The Doctor shook his head. ‘It’s protected by a digital deadlock seal. There’s no way in, even for me. Well, not unless I destroy the whole system, and that seems a bit extreme. Who would have access?’
‘To the whole system?’ Henry said. ‘Only Sir Manning Cross.’
The Doctor leaped to his feet. ‘Then we need to use his computer. I’ll be able to bypass the seal from there. Then we can get into his personal network and data.’
‘Isn’t that a bit naughty?’ Henry asked.
‘Oh yes. Let’s do it. He’ll be long gone by now. I hope.’ The Doctor turned to Jeff. ‘Can I ask you to stay here and keep an eye on the systems? I need to know if anyone else detects us getting inside the network. Keep an eye out for any unusual activity – can you do that?’
‘Sure thing, Doctor.’
It was the end of the day, and the offices were dark and empty. Henry led the Doctor to Sir Manning Cross’s office on the seventh floor. It took only a moment for the Doctor to open the door, and they slipped inside.
‘Are you all right if I go and set some things going in my office?’ Henry asked. ‘We run some of the accounts programs at night. That way we don’t disrupt the systems while people are working.’
The Doctor was happy to be left to hack into Sir Manning’s computer. He sat alone in the near-darkness, his face lit by the glow from the screen. The rest of the office was a jungle of shadows. Soon the Doctor was lost in his work, breaking the digital deadlock seal and hacking into the management systems.
‘Now we’re getting somewhere,’ he murmured. He glanced up, embarrassed at having said it out loud, but there was nobody in the room to hear him.
The office the Doctor had been given was filled with shadows. Jeff’s face was lit up by the glow from the screen as he worked.
A draught shifted the papers on the desk. A deeper, darker shadow fell across him, and Jeff looked up.
‘Oh,’ he said, relieved, ‘it’s just you. I thought you’d gone. Did you forget something?’
The shadow changed shape as the creature that cast it started to transform into its true body. Jeff stood up, mouth open in fear. He beat at the figure looming over him, trying to fend it off. The chair toppled over behind him. Jeff caught hold of something and pulled. It came away, but he had no time to wonder what was in his hand.
Huge, leathery wings beat the air, scattering papers. A high-pitched shriek drowned out Jeff’s cry of terror. Sharp, alien claws slashed down.
Jeff’s lifeless body slumped to the floor. The beating of wings stopped and the shadow shrank back to its original size. A hand that once again looked human closed the door.
Chapter Six
THE DOCTOR WAS getting bored. He had been through so many files that the screen was starting to blur before his eyes. Despite his hopes, he had actually found very little of interest.
‘Any luck?’ Henry asked, stepping back into the room.
The Doctor leaned back and stretched. He peered at Henry’s dim shape in the gloom. ‘Not much, I’m afraid. Most of it is the sort of rubbish management reports we got at the meeting today.’
‘That’s why I stopped going. That and the way they always seemed to find fault with what I was doing. They said it was too slow, or too costly, or just plain wrong. I know I’m not really very good at my job, but they put me in it. They could at least help.’
‘There was one thing,’ the Doctor confessed. He shut down the computer and turned off the screen. ‘There’s a company meeting tomorrow morning.’
‘We have so many meetings in this place. It’s amazing anyone has time between them to get any real work done.’
The Doctor grinned in the near-darkness. ‘But this meeting is at seven in the morning. It’s in a posh hotel, and it’s not in Sir Manning’s diary. There’s no agenda, and no list of who is attending. There’s just a time and an address in a coded email from Miss Sark.’
‘A secret meeting,’ Henry said. ‘I wonder what it’s about.’
‘The coded email says it’s been called by the firm’s main shareholders. I’m hoping it’s about what’s really going on.’
‘Doctor – what is really going on?’ Henry sounded annoyed. ‘I don’t know who you are or what you’re doing here. You tell me the computers are running some secret program that’s linked to the Brainy_Crisps website. So what? Why are we sneaking about in the dark, breaking into the boss’s office and hacking his computer?’
