Doctor Who_ Winner Takes All - Jacqueline Rayner [12]
Underneath, it read, ‘Sorry, you’ve not won this time! Please try again!’
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FIVE
The Doctor and Rose caught the bus back to the estate, and made their way to Mickey’s flat. Rose didn’t realise that something was wrong, not at first.
‘Did you leave the door open when you left?’ she said to the Doctor.
He shook his head, and he suddenly looked concerned. He went inside, peering here, there and everywhere. Rose followed him. The flat was empty. In the lounge, the games console lay on the table, and the telly was still switched on. On the floor was a half‐eaten pickled onion, toothmarks clearly visible in it.
‘Someone kicked in the door and caught him by surprise,’ the Doctor said. He darted back outside the front door. ‘Look at this,’ he called. Rose followed him out, and he pushed the door to, pointing at scratches on its lower panel.
‘Um…’ she said.
‘Claw marks,’ he said. ‘Whoever kicked open this door had clawed feet.’
‘Like Percy the Porcupine?’ she said.
‘Exactly like Percy the Porcupine,’ said the Doctor.
They went back inside the flat, the Doctor closing the door behind them. ‘Amazed his telly’s still here, if the door’s been open long,’ he said.
‘Hey,’ said Rose, offended. ‘You don’t live here. You’re not allowed to say things like that.’
‘Is that how it works then?’
She nodded, sitting down on a chair and surveying the room for clues. ‘Yeah. Like how I’d have a go at anyone who called you a cocky know‐it‐all who never listens to a word I say, but I’m…’
She broke off. The Doctor wasn’t listening to her. He’d picked up the abandoned games console, and was prising off the back. He started poking around inside. ‘Definitely alien,’ he said. ‘Bother.’
‘Not just really advanced human?’
He shook his head. ‘Nope.’
‘D’you reckon they’ve gone around kidnapping anyone who’s got one?’
He shook his head. ‘There must be loads of the things out there. I think someone would’ve noticed. And what would be the point of that? No, they’ve taken Mickey for a reason. And I’d say it was fairly obvious what that reason was.’
Rose thought for a moment, leaning forward in concentration. ‘For you, maybe, alien big‐brain… It’s gotta be something to do with this game… But Mickey’d been playing it for a bit with nothing happening…’ She suddenly thumped the arm of the chair as realisation struck. ‘And then you came along, and beat his score, and if I know you, probably the scores of everyone else who’s ever played it in, like, two minutes. And they’re monitoring the scores somehow so they send out troops to find this genius and carry him off. But they got Mickey instead. Right?’
The Doctor was now putting the games console back together. ‘You get there in the end,’ he said, giving her a grin. ‘You’d have thought the moment they saw the lack of intelligence in his eyes they’d have realised he wasn’t the one they wanted, though.’
Rose frowned. ‘Like I was saying, you don’t get to say stuff like that. Anyway, he’s not thick. He’s got GCSEs.’
‘I apologise,’ said the Doctor, smiling, not looking sorry in the slightest.
She decided to leave it. ‘Well, anyway, what do they want with him – with you? Has this all been some sort of bizarre alien intelligence test? Like they’re looking for the most intelligent people and then they kidnap them to drain their brains?’
The Doctor opened his mouth to speak, and she almost shouted, ‘Don’t you say a word! You dare make a comment about Mickey’s brain when it might be being sucked out by an alien right now!’
He’d shut his mouth at