The Forgotten Army Page 9

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

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  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 glasses 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

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

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

  Despite the circumstances, 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 shield 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.

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  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.

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  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 reassured him. 'The Vykoids don't want to hurt them.'

  Amy didn't tell Oscar that they were going 134

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  to be taken to an alien planet to mine Space-Boar droppings.

  She didn't want him doing anything stupid. Again. She told him to go and wait in one of the empty police trucks.

  With the scene now clear, Amy walked to the middle of the crossroads and picked up the torch and truncheon the Vykoids had taken from Oscar. Her heart skipped a beat when she saw Oscar's gun lying on the ground. She picked it up, surprised by how heavy and cold it felt. She knew the Doctor wouldn't want her to use it, and she knew in her heart that he was right. But all the other police officers had been taken. Commander Strebbins's crack troops had disappeared, leaving their high-tech vehicles and weapons idling uselessly on the tarmac.

  Amy had to admit that the Vykoids had been true to their word. In everything she'd seen, not a soul had been seriously harmed. Teased, yes. Beaten up, a little bit. Kidnapped, and taken as slaves, certainly. But the Vykoids weren't murderers.

  This left Amy with a dilemma. She was standing at a crossroads in New York with a gun in her hand. She couldn't just leave it there for anyone to find, and she didn't want to give it back to Oscar...

  She walked over to Oscar, who had wrapped himself in a blanket, hiding his legs from the world. The pink gloves and tiara were on the passenger seat of the troopers' vehicle.

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  'Why did you get rid of those?' Amy teased him. 'It was a good look.'

  Oscar smiled. 'I can't thank you enough.'

  He was going to go on, but Amy interrupted. 'First thing, you're not having this back.' She popped the chamber out of the gun and emptied the bullets into her hand. She wandered over to a drain cover, intent on dropping the bullets down into the dark.

  As she reached into her pocket, her fingers touched the psychic paper. On an instinct, she took it out - and saw a message:

  Oi! I'm down here!

  Amy's heart leapt with joy. It was the Doctor. The writing on the psychic paper was faint, but then it clearly changed: I'm below you!

  Amy looked from side to side. All she could see were grand department stores, interrupting a steady line of doughnut shops and takeaway coffee stands. A gush of hot air disturbed the ever-present pigeons and they fluttered into the dark sky.

  'What's down there?' Amy asked, pointing to vents in the pavement.

  Oscar shrugged. 'The Subway. There'll be people trapped down there...'
<
br />   "That's it!' Amy thought. 'The Vykoids have taken the Doctor underground...' She turned back to Oscar. 'Why do you have a Green Globe to show it's a subway?' she protested. 'Couldn't it just say

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  "SUBWAY" in big letters?'

  Leaving Oscar on the sidewalk, she rushed to the entrance.

  'And don't you start asking me to buy a ticket, I am so jumping the barriers.'

  Oscar shouted out after her. 'I'd better come with you. It isn't safe at this time of night.'

  Amy held up her hand to stop him, and said firmly. 'I'll be fine by myself. It's not the crazy New Yorkers on the Subway I'm worried about right now. Thanks for the help.'

  Oscar looked embarrassed. Not only had he had his face drawn all over by tiny aliens from another planet, but now even girls in peril were refusing his help.

  Amy smiled. 'Ahem, whole city in danger. You're the only cop to have avoided being captured. I think they're going to need you up here, don't you?' Oscar was wavering, so she ploughed on.' I need you up top. Whatever Strebbins is planning, you need to stop it. The more men she sends out, the more people she's giving to the Vykoids.'

  Oscar still hesitated, and Amy felt touched by his old-fashioned chivalry.

  'C'mere.’ she gestured to him. 'You've been brilliant. Just don't think of me as an ordinary girl and that'll put your mind at rest. Thanks for your help.'

  Amy planted a big kiss on his cheek. He blushed, and Am y laughed, 'From now on, though, just

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  remember, what you city slickers need is a small-town girl to show you how to do it!'

  With that, Amy zipped off, running down the steps to the Subway station:

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  13

  Inside the Subway station, it was dark and gloomy. With all the New Yorkers safely inside their homes, the platform looked neglected and sad. From what Amy could see, the ticket-booth attendants and guards had long abandoned their posts.

  Amy peered inside the empty ticket booth, and tried the door marked 'Staff'. Everything was locked up, and there was no sign of the Doctor. She made her way to the platform, but realised there were very few places left to look. However much she hated the idea, she realised there was only one way for her to go - along the tunnel itself. She stared at the psychic paper, hoping for guidance, but it was still glowing with the same message: I'm below you.

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  wondered. Maybe it wasn't just the paper that could read minds; perhaps he could do it as well. That would explain how he was able to appear so clever all of the time - if he just read the mind of the person he was talking to and said everything they knew back at them.

  Just at that moment, she thought, she could have done with something a little more helpful than I'm below you. Left or right? She didn't even know that much. If the Doctor was in danger, she probably had very little time, and going the wrong way might mean she got there too late. But how could she be sure?

  Only one thing for it. She closed her eyes tightly, imagined the Doctor, used all she could to reach out for him with her mind...

  ... No. She felt nothing. Amy felt a bit stupid for even trying, and also pleased. She didn't like the idea of the Doctor being able to see inside her mind.

  The decision remained. Left or right? If only something could make her choose.

  The low growl made her jump. Amy opened her eyes to see an urban fox stalking out of the dark, its eyes glowing eerily blue in the shades of the station.