The Doctor walked slowly round the office. He peered into corners and opened drawers and cupboards. ‘What if I told you the Brainy Crisps are bad for you? What if I told you that eating them makes you clever but slowly burns away your brain? Would you believe me?’
‘I might,’ Henry said. ‘I have wondered what side effects there might be. I mean, if the science exists to make everyone brainy, why can’t you get it on the NHS? It can’t cost too much because it’s as cheap as crisps.’
The Doctor found a pile of papers in a drawer and started leafing through them. ‘What if I told you that the science – the brainy formula, if you like – is secret. It’s known only to Sir Manning Cross and Miss Sark and a few others?’ He closed the drawer and moved to a door at the side of the room.
The door was locked. It couldn’t lead anywhere as it was close to the building’s outside wall, and the Doctor guessed it opened into a storeroom. Maybe useful files were locked away inside.
‘Well, I suppose that makes sense,’ Henry said. ‘But why waste it just making crisps?’
The Doctor set to work on the door with his sonic screwdriver. ‘What if I told you that Sir Manning and Miss Sark know the secret because they’re not human?’
‘Not human?’ Henry joined the Doctor by the door. ‘What do you mean, not human?’
‘Aliens,’ the Doctor whispered. He slipped the sonic screwdriver back into his jacket pocket.
‘Aliens? Selling crisps?!’
‘A means to an end. They disguise themselves as humans.’
Henry took a deep breath. ‘So what do they really look like, these aliens?’
The Doctor pulled the door open. There was just enough light to see what was inside. ‘Um,’ the Doctor said quietly. ‘Well… They look exactly like that, in fact.’
Inside the small room behind the door, hung the dark shape of a Krillitane. The huge, winged creature was hanging upside down from the ceiling. Its wings were folded round its body. The long head looked like it was carved from brittle stone.
‘Is it asleep?’ Henry asked in a hushed whisper.
The creature opened its eyes. ‘No,’ it said.
The Doctor slammed the door shut. He whipped out his sonic screwdriver and aimed it at the lock. ‘Time we were going.’
Henry didn’t move. He was standing frozen with fear.
The Doctor pushed him roughly towards the office door. ‘Run!’
Behind them, the door to the storeroom exploded into splinters. The Krillitane smashed its way out, and set off after the Doctor and Henry. It took long lolloping strides. Once in the open-plan area outside Sir Manning’s office, it opened its wings.
Henry and the Doctor ran for their lives. They could hear Krillitane wings beating behind them. The creature was half running, half flying. It bounded after them, launching itself forward from panels and walls. Its screeches filled the air.
‘Where are we going?’ Henry gasped. He was having trouble keeping up with the Doctor. He was also having trouble seeing where they were going.
‘Who knows?’ the Doctor shouted back. Then: ‘Ah!’ He suddenly dived sideways down an aisle between desks.
Henry almost fell as he turned to follow. The Krillitane was close on his heels. Ahead of him, the Doctor had grabbed something from a wall mount – a fire extinguisher.
The Doctor brought the fire extinguisher up, aiming the hose at the Krillitane. Henry dived to one side as the Doctor pressed the lever. The Krillitane shrieked louder as it saw what was happening. It launched itself through t
he air at the Doctor. A jet of carbon dioxide gas gushed out over the Krillitane. It caught the creature full in the face, the pressure knocking it backwards.
The Doctor stepped forward, still spraying. As soon as the fire extinguisher ran out, he dropped it. He shouted again at Henry to run.
The Krillitane was thrashing in pain. It struggled to get up.
The Doctor and Henry now had enough time to get away. The Doctor let Henry lead the way since he knew his way round the offices.
‘Fire stairs,’ Henry suggested. ‘We need to warn Jeff about these alien creatures.’
Soon they were back at the Doctor’s office.
‘How many of those things are there?’ Henry asked as they went inside.
‘More than one, clearly,’ the Doctor said sadly.
Jeff’s body lay stretched out across the floor. The Doctor checked it briefly, but he could tell at once that the man was dead.
‘Poor Jeff,’ he said quietly. ‘I am so sorry.’
Henry was standing in the doorway, his face pale in the light cast by the computer screen.
