   Much in need of a holiday, Mel and the Doctor head for
 Paradise Towers: a luxury man-made planet with sparkling
 fountains, sunny streets, exotic flowers and a shimmering
                   blue swimming pool.

 But when the TARDIS materialises in a dark, rubbish-filled,
 rat-infested alley it seems that this particular Paradise has
                         turned into Hell!

    Pursued by rogue cleaning machines, authoritarian
  caretakers and old ladies with strange eating habits, the
 Doctor and Mel track down the source of the chaos to one
mysterious character—the designer of Paradise Towers, the
                 Great Architect himself...


ISBN 0 426 20330 5
         DOCTOR WHO
       PARADISE TOWERS
  Based on the BBC television series by Stephen Wyatt by
arrangement with BBC Books, a division of BBC Enterprises
                           Ltd


              STEPHEN WYATT

                  Number 134 in the
                The Doctor Who Library




                   A TARGET BOOK
                      published by
                The Paperback Division of
                  W. H. Allen & Co. Plc
                          A Target Book
                        Published in 1988
                  by the Paperback Division of
                      W.H. Allen & Co. Plc
                44 Hill Street, London W1X 8LB

        Novelisation copyright © Stephen Wyatt, 1989
       Original script copyright © Stephen Wyatt, 1987
     ‘Doctor Who’ series copyright © British Broadcasting
                   Corporation, 1987, 1989

The BBC produce of Paradise Towers was John Nathan-Turner
                The director was Nick Mallet
   The role of the Doctor was played by Sylvester McCoy

             Printed and bound in Great Britain by
                  Cox & Wyman Ltd, Reading


                       ISBN 0 426 20330 5

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way
  of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise
 circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of
  binding or cover other than that in which it is published and
    without a similar condition including this condition being
             imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
CONTENTS

1 The Last of the Yellow Kangs
2 No Visitors
3 Tea and Cakes
4 The Chief
5 This Way and That
6 Brainquarters
7 Come into My Parlour
8 The Illustrated Prospectus
9 The Basement
10 The Pool in the Sky
11 Kroagnon
12 Farewells
                        1
          The Last of the Yellow Kangs
It was Mel who first of all wanted to visit Paradise Towers. She
felt after some very arduous adventures recently she was entitled
to relax by a swimming pool – a beautiful indoor pool with
heated water and marble floors and luxurious chairs by its side.
She talked so longingly about it that the Doctor deeply regretted
having had to jettison the pool from the TARDIS because it had
started to leak. And, one day, flicking through the images in an
old travel video-brochure she found lying around the TARDIS,
she came across pictures of Paradise Towers.
     The building itself was impressive enough. A huge tower
block forming a separate man-made planet with soaring white
towers that gleamed in the sun and brightly coloured streets and
squares, where fountains played and exotic flowers bloomed.
Apartments to live in which were spacious and spotless, stuffed
full of remarkable devices to make the business of daily life
easier. Well-planned offices from which those in charge of this
artificially created paradise could ensure its smooth running.
Mel thought that living there must be like being perpetually on
holiday. And that was before she had even seen the pool. When
she finally saw its shimmering blue water and the lovely rich
tones of its surroundings, it quite took her breath away.
     ‘Look, Doctor, look,’ she exclaimed excitedly. ‘There it is,
right at the very top of that wonderful tall building. I can’t wait
to have a dip in that.’
     The Doctor had had other plans but he realised that it
would be useless to argue, not to mention rather selfish. And so
the TARDIS was soon hurtling through time and space towards
Paradise Towers.
     Mel could hardly take her eyes off the pictures of the pool
nonetheless. It seemed so long since she’d been able to relax in
warm, soothing water. The Doctor, to be honest, became a little
irritated with her enthusiasm.
     ‘I think that’s enough of that, Mel,’ he announced.
     ‘Why?’ Mel enquired. ‘It looks great.’
     The Doctor pursed his lips. ‘Well, if you want to stay here
watching a guide book when you could actually be enjoying the
real thing, that’s up to you.’
     Mel turned to him excitedly. ‘You mean we’re nearly there?’
     The Doctor nodded. ‘You may want to lie by the pool and
do nothing all day. I intend to explore. Paradise Towers is
supposed to be a remarkable architectural achievement, I
believe. It won all sorts of awards back in the twenty-first
century.’ He moved towards the TARDIS’s control panel. ‘Well,
are you ready?’
     ‘Ready?’ Mel replied, eyes shining. ‘I can’t wait.’
     As he prepared for landing, the Doctor gave an inward sigh.
When he thought of all the really exciting planets they could be
visiting, he did feel a little cheated that they had to go
somewhere as bland and perfect as Paradise Towers. That was
the trouble with the young, he mused, they had no real spirit of
adventure. So he imagined a peaceful, uneventful few days
stretching ahead of the two of them. He could not, of course,
have been more wrong.

The last of the Yellow Kangs ran down Potassium Street as fast
as her feet could carry her. She knew the street well with its
distinctive blue walls, grimy and covered in Kang wall-scrawl, its
ornate blue street lamps all damaged or smashed completely, the
ones remaining flickering eerily, its pavements covered in all
manner of refuse: animal, vegetable and mineral. She had been
down the street many times in happier days when the other
Yellow Kangs had not yet been made unalive and they had
beaten the Blue Kangs and the Red Kangs again and again in
the never-ending game. Now she was alone. One by one the
other Yellow Kangs had gone from her, often without warning,
always without explanation. Perhaps it was the fault of the Red
Kangs. Or the Blue Kangs. She wasn’t sure but somehow she
doubted it. There was something else far worse than other
Kangs, she suspected, and often at night, when she slept alone in
the ominously empty Yellow Kang Brainquarters, she would
wake up, sweating and terrified, believing it would come for her
too.
     On and on she ran. In the distance she could hear a familiar
chant, echoing down the deserted street. ‘Yellow Kangs are
cowardly cutlets,’ it went. ‘Yellow Kangs are cowardly cutlets...’
Over and over again. Maybe the Red Kangs had lost track of
her. She hoped so. It would be useless to try and explain to any
of them what had happened to the other Yellow Kangs or to beg
for an end to the game for a while. They would go on playing it
to the end of time. The Blue Kangs too. And she would have to
keep on trying to escape from them, whatever else frightened or
puzzled her. Not that there was time for thought now. She must
keep on running down Potassium Street until she had lost her
pursuers and could creep into Yellow Kang Brainquarters
without detection.
     ‘Yellow Kangs are cowardly cutlets... Yellow Kangs are
cowardly cutlets...’ Was it her imagination or were the Red
Kangs catching up with her? She thought she had double-
backed successfully leaving them futilely running down Nitrate
Street in the wrong direction. But their voices certainly sounded
nearer. She must hurry.
     And then suddenly she stumbled over something and fell.
For a moment she was too startled to move and then, when she
tried to get up, she realised that the lonely anxieties of the last
few weeks, the sleepless nights and the unfinished meals had
taken their toll. She could not go on even if she wanted to. She
must stay and let the Red Kangs come if they must. Let them
win the game if they wanted. It didn’t seem to matter any more.
She no longer had the energy to play. All she could do was crawl
wearily towards the nearest doorway and take refuge within it,
drawing breath exhaustedly.
     She listened carefully. A Kang needed acute hearing to cope
with life in the Towers and she owed her survival in part to that.
Red Kang voices came from a nearby crossroads. They were
close but not as close as she had feared.
     ‘Yellow Kangs are cowardly cutlets...’
     The voices were still mocking and defiant but she sensed
that the Red Kangs were losing hope of finding her this time.
They had followed her trail so far but no longer knew which way
to go. To her relief, the chanting became more ragged and then
died away completely. She strained to hear what they would say
next.
     ‘Leave her for another day. Cowardly cutlet!’ came one
voice.
     ‘Leave her for the Cleaners,’ came another and the
comment was followed by raucous laughter. It was a saying all
the Kangs used, a threat, but not a serious one, to scare the more
timid and childish girls. It meant nothing, the Yellow Kang
thought. Except that the Red Kangs were abandoning the game
and returning to their Brainquarters. She was safe for another
day.
     She listened eagerly as their voices and footsteps receded
away into the distance down Sodium Street towards Sunrise
Square. Perhaps she was listening too eagerly. Otherwise she
might have been alerted sooner to another sound, low at first,
growing in volume as it came nearer. A soft mechanical
whirring, regular but somehow menacing.
     By the time she had heard the sound it was too late. She
could only look up at the approaching shape first in disbelief
then in horror as it came closer and closer. Even if she could
have found a last ounce of energy to run it would have been
useless. She could only watch, mesmerised. The noise, barely
detectable at first, now deafened her. She knew there was no
hope. And yet she started to scream. And scream. Until the
screaming was cut short and the last of the Yellow Kangs was
unalive.
     A crude scrawl had been drawn by another Kang on the wall
just near where she fell. A scrawl which might have given her
warning of what was to happen to her. It showed a girl dressed
in yellow threatened by two large, white mechanical claws.

‘Well, here we are,’ the Doctor announced. Mel waited
expectantly as the door of the TARDIS opened. The TARDIS
will have materialised in one of those sumptuous looking
squares, she thought. Fountain of Happiness perhaps or the
Grotto of Delight. Then it would be up to the top floor for a dip
in the pool. The TARDIS door opened noisily. That was the first
indication something was wrong. But there was worse to come.
     Mel stared out of the open door in horror. She could not
really believe her eyes. The TARDIS had materialised amid a
heap of junk. The noise was its door scraping along a mass of
cans and discarded scrap metal. That was that explained. But
was what she was looking at really part of Paradise Towers?
Perhaps they’d come to the wrong place. The Doctor had been
known to make mistakes in the past.
     The Doctor, however, was already through the door and
Mel hurried to follow him. As they advanced out of the TARDIS,
their feet were scrunching on all manner of rubbish lying on the
outside floor. The Doctor was immediately all curiosity. He
upended a battered cardboard box and a couple of large rats
scuttered away. ‘Intelligent little creatures,’ he murmured
appreciatively.
     Mel, however, was too busy taking in the awfulness of their
surroundings. And though she would have liked there to have
been a mistake, she knew there hadn’t been one. Because she
could just about recognise this was one of the squares in Paradise
Towers so lovingly described in the video-brochure. Fountain of
Happiness Square, she suspected. But changed immeasurably
for the worst. The floor was covered in rubbish. The walls
looked as if they had not been cleaned for decades. And indeed
the only splash of brightness in the whole drab, dirty square was
the highly coloured graffiti that had been daubed over them by
some childish hand. The large glass windows that let daylight in
were smashed in numerous places and the splinters of glass had
joined the rest of the debris on the ground. Saddest of all,
perhaps, was the Fountain of Happiness itself. The water had
clearly dried up ages ago and the beautiful bowl into which the
water used to pour was now rust-stained, cracked and filled with
litter. It was difficult to imagine a more desolate and depressing
environment and Mel’s immediate reaction was to get straight
back into the TARDIS.
     ‘You don’t happen to know another planet with a swimming
pool, do you?’ she asked the Doctor. But something about the
way he was poking excitedly with his umbrella among the junk
told her he was not going to be that helpful.
     ‘There is a rather spectacular swimming pool on the planet
Griophos, I understand,’ he replied airily, examining the
yellowing paper collecting in the fountain.
     ‘We could try there then,’ said Mel eagerly. The Doctor
looked dubious.
     ‘There’s just one snag, Mel. It’s for the exclusive use of the
Gulmeres.’
     ‘Who are they?’
      ‘A rather nasty breed of flesh-eating octupi.’ He returned to
his exploration. ‘Personally, I’d rather stay here and explore. I
wonder what’s happened.’
      Mel looked round dispiritedly. ‘It’s got awful, that’s what
happened.’ She sighed and decided to get the better of her
disappointment. ‘Still, now we’re here, I suppose I might as well
see what the pool’s like,’ she conceded.
      ‘That’s the spirit, Mel,’ the Doctor returned approvingly.
‘This could be fascinating.’ He started off across Fountain of
Happiness Square towards one of the dingy, ill-lit streets that led
off it, pausing only to turn back briefly towards Mel. ‘Are you
coming?’
      ‘All right,’ Mel agreed, now secretly determined not to miss
out on any of the adventure. ‘But one thing, Doctor. If anything
goes wrong and we get separated, we’ll meet at the pool all
right?’ She knew the Doctor and she knew the situations they
could get themselves in. The Doctor was a masterly improviser,
of course, as well as an intrepid explorer, but during her time
with him, it had sometimes occured to Mel that a little more
forward planning might have helped. Here was a chance.
      ‘Oh, very well,’ the Doctor sighed, his mind already racing
on to investigating all the ins and outs of the Towers. ‘But we’ve
only just arrived. There’s no need to start worrying yet.’
      An experienced Time Traveller should have known better.
No sooner were the confident words out of his mouth than a
strange metal arrow whizzed through the air from a place of
concealment in the Square. And, before the Doctor could say
another word, the arrow had pinned him neatly by his coat to
the adjacent wall. Just a split second later, another arrow
whizzed across the Square and pinned Mel there too. Other
arrows aimed with equal accuracy followed. They were pinned
still more tightly to the wall. Both of them tried to struggle free
but it was hopeless. They were as incapable of moving as flies
trapped in a spider’s web. Mel just hoped that the comparison
wasn’t too accurate. She had no desire to be anybody’s dinner.
She peered anxiously about her as they waited for their
assailants to emerge from the shadows and show their faces.

Caretaker number 345 stroke 12 subsection 3 was not a happy
man. In fact, he was a rather frightened man. He was one of the
younger, more able-bodied Caretakers so he was always being
given the job of patrolling the more dangerous and distant
streets of Paradise Towers. Every time he had applied to be put
on to an easier, less alarming job, the Chief had been less than
sympathetic, fluently quoting whole sections of the rule book at
him to prove he had to what he was told. And in the end, it was
impossible to argue with the Chief. He knew the rule book
backwards and had an answer for every complaint or problem a
Caretaker could bring to him. So here he was again on the
Potassium Street beat.
    There were nasty rumours about what had been happening
in the Potassium Street area. The young Caretaker, if he was
honest, had seen nothing in the three weeks he’d had the job –
but that didn’t alter the fact that the last Caretaker on this
particular beat had mysteriously disappeared. At least the young
Caretaker had seen nothing of him since taking over. He was
never at the Caretakers’ Headquarters. The Chief would have
none of these worries, of course. ‘He’s been transferred to other
duties,’ he announced firmly, holding up the rule book. ‘all
according to paragraph 12 of Rule 79b.’ There was no answer to
the rule book. All the Caretakers knew that.
    The young Caretaker made his way carefully down
Potassium Street looking nervously about him, his Mark 12
LDCE (Long Distance Communication Expediter) in his hand.
Half of him expected to be attacked at any moment. And half of
him knew that it was silly to doubt the wisdom of the Chief. Or
the rule book.
    It was time to report to the Chief. The Chief expected
regular reports at every inter-section and the young Caretaker
knew better than to disappoint him. He raised his Mark 12
LDCE, pressed a button and announced his name and number.
There was a slight crackle and then he heard the bright,
confident tones of the Chief Caretaker.
    ‘We are receiving you, Caretaker number 345 stroke 12
subsection 3. Make your report.’
    The young Caretaker took a deep breath. ‘I am proceeding
along Potassium Street,’ he reported, ‘corridor 5673 section 201
opposite door 782 on floor 35 north side.’ He looked up at the
wall nearest to where he was standing and tutted disparagingly
over the brightly coloured scribble that almost covered it.
‘Considerable evidence of wallscrawl all along this part of street,
Chief. Wallscrawlers obviously active here. Over.’
    ‘Report noted,’ the Chief’s voice replied. ‘Proceed now to
report on corridor 5673 section 301.’
    ‘Yes, Chief.’ The young Caretaker sighed. Orders were
orders but still he wished he could be back in the comfort of
Caretaker Headquarters not out tramping the streets of Paradise
Towers for another couple of hours. He could be fired at by
Wallscrawlers. Or bothered by Rezzies with a list of complaints.
Or worse.
    His foot struck something. He looked down. Lying on the
ground was a strip of yellow material. The sort worn for
decoration by Yellow Wallscrawlers. He stooped to pick it up
and give a closer examination. He might have thought it had just
been dropped there while the Wallscrawlers were larking about.
Except that the scarf was torn and bloodstained. As if its owner
had been attacked brutally.
     His hand went immediately to the Mark 12 LDCE. He
started to give his number and position but the words wouldn’t
come. He could only stutter hopelessly.
     ‘We are receiving you, Caretaker number 345 stroke 12
subsection 3.’ The Chief’s voice was testy now. ‘What’s the
matter?’
     ‘I’m scared, Chief.’ It was a tremendous relief to let the
words out. The wallscrawls were disturbing enough. Claws
attacking Wallscrawlers, Red, Yellow and Blue. But to actually
find evidence of the attacks was worse still. His nerve was about
to crack and he hoped fervently that the Chief would be
sympathetic and let him come back to Headquarters.
     ‘Orders are orders. Number One rule of the Caretakers,
Caretaker number 345 stroke 12 subsection 3.’ How many times
had he heard the Chief say that? More than he could remember.
The Chief was not going to listen to his doubts and fears. And
could he really blame him? The Chief had far more important
things on his mind and the whole smooth running of Paradise
Towers to consider. The young Caretaker was a very small cog
in the wheel, he knew.
     Nevertheless, he made one last try. ‘Please, Chief, listen.
Something’s going wrong. I can feel it’s going wrong.’ He stared
down at the blood-stained yellow scarf he was still holding in his
hand. ‘Can’t I just–?’
     ‘No, Caretaker number 345 stroke 12 subsection 3, you
can’t.’
     There could be no further argument.
     Carefully placing the sad remains of the last of the Yellow
Wallscrawlers over his shoulder, the young Caretaker
proceeded, as instructed, towards corridor 5673 section 301. It
wasn’t very far down Potassium Street but in his current tense
state it seemed to the young Caretaker miles and miles away.
      At first he thought everything was going to be all right after
all. The street was quiet and the scrawls on the wall were less
scary in what they depicted. To his surprise, he felt himself begin
to walk with a more confident stride. All was well until he finally
arrived at section 301 and reached for his Mark 12 LDCE to
make his report.
      The machine started to make a strange bleeping sound he
had never heard before. And a lurid flickering light he had
never seen before appeared on the dial. A malfunction in the
Mark 12 LDCE was very unusual. It was a Caretaker’s lifeline
and the young Caretaker checked his own regularly. Something
had gone very wrong. He pressed the button, desperately trying
to make contact with the Chief. ‘Chief, are you receiving me?’
His voice got ever more desperate. He imagined the Chief’s fury
at his failure to report in. But all that came from his precious
lifeline was still the strange bleep. After a time the sound got
through to you.
      And then he heard another sound, low at first, growing in
volume as it approached. A soft, regular, mechanical whirring.
He was not the first to hear it that day but he was not to know
that. When it finally registered on his consciousness, he turned
his eyes up the Street in the direction of the sound. And froze in
horror.
      Coming towards him was a large, gleaming white, wheeled
robot with headlights and a whole battery of attachments for
washing, sweeping, polishing and rubbish collecting. A Robotic
Self-Activating Megapodic Mark 7Z Cleaner. The Cleaners, as
they were known for short by all the Caretakers except the
Chief, who was a stickler for full descriptions and titles at all
times, were used for all sorts of menial cleaning tasks around
Paradise Towers where a robot was undoubtedly more use than
a human being. There had, of course, been rumours that the
Cleaners had been getting out of control. Certain Caretakers
had told the young Caretaker in strictest secrecy that they
believed the Cleaners had been attacking people. Wallscrawlers
mainly but you never knew. After all, the Mark 7Z Cleaners had
been fitted with those large mechanical claws... Few of the
Caretakers believed these stories but this hadn’t stopped them
being discussed. It helped to pass the time when things were
slack.
      Looking down at the blood-stained scarf and looking ahead
at the Mark 7Z Cleaner, these hushed conversations suddenly
took on a new importance for the young Caretaker. The
rumours had probably been true all the time. And, far from
being cowardly and disloyal, he had actually been right to fear
the worst on the Potassium Street beat.
      Odd how quickly one can see the truth in a moment of
danger. But small consolation to know it with the Cleaner
gliding towards him and its menacing white claw shooting out
greedily. It was snatching at thin air now but not for long. He
had seen the speed the Cleaners could move at and, even if he
could have found the energy to run, it would have been useless.
His only hope was the Chief. Perhaps the Chief would know how
to stop the Cleaner even now. If only he could speak to him.
      The LDCE suddenly crackled into life. The Chief’s voice was
there, asking what he wanted. He explained as best he could
with his panic rising and the Cleaner getting nearer by the
second. The Chief’s voice was calm and reassuring.
      ‘Don’t panic, Caretaker number 345 stroke 12 subsection
3...’
      ‘But, Chief... it’s... it’s...’ The enormity of what was
happening took away his ability to speak. If the Cleaners were
going out of control then who was responsible? The Chief or
someone else? And what could anyone hope to gain from killing
off Caretakers and Wallscrawlers anyway? The young
Caretaker’s mind raced through the questions but could find no
answers.
    And then the white mechanical claw reached out and
grabbed him by the throat. He gurgled helplessly and then
lapsed into unconsciousness. The last thing he heard was the
Chief’s voice, still bland and comforting, pouring out words of
advice as the Mark 12 LDCE slipped from his fingers. ‘Don’t
worry,’ urged the voice. ‘Relax and enjoy it.’
    A few minutes later the Robotic Self-Activating Megapodic
Mark 7Z Cleaner was off once more down Potassium Street
heading for a service lift that would take it to the basement of
Paradise Towers. The gleaming white Mark 7Z Waste Storage
Truck it pulled along behind was clearly very full. Sticking out of
it was a foot that had once been part of Caretaker number 345
stroke 12 subsection 3.
                            2
                        No Visitors
‘Look, what do you want?’ The Doctor and Mel were
confronting their assailants who now stood confidently in the
middle of Fountain of Happiness Square for all to see, staring
mockingly at their captives in a none too friendly fashion. It was
not very easy to be very authoritative when you were pinned
helplessly to a wall like a dead butterfly in a museum display case
but the Doctor was doing his best.
     They were girls, none of them more than fifteen or sixteen,
all dressed in red and carrying strange metallic crossbows,
apparently fabricated from the metal debris that littered
Paradise Towers. There was, after all, plenty of it to use, Mel
thought. The girls all had a wary, proud look. Their long, spiky
red hair matched the bright red of their costumes. Tattered and
worn though they were, the girls’ get-ups reminded Mel of
pictures she had seen of Japanese samurai warriors.
     ‘At least tell us who you are,’ said the Doctor in growing
desperation at the obstinate silence.
     ‘We’re the Kangs.’ One of the leading girls spoke as if it was
the most obvious thing in the galaxy and the captives must be
half-witted not to know.
     ‘The Red Kangs,’ put in one of her companions proudly.
‘Red Kangs are best.’ She turned to her companions. ‘Who’s
best?’
     ‘Red Kangs,’ they all chorused. ‘Red Kangs, Red Kangs are
best.’
     It was obviously a ritual the Kangs went through. The
chanting went on for some time while the Red Kangs pressed in
on the Doctor and Mel, crossbows at the ready. By the end a sea
of young warlike faces clustered round the Doctor.
    ‘So who’s best?’ demanded the Kang who had lead the
chant.
    ‘The Red Kangs, I gather,’ returned the Doctor smoothly.
‘But there are other coloured Kangs are there?’ he added,
desperate to change the subject.
    ‘Yeah,’ the Kang replied. ‘The Blue Kangs. But they’re
cowardly cutlets.’
    ‘And the Yellow Kangs,’ put in another. ‘But they’re only
one now.’
    ‘Why’s that?’ asked the Doctor.
    ‘Just is.’
    ‘Not got very enquiring minds, have you?’ the Doctor
remarked sarcastically. He hated it when people failed to show
curiosity about what was happening around them. Particularly
when, like now, he himself was trying to piece together what was
going on.
    ‘Quiet, Doctor.’ Mel spoke to try and stop the Doctor’s
sarcasm annoying the Red Kangs but the actual result was to
divert their attention from the Doctor to her.
    ‘You a Kang?’ The leading girl eyed her suspiciously.
    Mel shook her head. ‘No, I’m not a Kang. I’m Mel. And I
don’t know who the Kangs are.’
    ‘We’re Kangs,’ the girl returned. ‘Red Kangs.’
    ‘Who are, of course, the best,’ The Doctor said hastily, in
order to prevent another performance of the Red Kang Chant.
There was not a male face in sight. A thought occurred to the
Doctor. ‘Maybe they’ll ask you to join up, Mel,’ he whispered
mischievously.
    ‘I hope not,’ Mel replied miserably.
    ‘Bin Liner.’ The first Kang who had spoken suddenly cut
across their whispers but the words made no immediate sense to
either the Doctor or Mel. ‘Bin Liner,’ she repeated firmly. A
response was expected but exactly what response was not clear.
Then the penny dropped. She was telling them her name. And
after she had done so for the third time, she indicated to the
other Red Kangs that they should unpin their two prisoners.
Mel hoped this was a good sign not a prelude to something
worse.
     ‘Now we’re getting somewhere.’ The Doctor, freed at last
from his undignified pose against the wall, was determined to
take the initiative. He raised his hat and putting on one of his
most ingratiating smiles, pointed at himself. ‘I am the Doctor.’
     The other leading Kang stepped forward. ‘Fire Escape,’ she
announced.
     ‘Good names.’ This rather banal remark seemed to please
the Kangs and the Doctor, growing in confidence, offered his
hand to be shaken. But no hand reached out to grasp it. Indeed,
the Red Kangs seemed to regard his gesture with great suspicion
and even raised their crossbows threateningly again. The Doctor
stood there nonplussed.
     ‘I only want to be friendly,’ he protested to the still blank
faces. ‘To say hello,’ he added, gesturing frantically to indicate
his good intentions.
     At some point during the Doctor’s performance, to his relief,
some of the Kangs obviously realised what he was talking about.
‘He wants to how you do,’ Fire Escape explained to the slower
ones. ‘Do we?’
     There was a moment’s hesitation before the other Kangs
gave approval. And then Fire Escape started one of the oddest
forms of everyday greeting Mel had ever witnessed. It reminded
her of a very slow, rather menacing version of the game of pat-a-
cake she used to play at school. She was very thankful that it was
the Doctor who would have to respond and not her. Fire Escape
was deadly serious during the whole ritual and yet the memory
of her childhood games made Mel want to giggle.
     The Doctor, however, coped splendidly. He managed to
return the greeting exactly, movement for movement, and even
added a few flourishes of his own with his hat which seemed to
go down rather well with the Kangs. Before very long he had
made the full formal acquaintance of not just Bin Liner and Fire
Escape but most of the other Kangs as well. Fortunately, it was
not necessary, it appeared, to have to go through the whole
greeting ceremony with everybody or else the proceedings
would have taken a very long time indeed.
     ‘But what about Mel here?’ the Doctor enquired when the
formalities were over. ‘None of the Kangs have said how you do
to her.’
     There was a pause. Fire Escape shook her head. ‘You we
like, Doctor,’ she announced. ‘What you wear is high fabshion
and icehot for an old one.’
     ‘Thank you very much,’ the Doctor replied, not absolutely
sure of the exact meaning of these words but getting the general
drift. ‘But clothes don’t maketh the man, you know.’
     ‘No,’ agreed Bin Liner. ‘But all Kangs have colours. Blue.
Yellow. Red. What is Mel’s colour?’ she turned suspiciously
towards Mel, who felt all eyes trained on her now.
     ‘I don’t have a colour,’ she retorted, stung by the fact that
the Kangs had been deliberately ignoring her up till now. ‘And I
certainly don’t want to be a Kang.’
     ‘We don’t want you to be a Kang,’ Fire Escape snapped back
fiercely. ‘Not a Red Kang.’ It was a cue for the Red Kangs to
start their chant again and, much to the Doctor and Mel’s
dismay, start it they did. The Doctor had to raise his voice to
make himself heard over the din. Finally it subsided as quickly as
it had begun.
     ‘Look,’ the Doctor began when quiet was restored. ‘I think
now we’ve been introduced, some explanations are in order. We
are visitors to Paradise Towers. Only just arrived. You can’t
expect Mel to understand what you’re talking about.’
     ‘No visitors.’ Bin Liner’s remark came out so swiftly and so
fiercely that the Doctor didn’t at first catch its import.
     ‘Pardon?’
     ‘No visitors,’ Bin Liner repeated. Again, she seemed to
regard the captives as fools for not understanding her. ‘No ball
games. No flyposts. No visitors.’ They were the sort of words Mel
was used to seeing on noticeboards back home but Bin Liner was
repeating them now with a deadly seriousness.
     ‘You mean visitors aren’t allowed?’ the Doctor enquired
patiently. He hoped that he and Mel were not just about to be
punished for infringing some obscure by-law of Paradise
Towers.
     Bin Liner shook her head. ‘No visitors ever.’
     ‘Not since time start,’ added Fire Escape.
     All was becoming clearer. The Kangs had quite simply never
seen any visitors. Mel didn’t like to think too closely about what
might have happened to any tourists who had been tempted by
by seeing the video brochure before her to sample the delights
of Paradise Towers. She suspected they had not had the most
satisfactory of holidays.
     The Doctor meanwhile was thinking more about the
present. ‘There’s always a first time, you know,’ he insisted. ‘Not
everyone you come across is going to be a Kang.’
     ‘No,’ Fire Escape agreed. ‘There are old ones. And
Caretakers. And –’
     ‘Ware tongue!’ Bin Liner interrupted fiercely. Fire Escape
bit her lip and lapsed into silence.
     ‘And?’ The Doctor’s eyes were agleam with curiosity. There
was nothing more likely to get him interested than discovering
something that somebody didn’t want him to know. But this
time there was no way of finding out what Fire Escape had been
about to say. Bin Liner’s warning had been enough. The Doctor
had to turn his attention to what the Kangs were prepared to tell
him. He asked therefore about the Caretakers they had
mentioned.
     ‘They wipe away our wallscrawl,’ Bin Liner explained.
‘Chase us down carrydoors. Catch us if they can.’
     ‘I see,’ the Doctor nodded. ‘But all the young ones are
Kangs?’
     ‘Yes.’
     ‘Young girls I should say, of course,’ the Doctor corrected
himself. ‘There aren’t any boys around, are there?’
     ‘Boys?’ Fire Escape’s face was blank. The other Kangs’ faces
too. ‘What are boys?’ Her face wrinkled in puzzlement. The
concept was clearly new to her. ‘There are old ones, and the
Caretakers, and the Kangs and the –’ But this time she stopped
herself and the Doctor was still none the wiser. He was
beginning to suspect there was a strong possibility he would
never be. Indeed, he was also beginning to think there was
something to be said for Mel’s notion of looking for some other
planet with a swimming pool. The crossbows were not
reassuring. It was time to make an exit. Mel, he noticed, was
already trying to edge herself nearer to the TARDIS.
     It was worth a try anyway. The Doctor smiled brightly and
edged with her. ‘Well, I must say, it’s been nice meeting you but
I think it’s time we ought to be on our way. Don’t you think so,
Mel?’
     ‘Yes, Doctor, not a moment to lose,’ she agreed heartily. The
TARDIS was only some thirty paces away but those thirty paces
lay past a whole crowd of Kangs. Mel and the Doctor prepared
themselves to run for it. But the Kangs were far too quick. They
sensed what their captives were going to do before they even
began to do it and blocked their paths. I suppose, the Doctor
thought sardonically, when you live in a nightmare like Paradise
Towers, you have to learn to act quickly.
     ‘We heard you talk of the pool,’ Bin Liner announced,
coming right up to the Doctor. Acute hearing too, he noted to
himself.
     ‘The great Pool in the Sky.’ Fire Escape spoke the words
with a great deal of reverence and not a little fear. It was the first
indication Mel and the Doctor had that the swimming pool they
had so lightly selected might have a much deeper significance
for the inhabitants of Paradise Towers. It was useless, however,
to try and argue that their overheard conversation had been
perfectly harmless. They had said enough to convince the Kangs
that they were not to be let go.
     ‘You’re coming to our Hide-In.’ Bin Liner announced. She
gave a gesture of command. Experienced hands grasped them
and, before they knew what had happened, the Doctor and Mel
had their hands tied neatly and firmly behind their backs. Being
bundled up in this way was marginally preferable to being
impaled by metal arrows but still didn’t make them feel at ease.
     ‘I see the art of knot-tying hasn’t died out here anyway,’ the
Doctor muttered ruefully. ‘I wonder if the Blue Kangs behave
like this?’
     ‘I thought they liked you,’ Mel returned in some
puzzlement.
     ‘They liked my clothes,’ the Doctor corrected, remembering
the Kangs had dubbed them ‘high fabshion’, whatever that
meant. ‘It’s clearly not enough on its own.’
     ‘Are they tied and true?’ Bin Liner had been watching the
execution of her orders with an expert eye. The Red Kangs
nodded. Fire Escape, meanwhile, was otherwise occupied. The
Doctor’s ever-inquisitive eye tried to study what she was up to
but it wasn’t easy with the scrum of Kangs around him. She
appeared to be using some sort of telephone. But a phone
concealed artfully in a battered old mechanical drinks dispenser.
Presumably this was to hide its existence from the Kang’s
enemies, which appeared to be legion.
     Whatever she was hearing on the phone had Fire Escape
worried. She summoned Bin Liner over. ‘Red Kang Eye-Spy
says we can’t go through the usual carrydoor. Blue Kangs out
and lurking.’
     Bin Liner was thoughtful. ‘And the Yellows?’
     Fire Escape listened again. Her face became grave as she
turned to her companion. ‘No Yellows. All unalive.’
     ‘All.’ Bin Liner echoed her in an awed voice.
     ‘All.’ Fire Escape put down the receiver in silence. This was
news they had obviously not expected to hear from their lookout
and it had taken them by surprise. Suddenly the two girls looked
very young and rather frightened.
     ‘Excuse me –’ the Doctor called out as politely as he could.
     ‘What?’ Fire Escape was again the proud, warlike, ever-
vigilant Red Kang, who feared nobody.
     ‘Are you saying a whole tribe of Kangs has been wiped out –
er – made unalive – just like that?’ The Doctor could not keep
the shock out of his voice. Fire Escape nodded her head in
agreement. ‘But why?’ the Doctor pressed. ‘You didn’t kill them
did you?’
     The suggestion shocked Fire Escape into speech. ‘To make
unalive is not part of the Kang game.’ She paused and then
added with a firmness that was totally convincing. ‘No ball
games. No flyposts. No wipeouts.’
     ‘Then who does it?’ the Doctor urged. ‘The Blue Kangs?
The Caretakers? Who?’
     ‘It takes place.’ Fire Escape would not discuss the subject
further. The Doctor sensed much that was unspoken which
would only be discussed when he was out of earshot. For the
moment, the Red Kang leaders found relief from their worries
in frenzied activity. It was time for the band to leave the Square.
     ‘We’ve been out in the open spaces too long.’ Bin Liner was
keeping a wary look-out now and the Doctor realised how open
to attack they all would be in the Square if any of their foes did
appear. The Kangs confused him. They were such an odd
mixture of toughness and vulnerability.
     ‘We must go. Ware Blue Kangs.’ Fire Escape surveyed the
party with its two prisoners, hands well tied, at its centre, all
ready now for departure. She raised her hand and made a sign,
a sort of blessing or good-luck gesture for the whole group.
‘Build High for Happiness.’
     ‘Build High for Happiness.’ The other Kangs repeated the
gesture and then they were off. Bundled unceremoniously
along, up rickety steps and through dingy, ill-smelling corridors,
Mel and the Doctor caught only glimpses of what Paradise
Towers had become. But it confirmed everything they had
feared from that first sight at the door of the TARDIS. The once
clean, confidently planned and well-equipped planet was a
nightmare of decay and destruction.
     ‘Sorry about the pool, Mel.’ They were all crossing a narrow
walkway now, high above a litter-strewn square all too like the
one they had recently left.
     ‘That’s all right, Doctor.’ Mel thought it was rather generous
of the Doctor to apologise since she was the one who had insisted
on coming here in the first place. The leading Kangs were nearly
across the walkway now. Ahead was a dark archway. Beyond that
it was impossible to see.
     ‘Caretakers! Run!’
     Suddenly the whole line of Kangs dissolved and scattered.
Just in time those at the front had given the warning. A group of
heavily built men in uniforms rushed out of the gloom behind
the archway.
     ‘All right, you Wallscrawlers, let’s be having you!’
     It was lucky for the Kangs that they were young and fit and
these men were older and paunchier or they would all have
certainly been caught. As it was, the Kangs had to scramble
nimbly down stairs or through broken windows to evade them.
Mel instinctively followed the other girls. Her tied hands
impeded her progress but somehow she found her way back
down the stairs and then managed to lose her pursuers in the
mass of corridors that led off the square. Kangs were all about
her but for the moment none of them had the time or the will to
question her or prevent her escape.
     She had been sure the Doctor was right behind her when
she was running down the steps. He was after all remarkably
light on his feet for a Time Lord. It was only when she stopped
to draw a breath and turned to congratulate the Doctor on their
successful escape that she discovered, with a sudden sickening
shock, the Doctor was no longer with her. She was well and truly
alone in Paradise Towers.

