Autonomy Read online

  Contents

  Introduction

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Acknowledgements

  Recent titles in the Doctor Who series:

  THE STORY OF MARTHA

  Dan Abnett

  BEAUTIFUL CHAOS

  Gary Russell

  THE EYELESS

  Lance Parkin

  JUDGEMENT OF THE JUDOON

  Colin Brake

  THE SLITHEEN EXCURSION

  Simon Guerrier

  PRISONER OF THE DALEKS

  Trevor Baxendale

  THE TAKING OF CHELSEA 426

  David Llewellyn

  AUTONOMY

  Daniel Blythe

  THE KRILLITANE STORM

  Christopher Cooper

  Autonomy

  DANIEL BLYTHE

  To Ellie and Sam

  ‘Hide your tie in your bag,’ Kate said to Lisa, as they ascended the travelator with the other shoppers.

  Lisa looked at her suspiciously. ‘Why?’

  Kate Maguire tutted and rolled her eyes. ‘Because we’re nicking off, you idiot! Hyperville’s packed with CCTV. Anybody spots us, we’ll be slung out!’

  ‘Oh. Right.’ Lisa Henshaw looked abashed, and pulled her St Mary’s School tie off and shoved it into her bag.

  Tall and graceful, in their smart white blouses and black skirts, the two teenage girls could just about have passed for shop-girls or young professionals. Kate’s eyes flicked back and forth as she took in the crowds around them: a mixture of people, even now, midweek. Young and old, casual and formal, some mums with kids and some older people. All heading the same way. All heading for Hyperville – which was always alive, always packed, always echoing and light.

  Kate’s heart skipped a beat as she looked down through the glass tube of the travelator and saw the endless car parks, giving way in the distance to the fields and lakes. The world beyond Hyperville. And up ahead of them was the gaping, glittering maw of the place itself, smelling sweetly of some chemical aroma. And coffee.

  ‘Come on,’ she said to Lisa. ‘Let’s have some fun.’

  Up on Seventh Boulevard, high in the top reaches of the ShopZone, Kate nodded to Lisa.

  ‘They say they watch everyone. They say they can see everything everyone does in here.’

  ‘Don’t people mind?’

  Kate shrugged. ‘You know what things are like. It’s 2009. All those things happening in London. Security alerts, aliens and stuff. People like it now. They like to feel safer.’

  ‘You think?’

  ‘Sure. Bet you, in four or five years’ time they’ll have armed police and we’ll all be showing ID cards everywhere we go. Nobody minds – well, nobody except a few civil liberties cranks.’

  They stood looking out at the bustling ShopZone. Lisa shook her head. ‘Never realised how massive the place was.’

  ‘Biggest in Europe,’ said Kate with a grin. ‘They’re meant to be building others now, but this was the first. I used to come here as a little kid when it was being built. I used to sit on the hill with my binocs and watch the scaffolding going up for the Pyramid. You remember when it all started?’

  ‘We were in primary school,’ said Lisa absently, gazing out across the mall. ‘And what the hell’s that?’ she added, pointing.

  A metal sphere, like a mirrorball with a glowing blue underside, was bobbing above the shoppers. It swivelled like a jittery predator, its circumference bounded with a ring of red electronic eyes. It seemed to float on air, and to move with the swift, darting motion of a dragonfly.

  ‘Japanese tech,’ said Kate confidently. ‘They call it an Oculator.’

  ‘You’re making that up.’

  ‘Honest! I googled it. Found out all about it. It moves on tiny gas-jets. It looks like metal, but I think it’s some sort of really light plastic.’

  As if it could hear them, the Oculator whizzed over to their balcony, an electronic eye flipping up to stare straight at them. Lisa took an involuntary step backwards.

  ‘I don’t like it,’ she said.

  Kate laughed. ‘Look normal,’ she said. ‘Smile at it. Like you’re on Big Brother.’

  And the Oculator’s eye seemed to pulse, as if it had heard Kate’s words.

  Deep within the heart of Hyperville, silver walls curved to form a soft, enclosing chamber lined with monitor screens.

