Doctor Who_ Winner Takes All - Jacqueline Rayner [20]
‘Surprise!’ she called.
They both turned, enormous grins on their faces. ‘What kept you?’ said the Doctor.
* * *
SEVEN
Rose made as if to shut the door again, trapping the Doctor and Mickey in the Quevvils’ basement once more. ‘A bit of gratitude, please, or the rescue stops here and now,’ she said, but she was grinning as broadly as they were.
‘I take back everything I was saying about humans being useless,’ said the Doctor.
‘When were you saying that?’ asked Rose, indignantly.
Mickey sighed. ‘Oh, ’bout every other minute for the last hour.’
Rose glanced at her watch. It had taken her some time to effect the rescue. But better late than never. She moved over to them and began working on their bonds, Mickey first. Her instinct had been to release the Doctor first, and although that was just a perfectly natural choice, didn’t mean a thing, somebody had to be first, she had an idea Mickey would take it more personally than that. And because she didn’t want to admit that he would be right to do so, she’d changed her plan.
She looked at the Doctor, his elbows tied tightly to the chair arms so he had enough freedom to manipulate the control pad, but not enough to untie himself. ‘Wish I had a camera,’ she said. ‘That’d be one for the album. Not to mention I could probably make a fortune from any alien bondage websites there are out there.’
‘Does your mother know about your obsession with these “alien bondage websites”?’ he replied.
‘Why do you think she’s so suspicious of you?’ Rose said. ‘I told her you were the mastermind behind them.’
‘Are there really alien bondage websites?’ asked Mickey.
Rose and the Doctor burst out laughing. ‘Yeah. I’ll give you the address when we get back,’ said the Doctor.
‘Don’t be silly, I didn’t really think there was…’ Mickey continued hurriedly. Then, as the Doctor didn’t stop laughing, he added, ‘Although aliens being gagged, I can see the appeal of that.’
Rose finished untying Mickey, and turned her attention to the Doctor. Soon his ropes lay on the floor, and Rose waited for him to stand up so they could make their getaway. But he stayed sitting down, still holding the control pad.
‘Hadn’t we better be getting out of here?’ she said urgently.
‘Hang on a minute,’ the Doctor said. ‘I wanna try something. Sit down, Mickey.’
Mickey had stood up, eager to be getting going, but sat down at the Doctor’s words, seemingly to his own surprise. ‘But those things could be back any minute,’ he said.
The Doctor shook his head, as if such things really didn’t concern him. He gestured at the image on screen in front of him. ‘Does any of this look familiar to you?’
Mickey looked at it. ‘Nope.’
‘Thought not. Can’t have everyone doing the same thing at the same time.’ The Doctor leaned across to look at Mickey’s screen. ‘And yours doesn’t ring any bells with me. Except… look up there.’
Mickey obediently pressed the relevant buttons. There was a tunnel entrance visible in the top corner of the screen.
‘I think I’ve seen that,’ said the Doctor. ‘Right back at the beginning. So if I can just reverse to that point…’
‘You can remember every turn you made for an hour or so?’ said Rose. ‘Blimey. I get lost in Hampton Court maze.’
‘Nah, that’s easy,’ said the Doctor dismissively. ‘It’s hardly even up to your shoulders.’ He thought for a second. ‘Mind you, it might’ve grown a bit since I was last there.’
‘Yeah, well, I went in 1998 on a school trip,’ said Rose. ‘Every turn there were snogging couples taking advantage of being out of sight of the teachers. You’re going to tell me you went in the 1700s or something, aren’t you?’
He grinned. ‘Not if you don’t want me to. I’ll tell you this, though, there were snogging couples using it even then. Had to be careful that their powdered wigs didn’t get caught on twigs. Last thing you