Doctor Who_ Winner Takes All - Jacqueline Rayner [64]
A small Quevvil had carried in the Doctor’s console, and was attaching it to one of the large screens. The control pad was given back to the Doctor.
Another door opened, and the rest of the humans were led in: Sarah and her mum and scaredy George and all the rest. Robert wanted to call across to the still‐weeping Daniel Goldberg that Rachel was all right, but knew he mustn’t. He tried to catch the man’s eye, but couldn’t. Then Robert was grabbed by a Quevvil and thrown back with the group. ‘It’ll be all right,’ the Doctor said as Robert was taken away.
Frinel came over and spoke to the Doctor, loud enough for the humans to hear.
‘You have not played the game as we instructed. You have attempted sabotage. You have attacked a Quevvil. You were warned that if you did not obey our instructions, the human would die.’ He pointed at Robert.
Robert had been feeling almost detached from what was going on. He’d been worried about the Doctor’s plan, about Rose, about getting the people out of the stronghold. The bigger picture. He’d almost forgotten about the threat to his own life. And here it was, all of a sudden. No wonderful heroic sacrifice. No taking a bullet meant for someone else. Just sudden, out of the blue, pointless death.
‘Kill him,’ said Frinel.
* * *
Mrs Pye seemed to have got it into her head that they were policemen – and although they say that policemen look younger the older you are, that’s ridiculous, thought Mickey, looking at the two skinny teenagers accompanying him. She sat at her kitchen table, grumbling unintelligibly (she hadn’t bothered to put her false teeth in), while Mickey, Kevin and Jason guided their charges across the many TV screens. Finally, Mickey put down the last of the control pads with a sigh. ‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘Now we wait for the Doctor. Jason, call Anil and find out how he’s getting on.’
But Anil had had no luck either tracking the one remaining console, or persuading the other player to abandon his game.
‘What do we do?’ asked Kevin. ‘Should we just, like, go knocking on doors, see if we can find the last game?’
Reluctantly, Mickey shook his head. Life or death decisions, he thought. He shouldn’t have to make those. ‘We stay here,’ he said. ‘The games aren’t just on the Powell Estate, they’re all round here. It’ll be like looking for a needle in a haystack.’ He stared at the array of screens, all showing the same view; thought of the people poised at the end of telephones and email accounts, waiting for his signal. ‘And the Doctor might call on us any minute, yeah? We’ve gotta be ready for that, or it’s all for nothing.’
So he just sat there, staring at his mobile and willing it to ring, hoping that he’d made the right choice.
* * *
Frinel had ordered a Quevvil to kill him. Robert noticed, as everything became suddenly clear, that the Quevvil didn’t have a gun. It was bristling up – he remembered the feeling of the quills in his palm, and imagined that spread across his entire body. If you had to die, it really didn’t seem fair that you had to suffer pain too…
But the Quevvil had picked up a silver box, and was pointing it at Robert. Robert was puzzled. So was the Quevvil, as nothing happened. The Quevvil turned to Frinel.
‘That one doesn’t have a control disc, you idiot!’ snapped Frinel. ‘Kill another one.’
The silver box no longer pointed at Robert. He turned, feeling that he was doing it in slow motion, that it was taking him for ever. There was screaming: male screaming. Then the screaming changed to a sort of gurgling choke, as if the person was being strangled. Robert’s gaze finally arrived and took in the scene. It was George; he was lying on the floor, clutching his head. As Robert watched, he stopped choking, stopped clutching his head, lay still. Something trickled out of his