Doctor Who_ Winner Takes All - Jacqueline Rayner [21]
‘Don’t tell me you know that from personal experience,’ she said, glancing at the Doctor’s closely cropped head and battered leather jacket and trying to imagine him in full Restoration get‐up, velvet, brocade and periwig. ‘I really don’t want to know. Ewwww!’
The Doctor laughed, his eyes never leaving the screen. ‘Not my scene,’ he said.
As the minutes passed, Rose got increasingly nervous. ‘I really reckon it’d be a good idea to get out of here,’ she said. ‘Those aliens are gonna be back here soon, and we don’t have any weapons or nothing…’
‘Just a bit longer…’ said the Doctor, eyes fixed on the screen.
But Rose was feeling really agitated. ‘Can’t you do whatever you’re doing back home, if we just got hold of a couple of consoles?’
He shook his head, although he said, ‘Maybe. But if what I think is true, there’s no time to lose…’
Rose suddenly remembered something. ‘There’s a sort of diagram out there,’ she said, pointing through the door. ‘Maybe that’d help you do it quicker.’
The Doctor darted through the door, and she heard him call, ‘Yes!’ He popped his head round the doorframe and gave her a thumbs‐up. ‘This’ll do it!’ he said. ‘Rose, pick up the control pad, and do exactly what I tell you.’
‘But I don’t do computer games!’ she cried.
‘You do now,’ he replied.
So she sat there, and did her best to keep up with the rapid and complicated instructions the Doctor was calling through from the next room.
‘Why’s he doing this?’ she asked Mickey.
‘Dunno,’ he said, shrugging. ‘But it’s been bugging him. He’s been desperate to try this out. Trouble is, those Spiny Normans got a bit unhappy if you didn’t stick with their plan, so he’s not been able to do what he wanted.’
The Doctor’s voice floated through again, sounding excited: ‘This is it, any minute now… Keep an eye on your screens!’
Rose focused her gaze in front of her. But suddenly the control pad in her hand juddered. She tried pushing the button to carry on ahead, but it resisted her touch. It looked as if the same thing was happening to Mickey.
‘Doctor!’ she called out. ‘It’s going all funny!’
He hurried back in. ‘Aha!’ he said. ‘That means we’re getting close, I reckon. Got to maintain the fiction of the game, see. Thought there might be some sort of safeguards.’ He took Rose’s control pad and prised off the cover, then began poking around inside it with his sonic screwdriver. Having put the cover back on, he handed it to her. ‘There,’ he said. ‘See what that’s like. Few adjustments and that plan out there, we should be able to get round this.’
She tried again, following the Doctor’s continuing instructions. There was still a bit of resistance, but she could push through it now.
On the screen, the viewpoint was jogging forward, jiggling up and down as if created by a camera held by a running man.
‘Here we go!’ called the Doctor.
And as Rose watched, something appeared on the screen, something she’d not seen in the game before. She glanced over at Mickey’s screen. Something similar was coming into focus there too, coming closer and closer.
Both screens swam into focus at almost the same moment. Each screen showed… a figure. A human figure. A familiar human figure.
Mickey’s screen showed a lad in his twenties. He had shoulder‐length hair and was wearing glasses and a black T-shirt with a picture of screaming skulls on it.
Rose’s screen showed a woman in her sixties, wearing a tea‐cosy hat and a buttoned‐up coat. Both had flashing discs sticking to their foreheads. Both had metal cubes – the disruptor of the game’s introduction – strapped round their necks.
‘I’ve seen him down the pub,’ said Mickey, sounding confused.
‘That’s Mrs Hall,’ said Rose, feeling a bit shell‐shocked. ‘Mum said she’d gone on holiday.’
The Doctor had come back into the room. He crouched down next to Rose. ‘Your mum said she’d won a holiday. On the scratchcards.’ He waited for that to sink in.
Rose turned to stare at him. ‘There are real