Doctor Who_ Winner Takes All - Jacqueline Rayner [57]
There was a black‐and‐white portable in the kitchen, and Mickey had got Jason to bring that in. Anil had booted up the youth club’s ancient PC and was connecting to the Internet, and Kevin was sorting through the pile of consoles that Mickey had brought with him.
‘The trouble is,’ Mickey was calling across to Anil, ‘anyone who’s playing the game won’t be checking the message board. And we don’t want to get anyone starting a new game. But see if you can find anyone anyway. No one should have got any games from alienkiller1984 yet, cos he won’t have had time to sell them on, but warn people he’s a dangerous loony or something, just in case.’
‘OK,’ said Anil.
Kevin had started to connect up a console to the portable television.
‘You can ignore ones that haven’t got past the training level,’ Mickey told him. ‘But if they have done, remember, you mustn’t start a new game. Only find out if they’ve got a saved game that’s still active.’
‘Yeah, you said,’ said Kevin. He pressed a few buttons, waited for the screen to come to life. ‘Not this one,’ he said.
‘Try the next one, then,’ said Mickey. ‘Come on, lives are at stake.’
‘Yeah, right,’ said Kevin. Out of the corner of his eye, Mickey noticed Kevin’s finger circling round his right ear in the classic ‘he’s a loony’ gesture. Still, as long as they kept doing as they were told, he’d cope. He’d been called a lot worse. Much of it by the Doctor.
Speak of the devil… Mickey’s phone was finally answered. ‘This is the Doctor,’ said Rose’s voice. ‘I hope you’re paying attention. If you’ve found any active games, this is what I want you to do…’
* * *
Robert was still watching the map, his eyes darting between the six points of white light. Suddenly, one of them started to behave erratically, jumping first one way and then another. ‘Got one!’ he called to the Doctor.
‘Brilliant,’ the Doctor replied. He kept talking, under his breath, but Robert knew that the Doctor wasn’t still talking to him, he was muttering the words he was making Rose say. ‘Good work, Mickey. Right, I’m sending Rose to meet your player. Keep doing exactly what I told you. If you feel resistance, you haven’t overridden the controls properly. Rose, soon you’ll meet another player. I can’t undo the control disc on their forehead, not at this distance; once it’s been activated one wrong move could make their brain go squish.’ Robert shuddered at the thought. Thank goodness his disc had never been activated. ‘What I hope I can do, though,’ continued the Doctor, ‘through you, using the sonic screwdriver, is undo the circuits that make people explode if they leave the Mantodean stronghold.’
‘You hope?’ said Robert, worried.
‘I’m sure,’ said the Doctor reassuringly. ‘I’m sure they won’t explode.’ He carried on speaking through Rose. ‘Mickey, you’ll then follow my instructions from before. But you’ve gotta find all the other people in there too.’ He turned to Robert. ‘How many are there?’
Robert ran his eyes all over the map, swiftly counting up. ‘Still six white lights,’ he said.
‘Six people moving around,’ the Doctor said. ‘One of them’s you. Rose.’
‘Eight blue lights,’ said Robert. As he watched, another of them was suddenly snuffed out. ‘Seven,’ he said. ‘Seven blue lights. Someone else’s just died.’
The Doctor reached back and squeezed Robert’s shoulder. ‘Seven people stuck here and there,’ he said, telling Rose and Mickey. ‘That’s paused games, Mickey. That’s people in trouble. You’ve gotta find them. That’s twelve lives in your hands.’
* * *
‘So, no pressure,’ muttered Mickey, staring at the screen in front of him. It showed a tunnel. Hard to believe that someone was really in that tunnel; harder to believe that the life of whoever it was depended on him right now.
‘Found one,’ called Kevin, who was still trying the pile of consoles one by one.
‘Brilliant,’ said Mickey. ‘Right, reactivate it, jump the person around like I showed you, and then wait for instructions.’
‘So… are we going to be getting the prize?’ said Jason. ‘The one for winning the game.