The Doctor stood up and walked slowly over to Henry. ‘When you left me in Sir Manning’s office,’ he said coldly, ‘it was only for a few minutes. But you had time to come back here.’
Henry nodded. ‘If only I had. I might have been here when…’ He looked away. ‘I might have been able to save him.’ A single tear escaped from one of Henry’s eyes and rolled down his cheek. ‘Is that what you mean?’
The Doctor watched the tear glisten on Henry’s cheek. Did Krillitanes cry, he wondered. ‘That’s what I mean, yes,’ he said. ‘And you couldn’t have saved him, not from a Krillitane. You mustn’t blame yourself for this.’
Henry turned back to the Doctor. His face was determined. He brushed away the tear with the back of his hand. ‘What do we do, Doctor? How do we stop these monsters before they kill anyone else?’
‘First we need to know what they’re up to. I hope we’ll find that out at the secret meeting at the hotel tomorrow.’ The Doctor leaned forwards suddenly, staring at Henry. ‘You haven’t had your ears pierced, have you?’
‘No, why?’
The Doctor ran his hand through his hair, spiking it up. ‘Just wondered.’
‘Right,’ Henry said, confused. ‘But even if we know their plan, what can we do against something that can…?’ Henry’s voice tailed off and he glanced again at Jeff’s body.
‘Well,’ the Doctor said, leading Henry out of his office, ‘it’s not all gloom and doom, you know. I mean, I still have eighty-three bags of crisps.’
Chapter Seven
THE DOCTOR AND Henry wanted to be at the hotel ahead of everyone else. They arrived at six and found that the staff were already setting things up for the meeting. The Doctor showed them his psychic paper, which appeared to say that he and Henry were meant to be there to check that everything was running smoothly and on time.
The meeting was going to take place in the ballroom. The middle of the room had been cleared and a single long table set up. High above it was a net, full of brightly coloured balloons. Everything was ready and waiting for a silver wedding party in the evening. Tables and chairs were stacked on one side of the room, also ready for later.
‘I love parties,’ the Doctor told Henry, as they looked up at the net. ‘Don’t you?’
‘I don’t get invited to many,’ Henry admitted. ‘What are you thinking?’
The Doctor told him. Henry assumed he was joking, but the Doctor wasn’t.
Half an hour later, the Doctor pulled Henry quickly to one side. A young woman with blonde hair and glasses had just come into the ballroom. The Doctor and Henry crouched down out of sight. They hid themselves behind the stack of tables and chairs at the side of the room.
‘It’s only Gabby,’ Henry said. ‘They often get her to hand out the coffee and information packs at meetings. She’s good with people.’
‘I’d rather no one knew we were here, even Gabby,’ the Doctor told him. ‘Besides, she might tell me off for not getting into work early to catch up on my emails.’
‘So what do we do now – just wait here?’
‘For the moment.’ The Doctor was holding a small remote control box he had found. It controlled the lights and curtains and a few other things in the room. He was hoping Sir Manning Cross wouldn’t notice it was gone. ‘We need to find a good place to hide, and we have a little job to do.’
Soon, the first people started arriving for the meeting. Gabby handed out folders and showed people where they could help themselves to coffee and tea. There were glasses and bottles of water on the table.
By seven o’clock, everyone had taken their seats. Sir Manning Cross and Stella Sark sat at one end of the big table. The Doctor could see Clive and a few other people from yesterday’s meeting. Gabby spoke quietly to Stella Sark, then left the room. She closed the door firmly behind her.
There were half a dozen other people, too. They were not dressed as uniformly as the men and women from the firm. One of them was a large man with steel-grey hair and a military moustache. He took charge and opened the meeting. The man introduced himself as James Purcell, although everyone seemed to know him already.
‘You may be wondering why I asked for this meeting of the firm’s board and our most important shareholders,’ Purcell said. ‘Well, it’s quite simple really. Since Sir Manning took charge, we’ve seen the firm’s profits rocket. These new Brainy Crisps really seem to be doing very well.’
Sir Manning smiled. ‘So you’ve called us here to give us your thanks, I take it.’