  On his podium at the back of the room, like a captain on the bridge of his ship, Max Carson gripped the rail in front of him, surveying the technicians in their headsets. Thin-faced, with pale lips and slicked-back, coal-dark hair, he was a slim, bony man in his thirties, dressed in an expensive black suit and shirt with gold cufflinks. He wore a small, almost-invisible, clear plastic earpiece in each ear, like discreet iPod headphones.

  Max Carson was newly appointed at Hyperville, in a role broadly known as Director of Operations. Sir Gerry’s aide, Miss Devonshire, had recommended Max highly. All Sir Gerry knew was that Hyperville had struggled before they had Max, and that now it seemed to run smoothly with oiled precision. Every organisation, Sir Gerry said, needed a Max.

  ‘Seven, focus me that one.’

  Max’s voice was low, but a radio-mike in his collar carried it into the headphones of every operative.

  One of the screens blossomed and grew, until it covered the entire chessboard of tiles – the face of a girl filling the room. She was smiling, arms folded as she looked into the camera.

  Max stroked his chin thoughtfully. ‘That young woman’s here almost every week,’ he said. ‘I wonder about her. Seven, information.’

  The operative’s hands flickered over his keyboard and, an instant later, the young woman’s picture was uploaded to the terminal in front of Max, together with a stream of data.

  A voice chattered in Max’s earpiece, and he nodded.

  ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Excellent idea.’ He spoke into his collar-mike again. ‘See if you can get her tagged. I’d like to track her.’

  Kate and Lisa rode the escalator-tubes down to the corner of Ninth Boulevard and Western Avenue, to a plaza bathed in near-natural light, where a juggler and a fire-eater were entertaining awestruck small children and their parents.

  Kate nodded to the softly lit waterfalls either side of the lift-tubes.

  ‘See those?’ she said. ‘They’re to make people feel calm. Shopping’s stressful, but if they can get people to relax, they spend more.’ She sniffed the air. ‘And smell that.’

  Lisa sniffed, nose in the air like a bloodhound. ‘Coffee,’ she said. ‘And bread.’

  Kate grinned. ‘Yup. And a hint of jasmine. Just the right mix of smells, you see. Designed to get people calm and hungry. Perfect combination for making them shop.’

  Lisa frowned. ‘What, so they control all the smells of the different shops?’

  ‘Don’t be daft.’ Kate pointed to the grilles set into the floor at even intervals. ‘They pump it out of there.’ She nodded upwards. ‘More right up in the dome, too, I bet. All computerised. They’re moving towards having the whole thing switched to one central system in a few years. Imagine that. This whole artificial city run by one microchip.’ She shook her head in awe. ‘It’s just brilliant.’

  ‘How do you know so much about this place?’ Lisa asked.

  ‘Remember our free project work for Cultural?’ said Kate. ‘Most people chose boring film stars and bands
and stuff. Me, I did Hyperville.’

  ‘You’re kidding.’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘You loser.’

  Kate wasn’t bothered by Lisa’s insults. ‘Nah, it’s fascinating. I want to be an investigative journalist, Lisa. I want it to be my job to find this kind of thing out.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes.’ Kate shivered a little with excitement. ‘And this is the future, Lisa, babe. Whether we like it or not.’

  Lisa folded her arms. ‘I don’t really like it. I prefer the open air. Give me a nice park any day.’

  Kate thought of the parks near where she and her mum lived – covered in graffiti, full of dog mess, and with hoodies laughing and smoking and kicking cans around the playground. She couldn’t see how anybody could prefer that to somewhere like this.

  ‘Scuse me?’

  Kate and Lisa turned round at the voice behind them. Kate sized up the owner of the voice – a tall, lanky, youngish bloke with tousled brown hair, who was peering at a brochure through squarish spectacles. There was something mischievous about his face, she thought, as if he knew more than he was letting on. She wondered whether to tell him that Converse trainers with a brown pinstripe suit was a bit Nineties, but she decided against it.

  ‘Yes?’ she said.

  ‘Trying to find my way into the FunGlobe,’ he said. ‘Every time I come here, I keep meaning to look at it. FunGlobe. Fun-Gloooobe.’ He seemed to roll the word around his mouth. ‘I mean, I can’t really resist a name like that.’

