Rose listened to herself in some amazement as she outlined the plan. Her mouth was opening and her tongue was going up and down and words were coming out, and she couldn't do a thing about it. It was totally and utterly freaky.

And she seemed to have developed a northern accent.

Mickey was feeling slightly stunned. It was one thing to get a phone call from your ex*girlfriend, it was quite another to get a call from her new man using her vocal cords to speak to you, or something, and it was yet another thing entirely for him/her to casually drop into the conversation that she's he's calling from another planet, and needs your help to save the world again. Or a world, anyway, he wasn't too sure about that. All he knew was that the plan the Doctor had outlined was not only impossible, as well as bordering on the insane, but practically speaking totally difficult because it involved him having a telly, which he didn't any more. That actually felt like a far more insurmountable problem than the loony saving*the*world bits. It was getting latish now, nearly eleven, he'd have to find someone who'd let him come in and play a dozen games of Death to Mantodeans Death to Mantodeans without asking awkward questions. If Jackie had been home he'd have had a chance after the lecture about disturbing her beauty sleep... Maybe he could break in to Rose's flat but if he got caught, the police wouldn't listen, they'd lock him up, and then who'd save the world? without asking awkward questions. If Jackie had been home he'd have had a chance after the lecture about disturbing her beauty sleep... Maybe he could break in to Rose's flat but if he got caught, the police wouldn't listen, they'd lock him up, and then who'd save the world?

A thought struck him. There was a telly at the youth club. The club was supposed to shut at ten, but Bob, who ran it, let some of the older lads hang out for longer if it wasn't a school night. Worth a go.

Mickey bundled all the games consoles into Mrs Burton's shopping basket on wheels, and limped off. The stairs were a bit of an ordeal, especially with the basket thumping down behind him, but he made it eventually.

As he headed down to the youth club, Mickey threw a quick glance up behind him, at Rose's flat. The windows were dark, of course.

The youth club windows were dark too, but he could hear something from inside. He tried the door locked then knocked, loud enough to be heard, not loud enough to wake up anyone nearby.

The noise inside stopped abruptly, but no one came to the door. Mickey knocked again, a bit louder. Still nothing. 'Come on, open up,' he called, still trying for an impossible combination of loud and hushed. 'It's Mickey Smith.'

After a few moments, he heard a key turn in the lock, and the door swung open a crack. A pair of defiant eyes stared back at Mickey. He recognised the face: it belonged to a lad called Jason Jones. Mickey thought it quite unlikely that Jason had permission to be here, especially considering he was accompanied by a distinct whiff of cigarettes and alcohol fumes.

Mickey pushed his way in. Jason shut the door, and sulkily followed Mickey into the main room. 'What d'you want anyway, Mickey?' he said. Mickey knew he commanded some slight grudging respect round here, as an older, car*owning guy who had, at least for a while, been going out with by far the most attractive girl on the estate. Further kudos derived from his having been suspecting of murdering her, even though it'd turned out that he hadn't. Mickey had heard whispers that he had a gun collection, a knife collection, and several dismembered blondes under his floorboards.

There were two other lads in the main room, sat in front of the telly. Mickey recognised both of them. And to his horror, they weren't all he recognised. There, frozen on the screen, was a distinct image from Death to Mantodeans Death to Mantodeans. Not the training level, the real thing. Mickey waited till the two of them had swung round to face him before answering Jason's question. 'I want use of that telly, and your help. Does Bob know you're here?' he carried on before they could react. 'And does your mum know you're sitting here with a can of lager and a f.a.g?' he said to Anil Rawat, who nearly dropped his drink in fright. Mickey waited till all three heads had been shaken. 'Well, if you want it to stay that way...'

They clearly did. Mickey took the empty chair in front of the telly, and Jason pulled up another one. Mickey held out a hand and the third lad, Kevin, pa.s.sed him the control pad for the game.

'It's your lucky night,' said Mickey. 'Cos we've got a lot of games to play...' He pulled out his mobile, and began to call Rose.

The Doctor asked Robert to watch the tube map thing as he continued to play the game. After a while, Robert noticed something. As the Doctor made Rose turn right, the fastest of the white lights would turn right too. If Rose was going straight ahead, the same light would go straight ahead.

'How many white lights altogether?' the Doctor asked.

'Six,' said Robert. 'Four of them are quite near the outside. One's further in, and Rose is furthest of all.'

'So they're the active players,' said the Doctor. 'The ones near the outside will be games that haven't long started. That'll be Darren Pye and the others, I reckon.'

'Mr Snow and Mr and Mrs Nkomo,' said Robert. 'What about the other one?'

'A game that was already being played,' said the Doctor. 'Could be your mum anyone.'

'What about the blue lights?' Robert asked.