‘Who are you?’ The speaker was without doubt the leader of the
uniformed attackers. A pompous, literal-minded, unintelligent
sort of fellow, the Doctor decided very quickly. But then the
Doctor was not going to feel well-disposed towards anybody
whose minions had dragged him ignominiously from the spot at
the bottom of the stairs where he had fallen, head over heels, in
the attempt to escape.
    ‘Well?’
    The Doctor, brushing the dust from his coat and discovering
to his relief that his umbrella was unharmed, decided to ignore
the question. ‘Are you the Caretakers?’
    ‘Yes.’ The middle-aged Caretaker looked very pleased with
himself. He had a very high opinion of his position, all too
apparently. The leader of the Caretakers perhaps, the Doctor
wondered. Probably not, he decided. The man had all the signs
of being a good, unquestioning second-in-command. No leader
he. Still, after the threats and the arrows, there was something
solid and comforting about the Caretakers. Their grey uniforms,
tattered now, with soiled gold braiding and epaulettes half
hanging off, must once have been rather smart. Nothing very
military about them, of course. More like the sort of uniforms
that the Doctor had seen on commissionaires outside smart
London hotels on one of his visits to twentieth-century Earth.
Maybe it was not such a bad thing to have been found by them.
      ‘And you Caretakers take care? Of people too?’ he enquired.
      ‘Maybe.’
      ‘Well,’ the Doctor decided. ‘You seem to be our safest bet for
the moment. Don’t you think so, Mel?’
      Mel was not there. Perhaps it was not very logical of the
Doctor to expect her still to be there with him after all the frantic
activity of the last few minutes but it did come as a surprise to
realise she was nowhere in sight. He looked all about him but he
could get no glimpse either of Mel or of a single Red Kang.
      ‘Mel? Mel? Where are you?’ The Doctor’s voice rang out
across the square but the only reply was a faint echo. ‘I must find
Mel.’ The Doctor started to move off in the most likely direction,
the direction he had been making for himself when they were
still together.
      ‘No, no, sunbeam,’ the Caretaker snapped. ‘You’re coming
with us.’ The Doctor found himself lifted up almost bodily by
two of the burlier Caretakers and pulled off in the opposite
direction to the one he wanted to go.
      ‘Mel! Mel!’ The Doctor tried to glance back before he was
dragged off on yet another enforced tour of Paradise Towers.
Mel can take care of herself, he consoled himself. She won’t
come to any harm. I’ll be able to give these fellows the slip before
too long and we’ll get together as arranged. It’s a good thing
that I made Mel make that agreement about meeting up at the
pool.
    Even Time Lords sometimes take credit for things they
didn’t think of themselves. The memory of the arrangement was
enough to put him back in good spirits, anyway, as the
Caretakers lead him away. It took him some time to remember
that he had no idea what he was being led to.
                            3
                      Tea and Cakes
‘Cooee! Would you care for a cup of tea?’
     At first Mel thought she was hearing things. She was sitting
dejectedly in a grimy ill-lit corridor in Paradise Towers and
someone was offering her a cup of tea. It was so unlikely Mel
thought her mind must be going.
     ‘I said, would you care for a cup of tea?’
     But no, there was the voice again. Mel looked along the
corridor to where the voice appeared to be coming from. And,
sure enough, standing there by an open door was a tiny, sweet-
looking old lady. Her dress was somewhat bizarre, it was true,
made up of bits and pieces of clothing in bright colours which
didn’t quite match, but she looked friendly and kind. And a cup
of tea really would be very welcome.
     ‘Thank you.’ Mel got up, still rather dazed after her recent
experiences, and moved towards the welcoming door. The old
lady was carrying on a whispered conversation with someone
inside and there were sounds of frenzied clearing-up. If Mel had
been less tired, she might have wondered why the old lady
prevented her from entering immediately. Over her hostess’s
shoulder, she did catch a glimpse of a capacious female figure
disposing of the remnants of some meal or other. And her
activity was followed by the whirr of something which sounded
very much like a waste disposal unit. That was all.
     ‘My friend, Tabby, is just tidying up,’ explained the little old
lady. ‘We’re both very house-proud, you see. Particularly when
we have guests.’ The whirring sounds inside stopped abruptly
and the lady smiled encouragingly. ‘I think it’s all right to go in
now.’ She took Mel by the arm and led her over the threshold.
‘I’m Tilda, by the way, what’s your name?’
     ‘Mel.’
     ‘Mel,’ repeated Tilda with relish. ‘What a sweet name.’
There was something about the way she said the words that
didn’t ring quite right even to Mel’s tired ears. But the appeal of
peace and quiet and tea was too strong for her.
     The flat Mel was shown into was unlike anything she had yet
seen in Paradise Towers. For a start, it was all sparkling clean
and bright, with its cooker, its work surfaces and its waste
disposal unit all gleaming white and its carpets free from stain or
grime. And then there were the decorations. The flat was
cluttered with them. Ducks on the wall. Huge garish flower
vases. A glass topped table. Onyx ashtrays everywhere. There
was even a bird cage with a budgerigar chirping away in it. The
owners of the flat were undoubtedly great nestbuilders. Mel
wondered how they could have survived amidst the squalor
outside.
     ‘Mel, this is Tabby.’ Mel recognised the figure who had been
scurrying about previously. Another old lady, dressed in a
similar multi-coloured way, but this one was much larger, and,
Mel couldn’t help thinking, slightly more alarming. It was the
front teeth, Mel decided, as she was introduced. They were
unusually prominent, unusually strong-looking and very sharp.
Rat’s teeth, Mel thought, but then decided that was a very rude
thing to think, especially as Tabby seemed every bit as friendly
and welcoming as Tilda.
     ‘Come in and make yourself comfortable.’ the larger of the
two ladies cooed, gesturing towards the shiny leatherette three-
piece suite. And then she saw that Mel’s hands were still tied.
‘We can’t allow that, can we, Tilda?’
     ‘Certainly not,’ Tilda concurred. ‘Sit down, my dear, and let
Tabby untie you. And I’ll put the kettle on.’ She skipped over to
the kitchen section of the flat with surprising agility for one of
her years.
     ‘You must have been having a horrid time, you poor girl,’
remarked Tabby while she was dexterously freeing the hands of
the seated Mel. ‘Who did this to you?’
     ‘The Kangs,’ Mel answered. ‘The Red Kangs.’
     ‘Tut, tut,’ Tabby said, shaking her head. ‘Those Kangs are
naughty girls.’ A suspicion suddenly entered her head. ‘You’re
not a Kang, are you?’
     Mel denied it hotly.
     ‘We didn’t think you were somehow,’ Tilda put in as she
bustled around getting the tea things ready. ‘They’re nasty,
untrusting girls who would never take a cup of tea from
harmless old folk like us, would they, Tabby?’
     ‘No,’ Tabby agreed, as she finished untying Mel. ‘Mel’s not
at all like a Kang. She’s a nice, polite, clean, well-spoken girl. Just
the sort we like.’
     ‘Excuse me –’ Mel began, but before she could go on, Tabby
had turned to Tilda and said, ‘There you are, what did I say,
lovely manners. Saying “Excuse me” before she asks a question.’
Tabby turned back and fixed Mel with her large attentive eyes.
‘What was it, dear?’
     ‘I was going to ask who you were,’ Mel explained.
     ‘We’re Tilda and Tabby, dear,’ replied a puzzled Tilda.
‘We’ve already told you.’
     ‘No, no,’ Mel persisted. ‘I mean, like the Kangs are the
Kangs and the Caretakers are the –’
     The penny finally dropped. ‘Oh, I see. Silly us,’ Tabby
giggled. ‘We’re the Rezzies. Short for Residents. Well, some of
the Rezzies anyway. We’ve quite a few like-minded friends here
and there in the Towers.’
     Now she had taken in her surroundings and her strange
hostesses, Mel was starting to wonder more about where they
fitted in. ‘Have you always lived here?’
     ‘We’ve been here for ever such a long time if that’s what you
mean. How about you?’
     ‘Oh, I’m just visiting,’ Mel answered swiftly.
     ‘A visitor?’ Tabby’s sharp eyes examined her wonderingly.
‘Well, well, it must be a long time since the Towers saw any of
those, eh, Tilda?’
     ‘It takes you back, doesn’t it?’ sighed Tilda as she transferred
some very odd-looking cakes onto doily-covered plates.
     ‘Does it?’ Mel’s curiosity was returning by leaps and bounds
now she was feeling more relaxed. ‘What was it like before?’
     ‘Never mind about that now,’ Tilda chided. She brought
over the tea things from the kitchen area and placed them on
the glass-topped table in front of Mel. ‘Have some tea and cakes.’
     The cakes looked very rich and very fattening. They were
also of shapes and colours that Mel had never seen before. But
that didn’t stop her mouth from watering. She realised how
hungry she was feeling. Maybe questions could wait.
     ‘You’re a thin little thing, aren’t you?’ Tabby remarked,
pushing a plate of the cakes towards her. ‘Don’t worry, dear,
Tilda and I will feed you up.’
     Mel selected a gooey confectionary monstrosity from the pile
and bit into it. It tasted delicious. She would really have been
very content if only she had been sure that the Doctor was safe.
Tilda smiled as she tucked in. Tabby smiled too. Rat’s teeth she
thought again. And then forgot about it.

The Doctor meanwhile was being frog-marched through the
corridors of the Towers at a tremendous pace by the over-
zealous Caretakers. They had untied his hands but that was
small consolation when he was being pulled along so fast that he
was becoming quite breathless from the rush. He very quickly
gathered that the leading Caretaker did everything by a well-
thumbed rule book he carried in the inside pocket of his tattered
uniform. The one word not found in this book was ‘initiative’.
The Caretaker would not have sneezed without checking on
whether the rule book allowed it. And the Doctor’s first
impressions were confirmed from the scraps of conversation
between his captors. This was no Chief Caretaker. This was the
Deputy Chief Caretaker. The trusty right-hand man to
somebody far cleverer and more powerful.
     Every time the Doctor tried to stop and examine something,
he was unceremoniously hauled away from it. It annoyed him
having his natural curiosity frustrated and, as he became more
and more breathless, he decided the time had come to put in for
a rest.
     ‘Surely the rules will allow us to slow down just for a
moment,’ he protested to the Deputy Chief. ‘You may have been
down this corridor hundreds of times but I haven’t and I’d
appreciate a moment to get my breath back and take in my
surroundings. Will the rules run to that?’
     But the inevitable rule book was already out of the Deputy
Chief’s pocket and he was thumbing through it laboriously. The
Doctor waited impatiently. ‘Well?’
     ‘You’re allowed to stop for one and a half minutes for every
three thousand footsteps walked,’ the Deputy Chief eventually
concluded. ‘That means you can stand still for a while.’ The
exact calculations for how long were clearly beyond him.
     ‘Very generous of you,’ the Doctor returned sarcastically.
He took in the filthy and gloomy street in which they were
standing. ‘It must be a job keeping all these corridors clean and
tidy.’
     The irony was wasted on the Deputy Chief. ‘Indeed,’ he
agreed. ‘Especially the wallscrawl.’ He indicated the brightly
coloured paintings that covered every available wall space. The
Doctor recognised the work of the Kangs. ‘That’s what you call
them, isn’t it? Wallscrawlers?’
     The Deputy nodded. ‘Dirty little pests.’ He pointed to one
wall in particular. And what the Doctor saw there quite took his
breath away. The scrawl showed a girl dressed in yellow being
threatened by two large white mechanical claws.
     ‘It looks like a Kang and something attacking her. Some sort
of machine? With a claw?’ The Doctor knew instinctively that
this was important.
     ‘The Wallscrawlers make up a lot of silly pictures,’ the
Deputy put in swiftly, obviously hoping to close the conversation.
     ‘Let’s hope they are just silly pictures,’ the Doctor returned,
unconvinced. And then as he bent to examine the Kang
wallscrawl more closely, the Doctor heard a sound, low at first,
growing in volume. A soft mechanical whirring, regular but
somehow menacing.
     ‘What’s that?’ He turned questioningly to the Deputy.
     ‘What’s what?’ The Deputy was suddenly very shifty, trying
to pretend that there was no sound there at all. Then as the
sound grew louder, he started to bluster. ‘Look, sunshine, if
there was anything wrong, there’d be instructions about how to
deal with it in here, wouldn’t there?’
     But the Doctor was no longer paying attention. Down the
corridor moving swiftly towards them was a large, gleaming
white, wheeled robot, with headlights and blades swishing away
at its sides. The Doctor was immediately fascinated as he was by
all new encounters.
     ‘Ah, I see,’ he said, his eyes taking in the robot’s contours.
‘Some sort of robotic cleaner. With oltrimotive bi-curval scraping
blades. Impressive workmanship.’
     ‘You don’t understand –’ the Deputy Chief began, anxious
now the Cleaner was approaching, to leave as soon as possible.
Even his slow-moving brain sensed something was very wrong
and he began to recall all the scaremongering that had been
going the rounds of the Caretakers’ Headquarters. But,
unfortunately for him, his words had no effect on the Doctor
who was heading straight towards the robotic cleaner.
     ‘Now let’s have a look at this oltrimotive blade, shall we?’ the
Doctor urged, edging closer and closer in his curiosity. The
Deputy and the other Caretakers stood in a state of shock,
unable either to help or hinder him. But they did see something
the Doctor didn’t. As he tried to look at the flashing steel blades
protruding from its sides, the Cleaner had released from its top
a large mechanical claw. Not unlike the one in the Wallscrawl.
And menacing enough to suggest its purpose was not just to
assist in picking up rubbish. The claw hovered threateningly
above the Doctor’s head ready to pounce as soon as the Cleaner
was sufficiently close.
     The Doctor’s survival instincts were strong. Which was just
as well. At almost the last moment he looked up and saw the claw
reaching out towards him. He gave a gasp. The claw lunged
towards him and he managed to evade its grasp and scamper off
down the corridor to where the band of Caretakers stood
transfixed.
     ‘Do you do what I usually do in these circumstances?’ the
Doctor shouted as he ran towards them.
     ‘What’s that?’ the Deputy Chief shouted back, galvanised
into action by the sudden turn of events.
     ‘Run!’ called the Doctor. And run they all did as fast as they
could. Prisoner and guards were suddenly all in the same boat.
And the Cleaner with its menacing claw pursued them down the
long deserted streets. There was much in this encounter that
puzzled the Doctor. But there were times to sit and think. And
times to run for your life.
     ‘Quick, into the lift!’ The Deputy Chief pointed to the end of
the street where the lift door lay tantalisingly open and waiting.
It was not far now but none of the runners had much energy
left. While not that far behind them the Robotic Self-Activating
Megapodic Mark 7Z Cleaner rolled relentlessly and speedily
along in pursuit.
     Somehow they all made it. Deputy, Doctor and Caretakers
were packed sweating into the confined lift space. The Doctor
looked at the control panel which informed them, correctly or
not, that they were on the 23rd floor.
     ‘I’m surprised any of the lifts in this place work,’ he
remarked.
     ‘Most of them don’t,’ the Deputy replied, desperately
pushing at the start button on the panel. Nothing happened.
The doors didn’t shut. The indicator still read Floor 23. And the
Cleaner rolled along the street towards them with its claw at the
ready.
     The Deputy pushed the start button again, his rising panic
barely under control. The doors remained obstinately open. The
other Caretakers shifted uneasily. The Cleaner got closer.
     ‘Here. Let me.’ The Doctor decided it was time for action if
they were not all to suffer the fate of the young girl in the
wallscrawl. He for one had no intention of being clawed to death
by a robot. He gathered all his strength and pushed. There was
a pause. The Cleaner was nearly at the door now and flight was
hopeless.
     And then, in delayed response to the Doctor’s efforts, the
doors slid shut. The Cleaner was excluded and the lift was in
motion. The Doctor breathed a sigh of relief. The Caretakers
were looking considerably more cheerful. And the lift was
undoubtedly going upwards. Perhaps, the Doctor thought,
towards some explanations for the bizarre happenings and
extraordinary people he had experienced since entering
Paradise Towers.
    ‘I do hope Mel’s all right,’ he mused...

