Drood family grounds, right outside the Hall. She smiled at me, just a bit smugly, because she knew she wasn’t supposed to do that. In fact, technically speaking she shouldn’t have been able to do it, given that the Sarjeant-at-Arms is constantly upgrading all our protections and defences. Droods have spent centuries keeping people safe, and as a result we have a lot of enemies. But no one’s ever been able to keep Molly Metcalf out of anywhere she wants to be. Especially if she thinks someone doesn’t want her to be there.

  “Good to be home, I suppose,” I said.

  The next thing I knew, I was lying on a bed somewhere. Flat out, a pillow under my head, fully clothed but with a blanket over me. I started to sit up, and Molly was quickly there at my bedside, putting a restraining hand on my chest and telling me to lie back.

  “It’s all right, Eddie,” she said quickly. “I’m here. You collapsed, out in the grounds. I couldn’t move you, and you wouldn’t wake up, so I had to call for help. Your family carried you into the Hall and brought you here. We’re in the Infirmary.” She managed a small smile. “You should have seen them panicking. The Sarjeant was convinced you’d been struck down by some unseen enemy, as the start of some major attack on the family. I told them you’d just fainted.”

  “I don’t faint,” I said.

  And then I stopped as I took in the look on Molly’s face. What she was really feeling and that she’d been trying to hide with artificial cheerfulness.

  “Molly? What is it? What’s happened?”

  “The doctors have been examining you,” Molly said carefully. “I was concerned, after what the angel said about death hovering over you. So I insisted they run a full series of tests. Check everything. They were very thorough. You’ve been out for more than three hours, Eddie!”

  I didn’t know what to say. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before. And I once had an entire hotel fall on me, back in the States. Even when I’m not actually in my armour, I’m used to feeling protected against anything the world can throw at me. I did my best to smile reassuringly at Molly, but it didn’t feel like it came out right. There was something in her eyes, something she knew that I didn’t . . .

  “What’s wrong, Molly?”

  “Eddie . . .”

  She couldn’t bring herself to say it. Her voice choked off as tears threatened to spill down her face. I looked at her, bewildered. It takes a lot to make Molly cry. For the first time, I realised half a dozen medical staff in white coats were standing around, watching me closely. One of them, Dr Mary Drood, stepped forward. I used to see her all the time, back when I was a kid. When the old Sarjeant-at-Arms would beat the crap out of me on a regular basis, for this infringement or that, she was the one who stopped the bleeding and got me back on my feet again. She was older now, of course; a medium-height middle-aged woman with a calm, professional presence. A warm smile and cool grey eyes. These days, she was in charge of the Special Isolation Area.

  I sat up abruptly, despite Molly’s objections. I didn’t feel feverish, or injured, or in pain. So what the hell was I doing in the Special Isolation Area? That was reserved for the most extreme cases, where the patient had to be kept away from everyone else to protect the rest of the family. I felt the first cold touch of fear in my heart.

  I made a point of ignoring Dr Mary while I took a good look at my surroundings. The whole place had been painted stark white, bright gleaming walls without even a poster or a notice to break up the view. Clean and antiseptic, no doubt, but not a touch of warm colour anywhere to bring comfort to the patient. Because if you were in the Special Isolation Area, it was a bit late for that. There were only three beds i
n the room, and mine was the only one occupied. Because to be here was very rare. There was just the one sign, over the door: Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here.

  Drood humour.

  I had been here once before, though no one else knew that. To visit another field agent, Dylan Drood. This was a long time ago, back when I was still just the secondary field agent for London. Doing my duty as a Drood, while keeping as great a distance as I could between me and my family. I came back to the Hall without being summoned, and against standing orders, just to visit Dylan. One of my few real friends from childhood. I had to sneak back into the Hall, slipping past the defences and protections, because Dylan had been declared out of bounds once he’d been admitted to the Special Isolation Area. I chose my moment carefully, when the day shift was giving way to the night, put on a white coat, picked up a clipboard, and just strolled in. No one looked at me twice. Which gave me more than enough time to find Dylan and read his case notes.

