Hooray - I actually found a story on my hard drive that I thought had
been lost forever. Here's part 1 of the Mel/Pex missing adventures!

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FLAVOURS OF PARADISE

Part 1 - The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

The lift seemed to have been going up and down forever. Mel glumly
watched the flickering numbers. She was half-hypnotised by the
monotonous, second-by-second ticking off of levels as they descended
into the bowels of Paradise Towers for what seemed like the
hundredth time. She was fed up. Pex cleared his throat. She ignored
him. So far he'd proven a completely inadequate guide in every
respect.

        "Mel...?"

        She sighed heavily. It wasn't his fault, she supposed. It can't
have been easy for him to take on the mantle of defender of the
great tower block when all the other men were sent away. "Yes,
Pex." She did her best to keep her voice even, but suspected that
a tinge of her exasperation might have made it through.

        "We've stopped."

        She refocused her eyes. It was true. The indicator lights had
been blinking the same number over and over again and she hadn't
even noticed. "Then why haven't the doors opened?"

        "Let me," said Pex eagerly, pushing her none too gently to one
side. 

        She glared at his back as he grunted with the effort of trying
to force open the door. There was only so much of this macho nonsense
she could take. She stabbed at the button whose icon most closely
resembled an opening door.

        Pex beamed back in triumph as the lift door slid open. She
smiled politely and slipped past him into the corridor beyond. She
eagerly scanned the surroundings. Dust, dirt and decay. Wall
scrawlings that looked years old; the paint already peeling and
discoloured. It looked to her as if this level had been completely
abandoned for a long time. 

        "Well, nothing here," he said cheerily, "Let's try another
level."

        She spun. "Look, if you think I'm spending another couple of
hours cooped up in that lift with you you've another think coming! I'm
going to explore. You can stay there or you can come with me.
To be perfectly honest I don't care either way." Pex's face fell,
Mel instantly felt a stab of remorse. She took his arm and looked
up into his face. "I'm sorry, Pex. I didn't mean it - it's just
I'm a bit on edge. Come on. Let's have a look around." The boy
allowed himself to be tugged out of the dubious safety of the
lift. Mel almost laughed aloud as a combination of apprehension
and gratitude struggled to win the fight for his facial expression.

        Finally he gave a shy smile and nodded.

        "Right. I think we'll go... this way." Mel chose one of the
intersections at random and walked briskly forward, picking her way
around the larger chunks of fallen material.

        "We might get lost, Mel!"

        "Just look behind. We can retrace our footprints in the dust.
Anyway, I've got a good sense of direction. I never get lost. Come on!"

*       *       *

Mel didn't wear a watch, but she thought they'd been walking for
about an hour. Paradise Towers was a labyrinth of walkways, plazas,
corridors and balconies, and she hadn't found a single thing of
interest. Now she was tired, hungry and determined not to give
in without something to show for it. Pex stood watchful, his gun
held ready as she slumped against a wall. She wondered if he actually
knew how to fire the thing - even whether it was loaded at all.
He clutched it almost as it was a talisman - the only security
he possessed in a hostile world. For the last twenty minutes she'd
been expecting him to start grumbling and make demands that they
turn back. Instead he seemed to have cheered up, insisting on
taking the lead, peering around corners and constantly reassuring
her that she was in no danger. It was sweet; like having your
own loyal puppy.

        "What was that?" he hissed.

        Mel froze and strained her ears. There was a faint vibration
getting louder. "Is it a cleaner?"

        Pex began pushing at the doors lining the corridor. The third
one he tried gave at his shove, the lock clattering to the floor. "In
here!"

        Mel wasted no time, scrambling to her feet and following him
into the apartment. They pushed the door closed, leaving just a crack
to peer through. Half a minute went by with the noise gradually
increasing in volume, then there was a movement at the end of
the corridor. One of the sinister cleaners, all gleaming white
and polished metal, halted and pivoted to look along the corridor
where they'd hidden. Mel could see by the debris on the floor
that no cleaner could have passed this way for months, if not
years. Surely there was no reason why it should now. Then she
saw their footprints in the dust. She held her breath. She could
feel Pex's heartbeat as his chest pressed against her back, he
too desperate to see what would happen. There was a pause. Then
the machine advanced slowly toward them, its appendages sweeping
aside the debris as it came. Pex grabbed her wrist. "We have to
hide!" They turned and inspected the room they were in. It was
similar to the suite the old ladies had lived in when Pex had
'introduced' himself by bursting through their door. There was
dusty furniture, a breakfast counter dividing the main room from
the kitchen and a door off that presumably led to a bedroom. Mel
measured the width of the bedroom door with her eyes.

