Winner Takes All (20 page)

But there was no blue box standing around. Rose and the Doctor – future Rose and the Doctor, or even past Rose and the Doctor – weren't here at all. It was all up to him, Mickey.

He knocked on the door in front of him. Jason and Kevin shuffled their feet behind him. They'd taken some convincing. Mind you, Mickey was nervous, even though he knew it should be safe.

After thirty seconds or so, he knocked again, louder. ‘Keep the noise down!' came a voice from somewhere above. ‘Some of us are trying to sleep!'

Mickey raised his hand to knock again, but then he heard something, someone shuffling towards them. The door was opened a chain-length, and a wrinkled face peered at them through the gap.

‘Hello, Mrs Pye,' said Mickey. ‘D'you mind if we come in?'

Once they'd got over their panic about what Darren'd do if he came home and found them there, Kevin and Jason had seemed pretty impressed at the way Mickey had persuaded Mrs Pye to let them into the flat. They'd been even more impressed at the way Mickey had commandeered the half-dozen or so tellies they'd found in a back room, especially as he'd even got Mrs Pye to point out power sockets where they could plug them all in. He'd then uncovered Darren's stash of games consoles. There were dozens of the things – he must have been round the whole area – and they'd gone through every one of them. And then he'd heaved the biggest sigh of relief in the world, because they'd found four more saved games.

‘There's only six left to find,' the Doctor had said. ‘Four saved games, and two more live ones.'

So, just the two live ones to go now. Mickey knew one of them was the bloke who wouldn't stop playing, but he wasn't able to tell the Doctor that. Anyway, though, that meant they'd found everything except one person still out there playing the game. Strange as it seemed, Darren Pye had actually done them a favour by collecting up all these games. He'd probably got more of them with threats than Rose would have done with pleas, and that meant that most of the games were in one place.

Anyway, four more people were on their way out of the Mantodean stronghold. And that meant that maybe, some time soon, Mickey would get to go home and go to bed.

Rose had been busy with the sonic screwdriver. She had no idea how it was working – she had no idea if it even was working, but she hadn't heard any explosions, so she was hoping for the best.

She met up with another middle-aged white man – Mr Snow, she'd been told – who had a sort of glazed look in his eyes, not as if he was scared, just as if he was refusing to believe this was really happening. She'd worked the Doctor's magic on Mr Nkomo, someone called Anne something or other, someone called Tim Breeley, and a Japanese girl who must have been there for ages because the Doctor said his friend Robert didn't recognise her at all.

One more person was heading her way, her own voice had told her. And she hoped against hope that this was nearly it, that she could get the rescuing stuff over with, so that someone could get around to rescuing her.

There were only four lights now, including Rose; the rest had left the stronghold. Robert was worried the Quevvils would realise what was happening, but the Doctor said even if they realised people were getting out of the place, they'd just think they were getting blown up.

Now the last blue light had turned back to white – and Robert couldn't help himself from spinning round every few seconds to look at the screen. Now it was approaching the white light that was Rose. Now – turn around – there was a blur in the distance that might just be a person. Now – turn back to the map – it was getting very close to Rose. Now – turn around again – it was nearly there, any minute now he'd be able to see –

It was a woman. It was . . . It was Rachel Goldberg. Robert forced himself to smile. ‘Mr Goldberg will be so happy,' he said. ‘And she was really nice too.'

He worked out the route to get Rachel out of the stronghold, and the Doctor relayed his words, through Rose, to this Mickey back on Earth. Robert kept a close eye on the remaining two non-Rose lights, but they showed no signs of doing the little jumping-around thing that the Doctor had worked out as a signal. The Doctor had Rose sever the connection to Earth, telling Mickey he'd call back when – if – they were needed.

‘Rose,' said the Doctor, speaking out loud the words he was creating through her, ‘there're still two other people in there, playing the game. I hope Mickey's trying to find their controllers, but we're running out of time. I'm going to send you to intercept them if I can. Maybe you can carry them out or something. But somehow we've got to get everyone out of there. I've got a plan.'

