Doctor Who_ Winner Takes All - Jacqueline Rayner [51]
Robert turned his tear‐streaked face to the Doctor. ‘Was that OK? Did you get it?’ he whispered.
The Doctor answered out of the corner of his mouth. ‘Yeah. Thanks.’ Then after a pause, he said, ‘Good for you to let it all out.’
Robert tensed. ‘It was just pretend.’
‘Yeah, right,’ whispered the Doctor.
They sat in silence for a few moments, watching Rose’s progress on the screen. Robert found it hard to fully accept what was going on, that what he was seeing was what the wonderful girl, Rose, was actually experiencing; that the Doctor was somehow controlling her every move.
Robert wasn’t dead. That had surprised him for a start. What he was, was a hostage. That seemed somehow shameful: through him the Quevvils were forcing the Doctor to do things he didn’t want to do. But Robert took comfort from the fact that he was actually managing to help the hero in little ways. The Doctor – as Robert had expected – had a plan. Unfortunately, both Robert and the Doctor were tied to their chairs, and this Quevvil had stayed behind to monitor the Doctor’s progress. The Doctor wanted to do things without it noticing. Which meant that Robert had to try to distract it.
That had been the easy one. But the Doctor said he needed it distracted for a lot longer next time, and Robert really didn’t know what to do. ‘You saw it,’ he whispered to the Doctor. ‘If I do anything else it’ll activate this.’ He indicated the disc on his forehead. ‘Then I won’t be able to help at all.’
‘So what you’re saying is that we need to distract it before you can distract it?’ said the Doctor.
Robert gave a half‐hearted laugh. ‘Something like that. I don’t know what to do,’ he said, and his voice sounded pathetic and whiny. He tried to control it better. ‘I wish it had a disc so we could turn it into a zombie…’
‘Yes,’ said the Doctor. ‘That’d be good…’
The Doctor negotiated Rose up a flight of steep steps. The Quevvil was now watching the screen again.
‘Look at me,’ whispered the Doctor. Robert did so. The Doctor leaned over and examined the disc.
‘We’ve tried to remove them,’ Robert told him. ‘But we just couldn’t.’
‘You’re not me,’ said the Doctor, grinning. But then his face fell. ‘Damn!’ he said. ‘I gave my sonic screwdriver to Rose. Oh well, improvisation it is then… Start yelling.’
Robert did as he was told. The Quevvil might zombify him, but if it was what the Doctor wanted…
‘Let me go! Let me go!’ cried Robert at the top of his voice.
The Quevvil picked up the silver control box and raised it threateningly.
‘Quick!’ called the Doctor, holding up the game’s control pad. ‘This thing’s gone wrong!’
Robert and the Quevvil both looked at the screen. It certainly did look as if something had gone wrong – the picture was going up and down, up and down. Robert – but seemingly not the Quevvil – noticed that the Doctor was actually rapidly pressing one button with his thumb, again and again. ‘Sorry, Rose,’ murmured the Doctor. ‘Still, bit of exercise won’t do you any harm…’ He waved the control pad at the Quevvil. ‘I need this fixed.’
The Quevvil approached them. It leaned over to take the control pad. And the Doctor hit it, right on its snub, hairy nose.
The Quevvil reeled back, and the Doctor grabbed the silver box from its hand. Dropping the control pad, he prised off the top of the box, poked inside it, and suddenly pointed it at Robert’s forehead. Robert jerked back in alarm, but to his amazement and delight, instead of losing all control of his body, he felt a tickling sensation around the disc, as if the little metal hooks were retracting from his flesh! A second later, the disc tumbled off into