Doctor Who_ The Forgotten Army - Brian Minchin [47]
The Doctor divided them up into pairs. 'You and you, and you and you go together. You need to stay in the shadows and keep your eyes open for anything out of the ordinary. All power is down, so any light, and sign that something is strange, you come straight back here. We need to be quick.
Take the city block by block.. .Now over to Polly....'
Polly stared at him, caught out. She whispered to the Doctor, 'What do you mean?'
The Doctor explained 'Ah, should have told you, I need them to spread out and check every tall building in New York, go right to the top, and if they see anything that shouldn't be there, they need to run straight back here, to tell us about it.
We won't be able to move far, the Vykoids will be on to us...'
'But there are hundreds of tall buildings in this city. That's impossible.'
Amy interrupted. 'They need to start at the tallest first.'
'But it'll take ages,' Sam agreed.
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The Doctor joined in. 'Then I'm glad I've got the best team in New York. OK, who's for the Empire State Building? Off you go. Who's taking the Bank of America Tower? Right you two. And Batmen, I need you both on top of the Flat Iron. Take one of these each - you know what you need to do!'
They all yelled back 'Yes!' and scuttled off pair by pair, creeping like well-practised superheroes.
'What did you give them?' Amy asked.
'Fireworks! They're going to need to let us know where they are.'
'And where did you get fireworks from?'
"This is New York, Amy, you can get anything here. New Year for someone all the time, remember?'
Polly was looking worried. 'Are you sure they'll be safe?'
The Doctor answered straight away. 'The Vykoids have no interest in them. Just make sure you stay out of sight yourself. Whatever happens, don't leave your flat.' He leapt up. 'Right, off to the Zoo!'
'Come on,' Amy told Sam. 'It's your turn to be helpful.'
'Don't worry.’ the Doctor said to Polly. 'We'll be barely a few minutes. Well I say minutes. We'll actually be a couple of hours, maybe even longer. But whichever way, I'll come back for you, don't forget that.'
Outside, the Doctor asked Amy to pick a car. I’ll put it back. I didn't do anything to the other one.'
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Sam was appalled. 'You can't just take someone's car!'
'Tomorrow I'll be the saviour of the city. That guy can lend me his Dodge for a few minutes.'
Amy had another question on her mind. 'How come it's not safe for Polly to be on the streets, but it's fine for me?'
The Doctor smiled. 'You're with me. Now come on, Sam.
It's time we took a proper look at that mammoth of yours...'
Sam Horwitz had never broken into anywhere before, so he felt particularly naughty getting out of a stolen car and then clambering over the hastily repaired service gates of the Zoo.
He'd spent most of his time studying long-dead animals, so the sounds of the Zoo at night were strange and frightening to him. Unlike the rest of New York, the animals were loving how dark the sky was, and how quiet the Zoo had become.
Passing through the happily squawking enclosures, Sam went straight to the mammoth's cage. Once inside the enclosure, Sam felt incredibly sad. The mammoth he had spent months slowly defrosting and caring for was split into two pieces. While the top half still looked like an animal you'd find in a school textbook, the lower half was a cyberpunk fantasy of metal and technology. Sam squatted down and gazed with the precision of a 179
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scientist at the inner workings of the man-made beast. He was puzzled by how they'd managed to make it look and feel so real, and pulled at the join between the metal.
Urrgggh! He stopped. The muscle was real. Some kind of lab-grown synthetic meat, perhaps. It had oozed as he'd pulled it back. Seen from the inside,