‘Well, of course, in the old days, it was very different, wasn’t it,
Tabby?’ The Rezzies were in full flood now that Mel was settled
and tucking in to all the fattening fare they had laid before her.
     ‘Very different,’ Tabby agreed, spooning huge dollops of
cream onto a green scone Mel was tackling. ‘Lovely clean
corridors. Nice fresh fountains. Airy lifts to go up and down the
Towers whenever you wanted to.’ She sighed. ‘Even the
Caretakers did their job properly in those days.’
     ‘What happened then?’ Mel was all attention.
     ‘Difficult to say really.’ Tabby spoke with a vagueness that
may or may not have been deliberate. Mel found it hard to tell.
‘My memory isn’t what it was. But one thing followed another.
And before we knew where we were, we were in the pickle we
are today.’
     Tilda looked wistful. ‘Everybody has to fend for themselves,
don’t they, Tabby? Take what they can find.’ And somehow or
other, this thought led her to offer another sticky cake to an
already well-filled Mel. From what they said the Rezzies could ill
afford to be so generous but they were so persistent that Mel
found it hard to say no without appearing to be rude. And with
every mouthful she ate, she got the ridiculous idea that Tabby’s
big rat teeth were getting longer and sharper.
     ‘So you were here from the beginning, were you?’
     ‘Oh yes,’ Tabby replied. ‘From when the Great Architect
finished Paradise Towers and all the youngsters and all the
oldsters were brought here.’
     ‘And the rest? The in-betweens?’
     Tabby wrinkled her brow. ‘I don’t quite recall. But I think
they had something else to do. A war to fight or something. It’s
all a very long time ago. I sometimes wonder whether we won
that war or not, Tilda.’
     Tilda shook her head sadly. ‘I don’t suppose we’ll ever
know.’
     ‘Probably not.’
     The Rezzies were silent and Mel saw an opportunity to ask
something that she had been wanting to ask for some time. ‘Do
either of you know anything about a swimming pool?’ She took a
large bite of her sticky cake.
     Again the Rezzies seemed unsure and again Mel could not
decide whether the uncertainty was real or assumed. ‘A
swimming pool?’ Tilda mused. ‘No, I don’t think so. Why do you
want to know?’
     ‘I have to meet someone there,’ Mel returned, hoping they
wouldn’t ask her to be more specific. But the Rezzies seemed
more concerned about the immediate situation. ‘You’d be far
better off forgetting about any pools and staying here with us,
Mel, dear,’ Tilda cooed. ‘Wouldn’t she, Tabby?’
     ‘Oh yes, Tilda’, Tabby agreed. ‘She can eat and eat to her
heart’s content and get nice and plump and healthy. Safe from
those nasty Kangs.’
     Mel was beginning to find this kindness a bit oppressive.
And she was beginning to worry about the Doctor. ‘Look,’ she
explained, ‘it’s very kind of you but I’m afraid I will have to go
once I’ve finished my tea. It’s very important that I find out
what’s happened to my friend.’
     ‘Oh nonsense, there’s no rush,’ Tilda urged. ‘Finish your
cake.’
     Tabby’s face burst into what was meant to be a reassuring
smile but somehow the front teeth made it rather disturbing
instead. ‘We’ll be very offended if you rush off so quickly, won’t
we, Tilda?’ Tilda nodded energetically.
     Mel felt herself weakening under the emotional blackmail.
‘Well, just a few more minutes maybe,’ she conceded.
     ‘That’s it, dear,’ Tilda said contentedly. ‘Plenty of time.’
     ‘All the time in the world,’ echoed Tabby. ‘Make the most of
the peace and quiet.’
     And then the peace and quiet were suddenly shattered.
There was a loud splintering sound and the flat’s front door was
smashed into innumerable pieces by a powerful unseen fist. All
three women turned in surprise.
     A large hole gaped now where the central wooden panel of
the door had been. And through that hole stepped a man.
Though not tall, he was an imposing figure with a rugged jaw,
piercing eyes and a powerful, muscular body. He was the
archetype of an action hero, Mel thought. The impression was
increased by his commando-style outfit, the strange tattoo on his
neck and the powerful-looking gun in his hand. He stood there
just inside the door, rather too conscious of the impression of
power and dynamism he was trying to create.
     When he spoke it was to Mel and his voice was deep and
strong. ‘Are these old ladies annoying you?’
     ‘No.’ Now she had got over her surprise, Mel realised that
she was rather annoyed with this intruder, with his assumption
of his right to interfere in other people’s business.
     The intruder tried again. He pointed to Tabby and Tilda.
‘Then are you annoying these old ladies?’
     ‘No, she isn’t,’ Tilda snapped, even more annoyed than Mel.
The stranger’s confident pose was beginning to crumble under
this lack of response. He was even starting to look somewhat
crestfallen. The old ladies, who apparently knew him of old,
pressed their advantage.
     ‘I do wish you’d stop breaking through our door to try and
save us,’ Tabby exclaimed. ‘We’ve had to repair it three times
already. It’s not as if we’ve ever been in any danger.’
     ‘Except from bits of door flying all over the place,’ added
Tilda.
     Mel’s curiosity was roused. ‘Look, who exactly are you?’ she
asked the newcomer.
     He drew himself up and struck a pose that showed off how
big his biceps were. The jaw was stuck out and the voice as self-
consciously deep and authoritative as when he first came in.
‘The name’s Pex,’ he announced proudly. ‘I put the world of
Paradise Towers to rights.’
     And that, for the moment, was all Mel got out of him.
     However, the excuse to leave now tea was interrupted was
too good to miss and she started to say her goodbyes to Tabby
and Tilda. They were very reluctant to let her go and Mel found
herself once again finding their solicitude rather on the
oppressive side.
     ‘It does seem a pity when we were so comfortable,’ Tilda
kept saying.
     ‘And you mustn’t be put off by him,’ Tabby added, with a
withering glance at Pex who remained stuck in his heroic pose
blocking the way out.
     Mel glanced at him and decided that Pex wasn’t really
alarming at all. He was actually a bit ridiculous. ‘Don’t worry
about that,’ she assured the Rezzies. ‘But I do have to find my
friend – and the pool.’
     ‘You will come back and see us though, won’t you?’ Tilda
urged.
     ‘Maybe bring your friend,’ Tabby put in with a gleam in her
eye Mel didn’t quite understand.
     ‘Of course, I will,’ she assured them. ‘And thank you for
everything.’
     And she stepped through the hole in the front door Pex had
created, feeling oddly rather relieved to be away from these kind
old ladies. However, she was not to feel relieved and alone for
very long. As they came to wave goodbye to Mel, the Rezzies
very firmly ordered Pex from their flat. And now as she made
her way back down the street, Mel became aware that she was
being followed.
    ‘Just a moment,’ Pex was calling.
    Mel turned to face him, liking him no more than before.
‘What is it now?’
    ‘You are going on a difficult journey,’ he announced
smugly, striking another pose designed to show off his muscular
development. ‘You need me to protect you.’
    ‘I most certainly do not.’
    ‘But that’s my job. I am Pex. I put the world of Paradise
Towers to rights.’
    Pex’s conceit seemed to be immeasurable and Mel found
herself especially annoyed by the assumption that she wasn’t able
to manage on her own without this lumbering male tagging
along. She said as much and, again, Pex started to wilt under her
indignation. It was only when she caught a glimpse of this
vulnerability that she found she could like him a little more.
Perhaps sensing this, Pex tried again to persuade her to take
him along. There was something almost plaintive in his tone
now and Mel began to realise that in some odd way it was very
important to him that she accepted him.
    ‘If you don’t need a protector then you might need a guide.
Somebody who knows their way about.’
    He had a point. Paradise Towers was a vast baffling building
and Mel hadn’t begun to work out how it was planned. ‘All
right,’ she agreed, ‘you’ve got the job.’
    She walked off down the street and Pex, happier now she
had accepted him, followed on just behind. It was true that a
guide would be helpful in tracing the Doctor and that Pex must
know the ill-lit and confusing streets a lot better than she did. All
the same, Mel couldn’t help wondering whether she might live
to regret letting this self-appointed protector tag along.
                             4
                         The Chief
Somehow the Chief Caretaker had the feeling that all was not
exactly as it should be. And for somebody as methodical in his
ways as the Chief Caretaker it was not a very comfortable feeling
to have.
     Normally it gave him a nice, snug glow of satisfaction to sit
there in his Headquarters surrounded by screens that told him
what was going on in every single corner of Paradise Towers.
Everything ran according to the rules in the rule book and none
of the Caretakers ever questioned anything. Not even who had
first invented all the rules in the rule book. The only thorn in his
flesh was the Wallscrawlers and, though they were sometimes a
nuisance, he could usually keep them in order with the odd
surprise raid like the one he had ordered that morning on
Fountain of Happiness Square. All in all, life in Paradise Towers
seemed to run on the well-oiled lines that he had laid down for it
and all was well with the world.
     Not, of course, that even a Chief Caretaker didn’t need a
spot of relaxation. For that he had adopted a pet in the
Basement of the Towers whom he visited now and then. The
Chief Caretaker couldn’t really remember quite how contact had
first been made but now he spent a great deal of his waking life
thinking about how best to serve his pet. Pets often have good
appetites and this particular pet had a mountainous appetite
which the Chief Caretaker did his best to satisfy. After all, like
any proud owner, he wanted his pet to grow up big and strong.
A particularly satisfying part of the morning had been spent in
despatching to the Basement in a Robotic Self-activating
Megapodic Mark 7Z Cleaner the remains of the now defunct
Caretaker number 345 stroke 12 subsection 3. The Chief had
watched the Cleaner carrying its load on one of his screens and
thought what a tasty little snack Caretaker number 345 stroke 12
subsection 3 would be for his pet. Even tastier than the Yellow
Kang he had despatched earlier. Somehow moments like that
gave the extra satisfaction that made his demanding job really
worthwhile.
     So where had his feeling of unease come from? That was the
question and he didn’t really have an answer. Perhaps even he
could not really believe that a world as well-regulated as Paradise
Towers, a world so well tailored to his own personal
convenience, could stay exactly that way for ever. Perhaps it was
not given to a man to have a powerful, rewarding job, obedient
subordinates and a lovely secret pet to care for. He had no
positive evidence to fuel his anxieties.
     The Chief sat staring at his screens. In one a Caretaker
moved down Nitrate Street removing Wallscrawl. In another two
Rezzies scuttled past on their way home. On a third a lift, which
had been jammed on Floor 207 for as long as anyone could
remember, stayed jammed on Floor 207. On several screens the
Chief’s beloved Cleaners went about their work. Cleaning, that
was. The Cleaners’ special services were only occasionally called
on and with great discretion. The other Caretakers must not be
upset...
     The Chief was a man of middle height dressed in a once
grand, grey uniform and cap, decorated with braid and insignia,
now somewhat faded and dusty. The Chief was not a vain man
and there were more important things than sartorial elegance.
His sallow complexion and drooping black moustache showed
signs of neglect too. The Chief was not keen on fresh air or
healthy exercise. He regarded such activities as futile, even
actively harmful.
     As his bloodshot but alert eyes scanned the screens, the
Chief began to feel calmer. Everything was proceeding just as
normal. What had he got to worry about?
     And then the screen that covered the approach to the
Headquarters itself flickered into life. That meant someone was
approaching. The Deputy, of course, returning from his raid on
Fountain of Happiness Square. The Chief Caretaker leant
forward to see more clearly whether the Deputy had taken any
Kangs prisoners. Kangs, after all, were tasty snacks for the
Chief’s pet. Smaller than Caretakers but less fatty.
     There was a figure with the Deputy. The Chief could see
that much. But it wasn’t a Kang or a Rezzie. It was a man, oddly
attired, carrying an umbrella. A sudden tremor went through
the Chief as the man came more clearly into view.
     It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be.
     He passed a hand over his brow thoughtfully. It could be.

The journey in the lift had not been a pleasant experience for
the Doctor. There was barely room to breathe, clamped between
the sweating and obese Caretakers. And the lift itself juddered so
much that he expected it to stop completely at any moment. All
in all, he was extremely relieved to be out of it and walking down
another street, however ill-lit and dirty, on what was obviously
the final leg of his journey with the Deputy.
     They arrived at a very solid-looking metal door. The Deputy
produced a small square from his pocket and inserted it in a tiny
slot so well concealed that the Doctor would never have noticed
it of its own accord.
     The door slid open and the Doctor was bundled inside.
Soon he was in a large room whose walls were covered in screens
relaying pictures from every part of the Towers. The multiplying
and constantly changing images were dazzling at first.
     A figure seated studying these screens turned as the Doctor
was hustled in by the Deputy, who was full of the importance of
the occasion. The figure rose and the Doctor came face to face
with a man whose very presence breathed an air of authority for
all the seediness of his appearance.
     The Deputy’s self-important explanations were brushed
aside. The Doctor’s release was ordered and the Caretakers took
a step back leaving their leader confronting the Doctor with an
odd, unexplained gleam in his eye.
     ‘Greetings,’ the Doctor began, simply in order to break the
silence.
     ‘Greetings,’ the other man’s face cracked into a less than
pleasant smile. ‘I am the Chief Caretaker.
     ‘And I am –’ the Doctor began. But he didn’t get any further
in his introduction. To his surprise he found his speech cut off
by the Chief Caretaker exclaiming enthusiastically, ‘No need to
tell me. I know who you are.’
     The Doctor stared. He had not realised his name was
already known here. But before he could ask more, the Chief
was off again, an enthusiastic torrent of words, addressed as
much to the waiting Caretakers as to the Doctor himself.
     ‘Oh yes, we have been waiting for this momentous visit for
so many years,’ he began, his bloodshot eyes lighting up with
enthusiasm. He patted the Doctor warmly on the back. ‘You are
the man who brought Paradise Towers to life. The visionary who
dreamed up its pools and lifts and squares. And now you have
returned to your creation.’
     He pressed his face closer to the Doctor’s, eyes agleam. ‘You
will make all those dilapidated lifts rise and fall as they have
never done before. All signs of wallscrawl will disappear from the
corridors of Paradise Towers. The floors will gleam. The
fountains will tinkle. The windows will shine. The grass will
grow. And all will be made as new.’
     The Doctor was so mesmerised by the ardour of this speech
that he found it impossible to interrupt it. But there was an
obvious misapprehension here and he had better put it right
before things got out of hand. He didn’t want to start on the
wrong foot. Now seemed the appropriate moment and he
opened his mouth to speak.
     But the Chief, oblivious of this, had now turned to the
attendant Caretakers. ‘Fellow Caretakers,’ he exclaimed, ‘do you
know who this is?’ Their silence showed all too clearly that they
didn’t. ‘This is the Great Architect returned to Paradise Towers.
Bid him welcome. All hail the Great Architect! All hail!’
     The Great Architect! Now the Doctor understood what the
mistake was. It was crucial that as soon as possible he explained
that he was not the Architect responsible for the Towers. Before
they asked him to make the lifts work or clean out the fountains.
Again, he tried to speak.
     ‘All hail! All hail the Great Architect!’
     The Caretakers had all taken up the Chief’s cry now,
completely drowning out the Doctor’s explanations. Obedient to
their Chief as ever, the Caretakers were putting their hearts into
it and considering what an unfit, ill-matched and shambolic
bunch they really were, the effect was remarkably stirring. What
a pity, the Doctor thought, they’ve got hold of the wrong end of
the stick.
     ‘What shall we do with him now then, Chief?’ The cheering
had subsided and the Deputy Chief had stepped forward
deferentially to receive the Chief’s orders.
     There was a brief pause while the Chief examined the
Doctor with the same disturbing gleam in his eye and a smile on
his lips. He patted the Doctor on the back amicably and then
gave the order, short, sharp and savage.
     ‘Kill him!’
     The contrast was so startling that the Doctor could scarcely
believe his ears. The misunderstanding had gone far enough.
     ‘Just a moment,’ he protested as loudly as he could. ‘Listen.’
     ‘Why?’ There was silence now and the Chief was icy cool.
     ‘I’m not the Great Architect. I’m the Doctor.’ Surely the
Chief wasn’t going to persist in this charade, the Doctor assured
himself.
     But he was. Now he was turning to the Caretakers and
bringing them into the debate. ‘He was always very artful, the
Great Architect,’ he explained, almost as an aside. And then as
casually as he had beckoned to the Deputy. ‘Make the
preparations will you?’
     ‘Yes Chief.’ There was no point in trying to convince the
Deputy that there had been a mistake. He waited for further
instructions from his boss.
     ‘The 327 Appendix Subsection 9 Death, I think,’ the Chief
announced judiciously, after some thought.
     ‘Very good, Chief.’ The Deputy was half way across the
room to grab hold of the Doctor again when a loud bleeping
sound started up. It was coming from the elaborate control
panel that stretched across one wall beneath the screens. When
he heard it, the Deputy stopped. It was the first hopeful sound
the Doctor had heard since entering the Caretakers’
Headquarters.
     ‘It would happen just now.’ With a weary sigh, the Chief
flicked up a switch on the panel and listened attentively to the
voice at the other end, inaudible to all but him. His face assumed
a concerned air though the Doctor, more observant in such cases
than the Caretakers, strongly suspected the concern was less
than sincere.
     ‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ the Chief kept on exclaiming
intermittently as the distant voice babbled on. ‘Poor Caretaker
number 345, stroke 12, subsection 3.’ He listened some more.
‘You want me to come now? But I’m in the middle of something
rather important.’ The voice became agitated and the Chief
more testy. ‘All right, all right,’ he conceded eventually, ‘there’s
no need to quote the rule book at me, Caretaker number 569,
stroke 14, subsection 8. I’ll come.’
    He flicked the switch back up again and turned pensively
back to the waiting room, all too obviously irritated by the
interruption.
    ‘Anything the matter?’ the Doctor enquired innocently.
    ‘Nothing that isn’t under control, thank you, Great
Architect,’ was the tart reply. The Chief called the Deputy over
and again there was that look of concern in his face that the
Doctor did not quite believe. The Deputy Chief, however,
obviously did.
    ‘An unfortunate accident has occurred to Caretaker number
345 stroke 12 subsection 3,’ the Chief announced gravely. ‘I am
required by the rulebook to go and investigate it. The 327
Appendix 3 Subsection 9 Death will be postponed until I return.
In the meantime, you will guard the Great Architect here with
your lives. Understand?’
    ‘Yes Chief,’ the Deputy nodded. ‘No problem.’
    A few moments later and the Chief Caretaker was gone. The
threat of the 327 Apendix 3 Subsection 9 Death, however, had
not. So thought the Doctor as he was led away to a bench and
seated on it between the Deputy and one of the biggest and
burliest of the other Caretakers. He had only his brain power to
rely on to help him out of this sticky situation. If the Chief had
remained, he would not have fancied his chances one bit. But
sandwiched between two large but not remarkably intelligent
dogsbodies of the Chief there might just be a chance. He
certainly hoped so.
‘Hail the Kang. Hail the unalive Kang. Yellow of colour but
brave and bold as a Kang should be.’
     The words of the lone Blue Kang were taken up and
repeated by the others.
     ‘Hail the Kang... Yellow of Colour but brave and bold as a
Kang should be... Brave and bold as a Kang should be...’
     Mel watched fascinated. In a corner of one of the squares of
Paradise Towers, a structure of metal scrap had been built,
improvised, no doubt, by scouring through the rubbish that
littered the surrounding corridors. The Blue Kangs were
circling it now, their eerie words building into a chant. From
where she was concealed, Mel had difficulty in making out what
they were saying. She strained her ears.
     ‘Yellow of colour but brave and bold as a Kang should be..
And then she noticed right on top of the pile of scrap, so
carefully and lovingly assembled, a yellow banner. Bloodstained,
she thought. Was this a ceremony then for a Yellow Kang? The
Red Kangs had told Mel and the Doctor that they were all
‘unalive’ so was this some sort of funeral celebration? It was the
only explanation that made sense.
     She could have asked Pex, who was by her side, also
flattened against the wall to evade detection. But she had already
begun to suspect that her own common sense would tell her as
much as he could. His attempts to guide her through the streets
of the Towers had not been encouraging. They had already
negotiated several dead ends and come across the same fountain
in the same square four times. At least they were now in a
different square. And the Blue Kangs’ ceremony had a
seriousness and even sadness that was impressive. They seemed
so young to have such a grasp of the need for mourning and
ritual.
     They were laying their metal crossbows around the Yellow
Kang’s funeral shrine now as a gesture of respect. The chanting
continued.
     ‘Brave and bold...’
     Pex coughed nervously. He had a point. They shouldn’t stay
here too long. Discovery would almost certainly lead to another
arrest and there was no guarantee that she would be as lucky in
evading the Blue Kangs as she had been with the Reds. Besides,
she had to find the Doctor.
     Stealthily she crept away. Inevitably Pex followed. The
chanting faded as they moved off down one of the streets that
led off the square. Mel had chosen it at random but she didn’t
feel she could do any worse in this than by following Pex’s
examples.
     They soon came to a new street, rather brighter and cleaner
than most. An unusually ornate type of streetlamp jutted from
its walls, spreading a softer, warmer light. Mel started to feel
more relaxed. The ceremony had brought home to her how
common death seemed to be in the Towers and the words of the
Blue Kang chant had lodged in her brain. She was glad to be in
a more cheerful environment.
     Unfortunately the ornate lamps with their wrought-iron
holders gave Pex a new confidence as well. He had been quite
subdued when they were in the Square but now he stopped and
called on Mel to stop too. Reluctantly Mel turned. From the
complacent expression on Pex’s face, she strongly suspected that
he was about to give her a demonstration of his talents. She had
already been delayed by several exhibitions of prowess and she
was in no mood for another. She had just got to hope it wouldn’t
waste too much time.
     ‘Mel – watch this!’ Pex sensed her impatience and added. ‘It
won’t take a moment.’ But, of course, it did. First there were the
physical preparations. Much flexing of arm muscles and
rhythmic deep breathing. Then there was a long pause while
Pex simply grasped the streetlamp he had selected and stood
there gathering his concentration. And then there was the
strenuous effort as he snapped the holder off from the wall. And
then there was even more strenuous and protracted effort of
bending and twisting the lamp with his bare hands. And finally
the triumphant throwing down of the stout, once-elegant fitment
now turned into a fantastic corkscrew of twisted metal.
     Once it was all over Pex assumed an air of casual
nonchalance as if it had cost him no effort at all.
     ‘Well?’ Mel had watched this display with increasing
impatience at its futility.
     ‘You have to be strong to do that,’ Pex protested. ‘And fit.
And trained. There aren’t many people who could do that.’
     ‘I can’t think of many who’d want to,’ Mel returned tartly.
     ‘But, Mel,’ Pex continued indignantly, ‘you don’t realise. I’m
a finely tuned fighting machine. I work out every day. Practise
martial arts. Run the length of seventeen carrydoors each
morning. I –’
     ‘Pex –’ Mel cut in, unable to contain herself any longer. ‘If
you could bend that back into shape and put it back where it
came from, that might be more useful. But you can’t, can you?’
     ‘That’s not my job. I’m Pex and –’
     Mel had heard this refrain countless times already. ‘I know,
you’re Pex and “you’re here to put the world of Paradise Towers
to rights”. Well, go ahead. I’ve got to find my friend. And I can’t
waste any more time.’
     She walked off down the street but Pex was soon following
after her. His persistence made her decide to be brutally frank.
As he caught up again, she found herself getting very angry.
     ‘Just tell me one thing, Pex,’ she began, ‘if you’re so
marvellous, why doesn’t anybody else in Paradise Towers want
your help? I should have thought there are plenty of wrongs to
put right here without bothering me. Or is everybody else so fed
up with you knocking down their doors and smashing their
street lights that they don’t want to have anything to do with
you?’
     Her anger had made her go too far. Pex’s square-jawed face
had started to crumple. She had guessed correctly. Pex was an
outcast. She should have guessed that from the contempt with
which the Rezzies had treated him. But the realisation actually
made her position more difficult. If he had simply been brutal
and stupid, she could have ditched him with an easy heart. But
instead, despite her exasperation, she kept feeling sorry for him.
And that was fatal for her plans of going it alone.

‘Shall I tell you what puzzles me most?’ The Doctor asked the
question brightly but knew there would be no reply.
     The Deputy on his right and the burly Caretaker on his left
sat there stolidly and impassively, repeatedly refusing to rise to
the bait. The Doctor, however, persisted. Perhaps, sooner or
later, he would touch the right chord and one or other of his
jailers would open up. Besides, he wanted very much to get to
the bottom of what was going on even if he was to suffer a 327
Appendix 3 Subsection 9 Death afterwards.
     ‘It’s those robotic cleaners we had such a nasty time with,’ he
continued, answering his own question. ‘Presumably they’re part
of the organisation of Paradise Towers like you Caretakers. They
clean it up and you look after law and order. So why did they
attack you?’
     Another question met with stony silence. ‘And another
thing,’ he persisted, ‘I don’t understand why you’re all so keen
to kill off the Great Architect. I’d’ve thought you’d be delighted
to have him here to put Paradise Towers back in good repair.
It’s peculiar, isn’t it?’
     The Deputy Chief’s only reply was to shift slightly on the
bench. The Doctor decided he had to try another tack. He
assumed a pitying expression. ‘I’d hate to have to live my whole
life by some boring old rule book as you do. You must get very
bored.’ He paused. ‘Well, do you?’
     ‘No.’ Not much of a speech, the Doctor thought, but it was a
start.
     ‘Never?’
     ‘Never.’
     Two replies to questions in a row. The Doctor was beginning
to have the germ of an idea, which, with luck on his side, might
just work. He decided to follow this more fruitful vein of
conversation. ‘I suppose how you guard me is in the rule book
too?’
     ‘Yes,’ the Deputy could not resist replying, ‘Regulation 47b
subsection 2.’
     ‘You know,’ the Doctor began, casually, ‘I’d be most
interested in taking a look at that rule book. If it’s not against the
rules.’ The Deputy pursed his lips. ‘After all I am a condemned
man.’
     A lengthy examination of certain sections of the well-
thumbed rule book now ensued. To the Doctor, it seemed
interminable. But he knew the Deputy Chief would do nothing
without the rule book and he had to be patient. Finally, the
Deputy looked up with grim satisfaction and announced, ‘We’ll
count it as your last request. You’re entitled to one if you’re
going to undergo a 327 Appendix 3 Subsection 9 Death.’ He
smirked as he ceremoniously handed the book over. ‘It’s not a
pretty way to go.’
     The Doctor took the rule book eagerly. He started to flick
through the pages, crammed with tiny printed columns of rules
and regulations to cover every conceivable eventuality from AIR
INTAKE to ZYGOPHYTES, but his mind was already racing on
to the next stage of his plan. He selected a page at random – it
seemed to concern mainly WINDOWCLEANING – and studied
it with apparent rapt attention. After a few minutes, he
exclaimed in amazed tones, ‘How extraordinary. It can’t be
true.’ The Deputy Chief was all attention at once but the Doctor
pretended not to notice. ‘No, no, it’s so unlikely, you couldn’t
possibly –’ he continued, shaking his head.
     The Deputy Chief was nettled by the implied criticism. ‘If it’s
there then it’s true. Rules are rules and orders are orders.’
     ‘If you say so,’ the Doctor returned, shaking his head, ‘I
don’t want to make a fool of you.’
     ‘Just read out what it says.’
     Here was the crux of the Doctor’s gamble. He just had to
hope that even the Deputy Chief could not memorise the entire
contents of such a tome. But by now the Deputy was so angry
with the Doctor for daring to question the book by which he
ordered his entire life that the Doctor could not put off the
attempt any longer.
     ‘Well, he began slowly, taking a surreptitious glance at his
watch in preparation, ‘according to what I’ve just read here, it
seems that after you’ve been guarding your condemned prisoner
for thirty-five minutes, you must all stand up.’
     ‘But –’ The Deputy was puzzled but did not appear to doubt
the authenticity of what he heard. Nor notice the coincidence of
the time period specified being exactly the same as had elapsed
since the Chief had left.
     ‘I know it sounds silly,’ the Doctor agreed sympathetically,
‘and of course, I’m not expecting you to do it. But it is in the
rule book.’
     The Doctor got to his feet. The Deputy Chief hesitated for a
moment. And then to the Doctor’s intense relief, he rose too,
and the other Caretakers with him. Rules, after all, were rules.
     Pushing his advantage, the Doctor continued. ‘The
Caretakers present must then move five paces away from the
prisoner...’ The Caretakers did this unhesitatingly, the Doctor
noted happily. Now for it.
     ‘Close their eyes and put their hands above their heads...’
     Just when he thought they were bound to smell a rat, the
Caretakers obeyed. Eyes closed, hands on heads, five paces away.
It was time now to carefully put down the rule book on the
bench and tiptoe stealthily towards the Deputy. He had noted on
their first arrival where the Deputy kept the small square he
used to unlock the door of the Headquarters. In his back pocket.
It would be a matter of moments to pull it out.
     ‘How long does the book say we do this?’ Eyes still closed,
the Deputy was starting to get impatient. But even as he spoke,
the Doctor’s nimble fingers had found the small square and were
in the process of drawing it out of his pocket. Just a little more
time needed.
     ‘Oh, about a minute and a half,’ the Doctor improvised, the
key-card now firmly in his hand. He was already on his way to
the exit door. ‘That’s how long the prisoner needs...’
     ‘Needs? To do what?’
     The Doctor had found where the key-square should be
inserted and was pushing the card into place. The door slid
silently open. ‘To find the key-card to the door and escape,’ he
explained cheekily.
     ‘Sorry?’
     ‘To find the key-card to the door and escape.’ The Doctor
was through the door now and it was starting to close again. The
Deputy would surely be opening his eyes any second now.
     ‘But that doesn’t make sense. Why should we –’
     But the door was shut now and the rest of the Deputy
Chief’s sentence was cut off from the Doctor’s ears. He was
outside the Headquarters again and with a short start on his
jailors. There was no time to lose. He started to run back the
only way he knew, the way he had come. Somehow, he didn’t
want to stay around to hear the rest of the Deputy’s comments.
Or the Chief’s, for that matter.

Bin Liner was waiting anxiously. The Red Kangs were re-
assembling after the Caretakers’ attack at the pre-arranged spot
on Floor 12 close to talkiphone 4. But they were not all there
yet. She could not stand the thought that more Red Kangs might
be unalive.
     Finally Fire Escape arrived. ‘Build High for Happiness.’
     ‘Build High for Happiness.’
     The two leaders exchanged the Kang salute. But Fire Escape
saw Bin Liner’s unease.
     ‘All sound and safe?’
     ‘The unyoung Doctor and the girl who is no Kang are lost
for now.’
     Fire Escape shrugged. It was not a great loss. But she looked
anxiously about the assembled familiar faces and failed to find
one of them. ‘Where is No Exit?’
     ‘Was on talkiphone 3 before the Caretakers’ attack...’ Bin
Liner’s voice trailed away.
     ‘Not now?’ Fire Escape pressed.
     But all Bin Liner could do was shake her head glumly.
     ‘Mayhaps No Exit’s returned to Red Kang Brainquarters,’
Fire Escape argued but without much conviction. Both of them
instinctively knew that the chances were that No Exit, their
companion since childhood, a redder than red Kang, was
unalive. They were used to loss but it still hurt them every time.
     All Kangs knew what happened to the unalive. They were
taken to the Cleaners. It was not part of the Kang game but still
it happened. What they didn’t know, what no-one knew, not
even the Chief Caretaker, complacently providing little snacks
for his pet, was what was happening in the Basement of Paradise
Towers. No Exit was taken to the Cleaners but where would the
Cleaners take her after that?
    The Red Kangs went back to their Brainquarters dejectedly,
an isolated and dejected piece of the puzzle that was Paradise
Towers.
                          5
                  This Way and That
Mel felt she should be getting better at knowing her way round
Paradise Towers by now but it didn’t seem to be turning out that
way. So many corridors looked the same. So many broken-down
lifts with control panels giving totally contradictory indications as
to what floor they were on. So many grimy, indistinguishable,
winding staircases to be climbed between floors. It was hard not
to get depressed. And harder still to believe that she would ever
find the Doctor. They could pass so close to each other in this
concrete jungle, one going up, one going down, one going left,
one going right, without even knowing. It was only the distant
hope that they would both be able, by some means or other, to
make it to the swimming pool that sustained her.
      And then that hope almost faded. After seemingly hours of
trying to work their way up the building, they were back at
Fountain of Happiness Square. Right where they started. Mel
realised she should have known better than to leave any of the
decisions about which turning to take to Pex. She was certainly
paying the price now.
      ‘I’ve been trying to confuse anybody who might be
following,’ Pex explained lamely as they dispiritedly scanned the
all-too-familiar square. ‘It’s part of my training.’
      ‘Does your training include confusing yourself at the same
time?’ Mel couldn’t help enquiring.
      ‘I’m not confused,’ Pex returned defensively.
      ‘So you do know how to get us up to the pool then, do you?’
      ‘Of course.’
      ‘Well then?’
     There was no reply. Pex looked around hopelessly at all the
ways that led from the square. Mel was not surprised, of course,
but she was tired and she had had enough. ‘Pex,’ she began, ‘can
I ask you something?’
     ‘What?’
     ‘Why are you here?’
     Pex stared.
     ‘I mean, there’s no one else like you here, is there?’ Pex
looked quite flattered by this remark and struck a heroic pose
but Mel persisted. ‘Tabby and Tilda talked about a war. They
said only the oldsters and the youngsters were brought to
Paradise Towers and the rest – the in-betweens – were sent off to
fight and never came back. So how does it happen that you’re
here?’
     Pex was defiant. ‘Isn’t it obvious?’
     ‘No,’ Mel countered, ‘it isn’t obvious at all. Pex, you say you
want to help me get up to the pool and find my friend, the
Doctor, so I have to know.’
     Pex was thoughtful. ‘I was sent here,’ he announced. ‘The
power to protect has been invested in me.’
     The words were powerful and impressive and Pex’s
conviction as he spoke them made Mel almost believe him.
Maybe he had been sent. Anything was possible in a set-up as
crazy as Paradise Towers. ‘Who by, Pex?’
     ‘By those who I am not allowed to name.’ Pex’s tone was
mysterious now, hinting at forces behind Mel’s comprehension.
She was still uncertain.
     ‘And that’s the truth, Pex? Really the truth?’ He nodded
solemnly. Mel knew that she had no real choice but to believe
him. There was certainly no time to waste arguing. They had
been hanging around in the square too long for comfort already.
     ‘You’re in no danger with me around,’ Pex assured her. Her
trust in him seemed to give him new strength and he started to
walk across the square towards the one way out of the square
they hadn’t tried. Mel followed.
    As did two Blue Kangs who had overheard every word that
had been said.