Robert inwardly cheered. The Doctor still had a plan!

‘But everyone's gotta be out of there. We –'

‘Gerdix! The carrier is not following the correct path! Have you had further power problems?'

Robert jumped as the voice boomed out of the intercom. ‘Quick!' he cried to the Doctor. ‘You've got to make him answer again!'

The Doctor was scrabbling on the floor, searching for the silver control box. ‘I dropped it about here . . .'

‘You kicked it away,' Robert reminded him.

‘Must be somewhere over here . . .'

‘Gerdix! Answer! If you do not answer within thirty seconds . . .'

‘Here we go again,' said the Doctor. ‘Ah! It must've gone under that workbench.'

Robert grabbed the game control pad and took charge of watching the screen for Mantodeans, while the Doctor crawled across the floor on his hands and knees.

‘Twenty-five seconds . . .'

‘No – where is the blasted thing? Aha!'

A Mantodean came on the screen. Robert instinctively pressed the button to fire at it. He imagined Rose's arm shooting up, her finger on the trigger of a gun . . . The Mantodean barely staggered as the laser beam hit it, it certainly didn't fall. Guns had pretty much been useless against them, Robert remembered from his own days playing
Death to Mantodeans.
He jabbed at the controls, hoping that the Doctor's improvements would help him out here. ‘Doctor, she's being attacked!' he called.

As the Doctor threw himself back upright, silver box in one hand, Robert made Rose execute a pretty impressive karate kick on the insect monster.

‘Twenty seconds . . .'

Robert passed the controls back to the Doctor. ‘You've got to get her out of there!' he said.

‘Looks like you were doing a pretty good job on your own,' the Doctor said. On the screen, the Mantodean had reeled away; the kick had been effective. ‘I think it's time for Rose to run, though . . .'

The Doctor guided her through a narrow gap, and set her running at top speed. ‘Right, you take over again,' he said to Robert, passing back the pad.

‘Ten seconds . . .'

The Doctor pointed the silver control box at Gerdix the Quevvil. Nothing happened. He shook the box. It rattled. ‘Something's come loose!' he said.

‘Can you repair it?' asked Robert, dizzy with the adrenalin of having saved – did he dare call it that? Yes! – of having saved the life of the perfect girl. Of even now being in control of her destiny. Of being in charge of her . . .

‘Yes,' said the Doctor, prising the top off the box, ‘it's just a matter of time . . .'

‘Five seconds . . .'

The Doctor jabbed a finger in, restored a connection. The top went back on. A button was pressed.

‘One second . . .'

Gerdix took a jerky step forward.

And the door of the room exploded.

NINETEEN

R
ose was shocked when she found herself face to face with another Mantodean, amazed when she found herself shooting at it, and surprised but not unpleased to find herself delivering a hefty sideways kick to its abdomen. Forget Buffy, this was Rose the Giant-Insect Slayer . . .

She had been taken away from the creature, but then found herself standing still for what seemed like a very long time.

Then, suddenly, she spoke again. ‘Rose, it's me,' her voice said. ‘It's all gone a bit pear-shaped this end. I'm not going to be able to say much in case they notice what I'm doing. Can't let you speed along either, they'd notice that too. I can't get you out of there, not yet. If you don't carry on to the middle, they're going to kill everyone. But I'll sort it. See you later.' There was a pause, and then, as if he felt he should be signing off like on a letter, ‘Love, the Doctor.'

And that was it.

She felt a bit aggrieved, because she was his best friend, and he was choosing to save the lives of all these other people instead of her – and although he wouldn't be the Doctor if he didn't, and of course she'd have said, ‘No, no, save them not me,' if she'd been asked, the point was she hadn't been asked, and she thought it was perfectly reasonable to feel just slightly put out in the circumstances. The circumstances being her heading off to her probable death right now.

The door had exploded, and three Quevvils armed with laser pistols had kicked their way through the smoking remains. Two of them held their weapons on the Doctor and Robert, while the third went to the intercom and reported to Frinel. A few minutes later Frinel himself joined them in the room.