The Doctor hmmed. 'You say you saw a white light turn blue, and a blue light go out?'

Robert nodded, then remembered the Doctor wasn't looking at him. 'Yes,' he said.

'Then I would think the blue lights are people in inactive games. They're standing there waiting for someone to move them again.'

'Or for a Mantodean to find them,' said Robert, who'd realised what it must mean when a light went out. 'And then...'

'I'm afraid so,' said the Doctor. 'Game over.'

SEVENTEEN.

Mickey was getting everyone organised while he was waiting for Rose or for the Doctor to answer the phone. The Doctor had explained that because the only sense he was sharing with Rose was sight, he'd have to keep looking at the phone to check if it was ringing, so Mickey would have to be persistent.

There was a black*and*white portable in the kitchen, and Mickey had got Jason to bring that in. Anil had booted up the youth club's ancient PC and was connecting to the Internet, and Kevin was sorting through the pile of consoles that Mickey had brought with him.

'The trouble is,' Mickey was calling across to Anil, 'anyone who's playing the game won't be checking the message board. And we don't want to get anyone starting a new game. But see if you can find anyone anyway. No one should have got any games from alienkiller1984 yet, cos he won't have had time to sell them on, but warn people he's a dangerous loony or something, just in case.'

'OK,' said Anil.

Kevin had started to connect up a console to the portable television.

'You can ignore ones that haven't got past the training level,' Mickey told him. 'But if they have done, remember, you mustn't start a new game. Only find out if they've got a saved game that's still active.'

'Yeah, you said,' said Kevin. He pressed a few b.u.t.tons, waited for the screen to come to life. 'Not this one,' he said.

'Try the next one, then,' said Mickey. 'Come on, lives are at stake.'

'Yeah, right,' said Kevin. Out of the corner of his eye, Mickey noticed Kevin's finger circling round his right ear in the cla.s.sic 'he's a loony' gesture. Still, as long as they kept doing as they were told, he'd cope. He'd been called a lot worse. Much of it by the Doctor.

Speak of the devil... Mickey's phone was finally answered. 'This is the Doctor,' said Rose's voice. 'I hope you're paying attention. If you've found any active games, this is what I want you to do...'

Robert was still watching the map, his eyes darting between the six points of white light. Suddenly, one of them started to behave erratically, jumping first one way and then another. 'Got one!' he called to the Doctor.

'Brilliant,' the Doctor replied. He kept talking, under his breath, but Robert knew that the Doctor wasn't still talking to him, he was muttering the words he was making Rose say. 'Good work, Mickey. Right, I'm sending Rose to meet your player. Keep doing exactly what I told you. If you feel resistance, you haven't overridden the controls properly. Rose, soon you'll meet another player. I can't undo the control disc on their forehead, not at this distance; once it's been activated one wrong move could make their brain go squish.' Robert shuddered at the thought. Thank goodness his disc had never been activated. 'What I hope I can do, though,' continued the Doctor, 'through you, using the sonic screwdriver, is undo the circuits that make people explode if they leave the Mantodean stronghold.'

'You hope?' said Robert, worried.

'I'm sure,' said the Doctor rea.s.suringly. 'I'm sure they won't explode.' He carried on speaking through Rose. 'Mickey, you'll then follow my instructions from before. But you've gotta find all the other people in there too.' He turned to Robert. 'How many are there?'

Robert ran his eyes all over the map, swiftly counting up. 'Still six white lights,' he said.

'Six people moving around,' the Doctor said. 'One of them's you. Rose.'

'Eight blue lights,' said Robert. As he watched, another of them was suddenly snuffed out. 'Seven,' he said. 'Seven blue lights. Someone else's just died.'

The Doctor reached back and squeezed Robert's shoulder. 'Seven people stuck here and there,' he said, telling Rose and Mickey. 'That's paused games, Mickey. That's people in trouble. You've gotta find them. That's twelve lives in your hands.'

'So, no pressure,' muttered Mickey, staring at the screen in front of him. It showed a tunnel. Hard to believe that someone was really in that tunnel; harder to believe that the life of whoever it was depended on him right now.

'Found one,' called Kevin, who was still trying the pile of consoles one by one.

'Brilliant,' said Mickey. 'Right, reactivate it, jump the person around like I showed you, and then wait for instructions.'

'So... are we going to be getting the prize?' said Jason. 'The one for winning the game.'

'Yeah,' said Mickey. 'We're gonna be getting the prize.'

Things were starting to become complicated well, even more complicated. The Doctor, who could obviously keep a dozen things straight in his mind at one time, was relaying instructions to Mickey for both the games. Mickey was trying to control the one on the main telly, and pa.s.s the instructions on to Kevin too. It wasn't working. Mickey's poor controller was ending up going round in circles. He finally handed the control pad over to Jason, and concentrated on separating out the instructions for each game.

