Doctor Who_ The Forgotten Army Part 9

It was true that the Vykoids had moved on, but Amy couldn't afford to lose her only ally for lack of proof.

'Think for a minute.' she said. 'That's all I'm asking, just think. If they aren't real, then what else do you know that could do all these things?'

Oscar didn't have an answer.

'Maybe you're right, Oscar.' Amy told him, 'and there's no life outside Manhattan, and there's no pride except being NYPD for life. But I've seen more of the universe in the last few days than you can imagine. Sometimes it's the most exhilarating feeling, like riding an amazing rollercoaster through the stars. But there are things out there that are so dark and so tortured they want to conquer and capture everything they meet. The mammoth wasn't a miracle, Oscar.

It came back to life because it had thousands of aliens inside it. That's what's causing the chaos on the street.'

Oscar gaped.

'Yeah, it's not like alien attacks in the movies. This one is practically invisible, and sudden, and unless we stop them, they'll get under every bed in New York. You have to believe me, Oscar. You can't 123.

fight them like normal criminals. They aren't even a normal army. We need to be smarter than them. Better than them.'

Amy held up her phone so that Oscar could see the screen. 'Here, I think you're ready for the close-up view.' The picture Amy had taken showed Erik the Vykoid squinting angrily at the Doctor, waving his baton in indignation.

"That's them?' Oscar asked incredulously. 'You've met them?'

Amy smiled. She'd got him. 'Yeah, get used to it. Now, you on my side or theirs? Mine, yeah? Thought so! Come on - let's take this together, but we'll do it my way...'

124.

Chapter.

12.

New York was descending into a night of terror. But one person in the city felt like her hour had come. In a darkened NYPD into a night of terror. But one person in the city felt like her hour had come. In a darkened NYPD office, Commander Strebbins was yelling at her colleagues.

'What do you mean radio signals are down?' She slammed her useless phone handset down into its cradle and walked up to her window.

Outside the city was dark and vulnerable. The ill-lit streets below were easy targets for. .. something. This was exactly why she had been put in place. Commander Strebbins knew that her first priority was to protect the banks, shops and private properties. Already there had been reports of looting from downtown department stores. But, an instinct honed through years of police work was tingling.

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She suspected that this was the start of something much bigger. And Jackie Strebbins wasn't about to be caught on the hop.

Striding out into the main office, she collared the nearest cop. 'Raise us to Level Three, but I want to hold back on the main units. Don't commit the elite armed police to any crime scene unless you have express orders from me.'

Gathering his courage, the young cop asked, 'How should I get the message out, ma'am?'

Strebbins didn't miss a beat. 'Better start running.'

She didn't like to admit it, but the business with the mam moth had unsettled her. She wasn't one for superst.i.tion, but she took anything out of the ordinary as a sign of danger. The UNIT involvement made her uncomfortable. She liked to think she could deal with anything her own way, not rely on someone who came and went when he pleased, and didn't report to anyone.

Maybe the mammoth was just a distraction, and the Doctor had been and gone. But she couldn't shake the feeling that in some other part of town people were getting ready to harm the city she loved. Commander Strebbins was about to make one of the most important calls of her career but, like many such moments, it seemed to her to be the only natural choice she could make.

Strebbins called a cadet over. 'Run to the Mayor's 126 office, and give him the following message.'

The cadet scrambled for his pad.

'Under protocol 578, I am initiating a period of intense policing under the Night Storm strategy.' Strebbins said rapidly. 'In short, I'm closing down the streets. He better tell the President that there'll be pictures of tanks on Broadway in the papers tomorrow. He'll give you a list of objections.

Listen carefully to him, write down everything he says, then throw it in the garbage on the way out.'

Strebbins realised that the cadet was still taking notes.

'You do understand that the last things I said weren't part of the message?'

The cadet blushed and hastily scribbled out the last few lines.

'Then,' Strebbins continued, 'after he's objected for five minutes exactly, give him this next message: "As far as I'm concerned, there is no other course of action open to us." Is that understood?' Strebbins paused. She felt a bit like an old-style general dictating orders like this. And she had to admit she liked it.

'Yes, ma'am.' the cadet replied.