There had been some alarm when they'd seen Gerdix frozen in the middle of the room, one paw still raised just off the floor. Frinel had called in some sort of scientist Quevvil, who'd finally got the forehead disc removed. The Doctor had been muttering angrily under his breath while this had been going on, stuff about how they obviously hadn't designed the things to be reversible. Robert was more glad than ever that his disc had never been activated, but he was worried about Rose. Oh, and the others. The Doctor said that once he'd got his sonic screwdriver back, removing the things would be a piece of cake.

That was if Rose ever got out of the stronghold.

‘What about your plan?' Robert had whispered to the Doctor. The Doctor said that his plan would still work. Was still on track. His main plan, his big, important plan, the saving-Earth one. It was just the getting Rose out part of it that had hit a snag . . .

Frinel had said that it had been a mistake leaving the Doctor with only one guard. He would remedy that. Robert and the Doctor were marched out and taken to another room, a really big, important-looking room. There were loads of Quevvils there, bustling about, examining screens and dials and read-outs. There was a series of little booths that looked a bit like shower cubicles, each one lit by a muted yellow light.

A small Quevvil had carried in the Doctor's console, and was attaching it to one of the large screens. The control pad was given back to the Doctor.

Another door opened, and the rest of the humans were led in: Sarah and her mum and scaredy George and all the rest. Robert wanted to call across to the still-weeping Daniel Goldberg that Rachel was all right, but knew he mustn't. He tried to catch the man's eye, but couldn't. Then Robert was grabbed by a Quevvil and thrown back with the group. ‘It'll be all right,' the Doctor said as Robert was taken away.

Frinel came over and spoke to the Doctor, loud enough for the humans to hear.

‘You have not played the game as we instructed. You have attempted sabotage. You have attacked a Quevvil. You were warned that if you did not obey our instructions, the human would die.' He pointed at Robert.

Robert had been feeling almost detached from what was going on. He'd been worried about the Doctor's plan, about Rose, about getting the people out of the stronghold. The bigger picture. He'd almost forgotten about the threat to his own life. And here it was, all of a sudden. No wonderful heroic sacrifice. No taking a bullet meant for someone else. Just sudden, out of the blue, pointless death.

‘Kill him,' said Frinel.

Mrs Pye seemed to have got it into her head that they were policemen – and although they say that policemen look younger the older you are, that's ridiculous, thought Mickey, looking at the two skinny teenagers accompanying him. She sat at her kitchen table, grumbling unintelligibly (she hadn't bothered to put her false teeth in), while Mickey, Kevin and Jason guided their charges across the many TV screens. Finally, Mickey put down the last of the control pads with a sigh. ‘That's it,' he said. ‘Now we wait for the Doctor. Jason, call Anil and find out how he's getting on.'

But Anil had had no luck either tracking the one remaining console, or persuading the other player to abandon his game.

‘What do we do?' asked Kevin. ‘Should we just, like, go knocking on doors, see if we can find the last game?'

Reluctantly, Mickey shook his head. Life or death decisions, he thought. He shouldn't have to make those. ‘We stay here,' he said. ‘The games aren't just on the Powell Estate, they're all round here. It'll be like looking for a needle in a haystack.' He stared at the array of screens, all showing the same view; thought of the people poised at the end of telephones and email accounts, waiting for his signal. ‘And the Doctor might call on us any minute, yeah? We've gotta be ready for that, or it's all for nothing.'

So he just sat there, staring at his mobile and willing it to ring, hoping that he'd made the right choice.

Frinel had ordered a Quevvil to kill him. Robert noticed, as everything became suddenly clear, that the Quevvil didn't have a gun. It was bristling up – he remembered the feeling of the quills in his palm, and imagined that spread across his entire body. If you had to die, it really didn't seem fair that you had to suffer pain too . . .

But the Quevvil had picked up a silver box, and was pointing it at Robert. Robert was puzzled. So was the Quevvil, as nothing happened. The Quevvil turned to Frinel.