Free Doctor Who: The Blood Cell by James Goss

it.
    Thinking of what the Oracle has said, I nodded. ‘Can we isolate and eject Level 7?’ I asked. It was the only bit of The Prison that could be ejected. At least they’d have some chance, and it would free up critical resources. Buy us a little more time.
    Marla checked a couple of icons on her clipboard. ‘They’d have limited motive power and only enough oxygen for twelve hours’
    I didn’t care. ‘That’s probably twelve more hours than us. The Oracle may think of something. After all,’ I smiled, ‘he seems to have an opinion on everything else around here. Start the uncoupling.’
    If nothing else, it gave everyone something to do.
    The clock hit six minutes and forty seconds. Funny. Once we got to seven minutes, there’d be no great explosion. None of us would die. Probably the first we’d notice is the lights going a little dim. The air getting a trifle warm. The doors taking a bit longer to open. But once the cascade failure had happened, then the collapse of the prison would speed up from there. Death would creep over us. And it wouldn’t be pleasant.
    At six minutes and forty-five seconds, another alarm went off. The two sirens wailed at each otherlike courting beasts, a sound that was ugly and blocky and shrill, and then the main alarm cut out. Mercifully, the clock reset and the Prison Plan flickered, seeming to shift slightly, before finally reloading. It was as if nothing had happened.
    Almost silence.
    Except …
    Bentley spotted it. ‘Level 6. All the doors are open.’ That explained the other alarm still sounding.
    Level 6?
    ‘And another thing,’ sighed Bentley. ‘428 is out of his cell.’
    Normally Bentley would deal with this. But she had remained in the Control Station, going methodically through the systems, checking off each one and ensuring its performance was optimal. Until the next time the whole thing fell over.
    So I went looking for 428. I took a Custodian. Just in case.
    The annoying thing was that 428’s timing was dreadful. This was the worst moment to be pulling his running-around stunts. He was normally more careful. He usually slipped in and out of his cell without troubling the alarms, but this time he’d lit the board up like a festive display.
    As we made our way to Level 3, I marvelled at how quiet The Prison seemed at night. Even with the alarm,there was just muttering from the cells. Clearly, they’d got used to sleeping through the alarms. I called out to reassure people that everything was under control. The thing is, I didn’t know if I was lying or not. We’d been less than twenty seconds away from a slow and lingering death. With a bit of luck, most of them wouldn’t have woken up.
    428’s cell was open and empty. A note was pinned to the door: ‘Back in 5 mins. Sign for any parcels’. I did not find it funny.
    The Custodian was able to trace his footsteps. They led right the way down to Level 6.
    Level 6 looked wrong. If the rest of the Prison had been quiet, this was icy. There wasn’t a sound. It was just one long corridor at the bottom of The Prison. We put people here we did not want to think about. I’m not proud of that, but there are some people in The Prison you just can’t handle normally. When corrective therapy and normal restraint fails, then we have little option other than to drug them up and ship them down to Level 6. It was where we could forget our failures.
    My Custodian sent out a worried alarm chirrup. I queried this on my clipboard and then I realised what its problem was. It was trying to connect to the other Custodians on the level but there were no other Custodians here. Normally you don’t noticethem. They’re either housed in the walls, or gliding up and down corridors, silent and efficient. The Custodians are part of the Prison. On Level 6 there were no human Guardians – only Custodians. Even if they weren’t patrolling the corridors you’d expect to find them docked in the walls. But nothing. Not a sign of one.