                                *

‘Now the main thing, fellow Caretakers, is not to panic –’
     The Chief was into his stride now, pacing up and down the
section of Potassium Street where the young Caretaker had met
his fate. A group of frightened Caretakers listened attentively,
one of them clutching the deceased’s standard issue QY6 cap,
stained now, unfortunately, with non-standard issue blood.
     ‘Just because it appears that something unfortunate may
have happened to Caretaker number 345 stroke 12 subsection 3,
we must not go leaping to conclusions.’ The Chiefs eyes scanned
his attentive subordinates. ‘Careless chat about the Robotic Self-
Activating Megapodic Mark 7Z Cleaners having got out of
control is not going to help anyone and may needlessly upset
other Caretakers.’
     The assembled Caretakers shifted uneasily. Conversations
on the subject were commonplace back in the HQ and they all
secretly hoped that the Chief would not guess how many of them
had been involved in so-called careless chat.
     ‘Everything in the whole of Paradise Towers is perfectly in
order as always and running exactly according to the rules set
down in the rule book,’ the Chief insisted grandly. ‘You will
ignore any evidence to the contrary.’
     Internally, however, he wondered if the same unease that he
had felt might be shared by his docile crew. If it was, he must act
quickly to stifle discontent. ‘You may rest assured that I will
undertake a thorough investigation of what has happened and
prepare a full and detailed report as demanded by Emergency
Regulation 9P2.’ He paused. ‘In the meantime, all Caretakers
will patrol their assigned streets as before. I am sure you will be
quite safe.’
     If there was going to be a protest of any sort, this was when
it would be made, the Chief thought. But the Caretakers, though
looking unhappy, said nothing.
     Then there was a bleep on the Chiefs Mark 12 Long
Distance Communication Expediter. It was the Deputy Chief.
And the report he had to make was one he knew the Chief did
not wish to hear. The prisoner had escaped, the Deputy
explained in embarrassed and fearful tones.
     The Chief spoke for the benefit of the assembled Caretakers
as well as the distant and quaking Deputy Chief. His voice was
menacing. ‘Find him,’ he ordered. ‘Find the Great Architect at
once.’ He paused grimly. ‘I don’t think I need to remind anyone
just how unpleasant a 327 Appendix 3 Subsection 9 death can
be.’

The Doctor sighed with relief. He was fairly certain he had lost
the pursuing Caretakers. And so, finally, after frantically rushing
down flights of rubbish-strewn stairs and along sordid streets, he
could pause to mop his brow. When he had his breath back, he
would find a way of getting to the pool – and Mel.
     As soon as he started to take in his surroundings, he became
aware of the quantity of Kang wallscrawl there was about. And
one drawing in particular took his notice. It showed a Kang
threatened by a Cleaner, its claw reaching out towards the girl in
a way that the Doctor found uncomfortably familiar. But this
time the Cleaner had some sort of cart in tow behind it. And out
of the cart were sticking legs, the legs presumably of earlier
victims. A cart? To take the bodies where? The next scrawl
showed some sort of door with smoke belching out of it. What
was being burnt behind that door? The drawings raised as many
questions as they answered but were certainly worth recording.
The Doctor started to trace a copy of the wallscrawl into his
pocket book, with the intention of studying them more fully
later.
     The approach of a Cleaner was very quiet and smooth. The
Doctor ought to have known that by now but once again he was
taken by surprise. The Cleaner was almost upon him before he
looked up from his drawing. The Doctor was not alarmed this
time, merely peeved. He had a lot to do and the robot needn’t
think it was going to fool him with its oltrimotive bi-curval
scraping blades.
     ‘You don’t catch me the same way twice,’ he informed the
Megapodic Cleaner as it neared him. ‘I know what you’re going
to do next.’
     He waited smugly for the familiar claw to appear. It didn’t.
Instead the Cleaner started to spray from its front an evil-
smelling smoke. Its taste was acrid. The effect practically lethal.
The Doctor started to choke and splutter. He had to move or he
would suffocate. No doubt of that. He turned and started to run
as fast as his wheezing lungs would allow him. Pride comes
before a fall, the Doctor told himself. Will I never learn?
     The Cleaner followed, billowing its noxious smoke as it
went. The Doctor had gained some ground by the time he
turned into the next street. But not enough. He would tire and
the Cleaner would not.
     He started to look round for some aid in his plight. And his
eye caught a metal notice nailed to one of the walls. ‘For
Emergencies’ it read. That was surprising enough. But, even
more surprising, underneath the notice was what looked
remarkably like an emergency telephone.
     ‘Nothing ventured,’ the Doctor told himself, running to the
phone. He picked up the receiver, but, of course, the phone was
dead. He realised he should have known better than to expect
anything to work in Paradise Towers. And so, with the Cleaner
approaching nearer by the moment, it was also nothing gained.
     He sighed and slumped back against the wall to recover his
breath before continuing his frantic flight. In leaning back, he
must somehow or other have touched a button or gadget on the
side of the phone. For, suddenly, without warning, coin tokens
started pouring out of the machine. They poured in a clatter
onto the floor, hundreds of them, and lay there gleaming amidst
the garbage.
     The Doctor stooped and picked up some of them. They
were all identical, shiny and embossed. And all carried the same
inscription. The Doctor brought one even closer to see what it
said. ‘Issued by the Great Architect, Kroagnon’ ran the
inscription.
     Kroagnon. The name rang a bell but infuriatingly the
Doctor couldn’t remember why. There were so many puzzles
and he desperately needed time to think. But how he was going
to get even a minute to think with a Cleaner spraying noxious
fumes in pursuit was an even bigger puzzle. It was so infuriating
not to have time even to place a name.
     ‘You really aren’t helping, you know,’ he called out angrily
down the street to the Cleaner. ‘What do you want anyway?’
     And then, from behind him, he thought he heard the soft
mechanical whirring of a different machine. He glanced over his
back. Yes, another Cleaner was coming towards him from the
other direction, spraying smoke as it came. He was trapped
between them and, if there had been any doubt, it was now
absolutely clear what the Cleaners wanted. His death.
     ‘Think calmly.’ The smoke was billowing around him and
the Cleaners were practically upon him. Smoke, claws, blades. It
soon wouldn’t matter which way they chose to dispose of him.
     His hands scrabbled blindly along the wall by the telephone.
His coughing was violent now and his breathing irregular and
painful. Something told him there was a door there. A door
perhaps just to a cupboard but still a door. His fingertips could
trace part of its outline. If only there was some way of opening it.
     The Cleaners closed for the kill. And the Doctor’s hand with
its last ounce of strength found a tiny lever hidden in the wall.
The door sprang open and the Doctor felt himself catapulted
away from the Cleaners, away from the smoke, down, down into
blackness. He heard the door snapping shut behind him. It was
the last sound he remembered before the blackness swallowed
him.

Mel and Pex were on the twelfth floor now, if the signs were to
be believed and they probably weren’t. But the lift ahead looked
the best maintained Mel had seen yet. Perhaps this might be the
one, the miraculous lift in Paradise Towers that actually worked
properly. It was worth a try anyway.
      She started towards the lift but Pex restrained her. ‘Wait
there. I’ll check if it’s safe.’
      Mel started to say that she was perfectly capable of doing her
own checking but he had bounded to the entrance to the lift
before she could get the words out.
      ‘Well?’
      ‘It’s safe.’ Pex beckoned her to approach. But, as he
beckoned, two Blue Kangs stepped from the shadows beside the
lift, crossbows at the ready. Mel turned to run. But her escape
route was blocked by more Blue Kangs, crossbows also at the
ready. They must have been following Pex and herself for some
time. She gritted her teeth. Thank you for checking so well, Pex,
she thought.
      There must have been five or six of them in all, gathered in
an ominous circle around their prisoners. Now she could see
them closely, Mel could see that in all but colour they closely
resembled the Red Kangs. Even the weapons were similar. And
no doubt equally accurate.
     ‘Come on, come on.’ Pex had suddenly struck an
extraordinary martial pose. It reminded Mel of the karate
experts she had watched back on Earth but the pose was both
more extravagant and more blatantly aggressive. With his jaw
jutting out and his powerful arms poised, Pex was an impressive
sight.
     To Mel at least. The Blue Kangs watched impassively as Pex
ranted at them. ‘I’ll take you all on,’ he announced, shooting out
a tautened arm. ‘Look, with my bare hands I’ll do it.’ To Mel’s
surprise he almost managed a snarl. ‘I’m a trained fighting
machine. Come on. Fight... Fight...’
     None of the Kangs rose to the challenge. They just watched
and under their gaze Pex’s gestures became less confident.
     ‘Enough, Musclebrain, get back.’ The girl who appeared to
be the leader spoke at last. Her tone was contemptuous and the
effect immediate. Pex’s performance collapsed completely and
he stood shamefacedly by Mel’s side. The Blue Kangs had not
even bothered to respond physically to Pex’s challenge.
     ‘Will you please tell us why you’re holding us here?’ Mel
demanded.
     ‘We saw you with the Red Kangs,’ the Blue Kang leader
replied.
     ‘Yes,’ Mel acknowledged, ‘but they were holding me captive
too. I don’t know much about them. I’m certainly not their
friend.’ The Blue Kangs appeared undecided so Mel persisted.
‘Look, my name’s Mel. I’m just a visitor here.’
     The Blue Kang nodded curtly at Pex. ‘You know him?’
     ‘I’m protecting her,’ Pex put in aggressively before Mel
could reply. His intervention irritated Mel and it gave her an
ideal opportunity to find out more about someone who had
dogged her steps ever since she’d been parted from the Doctor.
‘Do you know this person?’ she asked.
     ‘All Kangs know the Musclebrain,’ the Blue Kang leader
answered, with a mocking smile. ‘Scaredy cat Pex. When the in-
betweens sent us all here in the Ship, us and the oldsters, the
Musclebrain hid away and came with us. ’Cos he didn’t want to
fight in the war along with the other in-betweens.’
     ‘Who told you that?’ Pex spoke sharply but he had a shifty
look in his eye and Mel already started to suspect the Blue Kang
was telling the truth.
     ‘Everyone knows that,’ she replied, choosing to address
herself to Mel and ignoring Pex. ‘The oldsters call out after him
in the carrydoors. The Musclebrain is a scaredy cat.’
     ‘Scaredy cat! Scaredy cat!’ The other Kangs took up the cry
and clustered round the unhappy Pex. His eyes took on a
haunted look.
     ‘Is this true, Pex?’ At first there was no reply. Mel asked
again and finally Pex acknowledged that it was true. Every word
of it.
     ‘I’ve made up for it since I was here,’ he insisted,
desperately. ‘Since I’ve been in Paradise Towers, I’ve been
brave, a hero, a fighting mach–’ he stopped, unable to continue.
     Mel could not keep the sarcasm out of her voice. ‘Sent by
powers you weren’t allowed to name?’ she reminded him. Then
added bitterly, ‘I should have guessed.’ If she had ever been
uncertain whether she was better off on her own, there could be
no doubt now.
     She turned to the Blue Kang leader. ‘Will you allow me to
go if I go alone? I give you my word I mean no harm. You can
see I’ve got no weapons, nothing dangerous. Look.’
     She held out her arms to show her defencelessness. There
was a tense moment while the leader glanced round the others
for approval of Mel’s proposal but there was no hostility or
distrust in their young faces.
     ‘You may go.’
     ‘Thanks.’
     There was only the painful moment of saying goodbye to
Pex before Mel could go. She was tempted just to walk away but
he was so dejected that she felt she had to say something.
‘Goodbye, Pex,’ she said sadly. ‘I’m sorry for you.’
     And then Mel was off alone down the street. The taunting
cries of ‘Scaredy cat’ gradually faded from her ears.

Maddy was one of the younger Rezzies. Plumper, jollier and, in
many ways, more innocent than her two elderly near
neighbours. But she noticed things and she listened to things.
And there were a lot of rumours going the rounds of the Rezzies
which were disturbing enough to keep her awake at night. In
the end, she had decided that she ought to go and talk it all over
with Tilda and Tabby. They were, after all, older and wiser than
she was, and might put it all in perspective. The only problem
was that they didn’t always encourage calls, indeed were
sometimes distinctly unwelcoming. So it was with some
trepidation that she knocked on their front door. Or what was
left of it.
     ‘Come in!’ Tilda’s voice called welcomingly. Maddy stepped
in eagerly but was almost immediately aware of an air of
disappointment. She strongly suspected they had been expecting
someone else.
     ‘I hope I’m not intruding,’ Maddy began.
     ‘No, no,’ Tabby replied. ‘We’re just finishing.’ She picked
the last piece of meat off a small carcase that lay on the table. Its
shape and size fascinated Maddy. Meat, after all, was a rare treat
now that times were so hard in Paradise Towers. It might even
be a rat. Or a very large mouse. She envied them whatever it
was. She rarely had the nerve to set traps herself.
     Tilda saw her staring at the carcase and in a trice the plate
had been whisked away. ‘Have some tea, Maddy,’ Tilda put in,
to cover the activity.
     ‘Oh, thank you, dear,’ Maddy replied, settling herself into a
seat at the table by Tabby. Tabby always made her nervous. She
couldn’t tell why. Maybe it was those protruding teeth.
Nevertheless, Tabby smiled amiably enough while Tilda bustled
around making tea.
     ‘I just had to come and tell you.’
     ‘Tell us what, Maddy?’
     ‘Another Caretaker’s disappeared.’ She delivered the latest
rumour with some pride. It wasn’t often that she knew
something Tilda and Tabby didn’t. But the item fell rather flat.
The older Rezzies only evinced a modicum of interest.
     ‘Was it the Kangs?’ Tabby enquired, picking something from
her large front teeth.
     ‘Well,’ Maddy replied, ‘they’re trying to make out it might
be.’ She leant forward conspiratorially. ‘But from what I’ve
heard, there’s more to it than anybody’s letting on. I mean,
people don’t just vanish, do they?’
     ‘Oh no, of course not. There’s always something left behind.’
Rather an odd remark of Tilda’s, Maddy thought. Odder still
since as she spoke she was pouring the bones left over from the
meal into the waste disposal unit in the wall. It made a rather
alarming gurgling noise as the bones disappeared into its metal
jaws.
     ‘You know, Tilda and Tabby, my dears,’ Maddy continued
over the din, trying once again to turn the conversation the way
she wanted. ‘I do sometimes wonder if we know everything
that’s going on in dear Paradise Towers.’
     ‘What do you mean?’ Tabby was puzzled rather than
interested.
     There was so much that Maddy wanted to discuss. The
missing Caretakers. The strange noises she sometimes heard
coming from Tilda and Tabby’s flat. The severe shortage of meat
all the Rezzies were experiencing and some tips on how to
remedy the deficiency. But, somehow, when it came to it, she
didn’t have the nerve.
     ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she tailed off vaguely; ‘It’s just a feeling.
I’m probably being silly.’
     Tilda and Tabby made no comment. But that was hardly
surprising. Their minds were quite elsewhere. Wondering
whether that delicious little Mel would ever come back to see
them again.

It was the high point of the Chief Caretaker’s day. He was going
to visit his pet. After the Deputy Chief’s bungling, he deserved a
treat. He had taken the special Mark UT Service Lift down to
the Basement and he was walking along the long familiar dark
basement corridor to where his pet was kept. Others might have
found the slimy corridors unwelcoming or even alarming. The
Chief Caretaker, however, was used to them and hummed to
himself as he went.
     His humming stopped all of a sudden. Lying on the grimy
floor in front of him was something he did not understand. It
was an item of clothing. It had once belonged to a Red Kang.
And it was blood-stained. The Chief picked it up to examine it
more closely. Caretaker number 345 stroke 12 subsection 3 he
remembered. The last of the Yellow Kangs he remembered. But
a Red Kang? He had had nothing to do with that.
     He took the scrap of cloth and marched purposefully on. He
would have to have words with his pet. Explanations were in
order.
      As he approached the end of the corridor, heavy studded
doors flew open. From the room inside billowed clouds of
smoke. The Chief was used to what lay beyond the door but it
still roused in him feelings of awe. Through the smoke he could
see the two fiery red unblinking eyes that were all that was
visible of his pet, his pride and joy, the chief resident of the
Basement.
      ‘Hello, my pet, how are you?’ The Chief’s voice was jaunty
but the red eyes were unnervingly bright and piercing today.
‘Did you enjoy your nice Caretaker?’
      He listened carefully. His pet usually communicated
through a dull mechanical throb. It always reminded the Chief
of the waste disposal units fitted in all the flats in the Towers.
When he had first made the acquaintance of his little treasure,
the Chief had heard nothing in its throbbing but simple
mechanical sounds. Now he could often make out words. Or, at
least, what sounded like words. It might be his imgaination, of
course. It might simply be that he had got more used to
interpreting the noises his pet made. Or, as the Chief believed
was most likely, his pet was starting to grow and develop. And
with that development came a voice. It spoke now.
      ‘Hungry...’
      ‘Hungry!’ the Chief was almost indignant. ‘You can’t be.
Daddy’s always made sure you’ve had a good supply of what you
need. Daddy’s the Chief Caretaker – that’s his main job.’
      ‘Hungry.’ The throbbing voice was growing in power. The
Chief had to take the initiative now before things got out of
hand. He held up the scrap of Red Kang clothing.
      ‘While we’re on the subject, Daddy’s not too pleased with
you. Now I didn’t send you this little snack, did I?’ He waved the
blood-stained cloth in front of the flashing eyes. ‘I mean, the
Cleaners don’t do things like that without orders from someone.
And it wasn’t me.’ The Chief’s voice took on a pleading tone. ‘So
who was it? Now tell Daddy.’
     There was no reply. Even the demand to be fed was
momentarily stilled. There was just a low throbbing. The lack of
response was too much for the Chief and he finally snapped. ‘If
you don’t tell Daddy who’s been feeding you behind his back, I
won’t give you the Great Architect to eat.’
     ‘Hungry!!!’ There was a sudden angry roar and the
throbbing voice returned even more powerfully than before. Its
power was indeed rather terrifying.
     The Chief began to feel for the very first time that he was
out of his depth. This was no ordinary pet any more. It had a
will and hunger of its own.
     ‘Hungry!!!’
     ‘All right, all right.’ The Chief was conciliatory now. He
could feel his eyelid starting to twitch with tension and he was
trying very hard to control it. ‘You’ll get the Great Architect just
as soon as I can catch him again.’
     ‘Hungry!!! Hungry!!!’
     The voice was bellowing now and the Chief was practically
deafened. His pet was not normally like this. If only his darling
would confide in Daddy all would be well. Or would it? The
Chief was no longer sure. This hunger seemed beyond his
control. Perhaps beyond anyone’s control.
     The feeling that all was not as it should be in Paradise
Towers hit the Chief again with a still more devastating force.
                            6
                      Brainquarters
The Doctor’s eyes opened. He had no idea where he was or how
he had got there. For the moment his surroundings were a blur.
He waited for them to get clearer.
    ‘Build High for Happiness, Doctor!’
    The voice was familiar. And the face too now that the Doctor
had managed to focus on it. It belonged to Bin Liner. She was
peering down at him with an amused expression on her face.
And next to her the Doctor made out the face of Fire Escape.
Crossbows at the ready, he noted, even in his fuddled state.
    The Doctor sat up, still rubbing his head, and started to look
about him. It was gloomy but the Doctor could make out several
rows of bunk beds, piles of food and supplies, a stack of
crossbows. And a whole line of Red Kangs standing just a little
way off, eyeing him warily.
    ‘What’s happened?’
    ‘You dropped down, Doctor,’ Fire Escape replied. ‘Whoosh
into our Brainquarters.’ She paused. ‘Where is the girl who is
not a Kang?’
    ‘I only wish I knew,’ sighed the Doctor. He got to his feet,
brushed himself down and replaced his hat firmly on his head.
No bones broken, he noted thankfully. He was starting to feel
better already. ‘Fire Escape, Bin Liner,’ he continued cheerfully,
‘I never expected to see you again. Still less did I expect to be
glad to see you again. But I’ve got to go. There’s much to be
done.’
    He knew he was being optimistic believing the Red Kangs
would let him go just like that. It was worth the try nevertheless.
But his optimism was not to be rewarded. Kang crossbows were
raised and pointed.
     ‘No way.’
     ‘No ball games. No flyposts. No outgoing.’
     Bin Liner studied the Doctor carefully. ‘Why you here?’
     ‘It’s an accident,’ the Doctor replied. ‘I was being chased by
two Cleaners and –’
     ‘Cleaners?’ Fire Escape tensed visibly.
     ‘Yes,’ the Doctor answered. ‘I expect they’ll have gone by
now.’
     ‘Check for safe and sure on the talkiphone.’ Bin Liner
nodded and went over to the talkiphone. To the Doctor’s
surprise this one too was like a large drinks dispenser such as
were common on Mel’s Earth. But he had more immediate
problems than finding out how it worked. While Bin Liner was
punching out a code and listening for the report of Kang Eye-
Spy, he had a cluster of Kang crossbows still aimed at his person.
     ‘Do I get the impression I’m not believed, Fire Escape?’
     ‘Cleaners make Kangs unalive.’
     ‘Oh, do they now?’ The Doctor’s eyes gleamed. ‘Why don’t
you tell me about it?’ But Fire Escape dropped her eyes,
avoiding his gaze. Once again, he was up against the wall of
silence that seemed to hem him in at every turn in Paradise
Towers. The Doctor had had enough.
     ‘What is the matter with everyone in the Towers?’ he
demanded. ‘I simply don’t understand it. I mean, the Cleaners
go round killing people and carting them off and no-one does
anything to stop them. All you Kangs do is draw wallscrawls on
the subject all over the place. And the Caretakers are no better.
They allow themselves to be killed off without saying anything
just because there’s nothing about it in their precious rule book.
I happen to know that because I’ve read it.’
     His words finally had an effect. Fire Escape’s jaw dropped
and she stared at the Doctor wide-eyed. ‘You mean, there’s a
wipe-out of Caretakers as well?’
     ‘Don’t tell me you don’t know,’ the Doctor mocked, pushing
his advantage. ‘I mean, what is going on?’ He reached for his
pocket book and flourished his sketches under Fire Escape’s
nose. ‘What, for example, is behind that door belching out
smoke that you Kangs are so keen on painting pictures of, eh?
Any ideas? Or is that simply just another mystery?’
     Fire Escape was spared the embarrassment of replying
because at this moment Bin Liner had put down the talkiphone
and was ready to report. But the Doctor knew he had rattled the
Kangs. There was at least a chance that, carefully handled, they
might start to trust him enough to take him into their
confidence.
     ‘Cleaners were in the carrydoor. With sprinkle gas. There
no more.’
     The Eye-Spy’s report made everyone relax. The crossbows
were lowered and the Doctor no longer under immediate threat.
But rather than pressing on too quickly with his investigations
and losing the Kang’s confidence again, the Doctor took a more
devious path. He asked if he could take a look at the talkiphone.
Bin Liner nodded agreement but watched warily as the Doctor
approached the machine.
     The Doctor smiled secretly. His impression had been
correct. There was even a label reading ‘Fizzade’ on the front.
‘You know, you really are very stupid for such clever people,’ he
continued as he took in the Kang’s ingenious telephone
technology. ‘If I were you, I’d find that door that belches smoke
and discover what’s behind it. Because, until you do, we’re all at
risk – you, me, Mel, everybody.’ The Kangs said nothing but he
knew they were taking in what he was saying.
      ‘This is really a splendid piece of auditoryarchitechnotonical
metrosyncosthopy,’ the Doctor added casually, almost as an
afterthought, holding up the talkiphone receiver.
      ‘It works,’ Fire Escape replied warily.
      ‘However, you probably haven’t realised that this machine
has another purpose.’ The Kangs eyed him suspiciously. The
Doctor reached in his pocket and pulled out one of the coins he
had discovered by the Emergency phone upstairs.
      ‘Incidentally,’ he remarked, ‘yet another Paradise Towers
mystery. The coin reads “issued by the Great Architect
Kroagnon”. I only wish I could place the name. And what has
happened to him since he finished this building? No one seems
to know.’
      But he sensed the Kangs were waiting for his experiment
with the talkiphone. Speculation would have to wait. He inserted
the coin in the rusted slot in the drinks machine, selected
‘Orange Fizzade’ on the selector panel and pressed the ‘Deliver’
button. He just hoped the machine was still in working order or
else his little performance to impress the Kangs would fall rather
flat.
      The machine started to judder and rattle. The mystified
Kangs instinctively backed away in alarm. The Doctor, however,
held his ground. And, to his considerable relief, a bright orange
can of Fizzade clattered out of the machine and into his waiting
hands. He pulled off the metal tab and took a long swig. It was
actually very good orangeade and, after his recent mishaps, very
refreshing. He took another swig.
      The Kangs still held back but were undoubtedly impressed.
He offered the can to Bin Liner. She hesitated at first, but,
having seen the Docor drink first, decided to take the risk. She
took a small sip and the others gathered round to see the result.
She liked what she tasted and quickly gulped some more.
      ‘Icehot, Doctor,’ she announced approvingly.
     Then all the Kangs wanted to drink and the Doctor was kept
busy feeding the machine with coins to keep them supplied with
further Fizzade. There was an air of relaxation, almost
celebration, in the Brainquarters. The Doctor’s ploy had paid
off. They would trust him more now he felt. And respect his
skills.
     ‘Icehot!’ The cry went round the group as they drank. The
Doctor had achieved something potentially very valuable, but,
for the moment, the big unanswered questions about the Towers
would have to wait.

‘So you still haven’t discovered where the Great Architect has got
to?’
     ‘No, Chief.’
     ‘And you have no idea of his whereabouts at all?’
     ‘No, Chief, unless –’
     ‘Unless?’ The Chief was back at his Headquarters now and
taking out his growing anxiety about his pet on the cowering
and sweating Deputy Chief.
     ‘Unless he was taken by the Cleaners.’ The Deputy brought
out the words reluctantly, barely able to bring his eyes to meet
those of his superior.
     ‘Don’t be absurd.’ The Chief was sharp and dismissive. He
had to be if the Deputy didn’t start getting hold of ideas that
could create considerable problems for the Chief’s relation with
his subordinates. ‘You are overlooking one very obvious
possibility.’
     ‘What’s that, Chief?’
     ‘The Wallscrawlers, of course,’ the Chief snapped. ‘They’ve
been getting very bold of late and making fun of authority.’ He
made a sudden decision. ‘Summon all available Caretakers. We
are going to start a 45D Section 3 Security Search.’
     ‘Yes, Chief.’
      The Chief Caretaker’s bloodshot eyes glinted. ‘The 327
Appendix 3 Subsection 9 Death of the Great Architect must take
place. And, besides,’ he added, ‘even if the Wallscrawlers don’t
have him, it’s high time they were taught a severe lesson.’
      A few minutes later the 45D Section 3 Security Search was
under way. The Deputy had brought out the G9H Suspect
Tracker, the pride of the Caretakers’ armoury of gadgets. An
image of the suspect, the Doctor in this case, was given to the
Tracker and the Tracker did the rest, tracing the wanted person
through Paradise Towers until it had brought him to ground,
wherever he might be hiding. The G9H Suspect Tracker, a
considerable improvement on the G8H, had a very high success
rate. And the Deputy needed success. He had no doubt who
would pay the price if the Doctor was not found. He must not
fail the Chief again.
      In short, the Deputy Chief, backed by the G9H Suspect
Tracker, drills, gadgets, weapons, and the toughest and
strongest of the Caretakers, was on the Doctor’s trail.

‘Cooee! Care for a cup of tea?’
    Mel gave a start. Since she had left Pex, she had been almost
in a daze, taking turnings and choosing staircases without any
real sense of where she was going. She had just hoped that
persistence might change her luck. But surely that couldn’t be
Tilda’s voice. She couldn’t be back at the Rezzies’ flat yet again?
    But she was back at the flat and there could be no doubt that
it was indeed Tilda standing there in her doorway, as before,
smiling welcomingly.
    ‘It’s lovely to see you again,’ Tilda beamed. ‘We’d almost
given up hope. How have you been getting on?’
    ‘Not very well,’ Mel sighed. ‘I seem to have been going
round and round in circles.’
     Tilda was all commiseration. ‘Oh, what a shame! Why don’t
you come inside and rest your weary bones?’
     Mel hesitated. She was torn. She felt strongly that she should
carry on and find the Doctor. And somewhere inside her an
alarm bell was going off, warning her that it was not a good idea
to accept Tilda’s invitation. But, on the other hand, she was very
tired. If she didn’t rest for a while, have something to eat and
drink, she would collapse from exhaustion in some dingy corner
of the Towers, which would be no help either to the Doctor or
herself.
     So she accepted. ‘Just for a moment, mind,’ she insisted, ‘to
get my strength back.’
     Tilda, needless to say, was delighted. She hustled Mel
eagerly into her flat before Mel had a chance to re-consider. As
they entered, Tabby looked up from a long piece of knitting she
was working on.
     ‘Tabby,’ trilled Tilda, excitedly. ‘Guess what, a real piece of
good fortune. You’ll never guess who’s arrived for tea. Mel!’
     And Tabby smiled welcomingly too. Mel had forgotten about
the long, sharp front teeth until now. If she’d remembered
them, she might not have been so easily persuaded to come in
for tea. But then she was probably being silly. And, besides,
Tilda was bustling about eagerly preparing the tea things,
humming happily to herself. And Tabby was beckoning to Mel to
sit beside her. It was too late now.