  ‘It’s all on the map,’ said Kate, and she took the map from the stranger’s hands and replaced it – the right way up. ‘Just a question of reading it right.’

  Behind his glasses, the young man’s eyes lit up. ‘Oh, I see!’ He slapped his forehead theatrically. ‘I’m so thick sometimes.’ He grinned – a big, genuine, white grin, showing fine teeth. ‘Oh! By the way…’ He fished in his suit pocket and drew something out, offering it to Kate.

  She recoiled instantly. ‘Why are you giving me that?’

  ‘Um, well. There’s a good reason. Trust me. Sort of… future investment. You’d never believe me if I actually told you. Honestly.’

  She looked at it. Glossy, slim, curved at the edges, the credit card looked like a futuristic version of the Hypercard, the easy plastic currency which everyone loaded up with pounds and used in the complex.

  She found herself meekly taking it. There was something about this man which invited trust.

  ‘Thank you!’ he said.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ muttered Kate.

  ‘Look after it.’

  The man swivelled on his heel and disappeared into the crowd.

  Lisa shook her head. ‘You see, that’s the other thing about this kind of place. Weirdos.’

  Kate was staring thoughtfully in the direction the man had gone.

  ‘I don’t think he was a weirdo,’ she said. ‘It was like he was trying to tell me something.’

  She stared down at the Hypercard and, almost without thinking, tucked it away in an inside pocket.

  ‘Coffee?’

  A Chinese woman had appeared at Kate’s elbow, smiling and offering cardboard cups of coffee on a tray. ‘New promotion, courtesy of Hyperville? Free samples?’

  ‘I could do with a coffee,’ Kate said, and took one. ‘Thanks.’

  Lisa, arms folded, shook her head.

  The Chinese woman smiled, bobbed and turned away. ‘Have a good day,’ she said, as Kate took a sip.

  The coffee was full, rich and warming, with a hint of spiciness – it tasted real, Kate thought, not synthetic like some of the stuff she had at home and not too milky like the ones in the local cafés.

  ‘Mmm,’ she said. ‘Good stuff.’

  The coffee seemed to power into her body, warming her from within.

  She felt good. But then Kate Maguire always felt good when she came to Hyperville.

  ‘Attention. Attention. This is Hyperville. Good morning to all customers. We would like to draw your attention to today’s special offer. Holders of red 300-euro Hypercards are entitled to a free half-day session in the Spa and Pool Complex until 12 noon on Thursday. Unwind, float and enjoy a world of water at Hyperville. Shop. Dream. Relax.’

  Behind a huge, polished desk, Sir Gerry Hobbes-Mayhew surveyed his empire.

  From his office in the apex of Hyperville’s central pyramid, he could look out on the complex from the picture window: the metallic triangle of the ShopZone, the glass dome of the FunGlobe, the comings and goings of the many travelators and shuttle buses. Hyperville was miles from the nearest city – that was deliberate. People sometimes booked themselves in for three, four, five days at a time – you couldn’t have them disappearing off and not spending money. Everything they wanted was here.

  His intercom buzzed.

  ‘Ey up?’ he said, half-closing his crumpled eyes.

  The plasma screen, taking up all of the far wall of his office, showed the dark, goatee-bearded face of Max Carson. ‘Sir Gerry, that journalist is here again. Andrea Watkins.’

  Sir Gerry sighed, puffed his florid red cheeks. That wretched girl. She’d done an interview with him for Metropolitan a few months ago – a puff piece, very nice, all about his taste in art and his philanthropic tendencies – but ever since then she had been plaguing him for a follow-up. She wouldn’t leave him alone.

  ‘What the ’eck’s she after now, Max?’

  ‘She’s asking about the accident.’

  Sir Gerry spread his hands. ‘They’ve had the official inquiry,’ he growled. ‘What does she want, Max? Blood?’

  Max smiled. ‘She says she’s going to the authorities if she doesn’t have her questions answered, Sir Gerry.’

  ‘The authorities. Cheek of t’lass. Does she even know who the “authorities” are? When the country’s plagued with bomb threats and supposed alien invasions…’

  ‘Well, quite, sir.’

  ‘She thinks they’re going to be bothered about one poor daft feller who got himself electrocuted through some dodgy wiring?’

