'And you lot run!'

In his free hand, the Doctor was holding the remote control he had found earlier. He pressed one of the b.u.t.tons.

High above the large gla.s.s table, the net full of balloons dropped away. The balloons fell like a multicoloured blanket.

Something else was falling too the contents of eighty-three bags of Brainy Crisps. The Doctor and Henry had opened the bags and attached them inside the net before the meeting started. As the net opened, the bags tipped and the crisps fell. They rained down past the slowly falling balloons.

Crisps scattered across the table, the floor, the humans and the Krillitanes.

A crisp landed on the leathery arm of one of the Krillitanes. The crisp exploded as the oil in it reacted with the alien's skin. Crisps burst into flames, filling the room with flashes of light. The Krillitanes shrieked in pain, reeling away from the table as the crisps rained down.

Stella Sark rolled on the floor, frantic to put out the flames burning along her back. Sir Manning Cross's body was a patchwork of black and orange. Crisps exploded and burned. The room was filled with smoke.

While they set the trap with the crisps, the Doctor had told Henry it was his job to help everyone out of the room. As soon as the Doctor pressed the b.u.t.ton, Henry ran to open the doors and herd everyone out. The Doctor pushed Purcell and the other shareholders ahead of him. Together with Henry, he bundled them out of the room. Once outside, Henry slammed the doors shut behind them and the Doctor locked them.

'Get out of here as fast as you can,' the Doctor said, turning back from the doors. The pa.s.sage was already empty apart from himself and Henry. 'Oh, they have. That's good.'

As the Doctor and Henry ran after everyone else, Gabby hurried up to them.

'What's going on?' Gabby asked. 'Why are the share holders leaving the meeting? Where are Sir Manning and Miss Sark?' She brushed her long blonde hair away from one ear. She was wearing a large earring made from coloured gla.s.s twisted into a spiral. The shrieking from behind the doors grew louder.

Henry grabbed Gabby's arm. 'There's no time to explain now. We have to get away from here.'

The three of them set off down the corridor at a run.

Gabby was still asking what was going on. From behind them, they all heard wood splinter and tear.

The Krillitanes were breaking through the doors.

'What about everyone else in the hotel?' Henry gasped as they reached the reception area. 'Shouldn't we warn them? Sound the fire alarm or something?'

'I don't think the Krillitanes will reveal themselves just yet.

They want to keep everything secret, which is why they had to silence the shareholders.'

'Haven't you forced their hand? Or whatever they have instead of hands?'

'Will you two please tell me what's going on?' Gabby said. 'What was that noise? Why were the shareholders so scared? What's happened to Sir Manning and Miss Sark and the others?'

'In a minute,' the Doctor told her. He led the way out of the hotel and down a side street. 'I don't think they're chasing us, which is good. But I'm not sure that little adventure achieved as much as I'd hoped.'

'You found out their plan,' Henry said.

'Well, some of it,' the Doctor told him. 'But I'd like to know how advanced things are and what happens next.'

'You saved people's lives,' Henry insisted. 'They'd be dead now if we hadn't been there.'

The Doctor smiled. 'Yes. That's true, and that's the most crucial thing of all. Thank you, Henry.' He turned to Gabby.

'Now, it's time for some explanations.'

'At last,' Gabby said.

There was silence for a while.

Finally, Gabby said, 'Well, go on then explain.'

'No, no,' the Doctor said. 'That's not what I meant.' He pushed his hands into his jacket pockets. 'Oh, that reminds me. I think this is yours.' He pulled something from his pocket. It was a small spiral of coloured gla.s.s.

'What is it?' Henry asked.

'Part of Gabby's earring.' The Doctor reached out and gently brushed Gabby's hair aside, to show her other earring was missing. 'See?'

Gabby took the piece of gla.s.s. 'Thank you, Doctor.

Where did you find it?'

'It was clutched in poor Jeff's dead hand,' the Doctor told her, 'which is why I think it's time you gave us some explanations, Gabby.'

The air shimmered and blurred round Gabby. Her face seemed to go out of focus for a moment. Then it reformed, but in a new shape. It was the long, stony face of an angry Krillitane.

Chapter Nine.

When the Krillitane spoke, it's voice was Gabby's, only deeper and more gruff. 'Is this explanation enough for you, Doctor?'

'More of a good guess that's been confirmed.'

The Krillitane sniffed. 'You are not afraid of us. How strange. I can smell Henry's fear, but you are something different.'

'You're going to kill us,' Henry said, looking around. The side street led only to the back of the hotel. At the moment it was deserted, so no one would see what happened.

'Of course,' Gabby replied. 'Though in your case it will be no great loss.'

'Unfair!' the Doctor protested. 'You owe Henry a lot, and you know it.'

'Me? What do they owe me?' Henry asked. 'I've done nothing for them them.'

'Not on purpose,' the Doctor a.s.sured him. 'But I've seen the computer files. I've seen what your department does, as well as running the systems.'

'We needed a human,' Gabby growled. 'Someone to shield us from the day-to-day tasks and the tricky questions.'

