Doctor Who_ Bad Therapy - Matthew Jones [83]
‘Why haven’t you deactivated the Toy as I ordered?’ he hissed.
‘Toy?’ Gordy didn’t know what he was talking about.
‘The boy. Dennis. Destroy it as I have shown you. Destroy it now or our contract is at an end.’
Gordy didn’t take the gun off the Doctor. ‘I will. I promise. But first I’ve gotta do something else.’
‘You don’t have to do what he tells you to do,’ the Doctor said. ‘You have a choice. Why should you choose to hurt a little boy? What possible reason could you have to do such a terrible thing?’
Gordy smiled. ‘Because the devil wants me to and once I’ve. . . I’ve killed all the people he wants dead, then he’s going to help me to take control of Soho.’
The Doctor shook his head, sadly. ‘But you know he isn’t really the devil, don’t you?’
Gordy sneered. ‘You’re just trying to save your skin by twisting everything.
I’m not stupid.’
The Doctor took a step forward. ‘I’m not the one who thinks that you’re stupid.’ He gestured towards the large glass ball which was alight with a fiery incandescence. ‘I can’t say the same for the scientist who speaks to you through the globe.’
‘Scientist? What are you talking about? Keep back,’ Gordy ordered, as the Doctor took a second step towards him. ‘I’ve got a gun.’
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‘Then you’ve got nothing to be worried about, have you?’
the Doctor
replied, taking a third step. ‘Gordon, listen to me. If the voice in the crystal ball really belonged to the devil, would he need you to do his evil work for him? If it really was the devil in there, why doesn’t he just drag his victims down to the Gates of Hell himself? The Prince of Darkness would hardly need a mortal man to help him destroy his enemies, now would he? Well?’
‘You’re just trying to trick me,’ Gordy said, his voice uncertain.
‘No, I’m not. But he is. I recognized that globe when I first saw it: it’s part of a device for travelling through time and space.’
Gordy relaxed, feeling his anxieties fade as the Doctor started talking nonsense. He’d lain in bed on many nights fretting over exactly the sort of questions that the Doctor had raised – about the motives of the devil in the crystal ball. As sleep eluded him he would be forced to face the questions which he found hardest to answer: why someone as tough and as powerful as the devil had picked Gordy out from everyone else to reward. When almost everyone else in his life seemed so sure that he wasn’t up to anything at all.
The Doctor took another step. The tip of Gordy’s gun was only a few feet away from his face.
‘I’ll use this on you if you don’t keep back, Doctor. Don’t think I won’t. A lot more people are going to get it before I’m done. I’m gonna clean the dross out of my town. With the devil’s help I can make it a place for decent people to live.’
‘I see,’ the Doctor said, his voice filled with quiet distaste. ‘England for the English. Until all the faces are white and there’s no one different from you at all. No queers, no yids, no darkies.’ The Doctor seemed to consider Gordy’s dream for a moment. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Oh yeah? You gonna stop me?’
The Doctor nodded. ‘Oh yes,’ he said, with absolute confidence.
‘You and who’s army?’
‘That’s right.’ The Doctor gestured to where Jack, Mikey and Dennis stood.
‘Me and my army. Now put an end to the suspense. Decide whether or not you are going to shoot me.’
Gordy disengaged the safety catch on the revolver. It made a threatening click. ‘Put you out of your bleeding heart misery, more like.’
The Doctor took a further step. The gun was almost touching the top of his chest. ‘What’s it to be, Gordy? My life is in your sweaty little paws.’
Gordy couldn’t take his eyes from the Doctor’s. How could the little man be so calm even as he was looking at death down the barrel of a gun? The Doctor’s eyes were clear and focused. It was as if they were looking past Gordy’s face and into the very heart of him. It felt as though the Doctor knew exactly what Gordy was like, deep down.
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Did the Doctor know that Gordy had never so much as pointed a gun at anyone before, let alone fired one? Did he somehow know that