  ‘She seems very insistent, Sir Gerry.’

  ‘Rule One, Max. Insistent people need to be dealt with. So deal with her.’ Sir Gerry lit one of his huge cigars and leaned back in his chair, wreathed in clouds of blue smoke.

  Max smiled again. ‘Very good, Sir Gerry.’

  ‘And Max,’ Sir Gerry added, puffing on the cigar, ‘how long until them wretched apprentices get ’ere?’

  ‘The Trainees will arrive in one hour and fifty-eight minutes, Sir Gerry.’

  Sir Gerry grunted his approval. In the four years since he’d been brought in, Max had proved his efficiency, but sometimes he could be just a little too pedantic. Most people would have said two hours, and been happy with that.

  ‘Champion. Be sure you send ’em straight to me when they arrive.’

  The screen went dark.

  Sir Gerry sighed, hauled himself up from his seat and waddled over to the cylindrical drinks cabinet in the centre of the room. ‘Single malt,’ he growled. ‘No ice.’ The machine clunked and whirred, and a second later it had dispensed a crystal glass with a double shot of Sir Gerry’s favourite spirit.

  ‘Don’t like interfering types,’ Sir Gerry muttered to himself into his whisky. ‘Don’t like ’em at all.’

  Arranged in a perfect equilateral triangle, with the hub of a big, well-known store at each of the points, Hyperville’s ShopZone was a vast, glittering consumer palace, packed with strolling people. Pellucid blue escalator-tubes criss-crossed the ceiling above, their passengers like sea-life in an aquarium. Avalanches of vermilion foliage spilled from latticed balconies. High above the malls was a dome, its neoclassical trompe l’œil skyscape a bright shade of sapphire. A soft babble of voices carried upwards, occasionally punctuated by the bing-bong of the public address system.

  Off the bustling, soft-white space of Europa Plaza was the Holistic HealthZone, with its endless arcades of organic fruit shops, ethica
l cosmetics and natural remedies. And in an alcove by a service door stood a rickety blue police box. It was looking as inconspicuous as it was possible for something so anachronistic to look.

  The box’s sole occupant popped his tousled head out of the door, eyes wide, and sniffed the air. ‘Coffee, bread, hint of jasmine,’ he murmured to himself. ‘Okaaaay. Definitely the right place.’

  The Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS and swivelled on one heel, taking a quick look at the bustling, brightly lit square beyond.

  Most people would not have looked twice at his chosen outfit of pinstripe suit, dark shirt and loose tie, although the trainers which accompanied it might have given them pause for thought. If anyone asked, the Doctor would explain that this was because he often had to do a lot of running. If they ever asked why, they soon found out.

  ‘Here we go, then.’ The Doctor turned round, snapped his fingers and the TARDIS door squeaked, then slammed shut. He grinned, as much in surprise as in satisfaction. ‘Getting better at that,’ he said.

  A quick glance at some calendars in a nearby gift shop was enough to tell him that the year was 2013. He liked to trust the TARDIS to get him to the right place and time these days, but it had been known to overshoot by a hundred years, or even a hundred million years. Which could be both embarrassing and inconvenient.

  Hands in pockets, grinning, brown eyes wide open in admiration, the Doctor sauntered through Hyperville.

  He’d seen leisure and shopping palaces before, of course. He remembered a particularly impressive one on stilts above the swamps of Dargeb IV, and an underwater retail experience beneath the carmine oceans of Ororous’s second moon. But there was something very special, he always thought, about the ideas Earth people came up with. Something energetic, interesting, almost quaint. And the people themselves were usually a delight, even if the officious ones in uniform did cause him a bit of bother. The Doctor didn’t always admit as much, but he did quite like humans. They were sometimes his favourite species.

  This place seemed incredible for the time. The Doctor had checked the computerised maps and had realised that Hyperville covered an area of something like five square miles. The basic layout was a huge, metal triangle, from the outside a glittering wall of silver. It had a cylindrical, ten-storey megastore at each apex, the shops between them selling practically every commodity known to the human race. Within the walkways, malls and plazas in the sides of the triangle lurked designer clothes boutiques, shops and coffee-lounges, along with the banks, chemists, delicatessens and other outlets expected by the visitor.