  Apparently, he’d been sent into the Welsh mountains to fight an other-dimensional incursion by strange mutated creatures from another earth. He drove them back and closed the Gate, stopping the invasion, but not before he picked up something from them. Something nasty.

  He managed to get back to the Hall before he collapsed. Now anyone he’d come into contact with was in quarantine, and he was in the Special Isolation Area. I found him lying on a bed just like mine, looking very small and vulnerable, surrounded by all kinds of medical equipment. There were sensor feeds all over his body, and tubes going in and out of him. Keeping him alive. His face was flushed and slick with sweat, and his eyes rolled back and forth. His breathing was worryingly fast, like that of a panting dog. I spoke to him, but he didn’t even know I was there. Judging from what I could understand of his case notes, that was probably a good thing. Whatever he’d picked up from the invaders was burning him up. Boiling his brains in his head. He was dying, and there was nothing anyone could do but watch and take notes.

  That was the first time I really understood that my armour couldn’t protect me from everything. That I could die out in the field. I’d always known that, but now I believed it. I ran away from Dylan, from the Special Isolation Area, from the knowledge of my own mortality.

  And now here I was, back in the dying place. I shuddered, briefly, and looked back to Dr Mary. She was in charge; she wouldn’t have turned out for an individual case unless it was something extraordinary.

  “Hello, Eddie,” said Dr Mary. Her voice was professionally calm and reassuring. “You had us all worried. Now, I need you to listen to me, before I explain what’s been happening and why you’re here. I brought in all my colleagues for this case, Eddie. Every discipline, every speciality. Together we cover everything from combat surgery to alien diseases to enforced genetic mutation . . . so when I say we’ve dealt with pretty much everything at one time or another, I’m usually right. But none of us have ever seen anything like what’s happened to you.”

  “So, this is serious?” I said.

  “Yes, Eddie.”

  “Life threatening?” I said, trying hard to keep my voice steady.

  Dr Mary didn’t say anything, just nodded. I put out my hand, and Molly was there to hold it tightly.

  “We’ve sent down to the Librarian,” said Dr Mary. “He’s searching through the more obscure areas of the Old Library, just in case. You’ve been poisoned, Eddie. An unknown chemical has been introduced into your system, and it’s killing you. We can’t stop it. We can detect its presence, but we can’t identify it. We have no antidote, no cure, and we can’t even treat the symptoms. You’ve been murdered, Eddie. You just didn’t know it, until now.”

  “I’m a dead man walking,” I said, trying hard to keep my voice as steady as hers. “Didn’t expect to hear that, when I got up this morning. How did this chemical get into me? Could I have been poisoned while I was at Cassandra’s Secret Headquarters?”

  “No,” said Dr Mary. “Given how much damage it’s already done, we think the poison must have been introduced some time back. Almost certainly while you were here, recuperating from the Big Game.”

  “I was poisoned inside the Hall?” I said. “How could the killer get inside the Hall, past Drood security? Without anyone noticing?”

  She didn’t react to my rising voice. “Those are very good questions, Eddie. We’ve contacted the Sarjeant-at-Arms, and he’s on his way. But you mustn’t give up hope. There are still things we can try. Constant dialysis, coupled with complete blood replacement. Organ transplants and cyborg implants. But you must understand, that would just be addressing the symptoms. Slowing the poison’s progress. To give us more time to think what to do.”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t want extreme measures taken just to keep me alive. I don’t want to lie helpless in my bed, dying by inches, hooked up to machines. I want to still be me, when I go out.”

  I was thinking of Dylan. I looked to Molly.

  “Isn’t there anything you can do?”

  “It’s a poison,” she said. “Not a spell, or a curse, or a possession; just . . . chemicals. If it were an ordinary poison, I might be able to do something . . . but this is so different, my magic can’t even touch it.”

  I turned back to Dr Mary. “I need to be up and about, doing something. Is there anything you can give me, to keep me going? Keep me strong while I work? Buy me some more time?”