'Me?'

'You, Henry,' the Doctor agreed. 'They used you right from the start. They used you to handle the health and safety inspectors, the VAT men, and any other officials who came snooping.'

'Why me? Why not someone else?'

'You were ideal,' Gabby said. 'You had no imagination to ask questions of your own. You were so bungling and lacking in skill that anyone could see there was no point asking anything difficult.'

'And of course,' the Doctor added, 'you didn't really know anything useful. The perfect front man. Or if it all went wrong, the perfect fall guy.'

Henry looked down at the ground. 'I always knew I was rubbish at my job,' he said, 'but I never guessed that was why I was given the job in the first place.'

'Humans are so stupid,' Gabby told him.

'No,' the Doctor said. 'No, I won't have that. You used Henry, you played on his character. But he's not stupid. You got him wrong. Humans are clever and imaginative. You just wait. Henry will show you.'

The Krillitane laughed. 'Henry will die. There is nothing clever about that.' Gabby drew herself up to her full height.

Her claws glinted in the morning sun as she prepared to strike.

'She's right, Doctor.' Henry sounded defeated and tired.

'There's nothing clever about me. I have no imagination.

We're going to die, right here and right now. Look,' he went on, pointing past the Krillitane towards the other end of the street. 'Here come the rest of her alien friends to gloat at us.'

Without thinking, Gabby the Krillitane turned to look where Henry was pointing, but the Doctor could see that the street was empty. There were no Krillitanes coming.

As soon as the creature turned, Henry leaped forward and shoved it hard in the back. The Krillitane staggered forwards, slipping off the kerb. It struggled to retain its balance.

That gave the Doctor and Henry time to run the other way down the street, towards the main road.

'Well done, Henry,' the Doctor said. 'Clever and imaginative. I knew you could do it.'

'We're not safe yet,' Henry pointed out. 'She'll be after us in a minute.'

They had reached the main road. There was lots of traffic there. The morning rush hour was in full swing. The Doctor waved down a cab and they both got inside. The Doctor gave the address of the Brainy Crisp firm.

'Now they know we're on the loose, they'll bring the project forward,' the Doctor explained. 'They'll be using all the computer power they can. They'll want to finish as soon as possible, before we can cause trouble.'

'But that computer power is mostly on the internet,'

Henry said.

The Doctor nodded. 'The more power they hijack, the less there will be to do other internet tasks. The whole system will start to collapse as the Krillitanes divert power to their own project.'

'And this project is building a creature, right? You said they were designing themselves again.'

'Yes, they are probably building a whole bunch of creatures to their new, improved design. The Krillitanes must have a facility somewhere with huge nutrient tanks where they grow the new creatures. The last stage will be to add intelligence and character, race memories and aggression.'

'Then we don't want to go to the office. There's nowhere there they could do all that.'

'So, where?' the Doctor wondered.

'The crisp factory,' Henry said, realising. 'There's a whole secret area at the Brainy Crisps factory where they research and develop new snacks.'

'New snacks snacks?' the Doctor said. 'New life life! Well done, Henry. I hope you know where this factory is.'

Henry gave the address of the factory to the cab driver.

'How long will it take?' he asked.

'No idea, I'm afraid.' The cab driver gave his sat-nav a thump. 'This thing's supposed to give me the latest traffic details, but it's gone crazy. It says Tower Bridge is staying open all day, and Oxford Street's closed because of a plague of locusts!'

'It gets the traffic news from the internet,' Henry told the Doctor. 'It's starting: the systems are breaking down.'

'I can get you there all right,' the driver a.s.sured them. 'I know the way. I just don't know what the traffic will be like.'

'The beginning of the end of the world,' the Doctor said, 'and I'm stuck in a traffic jam. Typical.'

'But we can stop the Krillitanes, can't we, Doctor?'

'They're no match for you and me, Henry. We cxan stop them, but only if we get there in time. We must prevent a new race of even more deadly Krillitanes from hatching. I have a nasty feeling that nothing will stop those creatures once they get out.'

Chapter Ten.

The taxi dropped the Doctor and Henry at the gates to the crisp factory. It was a large building that looked like an aircraft hangar, but with tall chimneys at one end. The Doctor had his 'Access All Areas' badge. He and Henry showed their badges to the guard at the gate.

'Are you here for the meeting with all those bigwigs from the firm?' asked the guard.

'Probably,' the Doctor said. 'Tell me more.'

'Oh, just that you know something's going on when Sir Manning and Miss Sark and most of the rest of the firm's directors turn up with no warning.'

'And they headed for the research area, right?'

The guard said that this was indeed where they had gone. 'You'll need written consent from Sir Manning to get in there. They won't let you in without it.'

Henry looked worried, but the Doctor patted the pocket where he kept his psychic paper. 'No problem.'

'They got here before us,' Henry said as they walked up to the factory.

'They can fly. That solves the traffic problem.'

'Right. Yes. I still have a bit of a problem with this whole alien thing,' Henry said.