‘Well, yes. And no.’
‘Oh? I thought the point of any firm was to make profit.’
Purcell scowled. ‘The point of any firm is to make profit for its shareholders. But despite the huge amounts of money the firm is making, you are still not paying out to shareholders.’
Stella Sark leaned forward. ‘The value of your shares has gone up a lot. Isn’t that enough?’
‘Frankly, no. I don’t want to sell my shares. Why would I, when everything is going so well. What I want is to see some return on my investment. Instead, you seem hell-bent on putting all the profits back into ever more costly IT projects. Computer projects which we just don’t need.’
There were murmurs of agreement from the other shareholders. Someone clapped.
Sir Manning rose to his feet. ‘I rather think it is up to me to decide what is necessary. I run this firm.’
Purcell gave a snort of laughter. ‘We own this firm. You work for us.’
‘Not any more,’ Miss Sark said, so quietly that Purcell didn’t seem to hear.
‘You have no idea, do you,’ Sir Manning said. His voice was rising in pitch and volume. ‘No idea at all what we are really doing. How dare you presume to tell me how to run my firm?’
‘Our firm,’ Purcell said, but he was hesitant now. He seemed surprised at Sir Manning’s sudden anger.
‘You thought you could make a quick few pounds out of potato crisps and gullible customers,’ Sir Manning ranted. ‘That’s all you were in it for. Well, no longer. Your involvement ends, here and now.’
The shareholders looked at each other, surprised and confused.
‘Is he offering to buy us out?’ a woman in a blue dress asked the man beside her.
‘All you think about is money,’ Sir Manning told her. ‘I am trying to create life!’
There was silence. Everyone stared at Sir Manning.
‘Now we’re getting somewhere,’ the Doctor whispered to Henry as they watched from their hiding place.
‘You heard me – life!’ Sir Manning looked round the table. ‘That’s why we needed your money, and why we now need every penny of profit. We have done what no other firm can do. We have hijacked the internet.’
Purcell stared in utter surprise. ‘What?!’
‘That’s right. When any computer links to the Brainy_Crisps website, it is instantly infected with our code. The code links infecte
d computers together over the internet, then finds and links in every other computer, too. Oh, we only steal a little bit of computing power from each one, but hundreds of millions of computers are working away for us. They are working on the equations and formulae provided by the people who have eaten our crisps.’
Miss Sark stood beside her boss. ‘Almost everyone who eats Brainy Crisps goes to our website to find out how much more brainy they’ve become. They think they’re playing a game, or answering a pop-up question. They think they’re rating the usefulness of the site and the tastiness of the crisps. In fact, they are all slowly solving the overall problem. They are solving it with improved intelligence from the Brainy Crisps and the processing power of the entire internet.’
Purcell and the other shareholders were really confused now. ‘But why? What problem are they solving?’
Sir Manning smiled. ‘The computers work with the people whose brains have been improved by the oil in the crisps. Together they are solving the riddle of life itself. We are a race that has evolved in a random way. We have chosen a hotchpotch of bits and pieces from other life forms. Over the years, this has become inefficient. We have lost our way. Even the oil we secrete is a poison to us. It burns us when we touch it – our own oil. Now we will redesign ourselves to be the greatest, most powerful species in the universe.’
‘I think we’ve heard quite enough,’ Purcell said. ‘I had no idea when we gave you the job that you were a complete madman. It’s time to propose a motion that we remove you from the firm at once.’
Behind the stack of tables and chairs, the Doctor turned to Henry. His face looked grave. ‘So that’s what they’re doing. The Krillitanes are creating a new genetic form for themselves. Up to now they’ve been evolving over time. They’ve taken parts that seemed useful and random bits of DNA from the species they’ve conquered. Now they’ve decided to design themselves again, and to do it properly from scratch.’
‘Is that bad?’ Henry asked.
‘Not if they were a nice, friendly race of cuddly creatures. But they’re not. They’re warlike empire-builders who’ll enslave the human race and any other species as soon as look at them.’
Doctor Who: Code of the Krillitanes Page 3