  Dr Mary looked at the other doctors, but they were already shaking their heads. “Anything extreme enough to affect you now would be countermanded by your torc. It’s constantly monitoring and reinforcing your natural defences, fighting the poison. Protecting you from all outside influences.”

  “Then why is he still ill?” said Molly.

  “Without the torc, Eddie would have been dead weeks ago,” Dr Mary said steadily. “The torc is all that’s keeping him alive. You really need to speak to Ethel about this, Eddie. She can tell you more about the torc and its capabilities.” And then she leaned forward, lowering her voice. “But don’t do it here. Or anywhere inside the Hall.” She straightened up again before I could say anything.

  Everyone looked around as the Armourer hurried in. Maxwell and Victoria, both of them looking indecently young and intimidatingly intelligent in their immaculate, starched white lab coats. Making the doctors’ white coats look very much the poor relation. Maxwell was tall, dark, and handsome; Victoria was tall, blonde, and beautiful. They looked like a movie poster for love’s young dream among the scientists. Given the mood I was in, I was ready to accept them as comic relief, but for a change neither of them was smiling. They nodded quickly to me, and then gestured for an assortment of their lab assistants to wheel in a whole bunch of unfamiliar equipment. Most of which had that fresh-from-the-drawing-board look, with loose wires and bits not properly attached. Dr Mary frowned, but said nothing. Maxwell and Victoria stood at the bottom of my bed, and looked at each other to see who wanted to go first.

  “We bring presents,” Maxwell said finally.

  “And hope!” said Victoria.

  “Just a few things we’ve been working on that we thought might prove useful.”

  “Though of course we’re not really in the healing people business. More the killing and blowing people up . . .”

  “But we’ve adapted our most powerful and sensitive scanners,” said Maxwell, “to see if they can find something everyone else has missed.”

  “Because that does happen,” said Victoria.

  “Oh yes. You’d be surprised.”

  “Quite right, Maxie dear. You tell him.”

  “I am telling him, Vikki. Don’t you worry, Eddie. We’re here now.”

  “Thanks for coming,” I said. “I could use some cheering up.”

  “Well, quite,” said Maxwell. With the air of someone who knew he’d missed the joke but wasn’t going to admit it.

  “You just let us go to wor
k!” said Victoria.

  “We can do this,” said Maxwell.

  “We can’t lose you, Eddie,” said Victoria. “Not so soon after losing Jack.”

  “We’ll think of something.”

  “We always do.”

  And then they stopped and looked at each other again, lost for anything more to say. A clattering of steel paws on the bare floor announced the arrival of the robot dog, Scraps.2. The doctors looked like they wanted to object to his presence, but couldn’t think of an acceptable reason. Scraps.2 reared up to place his front paws on the side of my bed, and fixed me with his glowing red eyes.

  “Honestly. I turn my back on you for five minutes . . . Have they told you you’re dying?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Good. I did wonder if they’d got round to it, or if they were still busy being tactful and understanding. You know what your uncle Jack would have said about this.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Do my duty to the family.”

  Scraps.2 snorted loudly. A disconcerting sound, given that he didn’t have a real nose. “Hardly. He’d have said, Find the bastard who did this to you, and really ruin his day.”

  “Sounds like a plan to me,” I said.

  Dr Mary looked over the equipment the assistants were assembling around my bed, and glared at the Armourer. “What is all this? You can’t just bring untested equipment into a sterile environment!”

  “We can if it’s an emergency,” said Maxwell. “We can do anything, if it’s an emergency. Probably part of our job description, isn’t it, Vikki?”

  “Almost certainly,” said Victoria. “Don’t you mess with us, Dr Mary. We have guns. And other things.”

  “Oh yes,” said Maxwell. “And our other things are much worse than guns.”

  “You have nurses,” said Victoria. “We have lab assistants. Fear their ingenuity.”

  I smiled at Molly. “I am definitely feeling better for their being here.”

  She smiled back but didn’t say anything.