‘Build High for Happiness, Doctor!’
    ‘And Build High for Happiness to you too.’
    The party atmosphere was still prevailing in Red Kang
Brainquarters. ‘We always knew we liked you, Doctor,’ Fire
Escape confided, ‘because of your high fabshion clothes.’
    ‘Thank you,’ the Doctor returned, amiably. ‘But let us not
lose sight of what we have to do. We must find Mel, my friend,
and solve the mystery of Paradise Towers because I have learnt
enough to know that its very existence is at stake.’
    ‘Icehot, Doctor, icehot,’ Bin Liner agreed. The Kangs were
always pleased when there was a scent of adventure in the air.
And now they had heard what the Doctor had to say and seen
his prodigious conjuring act with the talkiphone, they were
beginning to understand that they had to take action or else. If
even Caretakers were being made unalive, something very odd
indeed was going on.
    The Kangs raised their cans to celebrate their new-found
understanding once more and the Doctor returned the toast for
the umpteenth time, wondering once again where the phrase
‘Build High for Happiness’ came from. Another little mystery to
add to the others.
    Then a warning alarm went off. Its strident ringing
shattered the hilarity in an instant. The Kangs were alert again,
discarded crossbows back in their hands. Bin Liner ran to a
periscope-like peephole to see what was going on at floor level
above.
    When she removed her eye from the peephole, her face was
stern. ‘I can see Caretakers.’ She turned grimly to the Doctor.
‘Ware Doctor!’
    The mood was ugly now. The Doctor was no longer the
Kangs’ friend. ‘He brings them here,’ said Fire Escape, pointing
accusingly. ‘Because, like Caretakers, he wants all Wallscrawlers
unalive.’
    ‘Not at all. You don’t understand,’ protested the Doctor. ‘I
mean, the last people I want to meet are the Caretakers. I’d be
in as much danger as you are. More, probably.’ He looked
round the circle of suspicious young faces. ‘You’ve got to believe
me. We’ve got to work together. The Chief Caretaker is off his
head. If we don’t stop the wipeouts, who will?’
     The alarm kept ringing. The Doctor had to raise his voice to
be heard above it. ‘Please,’ he pleaded. Then the alarm ended its
piercing warning and there was quiet for a moment. And in the
quiet, another sound became audible. The distant sound of a
powerful drill. The Caretakers must be drilling into the door.
They would soon be down in the Brainquarters.
     The Kangs stood momentarily paralysed, unable to decide
what to do. ‘You must have a secret escape route,’ the Doctor
urged. ‘It’s not like Kangs to allow themselves to be caught like
rats in a trap.’
     ‘Red Kangs have an unseen outway,’ Bin Liner
acknowledged. ‘But –’
     ‘But what?’
     ‘The Caretakers will be in our Brainquarters too soon for
the Kangs to use it.’ She glanced regretfully towards the
concealed outway which a couple of the Kangs had started to
uncover.
     ‘I see,’ the Doctor said, ‘you need time?’
     Bin Liner nodded. And at that moment, the Doctor made
his decision. ‘I will buy you the time,’ he announced. ‘I’m the
reason why the Caretakers are here. Go on. Make your escape
while you can.’
     The Kangs still stared. ‘It’s not like Kangs to be so slow, is it?
Go on.’
     And then almost as if they were parts of one being, the
Kangs started to move. Within seconds they were gathered at
the concealed outway in an orderly file. And in not much more
time they were through the hole and out of sight. Bin Liner, the
last, pulled the covering back over the hole.
     The Doctor was alone in the Kang Brainquarters. The
drilling sounds were getting louder. The Caretakers would be
there in a few minutes. The Doctor had made his choice and he
had to live with it. He sat down to wait.
                          7
                Come into My Parlour
‘You feeling better now, dear?’
     ‘Yes, thank you. There’s nothing quite like tea and crumpets
is there? I feel so much more relaxed.’
     It was true. Mel was feeling nicely drowsy but a lot better for
Tilda and Tabby’s hospitality. Tabby had toasted crumpets on a
large metal toasting fork over a fire. And Tilda had provided
seemingly endless amounts of cream and cakes for her to eat.
     ‘Oh, it’s so good to hear you’re relaxed, dear. Isn’t it, Tilda?’
     ‘Very good,’ Tilda agreed.
     ‘All the same,’ Mel began, ‘I really must be going now.’ She
was so comfortable in her armchair that it did seem a pity to
drag herself away but she knew she had to if she was ever to
meet up with the Doctor.
     She started to rise from her chair but Tabby gently
restrained her.
     ‘We couldn’t possibly let you go,’ she said, her hand
tightening on Mel’s arm in a slightly alarming way.
     ‘Oh, no, not this time,’ Tilda put in. ‘We can’t possibly miss
this opportunity, can we, Tabby?’
     ‘No, we can’t, Tilda. Not since those horrid little Kangs got
suspicious of our little ways.’
     ‘I am sorry dear.’ There was a regretful look in Tilda’s eye
and Tabby’s grip had not lessened in force one jot. Mel watched
mesmerised. She didn’t understand what they were talking
about. Or, rather, perhaps she did and couldn’t quite believe it.
The bones. The fattening up. Tabby’s rat teeth. Surely not.
     ‘What do you mean?’ she demanded, trying to control a
slight tremor in her voice.
      ‘Well, you see, dear,’ Tilda answered sweetly, ‘we would like
you to stay. For a very long time.’
      ‘In fact,’ cooed Tabby, ‘we don’t imagine you ever leaving at
all.’
      ‘You are joking, aren’t you?’ Mel strove to control the rising
panic. If this was a nightmare she couldn’t wait to wake up. But
no, Tilda and Tabby were there and regarding her hungrily.
Hungrily. There was no other word for it.
      ‘I’m afraid we’re not joking,’ Tilda insisted gravely. ‘We
don’t see this as a matter for humour. We mean every word.’
      Mel tried to rise but Tabby’s hand pinned her to the chair.
Tilda meanwhile had grabbed hold of some of Tabby’s knitting
and now she threw it over Mel. Mel struggled but it was
hopeless. The old ladies were surprisingly strong and wiry and
in a few moments she was trussed up like a turkey.
      ‘In our experience, Mel dear,’ Tilda was saying as the
Rezzies completed their task, ‘it is much better not to struggle. It
only causes needless distress.’
      And then the old ladies were bustling all over the kitchen,
bringing out utensils of all sorts, chopping boards, saucepans,
spices. It even looked as if Tabby’s toasting fork had more than
one use. And the waste disposal unit was starting to throb loudly
again just to add to the ghoulishness of the spectacle.
      ‘Look,’ Mel pleaded, ‘a joke’s a joke but this has gone on
long enough.’
      Tilda paused for a moment in her preparations. ‘Mel, dear,
I do think by now you should appreciate the fact that, though
Tabby and myself are not averse to a humorous remark now and
then, no joke is intended.’ And, having finally damped down
Mel’s last flickering hopes, she returned to her work. ‘Can you
spot the basil anywhere, Tabby?’
      Tabby fumbled in the cupboard. ‘It’s here somewhere.’
     Mel sat in despair. And then something very peculiar
happened. A large white claw emerged from the waste disposal
chute. It snapped open and shut silently a few times, as if
searching for something, and then popped back out of
sightletting the flap on the disposal system fall back into place.
     Mel stared. And continued to stare. She couldn’t really
believe she had seen what she was seeing. An involuntary cry
came from her lips.
     ‘What is it dear?’ Tabby was all attention.
     ‘I think there’s something wrong with the waste disposal
unit.’
     ‘Don’t talk nonsense, dear. It always makes that funny
noise.’
     ‘But I think I saw something come up it,’ Mel insisted.
     ‘Don’t be silly.’
     ‘We’d better make sure, Tabby,’ put in Tilda, busy chopping
up vegetables.
     ‘Oh, very well, dear.’ Tabby gave a weary sigh and
approached the chute. Mel watched her but Tilda carried on
with her preparations, her back turned away from the
proceedings, concentrating hard on her task.
     Tabby peered at the unit. It was very noisy. Far noisier than
usual. And the control panel light was flashing in an erratic way.
But nothing unusual was visible.
     ‘I can’t see anything, Tilda,’ she announced. And then, just
to make sure, she opened the flap to take a closer look. Mel tried
to shout out but it was too late. The metal claw had already shot
out and fastened itself round Tabby’s throat. She didn’t even
have time to cry out.
     Mel watched, horrified. In a few seconds the claw had
whisked the bulky Rezzie up off her feet and dragged her down
the chute. She disappeared with one final cry. And then the flap
closed. Tabby was hurtling down the chute to whatever lay in
wait at the bottom of the Towers.
     Tilda heard the noise and turned. In a flash she realised
Tabby was no longer there. She rushed to the chute and lifted
the flap to look down.
     ‘Tabby! Tabby!’ Tilda’s voice became a wail as she realised
her companion was gone for good. But she did not waste time
on grief. Instead, she turned on Mel, her face a mask of fury.
The kitchen knife she was still holding glinted ominously in her
hand. Mel instinctively cowered back.
     ‘Oh, what a naughty little girl we are!’ Tabby hissed
furiously. ‘Looks as though butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth
and now she’s killed poor dear Tabby.’
     ‘It wasn’t me, Tilda,’ Mel protested. ‘It was the thing in the
waste disposal unit that –’ her voice trailed away. Tilda was so
bent on getting revenge for her loss that she was quite beyond
listening to reason or logic.
     ‘Fibbing too, is it now?’ she spat. ‘I hate little fibbers.’ She
started to advance menacingly, kitchen knife in hand. Mel
continued to shrink back but she was tied so tight there was little
she could do to avoid Tilda’s murderous advance. Mel prepared
herself for the end.
     And then behind her back there was a loud splintering noise
oddly familiar to Mel’s ears. With a gasp she realised what it
meant. Pex had broken down the door again and was standing
posed in the doorway.
     ‘My name is Pex and–’
     But he failed to finish. Firstly, there were Mel’s desperate
screams for help to contend with. And then there was the sight
of Tilda balefully staring at him, her intentions all too clearly
written on her face. And the knife in her hand in the process of
being raised to impale him against the door.
     ‘Oh no, now look–’ Pex gulped ineffectually as he realised
what he had walked into. This was real danger. Not at all what
he had had in mind. But again his sentence was cut short. Tilda
viciously threw her knife at him. Pex only managed to duck just
in time. And the knife whistled past his ear and stuck quivering
in what was left of the door.
     ‘Help!’ Mel screamed again but Pex was too petrified to
move. And now Tilda was moving back to the chute to pick up
Tabby’s huge toasting fork to throw that at him. She grabbed it
and started to take aim.
     Pex gulped in horror and pointed behind her. To Tilda this
was just a feeble ploy to break her concentration and she
ignored him. But it was not a ploy at all. The claw that had so
terrified Mel had reappeared from behind the flap and was
snapping greedily at Tilda’s back.
     The Rezzie drew back her arm to take aim at Pex. The sweat
was running from his brow now. And then just as her arm was
pulled back to its fullest extent, the claw pounced. Tilda
overbalanced with a cry and was dragged in seconds into the
unit and down the chute. The lights on the machine flashed
ominously for a few moments. And then the unit juddered to a
halt and all was quiet.
     There was a pause. Neither Mel nor Pex moved. Until
finally Pex came to his senses and started to help Mel
disentangle herself from the Rezzies’ knitting.
     ‘You arrived just in time,’ Mel gasped as she struggled free
at last, scarcely able to believe her luck.
     ‘Mel –’
     ‘Yes, Pex –’
     Pex’s jaw was set and his features frozen in thought. When
he spoke it was for once very tentatively. ‘Mel, does this mean
that I’ve really helped save somebody from something? For the
very first time.’
     Mel grinned at him affectionately. ‘I think it might.’ It was
the first time she had seen Pex smile.

The drilling was complete and the exhausted Caretaker ready to
push in the door. The Deputy Chief stepped forward officiously.
     ‘I think you’ll find the Rule Book states that I remove the
last section of the door,’ he announced. The other Caretakers
dutifully stepped back. The Deputy gave a vicious kick and the
remnants of the door fell into the darkness below. The Deputy
stuck his head into the aperture and looked down.
     ‘Greetings, Deputy Chief Caretaker!’ There at the bottom of
a steep flight of dark stairs the Deputy made out the figure of
the Doctor. He couldn’t really believe the evidence of his own
eyes.
     ‘You look surprised to see me,’ the Doctor continued
cheerily from the depths of the Kang Brainquarters. ‘I can’t
imagine why. I thought it was me you were looking for.’
     ‘Seize him!’ A couple of the burliest Caretakers stumbled
down the steps and brought the Doctor back up. It was hard
work, given the steepness of the steps, but the Doctor made no
resistance. His very compliance made the slow-witted Deputy
suspicious.
     ‘You’re not alone down there, are you?’ the Deputy asked
when the Doctor had been placed face to face with him at street
level.
     ‘Well, as a matter of fact, I am,’ the Doctor returned
amiably. ‘I found this cosy little hole just by accident, some sort
of broom cupboard I suppose, but ideal for a quick snooze.’
     ‘You don’t fool me, Great Architect,’ the Deputy snapped
back. ‘There are Kangs down there.’
     ‘Take a look for yourself if you don’t believe me.’
     The Doctor gestured courteously to the gaping hole that led
down to the Brainquarters. The Deputy, whose dim brain always
suspected people were trying to make a fool of him, accepted the
challenge. He went down into the Brainquarters. He searched
under bunk beds and inside cupboards. He upturned boxes
filled with food. And he stuck his head into the Fizzade machine.
But he found nothing.
     It was a weary Deputy who came back up the stairs to see
the Doctor grinning pleasantly. ‘Well, Deputy Chief?’
     The Deputy Chief made no attempt to conceal how peeved
he was. ‘I don’t know what you’re so pleased about,’ he said with
a grim smile, ‘There’s a 327 Appendix 3 Subsection 9 Death
waiting for you.’ He turned to the waiting retinue of Caretakers.
‘Bring him back to Headquarters.’
     And, not for the first time, the Doctor found himself being
bundled off down shadowy streets for an encounter with the
Chief Caretaker. He was not to know that this time his journey
was being monitored by bright young Red Kang eyes. Kangs
never forgot a favour.

The Rezzies seemed to have never thrown anything away. In the
cupboards and drawers of their flat, neatly stacked away, were
bizarre-looking mouse traps, balls of string, quantities of cooking
utensils, any number of varieties of birdseed. And specially
wrapped in a lovingly knitted woollen holder was what Mel had
been looking for.
    ‘What is it?’ Pex asked as Mel held it up triumphantly. He
was still recovering from his ordeal and lacked Mel’s energy for
investigation.
    ‘It’s a map of Paradise Towers,’ Mel replied. ‘It occurred to
me that when everybody was first sent here they would have
been given a map to help them get around.’
    ‘I wasn’t,’ Pex protested but then he stopped and blushed.
‘But then – well, nobody knew I was in the ship, did they?’
     Mel, however, was too busy unfolding the map on to the
biggest of the glass-topped tables to notice his embarrassment. As
she carefully spread out the map, smoothing out the folds, the
whole shape of Paradise Towers was clear before her for the first
time. She was thankful the Rezzies had been such hoarders.
     Pex came over to see.
     ‘Now at last we can see where we are,’ Mel said, as her eyes
took in the scale of the whole architectural undertaking. ‘It’s
huge isn’t it? Three hundred and four floors.’ She pointed to a
neat mark Tilda or Tabby had made indicating their flat. ‘That
shows we must be on floor one hundred and nine.’
     ‘Mel –’
     ‘Yes?’
     ‘Are you sure you want to get to the pool in the sky?’
     ‘Of course,’ Mel returned. ‘That’s where I’m meeting the
Doctor.’
     ‘You musn’t go.’ Pex’s face had taken on the hunted look
Mel remembered from when he had been cornered by the Blue
Kangs.
     ‘Don’t be silly, Pex.’ She consulted the map. ‘Look, there it
is, on the map. Floor three hundred and four. What’s the point
of having a pool if no-one ever uses it?’
     ‘But, Mel –’ Pex persisted, ‘only the unalive go there.’
     ‘Who says so?’
     ‘Everybody.’ Pex blushed again. ‘Bin Liner and Fire Escape.’
     ‘Well, after being attacked by Kangs and nearly eaten by
Tilda and Tabby, I can’t see that I can possibly be in more
danger up there than down here,’ Mel scoffed. ‘Might even have
a swim if I’m lucky.’ She broke off as her sharp eyes spotted
something else on the map. ‘Now that’s odd.’
     ‘What?’
     ‘Look down there.’ Mel pointed to the bottom-most section
of the map. ‘Basement’ the legend read. And then right across
the section, practically obliterating all details of its layout had
been printed the words, ‘Entry Forbidden to All Residents of
Paradise Towers on Pain of Death.’
     Pex gulped. ‘Well,’ Mel said, determined to look on the
bright side, ‘at least it sounds as if it’s safer going up than going
down. You needn’t come if you don’t want to, Pex.’
     ‘But I do.’ Pex’s face was anxious but still resolute. ‘It’s my
job to protect you.’
     Knowing how fearful Pex was, Mel tried to persuade him to
think again. After all, he had saved her life once now, didn’t that
mean he had done enough? But Pex could be very obstinate
when he wanted to be as Mel had already learned. And after
recent events, she was secretly quite glad that he might tag
along. She was beginning to feel quite fond of this muddled-
headed, cowardly, self-appointed vigilante.
     ‘So you’re coming with me, come what may?’ Mel asked
finally.
     Pex nodded. The discussion was over. Mel started to fold up
the map to take with them. It would transform their journey.
She didn’t imagine it was going to be easy. But for the first time
she really believed they could make it to the great pool in the
sky.

‘Welcome back, Great Architect.’ The Chief turned from the
bank of screens in his Headquarters to face the Doctor who was
bundled into his presence by the proud Deputy.
    The Chief’s bloodshot eyes took in the prisoner gloatingly.
‘I’m relieved that it’s you and not my Deputy who will be
enjoying the 327 Appendix 3 Subsection 9 death. For a start, his
demise would have involved an enormous amount of extra
paperwork.’
    ‘Chief –’ The Deputy had picked up bad news from his Mark
12 LDCE on the journey home and wanted to discuss it. ‘Chief,
just now I heard reports that Caretaker number 97 stroke 2
subsection 9 has disappeared without any known explanation
and that Caretaker number 348 stroke –’
     ‘I’m well aware of that,’ the Chief cut in brusquely.
     ‘But, Chief,’ the Deputy continued, too concerned to notice
the Chief’s growing impatience. ‘If this goes on and the Cleaners
are out of control, how many of us are going to be left?’
     There was a deathly silence. The Deputy stopped, shame-
faced. He had gone too far and he knew it even before the Chief
started to reply in a hushed but stern voice.
     ‘Deputy Chief Caretaker, by talking out of turn in such a
way, you have just broken so many rules and regulations that it
would take several hours just to enumerate them.’ The Deputy
bowed his head.
     ‘Wait outside.’
     ‘Yes, Chief.’
     ‘And that goes for the rest of you,’ the Chief added, daring
the other Caretakers to pick up the baton of protest his Deputy
had so quickly dropped. There were no takers, he noted with
relief. The Chief’s searching gaze turned back to the Doctor. ‘I
think it would be a good idea if before his death, the Great
Architect and I had a nice little Regulation 13 Appendix 2 Final
Conversation.’
     Moments later the Doctor and the Chief were alone in the
control room. Two strong wills confronted each other in silence.
The Doctor decided he would wait for the Chief to start. If he
was to die anyway, he might as well see what the Chief had in
mind in sending his subordinates all away so peremptorily. The
Doctor was fairly certain there were things the Chief had to say
which were not for the ears of the already rattled Caretakers.
     ‘Are you the Great Architect?’ The Chief suddenly broke his
broody silence.
     ‘You mean, you’re not certain any more?’
     ‘Oh, I shall kill you anyway,’ the Chief put in, ‘but it would
be interesting to know.’
     ‘What makes you think I am the Great Architect anyway?’
the Doctor enquired. ‘Haven’t you ever met him?’
     The Chief shook his head. ‘Just when Paradise Towers was
being completed, before any of us got here, he disappeared
under mysterious circumstances. He’s never been seen since.
Anywhere.’
     ‘How odd.’ The Doctor was deliberately non-committal,
waiting for more.
     ‘Odd indeed,’ agreed the Chief, ‘for a being whose head was
apparently full of extravagant future plans.’ He stared balefully
at the Doctor. ‘But I always knew in my bones that he’d turn up
again one day. And start altering things just when I’d got them
the way I wanted.’
     ‘And that would justify killing me – I mean him?’
     ‘Oh yes.’ There was not a scrap of remorse or doubt in the
Chief’s voice. The Doctor felt now was the time for him to take
the initiative. Not least because he could feel anger building up
inside him against the Chief’s cynical ruthlessness.
     He fixed his adversary with a steely look. ‘Like everyone else
in Paradise Towers,’ he began, ‘you seem terrified to face up to
the reality of what’s happening here. I mean, killing me won’t
help you to find out who is sending those robotic cleaners out to
kill people. You’ve certainly got your Deputy and all the other
Caretakers thoroughly scared for their lives. And that’s a
problem which isn’t going to go away.’ The Chief was returning
his gaze steadily up to now but the Doctor suddenly took a leap
into the unexpected. ‘Unless, of course, you’re giving all those
orders yourself.’
     ‘A ridiculous idea!’ The Chief’s dismissive reaction was
immediate but there was something shifty and nervous about the
way his eyes were starting to move. The Doctor gained the
confidence to carry on.
    ‘Ridiculous perhaps. But I do have a better one.’
    ‘And what is that?’
    The Doctor took his time now, choosing his words carefully.
‘Of course,’ he began brightly, ‘there can be no doubt you have
been allowing the Cleaners to kill off some of your people, as well,
of course, as any poor innocent Kangs they can find, for reasons
that are, for the moment, beyond me. But then I’m not a power-
crazed psychopath.’
    ‘What did you say?’ The Chief was furious and his voice
echoed round the room. But the Doctor kept his head. The
more the Chief blustered, the more certain he became he was on
the right track.
    ‘Look, Chief Caretaker, you’re going to kill me anyway so
you may as well make use of my brain, for what it’s worth, while
I’m here.’ The Chief saw the force of this and subsided back into
his chair as the Doctor continued: ‘What I also think is
happening here, besides your own activities, is that Caretakers,
Kangs, Red, Blue, Yellow, anyone in sight is being killed off
without any instructions from you. And without any reference
whatsoever to that precious rule book of yours.’ He paused. ‘And
that’s why you’re worried. You don’t know who’s doing it.’
    ‘Oh, don’t I?’ The Chief had been listening intently up to
now but the last thrust was too much. His sallow face went red
with rage and he rose angrily from his seat. The Doctor had
touched a nerve all right.
    At that moment the Chief was furious enough to have done
anything but, luckily for the Doctor, the control room door slid
open and the Deputy burst in looking agitated. He was speaking
before he was fully through the door.
     ‘Report from Floor 109, Chief. Two of the oldsters have
apparently disappeared and it is believed that they have gone
down the XY3 standard issue waste disposal unit.’
     ‘What!’ The Chief was genuinely thrown off-balance.
     ‘It’s unheard of, Chief,’ continued the Deputy. ‘I should
remind you that under the emergency regulation number 56
subsection –’
     ‘Yes, yes, I know,’ the Chief cut him off impatiently. ‘I have
to go and find out what’s happened. Why do things like this
always happen at the most inconvenient moment?’ He started to
move decisively towards the door. ‘Deputy, I leave you in
charge.’ His face twisted into an ugly smile. ‘I don’t need to
remind you of the consequences of any second mistake.’
     ‘No, Chief.’ The Deputy shuffled uncomfortably. And then,
just as he was leaving, the Chief had a sudden inspiration. He
turned back and glanced at the Doctor, who was still seated
where the Regulation 13 Appendix 2 Final Conversation had
taken place.
     ‘Perhaps we should allow the Great Architect to see a copy of
the Illustrated Prospectus to Paradise Towers. Might bring back
happy memories.’ The ugly grin returned, a relish of revenge
for the discomfort the Doctor had caused him. ‘Not that I shall
be away long. It’s against my principles to keep anyone waiting.’
     The door slid to and he was gone.
     ‘And no funny business with the rule book this time, all
right?’ The Deputy’s tone was almost pleading as he had once
again to assume control of the prisoner.
     But the Doctor did not answer. Indeed he barely heard what
the Deputy was saying. His mind was elsewhere, turning over far
bigger and more baffling problems than how he was to escape
again. The chat with the Chief had started to open up
extraordinary possibilities but their implication still eluded him.
    Perhaps the Illustrated Prospectus to the Towers would
furnish the clue he still needed.
                         8
            The Illustrated Prospectus
It was inevitable, Mel supposed, but it was still a shock. She had
decided to make a detour to where they had left the TARDIS on
the corner of Fountain of Happiness Square. It had seemed a
good idea to be able to fix in her mind where it was located for
when the time came to leave Paradise Towers. She could even
mark it on Tilda and Tabby’s map. Now she rather wished she
hadn’t bothered. The sight of the TARDIS covered all over with
graffiti was not encouraging.
      ‘Kang wallscrawl,’ Pex announced, rather unnecessarily.
      ‘I know,’ Mel returned pointedly. Lots of it. As if the Blue
Kangs had had a go first and then the Red Kangs had come and
gone one better. There was certainly a mass of different slogans,
paintings and signs covering the familiar blue telephone box.
The Doctor, Mel feared, was not going to be too pleased.
      ‘Quiet!’ Pex had tensed suddenly and his eyes were scanning
the dark corners of the Square.
      ‘What is it now?’ Mel enquired patiently.
      ‘I thought I saw a Blue Kang.’
      ‘Relax!’ Mel urged him. ‘I know the Blue Kangs weren’t
very nice to you but if you’re going to be this jumpy all the time
it’s going to be hopeless.’
      ‘You don’t know them like I do,’ Pex insisted. But Mel had
already started to leave the Square. It was no good crying over
spilt milk. Hopefully, there would be time at a later date to clean
up the TARDIS. For the moment they had to get on.
      Sometimes when you’re in a hurry or slightly flustered, you
don’t trust your instincts. Mel was anxious to pull Pex out of his
panic so she didn’t perhaps pay enough attention to hers.
Because, as they left the Square, Mel had a very strong sense
that they were being followed. And not by Blue Kangs.

‘Welcome one and all to Paradise Towers, which will be your
new home for a good few years to come...’
     The Doctor settled back comfortably in anticipation. The
Illustrated Prospectus promised well from the point of view of
information. After all, it was intended to help future inhabitants
not lure unsuspecting tourists like the aged video-brochure that
had so impressed Mel.
     ‘Some of you will understandably feel nervous at leaving
everything you know for a strange new environment...’ The
voice was jolly and reassuring, the music that accompanied it
bland and up-beat. The Doctor found it all rather creepy.
     ‘However, we believe once you’ve tasted the Paradise
Towers experience you won’t want to change it for any other...’
Well, it’s not an experience like any other, the Doctor agreed
mentally but personally he’d have exchanged it for a weekend
locked in a hotel room with the Daleks.
     Pictures of various aspects of Paradise Towers started to
appear now. And the Doctor realised that, in the original
concept, it was not just the swimming pool that was planned on
such a lavish and spacious scale. The video-brochure had not
lied. Now he had walked round the desolate streets, the Doctor
found he could recognise places he had passed through in their
gleaming new counterparts on the screen.
     ‘Our motto,’ intoned the voice, ‘is “Build High for
Happiness”...’
     So there was one less mystery. The Kangs’ code phrase that
had puzzled him before was the slogan the inhabitants had been
given when they first arrived, one no doubt intended to give
them confidence and pride in the soaring Towers. The Kangs,
he was sure, knew nothing of that. For them it was simply a
resonant phrase, a magic conjuration against disaster.
     ‘The facilities of this mighty structure are unrivalled,’ the
cheery voice continued as glossy image followed glossy image.
‘Every care has been taken to ensure that Paradise Towers will
not only be thoroughly enjoyable but also safe and clean...’
     There was a great deal of din in the background behind the
Doctor but he was so tense with concentration that he tried to
filter the noise out and hear only what was on the screen.
     ‘Paradise Towers has been specially designed for you by...’
     The Doctor leant forward eagerly but it was impossible to
hear a word of what was being said on the screen. The noise in
the control room was quite deafening. As if somebody had
decided to move all the furniture around and somebody else was
trying to stop them.
     The Doctor turned. ‘Will you please keep quiet, I’m –’ He
stopped in mid-sentence as he finally realised the explanation
for all the upheaval. The Deputy and other Caretakers guarding
the Doctor were on the floor, arms tied behind their backs and
gags in their mouths. And over them, crossbows in hand, stood a
small group of Red Kangs with Bin Liner and Fire Escape at
their head.
     ‘How you do, Doctor?’ Bin Liner, grinning, gave the Doctor
the Kang salute. With delight the Doctor returned it. ‘Bin Liner!
Fire Escape! How did you get here?’
     ‘We track you down the carrydoors,’ Fire Escape answered,
‘creep in when the Chief Caretaker left and bundle up these
others.’ She gestured to the woe-begone Caretakers on the floor.
     ‘Sorry to disturb you,’ apologised Bin Liner, in whose hand
a copy of the small square key card was visible, spoils no doubt
from an unwary Caretaker.
     ‘Not at all,’ the Doctor replied. ‘I’m delighted to see you.
You must have taken quite a risk.’
     ‘You took a risk for us,’ Fire Escape returned simply. ‘But
we must all leave now, Doctor.’ She placed the key card in
position and the door started to open.
     ‘Of course,’ the Doctor agreed eagerly. ‘There’s bound to be
an alarm system that the Deputy can set off given half a chance.’
     He was halfway across the control room when he
remembered the Prospectus was still playing. ‘How stupid of
me,’ the Doctor muttered. He rushed back to the screen and
removed from it the high tech disc within that contained the
Prospectus. Crucial evidence to be examined in more detail
later.
     As he stepped over the recumbent Deputy, he waved the
disc cheerily at him. ‘I’m sure there are rules to govern all this,
aren’t there, Deputy?’
     Gagged as he was, the furious Deputy could only mumble
indistinctly.
     ‘You know,’ the Doctor remarked as they left the
Headquarters, ‘that’s the most intelligent thing he’s said so far.’
     The door slid shut behind them leaving the Deputy to face
the wrath of his Chief for a second time.

