Doctor Who_ The Forgotten Army - Brian Minchin [32]
'We're gonna need more troops for this.’ he insisted. 'We can't handle this alone...'
Amy sighed. 'I bet you were scared of noises in the night when you were young.’
Oscar nodded.
'And then you found out it was just the wind blowing.’
Amy said, 'and you knew it was going to be OK?'
Oscar nodded again.
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Am y smiled. 'Good, then think of them like they're the wind. You can't shoot it, but you can shut it out.'
Oscar still wasn't convinced. 'I just can't believe what I saw. I mean, where are they all gone?'
It was true that the Vykoids had moved on, but Amy couldn't afford to lose her only ally for lack of proof.
'Think for a minute.’ she said. 'That's all I'm asking, just think. If they aren't real, then what else do you know that could do all these things?'
Oscar didn't have an answer.
'Maybe you're right, Oscar.’ Amy told him, 'and there's no life outside Manhattan, and there's no pride except being NYPD for life. But I've seen more of the universe in the last few days than you can imagine. Sometimes it's the most exhilarating feeling, like riding an amazing rollercoaster through the stars. But there are things out there that are so dark and so tortured they want to conquer and capture everything they meet. The mammoth wasn't a miracle, Oscar.
It came back to life because it had thousands of aliens inside it. That's what's causing the chaos on the street.'
Oscar gaped.
'Yeah, it's not like alien attacks in the movies. This one is practically invisible, and sudden, and unless we stop them, they'll get under every bed in New York. You have to believe me, Oscar. You can't
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fight them like normal criminals. They aren't even a normal army. We need to be smarter than them. Better than them.'
Amy held up her phone so that Oscar could see the screen. 'Here, I think you're ready for the close-up view.' The picture Amy had taken showed Erik the Vykoid squinting angrily at the Doctor, waving his baton in indignation.
"That's them?' Oscar asked incredulously. 'You've met them?'
Amy smiled. She'd got him. 'Yeah, get used to it. Now, you on my side or theirs? Mine, yeah? Thought so! Come on - let's take this together, but we'll do it my way...'
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Chapter
12
New York was descending into a night of terror. But one person in the city felt like her hour had come. In a darkened NYPD
office, Commander Strebbins was yelling at her colleagues.
'What do you mean radio signals are down?' She slammed her useless phone handset down into its cradle and walked up to her window.
Outside the city was dark and vulnerable. The ill-lit streets below were easy targets for. .. something. This was exactly why she had been put in place. Commander Strebbins knew that her first priority was to protect the banks, shops and private properties. Already there had been reports of looting from downtown department stores. But, an instinct honed through years of police work was tingling.
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She suspected that this was the start of something much bigger. And Jackie Strebbins wasn't about to be caught on the hop.
Striding out into the main office, she collared the nearest cop. 'Raise us to Level Three, but I want to hold back on the main units. Don't commit the elite armed police to any crime scene unless you have express orders from me.'
Gathering his courage, the young cop asked, 'How should I get the message out, ma'am?'
Strebbins didn't miss a beat. 'Better start running.'
She didn't like to admit it, but the business with the mam moth had unsettled her. She wasn't one for superstition, but she took anything out of the ordinary as a sign of danger. The UNIT involvement made her uncomfortable. She liked to think she could deal with anything her own way, not rely on someone who came and went when he pleased, and didn't report to anyone.
Maybe the mammoth was just a distraction, and the Doctor had been and gone. But she couldn't shake the feeling that in some other part