The Forgotten Army Read online

  'Don't think so hard, Oscar. Tomorrow you may never see me again. This is the life, eh? On the trail of a mystery man with a dog at midnight. Plus you get a hot companion for your evening's work...'

  Oscar blushed.

  'No need to be shy, Oscar,' Amy continued. 'I might need a cocktail later...'

  The police dog led them down Fifth Avenue, past the Metro station, and towards the looming arch of the Grand Army Plaza Memorial, more sombre than ever in the dark.

  'Right, it's my turn now,' Amy said, eager to reverse the stakes with Oscar. 'So what got you into this? Was it Starsky and Hutch or The Sopranos?' Oscar didn't know what to say. 'Or maybe The A-Team? Come on, you can tell me, I know what it's all about. A great battle of good versus evil, you on the side of good, plus you get to wear a sexy uniform.'

  'My dad was a cop,' Oscar mumbled.

  Amy nodded. 'Good reason. Better than my reason for joining the police.'

  'Why?' Oscar asked curiously.

  'The Chief of Police in New Scotland Yard made a deal: either turn cop, or do a ten-year stretch...'

  'No way!' Oscar said, wide-eyed with astonishment.

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  'Course not, dumbo!' Amy laughed. 'Imagine me, in stripy prisoner clothes! I am going to have so much fun winding you up. We'll be like the new Bonnie and Clyde, except, of course, we'll be good guys.'

  Amy's laughter was interrupted by a sudden crash. Far up the street, towards Central Park, she could see people running into the middle of the street. A massive plate glass window had smashed into tiny fragments, showering shards on the pavement. Amy and Oscar stared up the road, Bismarck growling at the unseen aggressor.

  There was a second crash, and another window fell into little pieces. This time the building was nearer to them.

  'What's happening?' Oscar asked

  Before Amy could answer, they saw a brick fly through the windscreen of the stolen squad car. Its alarm made a weak bleat, like a newborn lamb. Drained of power, like everything else in the city it soon fell silent.

  'I told the Doctor we shouldn't have taken the car,' Amy told Oscar. 'That's gonna take some explaining.'

  Amy.’ Oscar was agitated. 'That brick. No one threw it. I was watching... How'd it fly through the air by itself?'

  Another crash echoed through the night.

  The lamp-post above their heads shattered.

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  They ducked as the glass fell, then leapt clear as the lamp-post itself fell and slammed into the ground between them.

  Amy looked Oscar in the eye. 'I don't really know. I normally get to ask questions like that.'

  With a series of ear-splitting roars, the glass windows of the Trump Tower above them began to crack, lines breaking across it, as if hundreds of abseiling window cleaners were having a mad moment of rebellion and cracking each pane with the heels of their boots.

  'But,' Am y continued, 'there's something you probably need to know.'

  Behind them, Central Park's ducks rose up from the lake in terror - the water stirred to a frenzy by some unknown force. The lake settled again, but a fearsome whirlpool at its heart began to spread its vortices across the lake. The water was being drained away, as if someone had pulled a plug.

  Amy had never seen such madness. She stood in the middle of Fifth Avenue and watched as every lamp-post in sight was torn from its footings and thrown into the road.

  Drinkers chucked out of the bars were having the beer bottles torn from their hands.

  Around them the air was filled with a vicious clangin g of metal being bent out of shape. In front of them, the facades of the buildings were being pitted with tiny holes.

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  Something was descending down Fifth Avenue with the force and fury of an army of the undead.

  'Have you noticed?' Oscar asked. 'Everything is being smashed in a line.'

  Sure enough, the chaos appeared to be moving along the street, people running in front of the mayhem, desperate to avoid the flying debris in the air.

  'Yep. And the exciting thing is it's heading this way.'

  Amy came to a halt in the midst of the debris. 'But we're not moving.'

  'What?' asked Oscar incredulously.

  'Look at it. They're sweeping everyone off the streets.

  Someone wants us to move, Oscar. And I'm not feeling very cooperative today.'

  Amy knew she was right. First the Vykoids had killed th e power, and now they were sweeping the streets clear of people. If the same thing was happening across the city, then everyone on the streets was being herded downtown. Amy didn't want to tell Oscar what was going to happen to people when they got there.