The Chief Caretaker peered down the XY3 standard issue waste
disposal unit but there were certainly no traces of Tilda and
Tabby for him to see. He had a pretty shrewd idea where they
would end up, of course, but it worried him that once again he
had not given any orders. Someone else had sucked them down
to their fate. Someone or something. He would have to
investigate very closely. For the moment, however, he had a
more immediate task: to comfort the agitated Maddy, who
hovered by his side, her plump face a picture of puzzlement and
distress. It was she who had summoned the Caretakers after
hearing strange noises and reported Tilda and Tabby’s probable
fate.
      ‘Well, I can’t think of any other explanation,’ she insisted to
the Chief. ‘Can you?’
      ‘Since you ask,’ he returned loftily, ‘thousands.’
      ‘But it’s never happened before,’ Maddy persisted.
      The Chief Caretaker straightened up from his investigation
and gave Maddy the full force of his most disarming smile. ‘You
wouldn’t by any chance have eaten them, would you?’
      ‘What do you mean?’ Maddy stared at him in total shock.
      ‘I’ve heard rumours that such things go on, you know,’ the
Chief continued.
      ‘The very idea!’ Maddy exclaimed indignantly. ‘They were
my friends, my closest neighbours. Would I have summoned you
if I’d done something wrong?’
      ‘It was just a thought.’ The Chief was pacific now. It had
been worth a try but the woman was clearly an innocent, trusting
fool. The real culprit was elsewhere. ‘Anyway,’ he assured her
charmingly, ‘there is no cause for panic.’
      ‘No cause for panic!’ Maddy could not believe her ears and
repeated the words in disbelief. ‘No cause for panic! Two of my
next-door neighbours have just disappeared down the waste
disposal chute!’ She remembered then Tilda and Tabby’s many
little meannesses and acts of unfriendliness but also the
awfulness of their fate. ‘I wouldn’t wish that on anybody.’
      The Chief resumed his official face. ‘There will, of course, be
a frank and full review of the circumstances and in due course a
report will be issued to all Residents. And you can rest assured
there will be no cover-up.’ He repeated the last words more
impressively to emphasise them. ‘No cover-up at all.’
      Maddy’s face, however, was still filled with doubt. The Chief
brought his face closer to hers and hissed in confidential tones. ‘I
would urge you, nevertheless, for the moment to keep the
matter quiet. We don’t want to alarm people unduly, do we?’
      ‘Well,’ Maddy hesitated, ‘I’m not really sure that I ought to.’
     Fuller measures were going to be needed and the Chief,
suppressing his impatience, re-assumed his official voice. ‘Not
that I would in any way wish to bribe you to hold your tongue
but rules could be made flexible and it could be arranged for
you to move into this flat instead of your own. It is, after all,
substantially larger.’ His eyes invited Maddy to take in the
attractiveness of the move into this bright snug apartment. ‘After
all, what’s the good of panicking people when, I repeat,
everything is under control?’
     Maddy regarded the flat longingly. Her desire for it battled
with her innate honesty and, for the moment at least, won.
‘Well,’ she conceded slowly, ‘I would hate to upset anybody.’
     ‘Exactly.’ The Chief allowed himself a smile. The fool had
taken the bait and would keep her tongue for the moment.
Whether she would actually get the promised flat or not would
depend on later developments. ‘And now if you’ll excuse me,’ he
continued charmingly. ‘I think I will depart to begin my
investigation.’ He paused as if in thought. ‘In the Basement,
perhaps, might be the best place.’
     The Chief left almost immediately. His exterior was still
calm, a mask of efficiency and tact, but underneath, his brain was
seething with questions. The feeling of unease was back with a
vengeance now and there was nothing he could do to dispel it.
He would have to confront his pet in the Basement. Tilda and
Tabby were not part of the diet he had planned. Daddy was
going to have to be very strict indeed with his darling.
     Maddy said her goodbyes to the Chief with appropriate
deference and then watched him walk away down the street. The
flat was tempting but she was not at all sure she should take it.
Nor was she convinced that she should hold her tongue. Rezzie
gossip had told her about Caretakers being killed. Now Rezzies
themselves were threatened. And Tilda and Tabby had been the
toughest and most self-reliant of them all, eating good fresh
meat long after the rest had given up hope of finding it. If she
didn’t speak out, who was going to go next? She went home to
ponder with a heavy heart.

Mel had not quite shaken off the feeling of being followed – even
though they had been travelling for some time now without sight
of anything, despite Pex’s nervous staring about at every
crossroads. The map, meanwhile, was proving an incalculable
boon. They were making good progress and Mel had even
located a lift that, if it worked, would take them right to the top
of the Towers. It was on the 48th floor and they were nearly
there now.
     As it came into view, Pex started to go towards it to
investigate. Mel gently restrained him. After their previous
experience with a lift she preferred to do the checking herself.
     A careful glance round the nearby street corners and up the
nearest staircases assured her no one was there. ‘Come on,’ she
beckoned to Pex, ‘it’s all safe. Quick!’
     She entered the confined space and Pex reluctantly
followed. The interior certainly boded well. It was comparatively
free of wallscrawl and the control panel seemed undamaged.
The floor indicator was even reading the right floor number,
‘48’, which was the first time Mel had ever come across that in
the Towers.
     ‘Now all I have to do is press the button for the 304th floor
and –’
     ‘Er, Mel –’ Pex sounded uneasy but that was perfectly
normal for him so Mel ignored his interruption and confidently
pressed the button. Unfortunately, nothing happened.
     ‘Mel – look!’ Pex’s voice was sounding really scared now.
Scared enough for Mel to notice and follow the line of his
pointing finger.
    Down the street towards them came a large, white, wheeled
robot with headlights gleaming in the gloom. It made a soft
regular whirring sound. And on its front a ferocious-looking
corkscrew device turned menacingly. Mel gasped. Was this what
had been following them all that time? It was scary in a way
pursuing Kangs would never be and she felt her heart thump.
    ‘What is it, Pex?’
    ‘I’ll explain later,’ Pex urged plaintively. ‘Could you just
press the button?’
    Mel had no more wish to stay around and face the robot
than Pex so she pressed the button again. Nothing happened.
The door stayed open and the robot, corkscrew rotating, came
nearer. If the lift failed to move, they were trapped.
    Mel pressed the button yet again. There was a faint whirring
sound and then, after an agonising pause, the lift doors slid shut
and the lift was in motion, leaving the robot behind.
    ‘You see, we call those Cleaners,’ Pex began to explain, ‘and
sometimes they –’
    ‘Pex!’ Mel was eager to hear his explanation but she had
noticed something that took priority. She pointed to the lift
indicator.
    ‘Am I imagining things?’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Are we going up – or are we going down?’
    Pex thought for a moment. The indicator certainly showed
them going down but that wasn’t necessarily a true sign of what
was happening. But Pex quickly decided that, for once, the
indicator was telling the truth. ‘We’re going down,’ he admitted.
    ‘But I pressed the button to go up,’ Mel protested.
    Pex nodded ruefully. ‘But the Kangs play a game, you see.
These lifts only take one instruction at a time. So the Kangs get
in and press the button for all kinds of floors up and down the
building and the lift will have to go to all those floors before it’ll
get to the floor we want to go.’
     Mel listened, horror-struck. ‘So we could be stuck in here
going up and down for hours?’
     Pex nodded.
     ‘And we could end up facing that dreadful Cleaner thing
again – or something worse?’
     Pex nodded again. ‘Now do you see why I don’t like
travelling in lifts?’
     Mel had to acknowledge that she did see why. And she had
thought they were doing so well in their trek to the 304th floor.

‘Well, Red Kangs, I have to say I’d never imagined I’d be glad to
see this place again.’ The Doctor took in the familiar details of
the Brainquarters and was surprised by how comforting it
seemed now after the lair of the Chief Caretaker. The Kangs
were sometimes difficult and unpredictable but they were not
mad, bad or totally ruthless. That meant a lot in Paradise
Towers.
     ‘Be seated, Doctor,’ Bin Liner invited.
     ‘And drink.’ Fire Escape produced a can of Fizzade from the
machine and pulled off the metal tag. The Doctor and the other
Red Kangs laughed at the reminder of their last encounter as
they all settled down to talk.
     ‘Thank you, Fire Escape.’ The Doctor graciously accepted
the can and thankfully downed half of it. While the rest were
being served, however, he felt he had to press on. ‘Before we
doing anything else,’ he told his hosts, ‘we must look at the
Illustrated Prospectus.’ He reached in his pocket to pull it out
but it was the wrong pocket. Quite a few pockets later, however,
the Doctor finally brought the precious disc to light.
     ‘You do have something we can look at it on, I presume?’
the Doctor enquired.
      Fire Escape pointed nonchalantly to what looked like a large
fire extinguisher with a screen fitted to its top.
      ‘Ah, the wonders of Paradise Towers technology,’ the Doctor
muttered to himself. It appeared to be junk but the Doctor had
sufficient confidence now in the Kangs to believe it would work
every bit as well as the talkiphones.
      Setting up the Picturespout, as the Kangs called it, took a
little time, and, while Bin Liner worked at this, the others
huddled round the Doctor, eager to ask questions of this strange
being who had entered their enclosed world.
      ‘Is it true that there are other places, not like the Towers?’
      ‘Oh yes,’ the Doctor replied. ‘Many other places. More than
you could count if you started counting now and went on until
you were unalive. All with different languages and different
clothes and different customs.’
      ‘Do they all have Rezzies who eat Kangs?’
      The Doctor shook his head.
      ‘But Kangs,’ one of the smaller Reds protested, ‘they all have
Kangs, don’t they?’
      The Doctor shook his head again. ‘No. No Kangs. No Red
Kangs. No Blue Kangs. No any-colour Kangs.’
      ‘No Kangs.’ Fire Escape repeated the words wonderingly
and the Kangs looked at each other in surprise. That there were
other worlds had never occured to them but then nobody had
ever attempted to explain the facts before. That these worlds
operated on different principles from the rules of the Kang
game and the harsh facts of survival in Paradise Towers amazed
them. And gave them much to think about and discuss in the
days to come.
      ‘We want you to tell us about such places.’
      The Doctor was happy to agree but at that moment Bin
Liner announced that the Picturespout was ‘all shape-ship and
ready’ and they could view the Prospectus. They all realised that
delightful though it was to talk of other places, their immediate
concern was the state of the Towers.
     Everyone shifted on the floor until they had a good view and
the Picturespout went into action. The opening images were
already familiar to the Doctor but they so fascinated the Kangs,
who had never seen pictures of the Towers as it was first
completed, that he did not have the heart to hurry on through.
At last, however, they came to the part of the Prospectus he had
been studying when the Kangs had rescued him. The cheery
voice framed that tantalising sentence and this time he was going
to hear all of it.
     ‘Paradise Towers,’ the voice announced, ‘has been specially
designed for you by Kroagnon, universally known as the Great
Architect, the genius responsible for Golden Dream Park, the
Bridge of Perpetual Motion, Miracle City...’
     ‘Miracle City!’ The Doctor’s eyes were agleam. A name had
finally jogged his momory and the whole thing was suddenly
falling into place. The name Kroagnon on the coin. The Great
Architect never seen since the Towers were built. And now a list
of his achievements had mentioned Miracle City. The Doctor
knew all about Miracle City and he intended that the Kangs
should know the whole story too.

The indicator said Mel and Pex were going up now. So far they
had stopped at the 9th floor, the 102nd floor, the 56th floor, the
239th floor, the 9th floor (again) and the 173rd floor but the
doors had not opened on anything alarming like a Cleaner
waiting outside and they had always shut to order.
    ‘Well, I suppose it is one way of seeing Paradise Towers,’
Mel announced philosophically, now that Pex had fully informed
her of the dangers of Cleaners and Caretakers. ‘Just so long as
nothing goes wrong with the lift.’
     At that moment the lights inside the lift started to flicker and
then the whole lift started to judder alarmingly. Pex was
immediately on edge. ‘What did you say?’ he asked, too nervous
to really listen.
     ‘It doesn’t matter really,’ Mel replied, still trying to make the
best of the situation. ‘Unless, of course, the lift sticks completely
between floors.’
     She should have known better. The lift promptly juddered
to a complete halt, stuck between floors.
     ‘Well, at least the lights haven’t gone out,’ Mel insisted
brightly.
     Then the lights went out too. They were stuck there in the
blackness unable to get out or summon help. They couldn’t even
tell which floors they were stuck between. It was too much for
Pex.
     ‘I hate the dark,’ he whimpered quietly.
     To be honest, Mel wasn’t too keen on it either. And it was
fortunate for both of them that a small red emergency light now
came on, allowing them to see just a little in the semi-darkness.
Both of them started to feel around for the control panel. It was
Mel who found it first.
     ‘The controls are really stiff, though,’ she panted, trying to
get them to work. Something had clearly jammed and she made
no impression at all.
     ‘Here. Let me.’ Pex may not have been the braver of the two
but he was undoubtedly the stronger and Mel pulled back as far
as she could in the confined space in the lift to let him get to the
control panel.
     In the flickering red light, Mel saw Pex go through the same
extraordinary preparatory routine he had used when he bent
the street lamp. It seemed like that had happened days ago but
she realised with a shock it was probably only a matter of hours.
But here again was the same flexing and the same deep
breathing. And then Pex came right up to the control panel and
brought the whole force of his hand down on it with a strange
war-like cry.
      They waited for a moment and then the main light came on.
It was a hopeful sign.
      ‘Well done, Pex!’ Mel exclaimed. In the full light she could
see he was looking pleased with himself, and, for once, she did
not begrudge him his complacency. And a moment later the lift
mercifully juddered back into action.
      The floor indicator, however, started to go crazy and Mel
had a tremendous sinking feeling in her stomach. ‘The only snag
is,’ she called to Pex over the juddering, ‘that we seem to be
going down. Very fast.’
      And indeed the lift was all too obviously plummeting down
the floors of the Towers at a phenomenal rate. Neither of them
cared to discuss when and where the lift would come to a halt.

The Chief was walking along the 48th floor on his way to the
Basement when he saw it. A Megapodic Mark 7Z Cleaner
standing by one of the few functional lifts with its corkscrew
attachment in action.
     ‘What are you doing here, Robotic Cleaner 479?’ he
demanded as he came up and could see the registration mark on
its side. ‘I didn’t order you to stand there. Get back to the 67Y
Depot at once.’
     The Cleaner did not move.
     ‘Do you hear my orders?’ the Chief barked. It was the first
time he had faced an insubordinate Cleaner although reason
told him that they had to exist for all the unauthorised killings to
have taken place. But he felt certain a little firm handling would
soon put matters to rights.
     It didn’t. Instead Robotic Cleaner 479 did something totally
unexpected. It turned to face him and then started to force him
back down the corridor. Its corkscrew rotated so ferociously that
the Chief did not feel like confronting it directly. Instead he was
forced to employ gentler means.
     ‘What’s going on, Robotic Cleaner 479?’ he asked plaintively
as he was edged back down the corridor. ‘Look, there’s no need
for this. Really there isn’t.’
     And then the ghastly truth of what was happening struck
him. He wasn’t any longer going down to the Basement to see
his pet under his own steam, choosing his own time and his own
route. He was being forced to go there by some greater power.

The Doctor had the total attention of the Red Kangs as he
talked. It would have been possible to hear a pin drop. And no
wonder. He was telling them how the world in which they had
lived all their lives came into being.
     ‘Kroagnon,’ the Doctor was saying, ‘was a brilliant architect
who created a number of projects around the Galaxy. But, for all
his brilliance, a lot of people didn’t trust him. Miracle City was
his masterpiece. But the architect showed a great reluctance to
finish the building and move out so that the people could move
in. He thought they’d spoil the beauty of his creation. They got
him out in the end, of course, but the people who moved in lived
to regret it.’
     Fire Escape gasped. ‘He made them unalive?’
     ‘Faults occurred and lives were lost,’ the Doctor answered,
‘but his responsibility could never be proved so he got away with
it. There were many who believed it was some sort of revenge
for not being allowed to have his own way.’
     The Doctor took a deep breath and pursed his lips. ‘But,
you see, my dear Kangs, space is a big place. And he was brilliant
and so he got other work including, of course, Paradise Towers.’
     ‘Blank walls and cleaners!’ It was an exclamation the Doctor
had not heard before. But it was apparently the only one strong
enough to express Bin Liner’s feelings at the implications of
what the Doctor had said.
    ‘Of course,’ the Doctor continued gravely, ‘after that, he
disappeared. The Chief Caretaker told me that. But mayhaps,
my dear Red Kangs –’ he paused to take in their anxious and
intent faces. ‘Mayhaps your parents thought they were being
clever by leaving him here trapped in some way in his own
building. Perhaps to guard its secret. Perhaps to stop him
capping it with a greater project. Most likely to prevent the sort
of problems there had been over Miracle City.’
    The Doctor paused again, the gravity of what he was saying
having an effect on him too. ‘But if your parents did do that,’ he
then concluded, ‘they did a very foolish thing. Because, no
matter how deep they buried him in Paradise Towers, he’s
bound to get out in the end.’
    There was a long silence. Bin Liner broke it.
    ‘What must Red Kangs do, Doctor?’
    ‘We’ll fight for you,’ Fire Escape added. And there was
immediately a chorus of other offers to fight.
    The Doctor held up his hand gently. ‘You must do
something more difficult than that. You must tell me all you
know.’ His eyes met Bin Liner’s. ‘I mean, that door with the
smoke coming out of it. Where is it?’
    Bin Liner hesitated. ‘Please,’ the Doctor insisted, ‘it’s
important.’
    ‘In the Basement,’ Bin Liner admitted. ‘The Cleaners have a
secret alleviator. Red Kangs have used it and seen –’
    ‘And seen what?’
    ‘Things they could not speak of,’ Bin Liner mumbled
shamefacedly.
    The Doctor decided it was again time to take action. The
Kangs too were happier with that than providing explanations.
‘I’m going down to the Basement to find out what’s going on,’
he announced. ‘I’m sure for a start that the Chief Caretaker
knows a lot more than he’s letting on.’
     ‘I’ll go outlook with you, Doctor,’ Bin Liner immediately put
in, delighted the conversation had taken this turn.
     ‘And me,’ put in Fire Escape eagerly. Again there was a
babble of voices offering help.
     The Doctor held up his hand once more to command
silence. ‘All right, all right. Bin Liner and Fire Escape, you come
with me. I’m sure there’ll be work for the rest of you to do in
time. Stay here for the moment though. The three of us must go
immediately.’
     ‘No!’ It was the voice of the Blue Kang leader. She and the
rest of her Kangs were massed at the top of the narrow stairsand
were pouring down now, crossbows in hand. So intent had been
the Red Kangs on the Doctor’s story that they had been able to
force an entry upstairs without being noticed.
     The Blue Kang leader was triumphant. ‘Red Kangs leave no
outlooks,’ she jeered. ‘Blue Kangs have got into their
Brainquarters and won the game. Blue Kangs are best!’
     ‘Blue Kangs are best! Blue Kangs are best!’ the others joined
in with victorious pride. Not surprisingly, perhaps, a counter cry
of ‘Red Kangs are best!’ went up from the ambushed.
     The quarrelling was deafening and the Doctor had to raise
his voice to a shout to make himself heard. ‘Please!’ he cried
when some semblance of quiet had been created. ‘The future of
Paradise Towers is at stake. We all have to work together.’ He
turned to the Blue Kang leader. ‘You have got to help us.
     It took precious minutes for the Blue Kangs to calm down
and listen. They were so excited by their victory that at first they
could not take in what the Doctor was saying. But eventually
they grasped its import.
     ‘Look,’ urged the Doctor, ‘you’ve got to believe me. I’m sure
the Red Kangs will agree that you’ve won this round of the
game. But there won’t be any games worth playing if we don’t
discover who’s been ordering the killings. Will you let us go to
the Basement?’
     ‘More,’ the Blue Kang returned, convinced at last. ‘I will go
with you.’
     ‘Good,’ the Doctor said approvingly. ‘Then you’ll see with
your own eyes what’s going on.’
     ‘Blue Kang Eye-Spy saw the Chief Caretaker footing it there
too,’ the leader added, indicating one of the others, who nodded
agreement.
     ‘Then we must hurry.’ The Doctor turned back to Bin
Liner. ‘What’s the quickest way to get there?’
     ‘We must use the Cleaners’ secret alleviator,’ Bin Liner
replied.
     ‘Excellent.’ The Doctor and his three companions turned to
say farewell to the rest of the Blue and Red Kangs gathered
together in one space for the first time in their young lives.
‘Build High for Happiness!’
     ‘Build High for Happiness!’ came the answer of the other
Kangs as they made the Kang salute.
     Build High for Happiness, indeed, the Doctor thought as
they hurried away from the Brainquarters. But, let us hope, not
Dig Deep for Disaster.
                          9
                     The Basement
‘Where are we now?’ Mel asked. The lift had finally stopped its
dizzying descent and she and Pex waited anxiously for
developments.
     The door slid open. To Mel the exterior seemed pitch-black.
Pex, however, had barely poked his head out before his square
jaw dropped in dismay. ‘Oh no,’ he murmured.
     ‘What is it?’
     Pex gulped. ‘I think we’re in the Basement.’
     ‘As in “Forbidden to all Residents of Paradise Towers on
Pain of Death”?’
     Pex nodded. The horror of their situation rendered them
both speechless. They peered out in the blackness together and,
as she looked, Mel’s eyes became accustomed to the gloom and
she could just about make out a long dark corridor. Then
beyond it, huge studded doors. Worse still, she then perceived in
the distance white-bodied Cleaners coming and going with
trailers at their back. One approached the studded doors and
they flew open to receive it. Smoke billowed out and then a huge
mechanical roar echoed through the whole basement. At least
Mel thought at first it was mechanical. Then, maybe because of
her overwrought state, she started to think that the roar was
really a voice.
     ‘Soon... soon... soon I shall be free...’
     That was what Mel thought she could make out. But she
couldn’t be sure. The whole atmosphere with the smoke, the
dank corridors and the Cleaners shooting hither and thither was
alarming enough without indulging in fantasies.
     ‘We have to get out of here,’ she hissed to Pex. ‘It’s only a
matter of time before those Cleaners notice us.’ She frantically
tried the lift-control button. ‘This thing is really jammed this
time.’
     ‘Shall I hit it?’ Pex was already preparing himself mentally
for another of his powerful blows. The physical preparations
were about to follow. There was, of course, a very real possibility
that this time Pex would break the control completely and they
would be stuck here for good. Or until the Cleaners picked them
off. But Mel also realised there was no real practical alternative
to trying and so nothing to lose. She nodded her agreement for
Pex to proceed.
     ‘Soon I shall be free... soon...’ the eerie voice still echoed
down the corridor as Pex prepared.
     For a moment she thought his nerve and his strength would
fail him. But Pex lunged at the control button with even greater
force than before and dealt it a savage and sudden blow. There
was an ominous pinging sound and she thought he had merely
succeeded in breaking it. The lights flickered ominously.
     And then she knew instinctively before it happened that they
were going to be all right. The lights steadied and the door shut,
cutting out the mechanical roaring and the smoke-filled
corridor. And there was even better news. The lift was clearly
going up the building now. Very fast.

‘Chief... Chief... Chief...’
     The Deputy Chief had managed to get free with the aid of
some of the other Caretakers returning from duty on the streets
of the Towers. But getting free now seemed to have been the
least of his problems. His next worry was how to tell the Chief
what had happened without undergoing the 327 Appendix 3
Subsection 9 Death himself. A less loyal or less stupid man might
have delayed informing the Chief but the Deputy was trained to
report to his superior immediately. Which led to a third problem
that made the other two pale into insignificance. Finding the
Chief.
     It was quite without precedent and quite without
explanation. No amount of running through the rule book could
yield him a possible solution. However hard and however long
the Deputy tried to contact the Chief via his Mark 12 LDCE all
he received back was total silence.
     The Deputy called out the Chiefs name until his voice was
hoarse. But there was no getting round the dreadful fact. The
Chief could not be contacted. And the Deputy had no inkling of
his whereabouts.
     Put more simply and more frighteningly, the Chief had
disappeared.

At that very moment the Chief, flanked by insistent Megapodic
Cleaners, was confronting through billowing smoke the two fiery
red unblinking eyes of his pet. The eyes burned with a fervour
that made the Chiefs blood run cold but he tried to put a brave
face on it.
      ‘Look,’ he began, blusteringly, ‘I don’t understand what the
matter is, my beauty. I’ve always made sure you’ve had lots of
little tender morsels to make you big and strong. So why have
you been giving my Cleaners orders that aren’t my orders and
killing people I didn’t tell you to kill?’
      There was no denying the power of the voice that replied
now. Nor could the Chief any longer doubt that its mechanical
rumblings framed words and words that showed the workings of
a powerful mind.
      ‘The bodies the Cleaners brought were not right!’ the voice
boomed.
      ‘Not right?’ the Chief queried, a tremor in his voice he could
not conceal. ‘What for?’
      ‘For me to live in!’
      The power and energy of the reply almost knocked the
Chief off his feet but he managed to just about keep his balance.
‘To live in? I don’t understand.’
      ‘Neither could they,’ the voice replied, with withering
contempt. ‘That was the problem.’
      The Doctor and his three Kang companions heard this last
exchange as they crept stealthily out of the Service lift and into
the corridor. They were still breathing heavily from their frantic
descent and the gloom of their surroundings immediately
oppressed their spirits. But they had to persist. Led by the
Doctor, they edged their way along the slimy corridor as near to
the Chief as they dared to come without being spotted by the
Cleaners.
      From there, flattened against the wall, they were able to pick
up the fatal last exchanges between the Chief Caretaker and his
pet.
      ‘You see, my pet,’ the Chief was saying, still struggling to get
control of the situation, ‘all these bodies disappearing. People
are beginning to notice, you know.’
      ‘No matter.’ The two words were magnificent in their
dismissiveness.
      ‘What did you say?’ The Chief peered through the smoke at
the eyes, horrified by what he heard and saw.
      ‘I am ready now. I have my plan.’ The eyes were brighter
and redder than ever.
      The Chief was babbling now, completely unnerved. ‘Look...
it’s... it’s nice to have you chattier than usual, my pet. But I do
think you might be a bit more grateful for all I’ve done for you.’
      ‘You have done all I need you to do.’ The voice boomed
through the rapidly clearing smoke. ‘I need only one more thing
from you.’
     The Cleaners were edging the terrified Chief Caretaker
through the doorway now towards the evilly glowing eyes. From
his viewpoint, the Doctor could see only part of what was
happening. But he could hear the roaring grow louder and
louder. And see the outlines of a large pulsating machine in
which the eyes were located.
     ‘Want something, do you?’ shrieked the Chief, as the
Cleaners forced him relentlessly on. ‘And suppose I won’t give it
to you?’
     ‘You have no choice,’ the voice replied. And the Doctor saw
the machine start to burst apart in a horrifying explosion of
energy and matter. The eyes glowed still stronger and stronger
as the panel around them crumbled away.
     And then a tube-like dome started to slowly descend from
the ceiling of the inner sanctum. And the Chief was edged
nearer and nearer until he stood underneath it totally deprived
of all speech.
     The voice seemed to be everywhere now. ‘I am Kroagnon,
the Great Architect!’ it announced. ‘And I will put an end to you.
And everyone in Paradise Towers!’
     The dome started to descend over the luckless Chief and he
gave one last cry as it enveloped him. And the energy was
everywhere, crackling like flashes of lightning all around the
dome. Sparks shot everywhere and the stout doors themselves
sizzled and buckled with the power. Then the machine and the
eyes were gone. No sound came from inside the dome. And
wherever Kroagnon was, he was no longer in his prison.
     The studded doors banged to with a crash. The Doctor was
so appalled that he was thankful not to see any more. The same
was true of his companions, who stood, still mesmerised, staring
at the door, their eyes seared by the image of the crumbling
panel, the descending dome and their last sight of the petrified
Chief.
     What none of them had noticed was that the Cleaners who
had guarded the Chief remained outside the doors. And now,
their principal task over, they had become aware of the
intruders. And two of them, their corkscrew blades whirring,
were making directly for the group.
     ‘Ware Cleaners!’ called Bin Liner, the first to scent the
danger.
     ‘Quick to the lift!’ the Doctor cried to the others. He
gestured them to run as fast as they could but moved himself
towards the Cleaners to try and delay them for a few vital
seconds by battering at them with his umbrella.
     ‘No, Doctor, wait!’ Fire Escape called. The Kangs had no
intention of abandoning the Doctor or gaining their safety at his
expense. Instead they had their crossbows at the ready in a
matter of seconds. But it was difficult for them to aim at the
Cleaners while the Doctor was in the line of fire.
     The Doctor’s umbrella was wrenched from his grasp in the
struggle. And a moment later a grasping white claw fastened on
his neck. He could feel it contracting, squeezing the breath out
of him. Just my luck, he found himself thinking as he started to
faint, the third time round I really have fallen for that old trick.
     The Kangs fired their crossbows. They could not afford to
wait for a more favourable opportunity any longer if they were
to save the Doctor. And fortunately for him, their aim was true.
Both Cleaners were hit by an arrow on the body which
embedded itself in the metal casing and the third struck the claw
that held the Doctor itself causing the grip to relax for just a
moment.
     ‘Doctor! Quick! Now!’
     The Doctor summoned his last ounce of strength and pulled
free of the metal claw. Abandoning his umbrella to its fate, he
ran after the Kangs. The effect of the arrows was to momentarily
immobilise the Cleaners but it would only be for a moment and
then they would be in pursuit again.
     The fleeing quartet made the Service Lift just in time. As its
metal doors shut behind them, they caught a glimpse of the
Cleaners already back in motion and coming after them. But for
now, with the Service Lift speeding back up the Towers, they
were safe. And even thankful that the Lift used by the Cleaners
had been kept in working order while the rest in the Towers had
been allowed to fall into disrepair.
     The Doctor struggled to get his breath back.
     ‘The Doctor really is icehot –’ the Blue Kang remarked
approvingly.
     ‘Very hot,’ the Doctor couldn’t resist putting in as he
mopped his brow.
     ‘He’s not a yawny oldster anyway,’ Bin Liner agreed.
     The Doctor turned to the Blue Kang leader, whose name,
he had discovered, after all their adventures together, was
Drinking Fountain. ‘Now you understand the dangerous
position we are all in. We must get all the Kangs together, not
just those waiting in the Brainquarters.’
     Drinking Fountain nodded. The two Red Kangs meanwhile
were trying to make sense of what they had seen.
     ‘And is the Chief Caretaker really unalive?’ Fire Escape
asked the Doctor wonderingly.
     The Doctor nodded thoughtfully. ‘As himself, yes. But you
saw what happened. So far as I can understand what was going
on, up to now Kroagnon has simply been a mind without a body.
Just as your parents left him when they made that fatal decision
to lock him up in the Basement to stop him harming the new
occupants.’
     ‘But the sparks and the dome –’ Bin Liner began, the vivid
images still lodged in her brain.
     ‘Well,’ sighed the Doctor, ‘I fear Kroagnon may have spent
his time down there devising a means to perform
corpoelectroscopy – a way of transferring his brilliant brain into
some host body.’
     ‘And what’s the comeout, Doctor?’ Three anxious faces
peered at him in the half-light of the lift.
     ‘I can’t be certain,’ the Doctor replied. His face was grim and
he was not going to insult the Kangs by failing to prepare them
for the worst. ‘Kroagnon will undoubtedly not stay locked in his
Basement much longer. He’s bound to show himself – in one
form or another...’