        "In there," she hissed, "I don't think it can get through the
door." Pex gave a nod, white-faced, and they raced through, Mel
pushing the door silently closed behind them. The room was as
she'd supposed: a double bed, bedside table, wardrobe, and a dressing
table with mirror. She crouched to look closely at the bed. Built
in drawers filled the space between mattress and floor - no chance
of hiding there. She pulled open the wardrobe. Mouldy clothing
on hangers filled perhaps half of the space, but there was just
about room to squeeze in. And the wardrobe was on the far side
of the room from the door. Even if the cleaner could fit through
the bedroom door there was no way it could get past the gap between
the foot of the fixed bed and the wall. She pushed Pex into the
compartment and then squeezed in after him. The door swung to
with an ominous click, and for a moment she was afraid they would
be locked in forever, maybe to become a pair of skeletons to be
found by some future architectural historian. She shuddered at
the thought. Pex slipped one arm around her waist and hugged her
tight. She could feel trembling and wasn't certain if it was her
or him or both. She debated between objecting to the familiarity
or being quietly grateful for the comfort of his touch, and finally
opted for the latter. Her nostrils were filled with the smell
of disturbed dust and damp material. She brushed the tassels from
some buckskin jacket away from her face and held her breath,
desperate to avoid sneezing.

        Mel jumped at the sound of a door being struck heavily. The
noise of the cleaner came faintly to her ears, hushed through the
wardrobe's solid partition. This was it. If she was wrong about the
machine's ability to get into the room then there was nowhere else to
run. Pex's arm was trembling as well now, which made the feel of it
somewhat less comforting. It flashed through her mind that if
Pex got killed it would have been her fault. She'd dragged him
out of the lift, chosen the route, chosen this hiding place. She
squeezed his hand. "I'm sorry, Pex,' she whispered.

        He lowered his mouth to her ear. "What?"

        "I said, 'I'm sorry'. For getting you into this mess."

        "I hope you don't think... I'm scared."

        Mel twisted around until she had her back to the door. "Of
course not." There was a tremendous crash from almost directly
outside their hiding place. Mel hugged Pex tight and crushed her face
into his chest to prevent the instinct to scream. Her mind began
spinning randomly, unable to think of anything that made any sense
except the imminence of extinction. Strong (if shaking) arms held
her close. She had the fleeting thought that she didn't really
want to be found dead in Pex's embrace. People might get altogether
the wrong idea...

        It seemed that it must be true - seconds did stretch out like
minutes when you were waiting for death to strike. Then she became
conscious of Pex's hands sliding a little lower than strictly
necessary for the purposes of comfort and security and she wriggled
furiously out his grasp. "Do you mind! I don't think..." She clapped
her hands to her mouth as she realised too late what she'd done.
Nothing happened.

        "I think it went a few minutes ago,  Mel," came the sheepish
retort.

        "Oh. Good." So those seconds *had* been minutes. She
wriggled around again, glad that Pex couldn't see  her blushing. The
stupid wardrobe felt like it must have shrunk while they were in it.
She was uncomfortably aware of just how much of Pex was pressed
up against her, and she pushed against the door with some relief.
And pushed again, harder. And banged against it with both fists.

        "Er... is there a problem with the door?"

        "Oh no. I just thought I'd use it as an impromptu drum kit
before I left this fascinating, dark, hot, airless tomb!" She paused
and took a deep breath to calm herself. "That was sarcasm,
incidentally. Actually I can't open it."

        "Then stand aside, Mel! I, Pex, will save us."

        She could see nothing in the pitch darkness, but it was easy to
imagine the pose as he flexed his biceps. "Standing aside isn't
really an option. You squeeze up to the right as far as you can
and I'll try and slip around."

        With much grunting and prodding with elbows the two of
them managed to exchange positions so that Pex faced the door and
Mel was behind him. She was perspiring freely now, both as a result of
the rising temperature in the small closet and from reaction to the
danger just past. She wondered whether sweat would stain the
material of her dress, and then giggled slightly hysterically at the
irrelevance of the thought. Cleaning problems were the least of her
worries if Pex couldn't get the door open. She 'oofed' as Pex set his
shoulder to the task, incidentally knocking the air out of her.
The noise he made as he hammered away was deafening in their close
confines, and Mel held her hands over her ears as she prayed for
the door latch to give way. Finally the noise stopped. She took
her hands away and could only hear Pex panting for breath.

