Doctor Who_ The Forgotten Army - Brian Minchin [30]
Oscar blushed.
'No need to be shy, Oscar,' Amy continued. 'I might need a cocktail later...'
The police dog led them down Fifth Avenue, past the Metro station, and towards the looming arch of the Grand Army Plaza Memorial, more sombre than ever in the dark.
'Right, it's my turn now,' Amy said, eager to reverse the stakes with Oscar. 'So what got you into this? Was it Starsky and Hutch or The Sopranos?' Oscar didn't know what to say. 'Or maybe The A-Team? Come on, you can tell me, I know what it's all about. A great battle of good versus evil, you on the side of good, plus you get to wear a sexy uniform.'
'My dad was a cop,' Oscar mumbled.
Amy nodded. 'Good reason. Better than my reason for joining the police.'
'Why?' Oscar asked curiously.
'The Chief of Police in New Scotland Yard made a deal: either turn cop, or do a ten-year stretch...'
'No way!' Oscar said, wide-eyed with astonishment.
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'Course not, dumbo!' Amy laughed. 'Imagine me, in stripy prisoner clothes! I am going to have so much fun winding you up. We'll be like the new Bonnie and Clyde, except, of course, we'll be good guys.'
Amy's laughter was interrupted by a sudden crash. Far up the street, towards Central Park, she could see people running into the middle of the street. A massive plate glass window had smashed into tiny fragments, showering shards on the pavement. Amy and Oscar stared up the road, Bismarck growling at the unseen aggressor.
There was a second crash, and another window fell into little pieces. This time the building was nearer to them.
'What's happening?' Oscar asked
Before Amy could answer, they saw a brick fly through the windscreen of the stolen squad car. Its alarm made a weak bleat, like a newborn lamb. Drained of power, like everything else in the city it soon fell silent.
'I told the Doctor we shouldn't have taken the car,' Amy told Oscar. 'That's gonna take some explaining.'
Amy.’ Oscar was agitated. 'That brick. No one threw it. I was watching... How'd it fly through the air by itself?'
Another crash echoed through the night.
The lamp-post above their heads shattered.
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They ducked as the glass fell, then leapt clear as the lamp-post itself fell and slammed into the ground between them.
Amy looked Oscar in the eye. 'I don't really know. I normally get to ask questions like that.'
With a series of ear-splitting roars, the glass windows of the Trump Tower above them began to crack, lines breaking across it, as if hundreds of abseiling window cleaners were having a mad moment of rebellion and cracking each pane with the heels of their boots.
'But,' Am y continued, 'there's something you probably need to know.'
Behind them, Central Park's ducks rose up from the lake in terror - the water stirred to a frenzy by some unknown force. The lake settled again, but a fearsome whirlpool at its heart began to spread its vortices across the lake. The water was being drained away, as if someone had pulled a plug.
Amy had never seen such madness. She stood in the middle of Fifth Avenue and watched as every lamp-post in sight was torn from its footings and thrown into the road.
Drinkers chucked out of the bars were having the beer bottles torn from their hands.
Around them the air was filled with a vicious clangin g of metal being bent out of shape. In front of them, the facades of the buildings were being pitted with tiny holes.
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Something was descending down Fifth Avenue with the force and fury of an army of the undead.
'Have you noticed?' Oscar asked. 'Everything is being smashed in a line.'
Sure enough, the chaos appeared to be moving along the street, people running in front of the mayhem, desperate to avoid the flying debris in the air.
'Yep. And the exciting thing is it's heading this way.'
Amy came to a halt in the midst of the debris. 'But we're not moving.'