The studded metal doors flew open. And a figure walked stiffly
out. It was the Chief and yet not the Chief. It was the Chief’s face
and yet the face was pale and strangely coloured with a greenish
hue. It was the Chief’s voice but much more mechanical
sounding with a soft, steely power the Chief had never had. It
was the Chiefs body and yet its movements were stiff and robotic
but at the same time powerful and menacing as the Chief’s had
never been. And, most eerie of all, it was the Chiefs uniform but
what was once grey and tattered had become white and
glistening as if purged by some violent electrical process.
     ‘Attention all Robotic Cleaners... Attention all Robotic
Cleaners...’
     The figure waited calmly as the cohorts of Cleaners
assembled. He had no need to hurry. All the power and all the
time were on his side. It was not until the last Cleaner was in
place that he began speaking in his soft, mesmeric mechanical
voice.
     ‘At last Kroagnon can leave the basement prison they
trapped his bodyless brain in and return in this borrowed body
to the corridors and lifts of his own creation.’
     As he spoke the figure seemed to grow in strength and
confidence with every word. Now there were contempt and
anger behind the soft control.
     ‘Paradise Towers has become filthy, crumbling and broken-
down, a disgrace to me, the Great Architect who built it. And
who is responsible for this disgusting mess?’ he demanded.
‘People are responsible, that is who. Dirty, untidy creatures of
flesh and blood who should never have been allowed to pollute
this beautiful environment.’
     He advanced a few steps further and the doors that had led
to the prison he had been held in for so long shut behind him
with a finality that inspired him still further.
     ‘They buried me away because I wanted to stop them using
the Towers. And now it is your job to destroy them.’
     His eyes, the burning red eyes of the Chiefs pet not the
bloodshot eyes of the Chief Caretaker himself, took in the
serried ranks of Cleaners, all ready and gleaming white.
     ‘You will destroy them,’ he repeated. ‘All of them!’
                        10
                 The Pool in the Sky
‘Three hundred... three hundred and one... three hundred and
two... three hundred and three... three hundred and...’
     Mel held her breath. Then the lift juddered to a halt. And
the floor indicator read very clearly ‘304’. ‘We made it!’ she
exclaimed with relief. But what, she wondered, was in store up
here at the very top of Paradise Towers? More horrors?
     The lift door opened. A blindingly bright light flooded in,
almost dazzling both Mel and Pex. And, at the same moment,
the sound of soft, sweet recorded music hit their ears.
     They advanced out of the lift almost in a trance and walked
along a deep carpeted corridor decorated with potted plants and
gaily coloured murals all as good as new.
     ‘I just don’t believe it,’ Mel murmured. ‘I really don’t.’
     They pushed open the beautiful glass door and there it was.
The Pool in the Sky. The pool Mel had dreamed about. And,
incredibly, it was exactly as it had been in the pictures Mel had
seen in the video-brochure. The marble floors. The luxurious
loungers. The shimmering blue water. Utterly spotless and
completely deserted. And, somehow, here in reality it was even
more magnificent than any pictures could have made it seem.
After all Mel had been through, it seemed almost too good to be
true.
     The soft music wafted over them as they took in their
surroundings. ‘It’s just the sort of pool I’ve dreamed of,’ Mel
announced, flopping down into one of the lavishly upholstered
loungers that lay by its side. ‘Why don’t the residents of the
Towers ever use it, Pex?’
     Pex was pacing anxiously by the pool side. He was still
unsettled despite the relaxing nature of the environment. ‘We
should not be here,’ he kept muttering as he wandered around,
peering anxiously into every crevice. ‘It’s the home of the
unalive.’
     ‘I think that’s all nonsense,’ Mel replied, lazily stretching out
her arms. ‘Don’t you think it’s wonderful to be somewhere clean
and calm and relaxing?’
     ‘It makes me nervous,’ Pex replied.
     ‘Everything makes you nervous.’ Mel peered longingly into
the water. ‘I’m glad this is where I agreed to meet the Doctor.
Aren’t you going to have a swim, Pex?’
     Pex shook his head and continued his searching.
     ‘I just don’t understand you, Pex. I think that all that talk
about this place being dangerous is just a trick by the Caretakers
so they don’t have to come and clean up the pool all the time.’
     Pex completed his nervy reconnaissance and having found
nothing, perched unhappily on the edge of the next lounger to
Mel.
     ‘Just a few minutes to take the weight off my feet,’ Mel
announced, ‘and then it’s straight into that lovely cool water.’
     She looked down again longingly into the heated water. She
assumed that the bubbles she saw near the middle of the pool
were something to do with the heating system. It did not occur
to her that there might be anything sinister or threatening about
them.

Reports were coming in to the Red Kang Brainquarters from all
over the Towers. Red and Blue Eye-Spies said that the Cleaners
were on the rampage, destroying whoever they found in their
path without exception. The first few floors of the Towers were
already empty of all humans – apart from those unlucky enough
not to move up to a higher floor in time. Drinking Fountain and
Bin Liner both sent out orders to their Eye-Spies to abandon
their posts and return as quickly as they could to Red Kang
Brainquarters.
      They came as quickly as they could, some defiant, some
already scared. Only Fire Escape had still to return from a
difficult mission on Floor Two. But it was apparent to everyone
what was happening. Kroagnon was using the Cleaners to take
over the Towers floor by floor.
      ‘Are all the Kangs here, Blue and Red?’ the Doctor asked
when the Brainquarters seemed full to bursting with the young
warriors who had played the Kang game for so long and now
had to face something much worse.
      ‘Yes,’ Drinking Fountain returned. ‘Except for Fire Escape
and –’ She could not complete the sentence because of what she
felt.
      ‘Those who have been made unalive?’ the Doctor enquired
kindly, helping her to acknowledge the sense of loss. The Blue
Kang leader nodded gratefully.
      Fire Escape returned soon after, her young face trying hard
not to show how much what she had seen had affected her.
Caretakers were not safe now. Nor Rezzies. She had seen both
being made unalive.
      The Doctor took in the faces around him. ‘Our only hope,’
he insisted, ‘is to make for the great pool in the sky.’
      Bin Liner shook her head obstinately. ‘No ballgames. No
flyposts. No visitors to the pool in the sky.’ She spoke for a
number of the others who nodded in agreement.
      ‘Bin Liner, listen,’ the Doctor insisted gently, ‘we need time
to think and plan. The Cleaners will be here in no time at all at
the rate they’re going. The pool in the sky is the furthest place
we can go.’
      Bin Liner hesitated. The others too. It was hard to let go of
old superstitions but they knew they had to. And they had come
to trust the Doctor, who had explained so much they did not’
under-stand. The Doctor felt sure he would be able to win them
over.
     ‘Besides, you may recall,’ he added, to press his advantage,
‘I have to meet my very good friend, Mel, up there.’ He paused
and sighed. ‘I can only hope she’s safely there already.’

                                *

Pex had checked all the changing cubicles and both the showers
several times over. But he was still uneasy and perched uneasily
on the lounger staring at the water as if it was a loaded weapon.
Mel, however, was having none of it, and, feeling fully rested,
had decided to take the plunge.
     Plunge was not perhaps the right word. The water was
deliciously warm and relaxing and she felt better the moment
she climbed down the poolside steps and entered it. She swam
strongly out into the middle of the pool.
     ‘The water’s really lovely,’ she called to Pex. ‘You ought to
come and join me. It’d do you the world of good and there’s
absolutely nothing to be frightened of.’
     She spoke too soon. She had swum very close to the bubbles
which she had assumed were part of the heating system. They
were not. A giant yellow mechanical crab lurked there and now,
sensing its opportunity, it rose from the bottom of the pool and
grabbed Mel in one of its strong metal claws.
     Mel screamed and struggled. To have evaded the claws of
the Cleaners to be dragged underwater by this awesome
creature with its snapping claws and supple, probing metal
antennae was beyond her worst nightmares.
     ‘Pex!’ she called. ‘Pex, help! Do something!’
     Pex dithered feebly on the side of the pool. He was so
terrified by what he saw now in the water that he was unable to
make any practical move to help her.
     ‘What shall I do?’ he called.
     ‘Anything,’ Mel cried back as she thrashed about in the
water, trying to loosen the crab’s steely grip on her wrist.
     Pex called for help. Even in her agony, Mel could not quite
believe it. The best this supposed hero could manage was a cry
for help. Not a very powerful one at that.
     ‘Can’t you think of anything else?’ she shouted desperately.
     Pex could not. Fortunately for Mel, she was a strong
swimmer and somehow she managed to swim back towards the
steps of the pool. The crab, however, still held on and she knew
it was only a matter of moments before she went under. Its other
claw snapped ferociously around her. She could think of only
one solution. Pex’s gun. If he would not use it – and she had
never seen him dare – she would have to use it herself.
     ‘Quick!’ she cried, edging herself nearer and nearer to the
poolside steps above which Pex panicked ineffectually. ‘Give me
the gun! Quick!’
     Pex still seemed incapable of action. Mel’s strength was
going and she knew the crab would soon have won their deadly
tug of war. ‘Come on, Pex!’
     The desperation in Mel’s voice finally galvanised Pex into
action. He edged timidly nearer the water’s edge and passed her
his powerful gun. Mel grabbed it thankfully with her free hand.
     It was some time before she could take aim. The crab was
constantly in movement and its grip relentless. Pex, anticipating
the explosion, put his fingers to his ears. And then the moment
came.
     Mel pulled the trigger and fired directly into the body of the
crab. There was a hissing as if air was escaping. The crab’s grip
loosened, the body deflated and the mechanical monster sank
leadenly to the bottom of the pool.
     Mel stared as it sank, breathless with her struggle, wordless
with relief. Pex unblocked his ears and he too watched the crab’s
final moments.
     ‘Well,’ he sighed, his face a picture of relief, ‘I did warn you.’
Perhaps it was as well that Mel did not have the breath to reply.

It was becoming clearer and clearer to the Deputy Chief that
everything was going seriously out of control. Terrifying reports
were reaching him from Caretakers all over the Towers. The
Cleaners were running amok all the way up to the eleventh floor
and there was still no sign whatsoever of the Chief. Rules and
regulations he had built his life on now seemed totally irrelevant
to this alarming new situation.
     The Deputy Chief was not noted for his initiative and so he
puzzled hard and long about what to do. And finally he made a
momentous decision, one that he had thought he would never
have to make. He went to the control panel and gave out a
message that would be heard by Caretakers all over the Towers
on their Mark 12 LDCEs.
     ‘Attention all Caretakers... Attention all Caretakers...’
     The Deputy cleared his throat nervously and then began.
‘Regulation ZZZ is now in operation. This over-rides all other
rules and regulations. I repeat. This over-rides all other rules
and regulations. All Caretakers are to act with extreme caution
and get back here as fast as they can.’
     He had been doing so well up to now but the enormity of
what was happening finally struck him. ‘Get back as fast as you
can!’ he begged frantically.
     And then he sat to wait until his companions all returned.
He had played the master card, the final rule of rules in his
treasured book. Regulation ZZZ was in force. The main problem
was that he had not the least idea what to do next.

Mel lay exhausted on her lounger. Her clothes were dry now but
in her mind she was still being attacked by yellow claws. Pex
beside her hung his head miserably, all too conscious of his
failure. And yet, Mel realised, though he had not been brave, he
had been right. He had suspected a trap in the water and she,
pig-headedly, had brushed his fears aside and gone in. As if
anything in Paradise Towers could be without some danger
attached to it. She no longer felt let down by him now and felt
she should say so. She gently put her arm on Pex’s.
     ‘Pex –‘ she began.
     ‘What?’
     ‘I’m sorry, really I am.’ Mel patted his arm reassuringly. ‘I
do understand now why people don’t dare to come here. You
were right about that.’
     And then a rustling sound came from one of the curtained
changing cubicles at the far end of the pool. Pex tensed. They
both listened again. The rustling was faint but it was
unmistakable.
     ‘It’s definitely coming from over there.’ Mel pointed to the
offending cubicle.
     ‘But I only checked it a few minutes ago,’ Pex protested.
Now there was potential danger there, he was no longer keen to
take another look.
     ‘Shall I go then?’ Mel offered.
     ‘If you want,’ Pex agreed, with evident relief.
     Mel got up wearily and walked round the pool towards the
cubicle. The curtain shook slightly. Perhaps it was just the wind
making the curtain move. But in the artificially controlled
atmosphere of the pool there didn’t seem likely to be much
breeze.
     Mel took a deep breath and pulled back the curtain. There
was nothing there. She breathed a sigh of relief and pulled the
curtain to again. She’d had quite enough surprises for one day.
     ‘Are you sure there’s nothing there?’ Pex called timidly.
     ‘Of course,’ Mel replied. ‘Look.’ And she pulled back the
curtain once more. It was Pex’s stare of disbelief that first told
her there was someone there. And then she turned and saw it
was none other than the Doctor himself. It seemed too good to
be true.
     ‘Sorry to give you such a shock, Mel,’ the Doctor apologised.
‘This is where the Cleaners’ service lift appears to come out.’
The Doctor gestured and behind him Mel saw a group of Red
and Blue Kangs. And behind them she could just make out the
outlines of a lift door in the apparently solid tiling of the cubicle.
     But how the Doctor had got there was secondary. The main
thing was that he had arrived. Mel hugged him warmly. ‘Oh,
Doctor,’ she cried, ‘it’s so good to see you.’
     ‘And you, Mel,’ the Doctor returned enthusiastically, ‘and
you.’
     How long had it been since the two travellers had been
separated in Fountain of Happiness Square? Neither of them
was any longer quite sure. They were just delighted to be
together again. Mel had so much to tell the Doctor but she
sensed from the presence of the Kangs that, for all his warmth
and delight at seeing her again, the Doctor had much to relate
and much that had to be discussed.
     The Service Lift had gone down again to bring up more of
the Kangs. That the Doctor and the Kangs now got on so well
was one of the things Mel wanted to know about. But she knew
immediately they were united by some common danger.
     If a killer crab lurked in the beautiful waters of the pool,
what horrors might lurk elsewhere in the Towers?
The Chief who was not the Chief strode confidently down the
streets of the 33rd floor. Progress was easy so far. The Cleaners
sprayed their noxious gas and the inhabitants of the Towers fell
like flies. The Caretakers were the easiest to trap since obedience
was engrained in them. Caretaker number 49 stroke 7
subsection 5, for example, could easily have escaped the killer
fumes. But a few words of command from his Chief, albeit
strangely unlike his usual self, and Caretaker number 49 stroke
7 subsection 5 stayed docilely to choke to death in the Cleaners’
spray. Well, so he should have done. Everybody had a duty to
make sure Paradise Towers was made thoroughly clean, didn’t
they?
     The demented progress of the released Great Architect
continued. Kangs and Rezzies were sharper and evaded the
Cleaners more easily but they were only escaping now to be
trapped later on. And in the meantime Kroagnon urged his
Cleaners to search hard and ever harder. All the nasty human
beings, the Caretakers, the Residents, the Kangs were to be
brought out and destroyed.
     Another Caretaker collapsed, coughing, across his path.
Kroagnon looked down fastidiously as the unlucky victim
expired. And then he stepped over the corpse and carried on
down the street with the Cleaners in his wake. He didn’t really
like leaving bodies littering the streets. But the Cleaners could
come back to collect the rubbish later.
     For in the meantime the Chief who was once the Chief had a
pressing visit to make. To the Caretakers’ Headquarters. From
there he would be able to plan his whole campaign with even
more deadly efficiency backed by the screens and maps ‘his’
former control room contained.
     The Deputy rose to his feet as the figure entered. His
immediate feeling was one of relief. The Chief who had been lost
had returned and he no longer had to take on the awesome
responsibilities of Regulation ZZZ. But as the Chief walked stiffly
into the room, the oddness of his appearance stopped the
Deputy in his tracks. The presence of a pair of Cleaners in his
wake added to the Deputy’s growing sense of unease.
      ‘The Towers have become appallingly dirty,’ the Chief
announced, brushing aside the Deputy’s attempted welcoming
speech.
      ‘Sorry, Chief,’ the Deputy returned meekly. ‘We do our best
with all that wallscrawl as you know and we try to make the
Rezzies throw everything down the waste disposal chutes and –’
      ‘That is not what I mean,’ the Chief snapped back. And the
Deputy noticed how mechanical and yet threatening his voice
sounded. ‘The whole place is polluted with flesh. Living flesh.
We must remove it all. I have returned to take charge of
operations.’
      The Deputy had received some odd orders in his time but
this was beyond anything in the rule book that he had ever come
across. He gulped, unable to believe the grisliness of what he
heard. ‘Flesh?’ he repeated weakly. ‘You did say living flesh?’
      ‘Oh yes.’ The red eyes flickered dangerously now and the
Deputy felt they were unlike any eyes he had seen before. He
tried to protest but his protests were ignored.
      ‘I believe, Deputy Chief,’ the strange voice continued, ‘there
is a rule book and the rule book says in Rule One, Paragraph
One, Section One, that the orders of the Chief Caretaker are
never to be questioned.’
      The argument was a powerful one and the Deputy had a
lifetime of obedience behind him but he also knew that he had to
break his habits if he was to survive. The strangeness of the
Chief’s appearance and the even greater strangeness of his
remarks sent alarm bells ringing even in the Deputy’s obtuse
brain. He found himself edging past the Chief and towards the
door talking frantically the while.
     ‘Well, Chief,’ he burbled, ‘I think you may recall that there
are certain cases specified in the rule book when Rule One,
Paragraph One, Section One, can be over-ridden. And one of
those occasions I think I’m right in saying is set out in Appendix
K, Subsection 5X. And that’s when the Chief Caretaker –’
     ‘Yes?’ The Deputy was at the door now but the Chief’s
question held him there suspended for a moment before he
could break the spell.
     Finally he blurted out the ruling: ‘When the Chief Caretaker
just isn’t the Chief Caretaker...’
     The Deputy turned and ran for his life through the open
door out of the Headquarters. It would have been easy enough
for the Cleaners to destroy him before he had got even an inch
beyond the door but Kroagnon prevented them.
     What was the point? What was the hurry? They would clean
him up when they cleaned up all the others.

Mel and the Doctor sat on loungers beside the pool talking
openly and honestly about their adventures as old friends can
whenever they meet up. Nearby the Kangs, Blue and Red, now
assembled up at the pool in the sky in full force, rested and
gathered their strength for the final conflict. And some way off,
Pex sat alone and unhappy, all too aware of the half-amused,
half-contemptuous looks the Kangs occasionally gave him.
     Mel had quickly alerted the Doctor and the Kangs to the
dangers of the pool. Now she stared into it moodily.
     ‘I’m sorry that you didn’t really enjoy your swim, Mel,’ the
Doctor joked to cheer her up.
     ‘Oh, it’s all right,’ Mel answered. ‘I – we – finally shot
whatever it was and the pool’s been quiet since. But imagine
building this beautiful pool and then filling it with mechanical
killers.’
     The Doctor sighed. ‘The rest of the Towers would have been
like this pool if the Great Architect had had his way. A killer in
every corner.’
     ‘And you’re sure Kroagnon’s been let loose again?’ Mel
enquired. They had been through the story already but Mel
knew that they needed to keep going through it until the Doctor
could see his way to some solution.
     ‘Oh very much so.’ The Doctor stroked his chin ruefully.
‘But we know so little about his plans. That’s what’s so worrying.
He’s had years to brood over what he wants to do. We’ve no
time at all to come up with the counterplan.’
     His eyes wandered over to where Pex sat. Some of the
Kangs had come up to him now and their mockery was more
blatant.
     ‘How’s scaredy cat, Pex, then?’ Bin Liner smirked.
     Pex turned away in the vain hope that he might be left alone
but Drinking Fountain cut in now. ‘Did Mel make the creature
unalive for you?’ she jeered.
     ‘And stop you being taken to the Cleaners?’ put in Fire
Escape.
     Pex reluctantly admitted that this was the case. ‘Then Mel is
a Kang after all,’ Fire Escape exclaimed thoughtfully. The other
Kangs nodded. Pex was once again isolated, the only one who
had not shown his bravery. And he resorted as usual to bluster.
     ‘I’ll show you all yet,’ he proclaimed. ‘I will put the world of
Paradise Towers to rights.’
     ‘Oh yes?’ Bin Liner came closer and stared into Pex’s face.
     ‘Yes.’ But Pex’s bravado crumbled and he had to turn away.
     ‘You’re a cowardly cutlet,’ Fire Escape announced
triumphantly. ‘When the in-betweens went to fight, you hid.
You’ll always hide. Always.’
     And the three Kangs started a chant: ‘He’s a cowardly cutlet,
he’s a cowardly cutlet...’
     Mel watched from afar in some distress. ‘They shouldn’t
treat him like that.’
     The Doctor patted her shoulder. ‘What good will it do if you
try to stop them?’ But he too was depressed by what was
happening. ‘It’s the problem of Paradise Towers in a nutshell,’
he sighed. ‘The Red Kangs didn’t trust the Blue Kangs. None of
them trust the Caretakers. The Rezzies, from your account, prey
on whoever they can and trust no-one either. And all of them
despise poor old Pex.’ If Mel didn’t know that the Doctor never
despaired, she might have thought he was near despairing now.
It all looked so bleak. ‘The Great Architect must be delighted,’
he added bitterly. ‘How ever are we going to unite the people of
Paradise Towers to defeat him?’
     ‘He’s a cowardly cutlet! He’s a cowardly cutlet!’
     The rest of the Kangs had joined in now and their mocking
chant echoed round the swimming pool. Pex could bear it no
longer. He got to his feet and started to walk away from his
tormentors towards the main door of the pool.
     Mel got to her feet and ran to him. ‘Pex,’ she called, ‘don’t
go. Pex –’
     But Pex had suddenly stopped half way to the exit. He
stared ahead of him disbelievingly. Everyone else stared too,
following his gaze. None of them could quite believe their eyes.
     Maddy, the Rezzie, was standing at the entrance to the pool,
her plump face anxious and her manner distinctively self-
conscious as she felt the eyes of all the Kangs staring at her.
Behind her stood a few other Residents, older and less vocal,
sharing her embarrassment.
     It took her a moment to find her voice.
     ‘I – that is we, the Rezzies,’ she began, nervously clearing
her throat, ‘the remaining Rezzies that is – wanted to talk to
you.’ She put out an appealing hand to her silent audience. ‘I
think – I think we may need your help.’
     It was the Doctor who responded first. He had been close to
despair and this was the first sign that there might be hope for
the divided people of Paradise Towers. He came up to Maddy
and raised his hat politely. Maddy responded with a grateful
curtsey.
     Then he led her into the pool area and helped her to a seat
even though he was conscious all the time of the hostile scowls of
the Kangs trained upon her. The other Rezzies trooped in
obediently behind her, and, much to Mel’s relief, Pex too
decided to come back to hear what the Residents had to say.
     At first Maddy spoke only in a disconnected and rather
distraught way. Her timid soul lacked the toughness of Tilda
and Tabby and what had been happening was almost too much
for her.
     ‘The Cleaners must have reached about Floor 115 by now,’
she reported. The news caused consternation since their
progress through the building was even swifter than any one
had imagined. ‘All the Rezzies who can have moved up to higher
floors,’ Maddy continued. Her face fell. ‘Unfortunately not
everyone was quick enough.’
     The Doctor was thoughtful. ‘And you’re sure that the person
ordering the Cleaners to do this looks like the Chief Caretaker?’
     Maddy nodded. If there had been any doubt before there
could be none now. The Chief Caretaker was unalive but the
Great Architect had used corpoelectroscopy to take over his
body. No doubt for the Doctor anyway. The Kangs were not so
sure.
     ‘Why should we believe her?’ Fire Escape pointed angrily at
Maddy. ‘Rezzies are full of untruths – and Kangs.’
     The other Kangs joined in. It was a sudden outpouring of
long-held grudges against the Rezzies and in particular the evil
ways of Tilda and Tabby, deceased. The angry babble grew in
power until finally the Doctor managed to calm them down by
insisting on the importance of finding out all they could about
what was happening. When the Kang protest had subsided to a
murmur, the Doctor turned to Maddy and beckoned her to
carry on.
     Maddy took her courage in her hands and started to speak
again, her hands twisting nervously. ‘Of course, I know that we
Residents have not always been as neighbourly as we might have
been.’ She cleared her throat again. ‘But some have been worse
than others and the worst have gone. Down the waste disposal
chute.’
     She stretched out her hands pleasingly, involving the other
Rezzies in her plea. ‘Those of us who are left want to let bygones
be bygones. We’re all in danger now and, well, we’re very sorry
for what we did. And we won’t do it again. If we all survive that
is.’ Her anxious hands stretched out timidly to include all her
hearers. ‘We need each other’s help.’
     It was as handsome an apology as could be expected and the
Doctor turned questioningly to the listening girls. ‘Well, you
Kangs,’ he demanded, ‘what do you say to that?’
     The Kangs, Red and Blue, exchanged glances and then got
into a huddle to consider their reaction. Maddy and the other
Rezzies waited nervously for the verdict. Fortunately they did
not have to wait too long. The huddle broke up and Bin Liner,
who had obviously been nominated as the spokeswoman, turned
to the Doctor.
     ‘I won’t say Rezzies are icehot,’ she announced, ‘but, yes
she’s not telling untruths and yes, we’ll help each other.’
     ‘Is that agreed?’ The Doctor looked to the other Kangs and
they nodded consent. Maddy smiled with relief and Mel started
to feel the glimmer of hope growing within her.
     ‘How about you, Pex?’
     The Doctor was determined to get the whole group working
together. No-one was to be excluded. The Kangs called Pex a
cowardly cutlet again but the Doctor quietened them down and
asked Pex again for his consent to work with the Rezzies.
Embarrassed and unconfident though he was, he gave it.
     ‘All right,’ Fire Escape broke in impetuously, ‘we work with
Pex, no to-do, we work with Rezzies no to-do, but the Caretakers
–’
     ‘Never ever!’ the Kangs cried vehemently in unison.
     A new arrival coughed nervously. The conversation ceased
and the assembled company craned to see who the newcomer
was.
     It was the Deputy Chief, looking incongruous and ill-at-ease
in these surroundings. He spoke tentatively at first, conscious
that he would be neither welcome nor trusted. But his haggard
face and haunted eyes showed that the pompous Deputy had
undergone experiences that had changed his very being.
     ‘Excuse me –’ he began, ‘I’m sorry to intrude like this but I
wondered if I might have a word with you all?’
     Mel’s eyes met the Doctor’s. Much was still to be done but
they had pulled themselves back from despair. They might still
be able to win.
                            11
                         Kroagnon
Kroagnon was enjoying his freedom. The torture of confinement
when his ever-fertile brain could only plan but not achieve was
over. There had been times when he had even wished he might
be allowed to die instead of being preserved in inactive torment.
Not now. His revenge was working exactly according to plan and
soon Paradise Towers would be his again.
     In front of him in the Chief’s control room he had a map
laid out that showed a cross-section of the Towers. Above, the
screens kept him informed of how far his Cleaners had
progressed in their destruction of the human creatures. And, as
each floor was reclaimed for his purposes, he crossed it through
on the map with a blood-red pencil. Even he was surprised by
how quickly his opponents fell back before him.
     He realised, of course, that all the messy creatures were
moving up to the Swimming Pool Zone on Floor 304. But,
luckily for him, he didn’t have to worry too much. They
wouldn’t have time to make it too untidy before he destroyed
them.
     A strange, cruel smile crossed Kroagnon’s pallid features.
He had nothing to fear, after all, had he? Nobody could know
Paradise Towers better than the Great Architect who built it.
     The Chief studied the screens for a while. The Cleaners
were visible on all of them spraying clouds of noxious smoke.
Another floor had fallen. One hundred and sixty three.
     The absence of response was actually beginning to trouble
Kroagnon’s devious brain. Surely there would be some
opposition? He decided that it was time to take a look for himself
at what the human garbage were up to in the Swimming Pool
Zone.
     He pressed the appropriate buttons on the control panel
and sat back to watch. But nothing happened. The screens all
went blank. He pressed again. Still nothing happened.
     And then a recorded voice spoke. And it gave Kroagnon no
satisfaction to recognise it as his own, recorded just before the
completion of the Towers: ‘By express order of the Great
Architect, Surveillance of the Swimming Pool is not allowed.
Repeat. Not allowed.’
     The Great Architect gave a hiss of disappointment. He
remembered now that he had wanted to ensure that the
crowning joy of his creation, the pool, would never be
overlooked by prying human flesh. How could he have known
that he himself would have need of an over-view of what was
happening there one day?
     It was annoying but not too serious a blow. It was simply
curiosity that made him want to see what his enemies were up to.
Not a very exalted emotion for such a brilliant brain. It was not
as if their puny intellects could possibly come up with any way of
stopping him.