  They're going to have to do more than this to move us out of the way,' she said.

  As the lamp-posts crashed down, Amy pulled Oscar close to her, and the wave of mayhem moved past them.

  Told you it would be OK.' Amy grinned from ear to ear.

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  Oscar was looking at her with a serious expression on his face.

  'You said "they". I just reckoned New York had been hit by freak weather conditions. What do you mean "they"?'

  Amy hesitated. 'Oscar, there's no easy way to tell you this.

  But I knew we wouldn't get hurt. This isn't an accident. It's a plan. Breaking glass, tearing down lamp-posts. It's scary, but look, no one's been hurt. Not many people could do that. And I've seen something today that you're going to find hard to believe. So bite your lip, and just keep thinking of when you were young and saw things that couldn't be true, but they turned out to be the real thing.'

  Oscar nodded, keen to hear anything that might still the panic that was rising in him.

  Amy continued. "The things doing this aren't people.

  They're aliens. They're an alien army. Something that's been hidden on Earth for so long it was forgotten. Now they're awake, and they want New York. There was a lot more than we thought inside that mammoth, and it's got out.'

  'I don't get you,' Oscar said, thinking that maybe she was a nutter after all.

  'Have you got binoculars?' Amy asked.

  'What?'

  'Just... Binoculars. Please.'

  Oscar went through his pockets, pulling out a pair. Amy looked down the street until she spotted a lamp-post that was still standing. She squinted

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  at the ground around it, then gave a short cry of triumph.

  'Yes! That one, there. Focus on that one, that's right -

  you'll need to be quick. Right at the base of the post.'

  Oscar focused the binoculars on the lamp-post, then gasped with astonishment as he saw a team of ten tiny aliens cutting into its base with a minuscule circular saw, while others tied tiny wires around the pole.

  Without binoculars, Amy could barely make out what was happening. It felt like she was watching time-lapse photography, the tiny Vykoids were moving so fast. In only a few seconds, they'd cut away a chunk of metal at the base, and pulled the pole onto the ground.

  "That's not possible!' Oscar exclaimed. 'Have you put something in my drink?'

  Amy put her hands on his shoulders. 'I know this is a bit crazy, your head is probably spinning like you've had too much coffee, and part of you wants to sit down and give up.

  But you're not going to. You've been sent to follow me 'cos you're the best they've got.'

  'How did you know that?' Oscar demanded.

  Amy smiled. 'Oscar, everyone in New York could tell you were waiting for me.' She continued. 'While we're together, we're safe. We can beat these things.'

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  Oscar frowned. 'I'll get in touch with Commander Strebbins, and we'll get all the units we need. We have weapons so smart, the tech guys have probably got something perfect for blasting tiny people into even tinier pieces.'

  Amy put her ha
nd on his mouth. 'Haven't you been listening to me? We do this without guns, without violence.

  Today, no one's going to get hurt. Those are the things that have my friend, and the Doctor is the only person who can stop them. If we can get him back he'll know exactly what to do.'

  Oscar was looking at Amy in obvious confusion. 'How can you be so calm about this? This is crazy. It's like Jim Henson's workshop has come to life out there!'

  Amy could tell how stressed he was, how much he wanted to fall back on what he'd normally do - pull a gun and tell the criminals to stand down. 'I need you at your best, Oscar. Just trust me.' She gave him a hug.

  'We're gonna need more troops for this.’ he insisted. 'We can't handle this alone...'

  Amy sighed. 'I bet you were scared of noises in the night when you were young.’

  Oscar nodded.

  'And then you found out it was just the wind blowing.’

  Amy said, 'and you knew it was going to be OK?'

  Oscar nodded again.

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  Am y smiled. 'Good, then think of them like they're the wind. You can't shoot it, but you can shut it out.'

  Oscar still wasn't convinced. 'I just can't believe what I saw. I mean, where are they all gone?'

  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

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  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...'

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  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

  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 superstition, 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

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  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

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  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 passable 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

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  found that their shields 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

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  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.