Doctor Who_ The Forgotten Army - Brian Minchin [17]
The Doctor sprang to his feet, instantly tense. 'Right, we've got to get to it. Er... how long have I been here, then?'
'I was coming to that.. .'Amy told him. 'I thought you'd have woken up earlier, being all Super-Human Time Lord and all that...'
The Doctor counted the number of holes in his trousers.
'They hit me with six tranquilliser darts. Even two hearts take a while to get rid of that kind of dose. I must have been asleep for... No!'
With a sense of dread, the Doctor looked at the time. Six hours. He'd been asleep for six hours. He rattled the door of the cell. 'We have to get out of here!' Pulling himself up on the window ledge he could see that the sun was setting. 'Oh no, no, no, no, no.'
Amy told him to calm down. 'Woolly is safe in the zoo, all behind bars. Job done. Us one, mammoths nil.'
The Doctor wasn't ready to celebrate. 'We must be too late... We need to get to it...' He realised he wasn't making much sense to Amy and launched into a passionate explanation. 'I know what's wrong with the mammoth!
When I was on its back I could hear it, and beneath the muscle and the sweat there was another noise. There was a ticking, and a clanking of old machinery getting back into action. The mammoth isn't real. It's a fake. A giant mechanical creature, disguised to look like a vicious 67
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prehistoric animal.'
Amy was quiet for a moment. 'I read somewhere that all the dinosaurs and prehistoric animals were fakes—' she said.
The Doctor cut her off. 'Nah, I've been there. Lovely caves, beautiful sunsets in those days. They were definitely real. But this is something else, and more than that - it's unprotected, and it's right in the middle of New York.'
'But who would make something like that?' Amy asked.
'I don't know.’ the Doctor answered impatiently, pacin g the cell with frustration. 'But I need to find out. Unless the cavemen got very clever without me noticing, something from another planet or another time hid the mammoth under the ice.' The Doctor gestured at Amy to hurry up. 'So come on, Pond, can't you pick the lock with a hairpin, or something?
I need to get out of here!'
Amy smiled. 'I've got an easier way. C'mere, Brad.'
In the corridor outside the cell, a handsome clean-cut police officer walked over to the door and winked at Amy.
'Not leaving already are you?'
Amy charmed him with ease. 'Me and my dozy friend are off now. Your boss said he was OK to go as soon as he could walk.'
Brad peered in at the Doctor, who was doing his best to look harmless. 'He looks kind of weird to 68
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me, but whatever floats your boat.'
With a smile, Amy whisked the electronic key tag off Brad's belt and pressed it up against the door. With a loud clunk, the door to the cell slid open, and the Doctor stepped out. He promptly tripped over his boots.
Brad looked at him with visible disdain.
'Right, first shoelaces,' the Doctor decided. 'Then let's go!
We need to get to the mammoth. And fast.'
While the Doctor had been asleep, Amy had watched as the massive mammoth was loaded onto a flatbed truck and transported across town to the New York City Zoo.
'Right now,' Amy told the Doctor, 'the mammoth is sleeping happily between the rhinos and the elephants.
They're going to get a surprise when it wakes up.'
The Doctor looked distressed. 'Oh, Amy, you should have woken me up...'
Amy was disappointed. She'd done her very best without the Doctor and had hoped he would have noticed more of what she'd managed to do. 'Hang on, I stopped them carting you off to the Gotham Asylum, or whatever they have here, and I convinced them I was the only person fit to look after you. Professor of Psychology at Oxford no less. And Special Inspector with Scotland Yard, Flying Squad. So less of the grumpy face.'
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The Doctor smiled sympathetically. 'You're right. Sorry.
You've been brilliant. But our days of working with the NYPD are over, Professor Pond. Far better we do things our own way from now on. The right way. Follow me. I'll show you how it's done.'
They found a rear