Doctor Who_ Prime Time - Mike Tucker [47]
‘Are you all right? You don’t seem exactly overjoyed that I’ve just saved our lives.’
The Master pushed past him angrily. ‘However much you have delayed our Zzinbriizi friends, we still have the same problem: locating a control room.’
The Doctor pulled an old-fashioned compass from his jacket pocket. ‘Fortunately I have an infallible sense of direction!’
Ace stretched out on the sofa. Trasker had driven her and Gatti back to the Rooth’s house. Ace couldn’t think of anywhere else to go. The morning had slipped past quickly She had insisted on making a search for the TARDIS but she knew it was futile. Eventually it had started to rain and Trasker and Gatti had finally persuaded her to give up. With nowhere better to stay, Trasker had booked into the Rooth’s.
Ace was tired and desperate. Separated from the Doctor and now the TARDIS, she needed time to think, time to work out what the hell she was going to do.
Mrs Rooth bustled around them, making them drinks, checking that they were comfortable. All she could talk about was the fact that she had seen Ace and the Doctor on the television. She was seemingly oblivious to the discomfort and danger they had been through. She didn’t seem able to separate real life from fiction.
Ace shook her head. Talk about getting obsessed. Here she was trying to save the Doctor from his mortal enemy and everyone around her was just treating it like an episode of a soap opera.
On the screen she could still see the two Time Lords, the Doctor’s diminutive figure trotting along the newly transformed TARDIS corridor, the Master striding ahead of him. The Roath kids were glued to the screen. It was infuriating. She could see everything that was going on, but there was no way of contacting the Doctor.
Mrs Roath bustled back over to her. ‘It really is terribly exciting. Everyone is talking about it. The Doctor is so cute, and that Master, he really is quite a dashing figure, isn’t he?’
Ace grimaced at her. ‘Yeah, right.’
‘Not that you aren’t a star in your own right, Ace dear.
That climb over the wall was terribly good. Do you do all your own stunts? They seem terribly dangerous.’
Ace gave a humourless laugh. ‘Sometimes they are, Mrs Rooth, sometimes they are.’
She sat upright. ‘The climbing gear...’
She sprang from her chair and crossed to the kitchen, then knelt down and unzipped her rucksack. She pulled out the piton gun.
‘I may not be able to get at my nitro, but this could be a wicked weapon in the right hands.’
‘Your hands I assume.’ Trasker was standing behind her.
‘I’m not all that happy with lugging weapons of mass destruction around the Channel 400 building.’
Ace shrugged. ‘It’s not negotiable. Have you found a way of getting us in yet?’
Trasker placed a data pad on the kitchen table and sat down. ‘Getting in isn’t the problem. I’m fairly sure that my ID
card will get us past the gate, and there’s enough room in the back of my spinner to hide you two. The security guards are just old men playing at soldiers, they won’t give us any trouble. Getting into the studio could be harder. Lukos isn’t going to leave that wide open.’
‘Lukos?’ Ace sat down.
‘Vogol Lukos, the director-general, he controls everything inside Channel 400. If your friend is in trouble then you can be sure that Lukos will have got him into it.’
Ace nodded. ‘For the moment I’m just concerned with getting the Doctor out in one piece, I’m not after toppling any regimes. If you’ve got an issue with Lukos then that’s your problem. Once the Doctor is safe I’m sure he will help.’
Trasker looked at her. ‘You’re concerned about him aren’t you?’
Ace nodded. ‘The Doctor can look after himself but I’m concerned about the Master. I wasn’t expecting him. I don’t think the Doctor was either.’
Ace snapped home the control panel on the piton gun.
‘Right. This thing’s set. I can’t see any reason not to go for it, can you?’
Trasker shook her head. ‘Ready when you are.’
In the street outside the Rooth’s house the thing that had once been Greg Ashby stood in the rain, staring