        "I'm... sorry, Mel," he gasped, "What the... Great Architect
builds... he builds to... last!"

        "This is ridiculous! It must break every building safety code
there is to have a closet door that can't be opened from both
sides! Help! HELP! HELP!" She stopped yelling when Pex put his
hand on her shoulders.

        "Mel."

        "What?"

        "That was very loud, and very painful, and I don't think
there'll be anyone around to hear us anyway. You saw the state of this
level of the Towers - it's uninhabited."

        "That doesn't mean we should just give up, does it? Feel
around the edges of the door - there might be some fastenings we can
unscrew."

        Pex did as he was told, crouching with some difficulty to run
his fingers along the lower surfaces and then reaching high to
inspect the top of the door frame. "Nothing."

        Mel began tapping at the side and rear walls in case any of
them were just partition panelling. All seemed depressingly solid.
She was about to reassure Pex by claiming that the Doctor would
find them, but realised that she didn't really believe that herself.
He could hardly open every closet door in Paradise Towers, could
he? But there were their footprints. Maybe if he stood in the
lift and opened the doors at every floor he would spot their footprints
in the dust and follow them to... Then she remembered the cleaner.
There was no doubt that it would have erased their tracks.

        "It's getting very warm in here, Mel."

        "I know."

        "And," Pex cleared his throat, "And I think that the air is
getting a bit hard to breath."

        Mel said nothing. She'd noticed the same thing, but hadn't
wanted to say anything in case it was her imagination. She felt an
irrational irritation with Pex for mentioning it. If he hadn't said
anything maybe they'd have been all right, but now he'd stated the
problem it somehow made it more real than it had been.

        "Are we going to die?"

        She sighed. What could she say? All her life she had prided
herself on facing the uncomfortable truths that other people preferred
to ignore. She'd never had any compunction in telling a friend
that her smoking habit was disgusting and potentially lethal,
or that a work colleague lacked the qualities he'd have to have
to get the promotion he wanted. It hadn't necessarily made her
popular, but that was secondary to being honest, wasn't it? "Of
course - everyone does in the end." Although as she said it she
wondered if it was necessarily true. The Doctor had spoken of
creatures that seemed to have been around as long as the universe
had existed. If that wasn't quite immortality, it was as near
as made no difference to the human psyche.

        "I was thinking more of the next hour or two."

        Mel opened her mouth to say something comforting, but the
words stuck in her throat. She couldn't tell Pex, 'Yes, we're going
to suffocate very shortly.' Neither could she lie that they were
shortly going to be rescued. Desperate for an alternative she
stood on tiptoe and pulled Pex's head down, kissing him firmly
on the lips. 

        "But, when..."

        She kissed him again, harder, desperate to stop him asking
questions she couldn't answer. This time the distraction seemed to be
working. His arms pulled her close and he began responding. He was
clumsy but enthusiastic, and soon seemed to get the hand of kissing.
Mel went through the motions on autopilot, her mind desperately
trying to come up with some way out of this situation. The feel
of something hard pressing against her thigh gave her pause for
a moment. She had no intention of letting things go too far. Then
she realised what it was, and pulled away from Pex and his tongue
that was busy exploring her throat. "Pex - your gun!"

        "Hmm?" He pulled her close again and began exploring the
contours of her rear with one firm hand.

        Mel trod firmly down on his instep and wriggled out of his
grasp. "Your gun! You can shoot the lock out with your gun!"
Impatiently she pulled the weapon free of its holster, surprised for a
moment at the weight of it. "I'll do it, get clear of the door!"

        "I'm not sure that's..." 

        Whatever Pex's reservations were came too late. Mel aimed at
the door and squeezed the trigger. There was a blinding flash, an
instant of noise and heat and then nothing.

        Several minutes later the wardrobe door swung open. A figure
looked down at the two unconscious forms tangled together amid
smoking clothing. Her words were almost whispered into the small
communicator she held. "Cobweb here. Two non-persons for pickup."

Next: Part 2 - All Kangs are Grey in the Dark
-- 
Rutan