  That made her mind up. She leapt onto the tracks and headed off to her left, away from the angry fox, walking to downtown New York the unconventional way. With all of the power in New

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  York out, Amy had to move slowly, feeling her way through the gloom. Oscar's torch could show her the tracks ahead, but the gaping blackness of the runnel beyond was a forbidding mystery, and Amy had no idea what she'd find in the dark, or who might be trying to stop her getting to the Doctor.

  Part of Amy wondered how she was going to save the Doctor when she got there - but she knew she had to try. She'd seen the Doctor come up with clever plans on the spur of the moment and thought to herself that she'd be as brilliant as him if she had the opportunity to do it. But nagging away at her was how helpless she'd been when Oscar was being tormented by the little midgets. Still, she'd got him out in the end. At the moment the score was Amy Pond one, Vykoids nil.

  The psychic paper glowed again and Amy eagerly opened it to see the message.

  If you can see this, you're going the right way. If you can't see this, then.. Oh, haven't really thought that one through, have I?

  Amy laughed. The message faded and then a new message came back onto it:

  and HURRY UP!

  This was quickly followed by:

  PLEASE.

  Amy started to move off, but the paper glowed yet again: Actually, ignore me, psychic link a bit hard to control, 141

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  so I may well be wittering on a bit, but anyway, less reading, more running!

  Amused at his cheek, Amy hurried along the dark tracks into the unknown. As her eyes got used to the dark, she could make out more of her surroundings. The glossy posters and adverts soon gave way to cracked plaster and crumbling bricks, curving close above her head, with strange drips of water and curious green stains. Sometimes the runnel was close in around her; at other times it seemed cavernous and impenetrable in the gloom.

  Not that Amy wanted to look too closely. Wherever the beam of her torch fell, Amy could see little furry black creatures scuttling out of the way. Rats. She told herself they were probably friendly ones. Like the one in Leadworth Primary School that they used to take home at weekends (until Ian's cat killed it). He was called Ratty, and the boys in class had liked to set him running up and down the girls'

  necks.

  Amy hadn't been scared then, and it would take more than rats to put her off her mission now. She thought to herself how funny it was that in all the games she used to play when she was 8 years old, the Raggedy Doctor had been the one saving her from mean boys and scary rats. Now she was having to go through a dank, vermin-infested tunnel to save him. Amy's amusement didn't last long, as she realised she'd probably always suspected this was

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  going to be the case. It was clear from the moment they met that he'd needed Amy Pond to sort out his life for him.

  The tunnel opened out, and her torch showed a row of sidings that stretched out into the gloom. Parked up near to the line was an empty Subway train, standing idle on the tracks. For some reason seeing it sent shivers down her spine. It was like a ghost ship, or a haunted house. Something designed to be full of people felt wrong when it was quiet and so dark. It should be taking New Yorkers all the way to Coney Island, not sitting silent and still in the shadows.

  The train looked far bigger and more mechanical from track level, and Amy hurried past. Unknown to her, a little pair of eyes peered out at her as she crept past. To the watching Vykoid's tiny ears, her timid footsteps sounded like the clunking boots of an unwieldy giant.

  The tunnel was less flat than Amy expected. Above ground, New York may have been divided up into neat grids and numbered streets, but underneath the city the Subway sloped and twisted as it made its way from place to place.

  The psychic paper glowed again.

  Are you still there, Amy?

  Wondering if he genuinely expected an answer, Amy looked up along the tunnel and saw a glow of light around the next bend. She raced forward,

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  running out into a vast Subway station. Brand new and shiny, this was part of the Mayor's regeneration scheme, and it looked posher than most buildings in Leadworth. The space was dimly lit with hundreds of tiny lamps, no bigger
than pencil sharpeners.

  Amy approached slowly and carefully. Straining her eyes, she could see that the floor of the huge platform looked bumpy and uneven. As she moved closer, the torchlight revealed the true nature of the bumps. All along the platform, people had been tied up and covered with blankets.

  Hauling herself up off the tracks, Amy crouched down beside the nearest person. His legs had been bound, and there was a gag in his mouth. Panic rose in Amy. Everywhere she looked people were lying, trussed up. The Vykoids were using this as a storage for captured humans.

  A set of doors swung open, and Amy hit the ground, fast.

  Just in time. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see a blur of colours and high-pitched grunts of exertion as the Vykoids dropped off another load of people.

  Their methods were extraordinary. A team of Vykoids would carry in a body, and lay it down for trussing by a separate group. They worked like mechanics at a Formula One pit stop. The team specialising in tying the gags around the prisoners' mouths would take a piece of cloth five times longer than they were, and spread it out like they were 144

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  shaking a sheet. Then they gently lowered it over the mouth, and a separate Vykoid tied a knot behind the head.

  Meanwhile, a second team tied a cord around each hand and, attaching it to a miniature Vykoid crane, hauled each hand until they were floating together, zombie-like above their captive's chest.

  On a signal, both hands were dropped and a waiting team of Vykoids snapped a long chain cord tightly around it. This looked like the most dangerous part of the operation, and Amy imagined that every Vykoid dreaded being responsible for cuffing the giants. The feet were taken care of by two teams of Vykoids on mini-bulldozers. They had attached special jaws to the bulldozers and, facing each other, the two bulldozers gradually pushed the ankles together. Occasionally they paused and shouted out for someone to throw more ball bearings under the ankles so they would move more easily.

  Once the prisoner's feet had been pushed tight together, a mesh of nettings was dropped over the ankles, and sealed together with some sort of heat gun.