'Good.' Strebbins knew it wasn't going to be easy. She'd be explaining her decision for a long time to come. Yet, as she looked out of her window at the city below, she knew it was a place worth saving. Some people would squawk away, attempting to 127.

deny the facts of a situation, or pretend it was about something else entirely. But Strebbins knew what was needed was control. She needed to get the city running again, and nothing and no one was going to stop her.

Amy and Oscar chased after Bismarck the tracker dog, as he led them down Fifth Avenue. As they reached the Arch, Bismarck skidded to a halt and started to growl at something.

Amy could immediately tell that something was very wrong. The debris around this crossroads was worse than the other streets, with three of the roads blocked. Yet one roadway had been left clear. It was far too much of a coincidence for this not to be a trap.

Almost on cue, six blacked-out vehicles screeched up the road and swung into the crossroads. The police vans had blockaded the only pa.s.sable road, and police officers piled out of the vans. In their full riot gear, they looked like modern-day gladiators, advancing their line towards the scene of the most debris.

One of the police officers lifted his visor and shouted to the street, 'This is now a police-controlled area. Make your way to your homes. The streets are now under police control.'

As they moved down the street, the officers started to wince. The first six riot police suddenly 128 found that their s.h.i.+elds had been replaced with an umbrella, a body-board, a poster of President Obama, a baseball glove, and a traffic cone.

They stared in disbelief, raising their guns, only to see those guns taken from their hands. The soldiers squinted in disbelief. On the ground, waving the guns around were groups of red-faced, angry trolls.

Now unarmed, the riot police clung together, watching with horror as their rifles danced around on the floor, being controlled by miniature soldiers.

Amy could see the Vykoids were laughing, and one of them was firing stones from a catapult at incredible speed.

Barely bigger than gravel, the stones stung the faces and hands of the troops. Every time they tried to move, more of their riot gear was taken from them.

Amy gestured for Oscar to duck out of sight behind a tree.

'Vykoids...' she whispered. 'There's an army of them out there.'

Oscar's jaw was set. 'Are they gonna shoot?'

Amy shook her head. 'They don't want to kill anyone. But they're going to do something far worse. We've got to stop them.'

Oscar stood bolt upright. 'I'll go tell the riot squad about them!'

Amy yanked him back by his belt. 'No! I meant we've got to stop the police. You've got to listen to me. We can't just charge in there, they can do 129.

amazing things to you, I haven't time to explain. Just believe me.'

Oscar was obviously torn. Amy could sympathise - his colleagues were under siege and he wasn't about to stand by and watch them be humiliated. Before Amy could say anything more, Oscar stepped out into the crossroads.

'Whoever you are,' Oscar called out, 'I don't care if we can't see you, I'm here now, and as long as you can see me, you better bet, you're not getting nothing from the city. Do you hear me? I said: Do you hear me?'

Buoyed by his upbeat voice, the struggling officers shrugged off their unseen attackers, and gave Oscar a tiny cheer. Amy wondered if she'd been wrong. Perhaps this was Oscar's chance to become a hero after all.

But then the square filled with what only Amy could make out to be the sound of hundreds of mini soldiers laughing.

They'd not been put off by Oscar's speech - they found it hilarious.

Amy watched in horror as she saw all the Vykoid troops turn away from the quaking riot police to descend on Oscar.

Seeing them advance, Oscar put his hand up to signal a halt.

His jaw dropped in amazement - his black NYPD gloves had been replaced with pink lacy ladies gloves, sparkling with Swarsovski crystals.

'What?' As Oscar brought his hands together to 130 take off the gloves, his baseball cap was suddenly swapped for a pink tiara. He tried to draw his baton, but pulled out a fairy wand. Its tiny bells tinkled as, unable to stop his movement, he waved the wand at the watching soldiers.

The Vykoid troops were doubled up with laughter. It was as if they'd never seen anything as funny as Oscar trying to take them all on.

With increasing horror, Amy realised that, since they moved at lightning speed, Oscar would seem to be moving slower than a tortoise in treacle to the Vykoids. Each of his gestures would take up several minutes of time as the Vykoids experienced it. In the time it would take Oscar to click his fingers, Amy thought, the Vykoids could easily run up and down his body and do whatever they wanted.

