Doctor Who_ The Last Dodo - Jacqueline Rayner [36]
I’m seeing things that no one else of my time will ever see, visiting places that no one else of my time will ever visit, and I’m treating it like a school trip. The trouble is, I’m always so busy running away from things or hiding from things or looking for clues that I don’t have time for anything else. Speaking of which…
I was making my way through the displays, getting to the bit that was becoming quite familiar: the lair of the Black Rhinoceros. And that’s when I saw it. Lying on the ground.
The sonic screwdriver.
Now, you might say I’ve not known the Doctor for very long. You might say that, therefore, I don’t know him that well. Well, yeah, maybe, in some ways; I certainly wouldn’t feel able to take him as my specialist subject on Mastermind, for example – although even after such a short acquaintance I bet I’d score better marks than most people in the universe. So, despite all that, I knew one thing for sure, and that’s that he wouldn’t just leave his sonic screwdriver lying around. The Doctor forgetting his sonic screwdriver would be like Jordan popping out without her lip gloss.
I looked down at the sonic screwdriver. I bent down and picked up the sonic screwdriver. Then as I stood up I saw something new. A covered box.
When I thought about it for a second, I realised there had been a box there before, empty, when we came back after the rhino rescue affair. But it hadn’t been covered.
The box, so far as I could tell, was maybe a couple of feet taller than me, and an arm span wide. Not only was it covered, but it was roped off. Now, once upon a time, I would have respected a boundary like that. I’m quite happy to follow a ‘Keep off the grass’ sign or a ‘No entry’; I mean, I just assume there’s a good reason for it. But right now? Ha, no puny length of nylon cord was going to keep me away, and damn the consequences!
So I stepped over the rope (in a rather ungainly fashion it must be admitted, having slightly underestimated the necessary leg‐raising height), and I took hold of the cover with both hands, and I yanked as hard as I could.
I think that, somehow, I’d known what I was going to find. There was a sort of dull shock, a moment of losing all my breath, but I must have been subconsciously prepared or I couldn’t have assimilated it so quickly, couldn’t have pulled myself together as well as I did.
I don’t really need to tell you what I saw, do I?
Oh, all right, if you want it spelled out – there, in the box – in the cage – was the Doctor.
He’d obviously been taken unawares, his pose and expression showed that.
And his expression showed something else too.
It was frozen, of course, no movement, not the faintest flicker of a breath, not the tiniest dilation of a pupil – but you remember how I’d had the idea I could read something in the eyes of these paralysed creatures before? Well now I was getting it a hundredfold.
The Doctor knew what was happening.
He knew where he was.
And where he was, was in hell.
I had to do something, and I had to do it straight away.
But what? Smash the glass (or perspex, or whatever futuristic material this was)? Didn’t think that would work. But then I spotted the little keypad at the top of the cage, and I thought back, and went, ‘Aha!’ Because I don’t know if you remember, but we’d seen Tommy test out one of these things and I had – ooh, how jammy am I?! – I had memorised the combination! Ta da!
Five, I typed. Then: seven. Followed by nine, three, one, zero and zero. Finally, with the tiniest of dramatic pauses: eight.
And…
Nothing happened.
I couldn’t believe it. Surely each box didn’t have its own individual code, surely.
I looked again at the Doctor, the pain I saw – imagined? – in his eyes.
I saw a security guard, maybe a few hundred metres away; not looking this way yet, but only a matter of seconds,