Part 14 (1/2)

The Doctor and Robert exchanged glances. 'I'm not human!' grumbled the Doctor. 'I have already told them that.'

'Twenty*eight,' said Frinel.

EIGHTEEN.

Mickey was still fl.u.s.tered. The panic stations of a few minutes ago had pa.s.sed: Jason and Kevin had guided their players out of the Mantodean stronghold, and everything was plain sailing from then on. The Doctor had stopped giving him directions via Rose. But everything else had stopped too. Anil had stopped trying to persuade this guy to play the game the way they wanted, because he'd stopped responding to his messages.

There had still been a couple of consoles left untested, and Mickey had been itching to try them, fully aware that any delay could mean the difference between life and death for the person at the other end, but he'd had to wait for Jason or Kevin to get their player in place. Kevin got there first, and Mickey yanked out the connecting lead and plugged in the first of the remaining games. No go. He'd tried the next. The same. No stored game.

And so it had stopped, for now, until it was time for the last stage of the Doctor's plan. But he still had people's fates in his hands, which was hugely unfair. If he'd wanted that sort of responsibility he'd have become a doctor or a soldier or something. But he hadn't. n.o.body had asked him if he'd wanted this. Rose had chosen to get mixed up in all this stuff, he'd just got caught in her slipstream, and they all expected him to just get on with it. Well, actually the Doctor probably expected him to fail miserably. But no one had given him a choice. Ask, 'Mickey, do you want to get involved in this saving the world stuff, yes or no?' and he'd say no. Who would? But when you're already involved, when you're in the middle of stuff, no decent human being could walk away. It really wasn't fair at all.

'Is that it then?' asked Kevin. 'Can we go home now?'

Mickey shook his head. 'Nah. We've got the real work ahead of us now.' But as he sat there, fl.u.s.tered and thinking desperately, he hadn't a clue how they were going to do it.

'Twenty*four.'

'What are we going to do?' yelled Robert. 'That thing ' he gestured at the Quevvil called Gerdix 'can't answer. It's frozen!'

The Doctor looked at Gerdix. Then he looked at Robert. 'Control box!' he said suddenly.

Robert grabbed the silver control box, and pa.s.sed it to the Doctor. The Doctor started poking around in it at top speed, speaking very fast at the same time. 'This has roughly the same function as the control pad, and if I could modify that I can modify this. Wish I had my sonic screwdriver... There!'

'Fifteen seconds.'

The Doctor waved the box at the Quevvil. It gave a faint shudder.

'Reorganised the connections, like I did with Rose,' said the Doctor. 'I expect it's quite unpleasant. Poor Rose. Come on, come on...'

'Eight seconds.'

The Doctor kept jabbing away at the controls. Finally, after at least three lifetimes, the Quevvil responded.

'Five seconds.'

Gerdix sprang over to the intercom with a grace that seemed totally inappropriate in a giant porcupine.

'Four seconds.'

The Doctor kept manipulating the controls. The Quevvil reached up a paw and hit a b.u.t.ton.

'Three seconds.'

The Doctor did something that looked extremely complicated. Nothing happened.

'Two seconds.'

'Ah! I forgot...' The Doctor twisted a k.n.o.b.

'One second.'

'Frinel, this is Gerdix.'

There was a snort from the other end. 'Gerdix! Why have you not responded before? Why could Herryan not gain access?'

'There was a... a power surge. We temporarily lost control of the communicator. And the door locks. And the controller was unable to command his carrier. All power is now restored. All functions will revert to normal.'

Robert waited with bated breath. Would it work?

Frinel replied, 'Very well. We are anxious to see the carrier continue. You will proceed as planned.'

Robert grinned, and gave the Doctor a thumbs*up. The Doctor dropped the silver control box on the floor, and sighed deeply. 'Making me sink to their level,' he muttered angrily. He thumped the chair arm, and kicked out with a foot, knocking the control box away. 'This is too much! Making people dance around like puppets, making me take away every sc.r.a.p of dignity of my best friend... I can tell you now, she won't be loving it. But I don't have a choice. Only way to get everyone out of there.'

Robert thought he was going to start smas.h.i.+ng things again, even though the Quevvils were watching them. But instead the Doctor suddenly snorted, and Robert was surprised to see he was almost laughing. 'Hark at me,' he said. 'If I wanted to feel good about myself, go to bed with a little moral glow every night, then I'm in the wrong business. Come on, we've got work to do. Where's everyone at?'

And Robert looked back at the plan, and saw to his horror that there were only four blue lights left. The Mantodeans had claimed another victim.

Anil had, amazingly, been able to track down two more of the people who were actually playing the game now. He'd been coming up with some pretty convincing cover stories, and in one case someone's girlfriend had seen his messages while she was browsing the Internet, waiting for her boyfriend to ring her, and had texted him, only to find out he'd been playing Death to Mantodeans Death to Mantodeans for the last hour. Someone else had popped online to check their emails, and found one of Anil's fake news stories that had been forwarded on by a friend. Mickey had his own mobile to one ear, and Jason's to the other, and was relaying the Doctor's instructions from one to Anil, back at the youth club, via the other. for the last hour. Someone else had popped online to check their emails, and found one of Anil's fake news stories that had been forwarded on by a friend. Mickey had his own mobile to one ear, and Jason's to the other, and was relaying the Doctor's instructions from one to Anil, back at the youth club, via the other.

Then Mickey had collected the lads' own console and the 'live' one they'd found earlier, persuaded (blackmailed) Jason and Kevin to go with him, and they were about to do something that wasn't sensible at all.

He hadn't been able to resist glancing up at Rose's windows again as they left the youth club; his eyes were irresistibly drawn there. But there were still no signs of life. He didn't know why he'd half been expecting to see something. Jackie was still in hospital, as far as he knew, and Rose was... elsewhere. But when someone had a time machine, you couldn't help thinking they might turn up even when you knew they were somewhere else...

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.

'h.e.l.lo, 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.