‘We don’t have much time and we must think clearly. Kroagnon,
as we must now call him, is firmly installed in your
Headquarters.’ The Doctor turned to the Deputy Chief for
confirmation. ‘Am I right?’
    ‘Yes, Doctor.’
    The Doctor sighed and scratched his brow. ‘So we must find
a way of getting him out again.’
    ‘Set a trap for him,’ Drinking Fountain put in.
    ‘Precisely.’ The Doctor looked round the assembled
company. The poolside seating was occupied now by a motley
collection of Kangs, Rezzies and Caretakers, all intent on finding
a means of survival.
     ‘We used to set traps for the rats,’ Maddy began brightly but
then, remembering Tilda and Tabby, she decided it wasn’t a
very tactful area to discuss and retreated, blushing, into silence.
     ‘But what about the Cleaners?’ Mel put in. Nobody had yet
come up with any plan for dealing with them although everyone
agreed that they had to be stopped. Indeed the Doctor had
already said on several occasions during the discussion that as
many of them as possible had to be immobilised. If the Cleaners
could not be put out of action then what hope was there for
defeating their master?
     ‘Doctor –’ the Deputy Chief spoke in the subdued silence
that followed Mel’s question, an idea apparently forming slowly
in his brain.
     ‘Yes, Deputy Chief?’
     ‘Well, I know it goes against the rule book to say this but I
suppose these are exceptional circumstances.’
     ‘They might be described in that way, yes,’ the Doctor
agreed drily. The habits of a lifetime still pursued the Deputy, he
noted, even when disaster stared him in the face.
     The Deputy was now the centre of all attention and he knew
it. ‘Well,’ he began nervously, ‘on the 245th Floor Sodium Street
Corridor 75, there is a Secret Emergency Supply kept in case of
pests getting out of control –’
     ‘An Emergency Supply of what?’ Mel asked, expressing the
puzzlement many felt.
     ‘Explosive.’
     ‘Icehot!’ The Deputy’s news brought an immediate
enthusiastic response from Fire Escape and the Kangs.
     ‘With explosives on our arrowguns, we could blow up the
Cleaners no problem,’ Bin Liner proclaimed cheerfully, waving
her crossbow in the air.
     ‘Send the Cleaners to the Cleaners!’ Drinking Fountain
added, sending all the Kangs into fits of glee. The Deputy smiled
primly. He had never experienced popularity like this before.
He knew he liked being liked but didn’t yet know how to
respond.
     But now Maddy and the Rezzies were getting excited too.
‘Most of the Rezzies make tablecloths,’ Maddy said brightly to
the Kang Leaders. ‘We could throw them over the Cleaners to
slow them down for you to shoot.’
     ‘Icehot, Maddy!’ The Kangs responded enthusiastically to
this suggestion as well. Now there was a possibility of action,
their high spirits were returning. Mel noticed sadly that only Pex
was still not involved in the bustling, chatting, laughing group of
people that now sat by the poolside.
     The Doctor was pleased by this turn of events. The plan to
get rid of the Cleaners showed they were getting somewhere at
last. But his lightning-quick brain had already moved on to the
next problem. It took him a while to calm the bubbling throng
down but he eventually succeeded in getting their full attention.
     ‘We ought to move on to the main problem,’ he announced.
‘How to persuade Kroagnon to leave his safety in the Caretakers’
headquarters and come to a place of our choosing where we can
trap and defeat him.’
     His words acted like a bucket of cold water on the
excitement. ‘He’ll never leave there until we are all wiped out,’
the Deputy Chief returned gloomily. ‘And we’ll never manage to
break in.’ He sighed. ‘I should know after all.’
     No one spoke. No one made any suggestions. Just now the
secondary problem had seemed soluble and people had quickly
forgotten that as yet they had no way of destroying the primary
one.
     The Doctor, however, had not raised the problem to depress
people. He did have an idea forming in his mind although he
knew it was not foolproof. ‘There is one way that might just
work,’ he told the group, sure now of their full concentration.
     ‘What’s that, Doctor?’
     ‘Well,’ the Doctor commenced, choosing his words very
carefully, ‘Kroagnon is undoubtedly a very clever and very
proud being. And, like many clever and proud beings, he
probably likes to be appreciated by his intellectual equals. Even
better if once they have appreciated his cleverness, they can be
outwitted and destroyed.’ He paused to give his final words full
force. ‘I think if he had the chance of meeting such a person,
he’d leave his lair to do so.’
     Not surprisingly it was Mel, who knew the Doctor best, who
understood first. ‘Doctor,’ she protested, ‘you’re not going to –’
     The Doctor held up a restraining hand to stop her. ‘I’ve no
choice, Mel. I mean, in all honesty, I think I am the only obvious
candidate.’
     ‘You’ll go out there and show yourself and be killed?’ she
demanded.
     ‘Oh no, no,’ the Doctor answered swiftly. ‘That would be
extremely futile. I will allow myself to be seen. And then
somebody else will go to Kroagnon and offer to lead him to me.
Straight into our little trap. Now that person has a far more
difficult and dangerous mission than I do.’
     Everyone took in the Doctor’s words and pondered his plan.
For all its dangers, there was no doubt it was the best they had.
It was Pex who ended the silence by coming forward.
     ‘I will go to Kroagnon,’ he proclaimed proudly. ‘I am Pex
and I am –’
     ‘A cowardly cutlet,’ put in Fire Escape cheekily. And all the
Kangs laughed.
     Pex turned on them angrily. ‘You all have tasks to do.
Caretakers, Rezzies, Kangs. Why should only Pex be left out?’
He drew himself up proudly. ‘Pex, the trained fighting machine,
Pex the –’
     ‘The scaredy cat.’ It was Bin Liner who interrupted this time
and now everyone was laughing at Pex’s discomfiture. Apart,
that is, from the Doctor and Mel. When they realised this, the
others fell silent.
     Mel looked Pex squarely in the face. She had seen his
courage fail so many times that she could not be sure he was
serious this time. And much was at stake. ‘Pex,’ she demanded
sternly, ‘are you sure you want to do this?’
     But Pex’s gaze did not flinch this time. His sincerity could
not be doubted by anyone when he nodded his head to show his
willingness to go.
     ‘So be it then,’ the Docor said quietly. The die was cast and
there could be no going back.

The screens showed the Cleaners steadily continuing their
deadly work. Kroagnon crossed off another floor methodically
on his plan of the Towers. Two hundred and thirteen floors all
free of living flesh. He was already planning in his mind the
magnificent redecoration he would initiate through the Cleaners
once he had the building entirely to himself again. How much
higher his imagination could soar when he no longer had the
constraints of providing for dirty, noisy people to live and work
in his masterpiece. Miracle City would be a plaything, a mere
toy, compared with what he would achieve in Paradise Towers.
     And then suddenly the reception faded on his central
screen. And a strange face appeared. An intelligent face, it was
true, but impish and insolent too with a batttered straw hat
perched on its top. He stared at this visage on the screen, trying
to place it. It was vaguely familiar but it was not someone with
whom he had ever had dealings. Finally a hand came into view
and raised the intruder’s straw hat politely and then the face
began to speak.
    ‘Hello there, Kroagnon,’ it began without any proper
deference. ‘This is the Doctor speaking. I don’t believe we’ve
met though no doubt you’ll have heard of me.’
    The Great Architect grunted savagely. The nerve of it! He
may have heard of this Doctor, he may have not but that was
hardly the point. The important thing surely was that the Doctor
had heard of him.
    ‘I thought you had,’ the Doctor acknowledged cheerfully,
guessing at the angry reaction at the other end. Despite not
being able to see his auditor, he was beginning to enjoy his
provoking role.
    ‘Anyway,’ he continued, ‘I’d heard so much about Paradise
Towers that I thought I’d come and take a look. And I have to
say, I’m very disappointed. It displays exactly what everybody
says is your usual failure as an architect. You don’t make any
allowances for people having to live in these places.’ He smiled
winningly in a way he hoped would have the Great Architect
grinding his teeth in rage. ‘Still, I’m sure if we manage to work
together, you and I, we might just about manage to make this
place habitable.’ The Doctor’s face moved closer to the screen to
whisper confidentially, ‘I’ve one or two ideas I might give you if
you could be bothered to listen. Bye for now.’
    And, with another raising of his hat, the Doctor was gone.
The screen went empty and a few seconds later the familiar
images of the Cleaners at work returned. But Kroagnon no
longer took them in.
    The Great Architect sat there in a state of total fury. He had
been so outraged by this upstart’s impertinent remarks that he
had even neglected to trace where the intruder had been located
in the Towers while making his broadcast. But there would be
time for revenge. Plenty of time. A few ideas to make things
better! No allowances for people! Nobody ever criticised the
Great Architect like that and lived to tell the tale.

One beneficial offshoot of the Doctor’s perilous mission was that
Kroagnon was too distracted with rage to monitor closely what
was happening in the streets of the Towers. If he had, he would
have had some nasty surprises. In Fountain of Happiness
Square, for example, he would have seen a group of Red Kangs
emerge from hiding to fire arrowgun shots loaded with
explosives at passing Cleaners. And he would have seen them
cheer as Cleaner after Cleaner was hit and then exploded.
     He would have also seen scenes on the 209th floor which
might have made him think that he had underestimated the
elderly Rezzies. Maddy stood at one of the crossroads in wait for
the Self-Activating Robots and when they came up she would
step out and stop them.
     ‘Excuse me,’ she would say. ‘I hope you don’t mind my
mentioning it but I think you’ve missed some rubbish in the
street back there.’ And she would point back the way the Cleaner
had come. Thoroughly confused by the contradictory
instructions, the Cleaner would turn slowly. And, as it did so,
two other Rezzies would emerge from hiding and the Cleaner
would be enveloped in a large knitted tablecloth unable to move
or unleash its armoury of devices.
     And then Drinking Fountain or one of the other Blues
would appear and fire at the immobilised Cleaner. The loaded
arrow would stick in its metal body. And then, when Rezzies and
Kangs were safely out of range, the shot would explode and the
Cleaner would be blown to pieces. Way past the point of repair
even if anyone had wanted to repair it.
     A great number of Cleaners were disposed of in scenes like
this. But there was even more frantic activity back at the Red
Kang Brainquarters. This had been selected as the centre of the
trap that was to be baited for the Great Architect. Inside, Kangs
and Caretakers scurried around like ants stacking into every
available nook and cranny in the room the rest of the explosive
from the store on the 245th Floor. Soon it would be like a huge
bomb needing only the right detonator to explode. And up the
steps on ground level the Deputy Chief and Fire Escape were at
work on that detonator – a complex mechanism that had to be
built into the structure of the replacement entry door.
     In the midst of all this, Pex, pale but collected, was receiving
his final briefing from the Doctor and Mel.
     ‘You’re clear now what you have to do, Pex?’ the Doctor
enquired.
     ‘And you’re sure you want to go through with it?’ Mel
added, earnestly.
     Pex nodded, his square jaw set. ‘I won’t be unbrave again,’
he reassured them.
     ‘The main thing to remember,’ the Doctor advised, ‘is to get
him out of the Caretakers’ Headquarters as soon as possible so
he doesn’t see what is happening to the Cleaners. We’ve been
lucky on that so far but our luck won’t last for ever.’ Then the
Doctor repeated once more the crucial part of the plan.
‘Remember, though, once he’s out, take as long as you can to get
him here. Preparing all this is difficult and dangerous work and
we need as much time as you can gain us.’ He put his hand on
Pex’s shoulder to re-enforce the point. ‘No heroics, Pex. Just a
cool, clear head.’
     ‘I can manage.’ Pex was very different now his mind was
made up. He talked less and listened more. Impressed, the
Doctor shook his hand and wished him well.
     And then it was Mel’s turn. She had grown very fond of Pex
for all his idiocies and she hated to think this might be their last
conversation. She tried not to think of that, though, and luckily
for her, she had something to give him that took her mind off
the danger. It was a Kang bracelet.
     ‘They wanted to give it to you, Pex.’ Mel explained as she
fastened it round his neck. ‘They think you’re not a scaredy cat
any longer but a real Kang.’ And she kissed the blushing Pex
gently on the cheek. ‘Good luck, Pex.’
     He stood awkwardly for a moment and then reached into
his belt. He pulled out his gun and handed it to Mel. ‘You take
this, Mel,’ he mumbled. ‘I can’t use it this time.’
     It was all Pex had to give and Mel was touched. Soon he was
gone and she was left to think over what would happen to him.
He was right, of course. His gun would be worse than useless in
the encounter Pex had ahead of him. He would need
clearheadedness and courage far more. She could only hope that
Pex had really discovered those qualities in himself. If he hadn’t
then it boded ill for their whole undertaking.
     With a sigh, Mel went to help the others with preparation of
the door. The Doctor had not exaggerated. They would need
every second Pex could buy them.

The Great Architect had spent precious time trying to trace the
impertinent Doctor but without success. He should not have
allowed himself to become so angered. It was not fitting for an
intellect of his capacity. But if there was one thing he could not
endure, it was any suggestion that his architectural design was
less than perfect. He began making plans for a particularly nasty
contraption in which the Doctor would be incarcerated and
slowly crushed.
     Still, he should make sure how his Cleaners were getting on
first. They should at least be up to the 260th floor by now. He
pressed the control buttons to take a look. And to his surprise a
face appeared again on the central screen. A different face
though. A young warrior by the look of him, strong-jawed and
powerful, but with absolutely no intellectual capacity whatsoever.
Still, it could do no harm to listen to what he had to say.
      Pex was sweating. He could not help it. But still he managed
to hold his ground and get his story out. He was a disillusioned
rebel against Kroagnon. He had been treated badly by the
arrogant Doctor and wanted revenge.
      ‘So you could lead me to this Doctor, could you?’ asked the
sinister metallic voice softly, terrifying Pex to the marrow.
      ‘Yes,’ he answered as firmly as he could. ‘He and the other
remaining – er – mobile rubbish have found a place to hide
which they think you don’t know about. And they’re planning
ways of resistance.’
      The Great Architect smiled secretly. Taking these meddlers
by surprise like rats in a trap appealed to his sense of humour. It
was so much more amusing than sitting around here in the
Caretakers’ Headquarters while the Cleaners had all the fun.
      One doubt remained. ‘Why should you help Kroagnon?’ he
asked the warrior.
      But Pex had been prepared to answer this question.
‘Because I don’t belong with the others here,’ he explained. ‘I
know you’re going to win. All I ask is that you promise me a safe
way out of the Towers when the others are destroyed.’
      ‘Of course,’ Kroagnon returned smoothly. ‘If you deliver me
the Doctor, I’ll give you a safe way out.’ He smiled again. It was
so easy to make promises when you had no intention of keeping
them.

‘Doctor!’ Mel ran down the steep steps of the Brainquarters. She
found him checking out the layout of the explosive. ‘Doctor,’ she
gasped breathlessly, ‘the door’s nearly in place. But they’re
having a problem with the fortimoloscope opening device.’
    The Doctor looked grave. This device was the key to the
whole ambush. Triggered by the slightest touch it would make
the door spring open and catapult the intended victim into the
explosive below. Half a minute later it would also trigger the
explosive itself. If it did not work, the plan was sunk. ‘I’d better
give them a hand,’ the Doctor decided. ‘See what you can do to
help the Kangs down here, Mel,’ he added. ‘And don’t forget to
leave the secret escape hatch uncovered so that I can make my
exit.’
      Everything depended on split-second timing. The door was
to spring open. The Great Architect was to see the Doctor below.
He would lean down to see him. Pex would push him from
behind. And the Great Architect would topple to his death a
split-second after the Doctor had sneaked to safety from the
exploding Brainquarters.
      ‘I just hope Pex doesn’t lose his nerve and hurry,’ the
Doctor muttered to himself as he rushed up the steps.
‘Otherwise it won’t be Kroagnon who’s caught in a booby trap.
It’ll be us.’

They had been the most terrifying minutes of Pex’s life. First the
talk with Kroagnon. Then the wait for him to emerge from the
Headquarters to join Pex at the appointed place with a flotilla of
Cleaners in tow. And now, worst of all, the slow progress along
the familiar streets and squares of the Towers with the Great
Architect by his side, his fearsome red eyes darting this way and
that, his measured robotic tread telling of ferocious power and
determination.
     Pex knew that concealed along the way were Kangs with
crossbows. But he also knew that they could only observe what
was happening not intervene. If they were lucky, they might be
able to pick off a few of the Cleaners with their explosive during
the final moments. But Kroagnon was far too wily to put himself
in any position where he might be exposed to danger from
hidden enemies.
     ‘This is not some trick, is it?’ the Great Architect demanded
as they walked side by side. His wolfish grin made Pex’s blood
run cold.
     ‘No, no,’ Pex answered, feeling his heart pounding faster
and faster.
     ‘That’s just as well,’ leered Kroagnon. ‘I’ve only just begun
to enjoy walking round my marvellous Towers again in this
body. And I wouldn’t deal kindly with anyone who was stupid
enough to try and lay a trap for me.’
     He stopped suddenly and his eyes pierced into Pex’s. Their
brilliance and cruelty were quite breath-taking. Pex felt he could
hide nothing from such a being. Kroagnon edged closer. ‘Not
frightened, are you?’ he hissed.
     It was too much. Pex knew his nerves would not hold. This
awful ordeal had to end as soon as possible. ‘I think... I think we
ought to hurry, Great Architect,’ Pex begged. ‘Please – let’s
hurry.’ He hated himself for saying it but he was convinced he
would blurt out everything if he had to stare into those deep
eyes one second longer.
     ‘As you wish,’ the Great Architect replied, a trace of cruel
amusement entering his face at Pex’s terror. And he quickened
his pace to match Pex’s.
     Drinking Fountain, hidden nearby, watched this
development with dismay. If they kept up this pace they would
be there far, far too soon. She hurried to the nearest talkiphone
to report.

It was Bin Liner who took the call in the Brainquarters. Most of
the Kangs had already left the explosive-lined room but she and
Mel were still there to await the notification of Kroagnon’s
arrival.
    ‘What’s happened?’ Mel asked anxiously as she saw Bin
Liner’s face cloud over with dismay.
     ‘They’re making all speed here,’ Bin Liner replied.
     ‘What?’ Mel could not believe the awfulness of the news.
     ‘Pex has been a scaredy cat,’ Bin Liner continued bitterly,
replacing the talkiphone receiver. ‘They’ll be here in no time.’
     ‘I must warn the Doctor.’ Mel started to run up the stairs to
where he was working. But Bin Liner stopped her just in time.
As an added precaution, trip wires had been laid. One step up
the stairs and Mel would have gone up in smoke. And the plan
with her. She had no choice but to follow Bin Liner through the
secret escape hatch. In her agony, she realised there was nothing
else she could do to help the Doctor.

The fortimoloscope opening device had proved tricky even for
the Doctor and valuable minutes had ticked away while he had
been working on it. But now he finally thought he had got it
working.
    ‘Doctor –’ The Deputy Chief’s voice was suddenly stiff with
fear. They looked up the street and what they saw was the last
thing they wanted to see. The Great Architect had turned the
corner and was coming towards them with Pex at his side.
    ‘And we’re not ready for them.’ In those few simple words
the Deputy had expressed it all. Pex had failed them when the
Doctor had trusted him. The plan was ruined and the Doctor
would have to make do as best he could.
    The first thing he did was to persuade the Deputy and Fire
Escape to move back away from the door. They were reluctant to
do so, particularly the Red Kang leader who did not want to
abandon her teacher to certain death. ‘But you must go,’ the
Doctor insisted urgently. ‘There’s only one way this might work.
And for that I need to be on my own.’
    Finally they withdrew. And the Doctor, totally alone by the
door, turned to face his approaching enemy. Seeing the Doctor
was alone, Kroagnon gestured to his cohorts of Cleaners to wait
at the end of the street. He advanced himself, however, a
triumphant smile on his lips and a quivering Pex by his side.
     They came nearer and nearer but the Doctor held his
ground. And Mel and Bin Liner emerged into the street from
the secret escape route to join the small frightened group that
clustered at the corner of the street some way behind the
Doctor’s back. Mel had imagined the Great Architect would be
alarming. But she had never imagined anyone as terrifying as
this grisly corpse-like creature who towered over her Doctor.
     ‘Well?’
     The Doctor’s careful plans were in ruins. All he could do was
improvise in the faint hope that an opportunity might occur for
him to push Kroagnon single-handed through the barely
completed door into the blackness below. The Doctor, however,
was a creature of enormous determination and resource. He
assumed a cheerful expression and started to chatter away as if
nothing untoward had happened.
     ‘Well, well, Kroagnon,’ he started as the Great Architect
approached, ‘how nice of you to drop in. I’m so glad. I wanted
to have a few words with you about the shoddy design of this
building.’ He gestured towards the door, hoping desperately his
foe would not notice its newness. ‘I mean, take a look at this for
instance.’
     Kroagnon glowered. ‘There was nothing wrong with it when
I built it,’ he roared. ‘Unless humanoid creatures have damaged
it.’
     ‘Well, speaking as an expert,’ the Doctor proclaimed, trying
to draw the Great Architect nearer to the object under
discussion, ‘I’m prepared to tell the Universe you couldn’t
design a simple door knob. Look at it.’
     Curiosity and vanity got the better of Kroagnon and he
moved towards the door to examine it more closely and defend
his workmanship. It was the Doctor’s chance. Swiftly he operated
the fortimoloscope device, the door flew open and he tried to
push the Great Architect down.
     Kroagnon nearly fell but at the last minute he managed to
stop himself. And then he grabbed at the Doctor and held him
tight. A terrific fight took place upon the edge of an opening
that lead to a ferocious booby trap. And though the Doctor
struggled gallantly, there was no doubt that the other was the
stronger and would in time prevail.
     Pex, the only person near at hand, watched, horrified. The
Doctor called for him to help but it was hopeless. He could no
more take action than he could by the side of the great Pool in
the Sky. Whatever courage he had managed to acquire had
vanished quite away. In fact, it was worse than before. For now
Pex started to run from the desperate struggle as fast as he
could, abandoning the Doctor to be bruised and buffeted before
being thrown to his death.
     He ran first towards the Cleaners but realised quickly there
could be no escape that way. So he ran the other way towards
where the tight little group of Mel, the Deputy and the Kangs
watched helplessly.
     And then Pex’s eyes met those of Mel. And there was such
reproach in her eyes for betraying her Doctor that he could not
stand it. Pex fingered the bracelet the Kangs had given him. The
sign that he was indeed part of Paradise Towers not an outcast
and a laughing stock. Mel was still staring at him with a
beseeching look in her eye and in a moment all the memories of
their adventures together flooded back into his agitated brain.
     To Pex the debate in his brain took an age to resolve itself.
To the watchers it was all a matter of seconds. He stood there
irresolute for a moment, fingered his bracelet, exchanged a final
glance of understanding with Mel and rushed back to the fight.
     The Doctor was at his last gasp, barely aware of what was
happening, when Pex pushed him aside. Dimly he became
aware that Pex was grappling with Kroagnon in a fierce and
deadly struggle and that he could now step back for a moment
to draw breath.
    He collapsed with a gasp on the floor nearby. And, as he did
so, Pex gave a final triumphant cry and jumped back into the
darkness dragging the struggling Kroagnon with him.
    A few seconds later there was a huge explosion. The trap
had achieved its purpose. But at a cost.
                            12
                         Farewells
The shrine the Kangs built was a simple one. Improvised from
the rubbish of Paradise Towers as the shrines of unalive Kangs
had been in the past. But on the top of it they placed Pex’s gun,
a last reminder of the saviour of the Towers.
     Bin Liner led the ceremony in a quiet and dignified way.
The words Mel had heard once for the last of the Yellow Kangs
echoed in her brain now. But this time a Kang leader was
standing in Fountain of Happiness Square before a solemn
assembly of all the residents of Paradise Towers. Not just the
Red Kangs and the Blue Kangs. But Maddy and the Rezzies.
And the Deputy Chief Caretaker with all the remaining
Caretakers.
     ‘Hail Pex.’ Bin Liner’s young voice echoed eloquently round
the Square. ‘Hail the unalive who gave his life for the Towers. In
life he was not a Kang but in death he was brave and bold as a
Kang should be.’
     ‘Hail Pex. Hail the unalive...’
     Other voices took up the chant now, circling reverently
round the shrine as they did so. Mel and the Doctor watched
slightly apart from the others. Though as moved as the
celebrants, they somehow felt themselves not part of what was
going on. After all, they did not belong to Paradise Towers.
     ‘Poor Pex,’ Mel sighed sadly.
     ‘Indeed, poor Pex,’ agreed the Doctor comfortingly. ‘But
look, Mel, they are all here. Caretakers. Rezzies. Kangs. That
would never have happened before. Perhaps now they will all
start working together.’
      ‘... in death he was brave and bold as a Kang should be. Hail
Pex...’
      Fire Escape and Drinking Fountain came up to the Doctor
and Mel. They were not yet part of the ceremony because they
had had a more pressing task. Removing the Kang wallscrawl
from the TARDIS. They reported that the job was now done.
The Doctor and Mel could finally depart.
      ‘Build High for Happiness, Doctor.’ Fire Escape gave the
Kang salute and then handed the Doctor a timely farewell
present. His much battered brolly which had been found when
Kangs and Caretakers had been cleaning out the Basement.
      ‘We are sorry you must go, Doctor – and Mel,’ Drinking
Fountain blurted out, still awkward at admitting the affection
she felt for them. She held up a blue sash. ‘We have made you
an Honorary Kang, Doctor.’
      The Doctor smiled and regarded the sash. ‘A Blue Kang or a
Red Kang?’
      ‘Both.’ Grinning, Fire Escape took the sash from Drinking
Fountain and showed that its reverse was coloured red.
      ‘In that case,’ the Doctor replied, placing the sash around
his neck, ‘I will be honoured to wear it.’
      In the background the chanting continued. Soon Fire
Escape and Drinking Fountain would join the others. The
Doctor and Mel took one last look round Fountain of Happiness
Square and then they knew it was time to go.
      ‘All my best wishes for the future of Paradise Towers!’ the
Doctor called as he and Mel entered the TARDIS. The two
Kangs waved farewell and then melted into the disparate group
still celebrating their first communal act.
      A second later the TARDIS had dematerialised – revealing
on the wall behind where it had stood a brand-new Kang
wallscrawl. There had been more elaborate wallscrawls before
but few as heartfelt. It showed a picture of Pex’s weapon over a
Red Kang sash and a Blue Kang sash interlinked. And
underneath the two words:

   PEX LIVES.