As if to confirm the theory, two marker-pen-wielding Vykoids spent a few seconds of Oscar's time drawing a pair of comedy gla.s.ses round his eyes and a fake moustache that curled out from under his nose right up his cheeks.

'Stop it now!' Oscar yelled. 'I'm an officer of the New York Police Department, and I will not be played with!'

Unfortunately for Oscar, his authority was undermined by the Vykoids stealing his trousers. Oscar stood in the middle of New York, in his spotty boxers, pink lace gloves and pink tiara, and listened to the sound of tiny aliens laughing. Amy's hand 131.

went to her mouth as she struggled not to laugh herself.

'Not funny,' she muttered. 'So not funny.'

Despite the circ.u.mstances, Oscar seemed determined no t to beat a retreat. He went for his gun, and this time he seemed to have got the better of the speedy tyrants. He took aim at the Vykoid troops.

'Halt! Be aware that I will shoot. As a real and presen t danger to the safety of New York, I am arresting you...'

Oscar tailed off. The Vykoids were still laughing at him.

One of them put a hand up and, speaking very slowly, asked Oscar, 'Can I have a drink, officer?'

They all burst out laughing again, harder than ever.

Oscar stared at his hand in shock. While he'd been talking, they'd replaced his gun with a water pistol.

He fired anyway. In the same instant, a police riot s.h.i.+eld appeared between him and the Vykoids, and the water splashed back in his own face.

'I will not surrender to you!' Oscar fumed, as a short miniskirt appeared around his legs.

Amy watched in frustration. She wished he'd listened to her, instead of playing the hero. She couldn't let herself be captured, and was helpless on the sidelines as the Vykoids moved in on Oscar.

'Stay behind the line!' Oscar shouted.

132.

The Vykoids didn't listen. As they spread around him, Oscar turned in a circle, trying to keep his eyes locked on the creatures. Like hummingbirds' wings, they became blurs of movement on the ground, zooming around Oscar's ankles.

'I said stop!'

It was too late. A cord tightened around Oscar's ankles.

'Focus, Oscar!' Amy shouted. She had an idea, but he'd have to be quick. 'Stand on one leg, and move the other round as fast as you can!'

Oscar probably didn't have a clue what Amy was trying to do, but he kicked his left leg high in the air, and waggled it as fast as he could.

As high up as you can get it.' Amy yelled.

With obvious difficulty, Oscar pulled his leg right up into the air.

Amy's hope was that, in Vykoid time, Oscar now presented them with a technical challenge. They needed to tie his legs together to trip him up or secure him, but the left leg was now too far away for an easy fit. Undeterred, the Vykoids continued to methodically secure their ropes to his right leg, and sent a second team to attach the cords to his left leg, far away, but moving very slowly towards them.

'Now! Swap over, and kick!' Amy screamed, talking as fast as she could, desperate to avoid the Vykoids hearing her plan before Oscar.

Some of the Vykoids on the right leg realised 133 what was happening and started to scarper, but Oscar kicked out, ripping all the ropes from the Vykoids hands and sending a few stragglers flying off into the air.

'Somersault!' Amy commanded.

Oscar froze.

Amy shouted again. 'Forward roll, then.'

Oscar did as he was told and, moving forward like a human woodlouse, he reached Amy. It seemed he was too awkward and too mobile a shape for the Vykoids to have any way of holding him, and the Vykoids signalled a retreat.

There were more and easier targets than Oscar, no matter how much fun he was to tease.

'I'd lend you some of my clothes, Oscar,' Amy said, 'but I'm not sure I'd wear a skirt that short.'

Oscar hugged her with relief. 'How did you do that?' he asked.

Amy shrugged. 'I guess I pick things up being around the Doctor. Also,' she said with a smile, 'you weren't getting anywhere by yourself, so I thought I should chip in.'

Oscar's face fell as he looked across the square. While they'd been occupied, the Vykoids had moved in on the riot police. There was not a single NYPD officer left on the crossroads.

'They'll be OK, Oscar,' Amy rea.s.sured him. 'The Vykoids don't want to hurt them.'