Doctor Who_ Winner Takes All - Jacqueline Rayner [17]
Through a gap in the junk, she could just see the protesting Doctor being bundled through a door on the other side of the room. She heard a yell of surprise in Mickey’s voice before the door slammed shut and felt a huge sense of relief. He was alive.
After a few minutes, the Quevvil who’d taken the Doctor into the room came out, alone. The key was turned in the lock. Rose mouthed a silent sigh of thanks – she’d been worried that they’d shut them in with some hideous alien lock, like the ones on the prize booth, and she’d never be able to let them out.
Mind you… how was she going to let them out anyway? There were four Quevvils in the room with her, and there was no way she could get over to the door without them seeing her, however low on the ground she kept. She’d just have to hope they left. But they were gazing at a couple of monitor screens, seemingly transfixed. On the screens, she could see complex 3D graphics. She suspected they were plans of this Mantodean stronghold they wanted infiltrated, and perhaps were representing the gaming progress of the Doctor and Mickey. But she couldn’t see how exactly – it made no sense to her.
She waited, and waited, trying to gently flex her muscles so her legs didn’t go to sleep in case she had to make a quick getaway. If it came to it, there was always the other door, the one the Quevvils had come through – she hadn’t heard a key turn in the lock.
The minutes crept slowly by. If only she had a way to distract them! But she just couldn’t think of one, not one that’d keep them distracted for long enough, anyway. The Quevvils weren’t even talking, she wasn’t even learning stuff about the enemy, they were just staring at these screens. But then…
Something must have happened, something to do with the game. All four of the Quevvils leaned forwards, muttering among themselves, pointing and commenting. Was this it? Was this enough of a distraction? No, it wasn’t, there was still no way she could get to the locked door, but – but she could try for the other door.
The thought was barely in her mind before she’d acted; if she’d waited it might have been too late. She was on her feet, turning the handle, slipping out of the gap… She pulled the door to behind her and sprinted off, still silently, waiting for the shouts and the gunfire and the pursuit, any moment now, any moment…
But they didn’t come. She’d made it!
She’d abandoned the Doctor and Mickey to their fates, but she’d made it…
No, that was being silly, this was all part of the plan. She couldn’t distract the Quevvils while she was in the room, but she might find something out here. And at the very least, she’d have found an escape route for when she did get them out…
She looked around her. She was in a corridor lit with dim electric bulbs. There was another door, and there was a ladder leading up to a trapdoor in the ceiling.
She shinned up the ladder, but the trapdoor was protected with the dreaded hideous alien locks. Mentally crossing her fingers, she climbed back down and hurried over to the door at the far end. It was locked, but with an ordinary key. She turned it, still trying to be as quiet as possible, and slipped through. She took the key; locked the door behind her.
She almost sneezed as the must hit her nose. Piles of mouldy old newspapers and magazines tied up with string lined the walls; she left the door open for the light from the corridor and took a closer look, managing to discern, through the dust, 1970s copies of Woman’s Realm (‘knit a Rupert the Bear for a favourite grandchild’) and the Daily Telegraph (‘Nixon resigns’). Every step she made showed in the dust on the floor, and she felt like Neil Armstrong. Didn’t they say that footsteps remained on the moon for ever, because there was no wind to disperse them? Perhaps one day the Doctor would take her there, and she could see for