Anil kept calling across bits and pieces from his Internet search, distracting Mickey even further. 'I've found one person who's playing the game right now!' he suddenly yelled, making Mickey lose his train of thought completely. And he couldn't even ask the Doctor to repeat himself. Still, the Doctor was obviously following what they were doing; he'd work out where Mickey'd gone wrong.

'Right!' Mickey called back. 'Tell him you've got some sure*fire cheat codes or something. Tell him to jump his bloke around a bit. Then tell him you're going to send him a series of instructions and he's got to follow them to the letter. Persuade him somehow, I don't care what you say.'

There was a ping from the computer. 'Instant message,' said Anil. There was a pause while he read it. 'This bloke says he bought his console from alienkiller1984,' he said. 'Well, sort of.'

'But there wasn't time!' said Mickey.

'Bought it down the pub,' said Anil. 'From Darren Pye.'

Kevin and Jason looked up. 'You didn't say Darren Pye was involved in all this!' said Jason, sounding like someone trying not to sound scared.

'I can deal with Darren Pye,' said Mickey, with the confidence of someone who's recently heard that the person in question is on another planet. 'Yeah, all right, he's really alienkiller1984.'

'He says he bought the console off Darren down the pub for a tenner,' said Anil, continuing to read, 'and then later Darren comes back, offering to buy it back for twenty. This guy refuses, and Darren tells him it's for really killing aliens, and he's going to make a fortune off the Internet. But he thought Darren was a nutter and wouldn't give it him.'

'Whatever, keep telling him he's got to do what you say,' said Mickey. 'You've got to persuade him to follow your instructions, right?'

'All right,' said Anil, sounding doubtful. 'But if he's the sort of man who tells Darren Pye where to get off...'

'Just give it a go,' said Mickey.

'Hey!' shouted Jason. 'I can see someone!'

Mickey turned to look at the screen. There was a shape in the distance. As he watched, it became clearer, became an image of a short, slim, pretty girl with long blonde hair. She was holding a mobile phone to her ear. Rose.

'Here,' said Jason, 'that's that Rose Tyler! The one who ' He stopped, shooting a glance at Mickey.

'She's been kidnapped by aliens and forced to do their bidding,' said Mickey.

'Oh, right,' said Jason. 'What do I do now?'

Mickey turned his attention back to Rose's voice coming from his phone, and began to pa.s.s on the Doctor's instructions again.

'He says he won't. He's been playing all day and this time he's determined to win,' said Anil. 'He's going to be the first person to complete the game, he's going to get the prize, and if he really is killing aliens then that's brilliant.'

Mickey sighed. It was all getting far too complicated.

Rose was padding down a tunnel. The Doctor's words were still pouring out of her mouth, and she was trying to listen to what she was saying. Mickey was jabbering on about stuff in her ear she'd just heard him tell someone that she'd been kidnapped by aliens and forced to do their bidding.

Tell someone the straight truth, and they never believe you, she thought. They just think you're being sarcastic. Easier than making up a lie.

It sounded as if she was getting close to someone, anyway. She thought back to that afternoon good grief, was it really only that afternoon? and her and Mickey sitting in front of the screens in the Quevvils' base. The figures coming closer and closer. The sudden realisation. That would be her, now. On some screen, somewhere, she'd be a distant figure on a screen, getting closer and closer.

Rose's head turned. The Doctor was obviously searching for the other player. And she could see him now.

No her.

The other player was a woman, a pretty black woman in her thirties, wearing a scarlet trouser suit. Her eyes were wide with terror. Rose wished she could call out something rea.s.suring, let her know it was going to be OK, that she'd soon be out of here, but her mouth was still pouring out lefts and rights and straight*ons into the phone, and Rose could say nothing of her own volition.

The woman was getting closer and closer. 'That's Mrs Nkomo,' Rose heard herself say. Mrs Nkomo was getting closer still.

'Whoops,' said Mickey's voice in her ear, as Mrs Nkomo, eyes darting from side to side in alarm, ran straight into Rose.

The two players stared ahead as they were carefully positioned facing each other. Rose's hand found the sonic screwdriver and held it out in front of her. 'Don't worry, Mrs Nkomo,' she found herself saying, the very words she'd wanted to force out. 'We'll soon get you out of there. Rose here is going to disconnect a few things, then we're going to lead you out. Half an hour, tops, it'll all be over. Oooh, here comes someone else.'

Rose swivelled round. Approaching down a steep slope behind her was a middle*aged white man. 'Apparently that's a Mr Johnson. He's been gone hours. Lucky man, the Mantodeans must've missed him. Come on, Rose,' said Rose, 'let's get on with it.'

She was turned back to Mrs Nkomo, and the sonic screwdriver began its work.

Robert watched the map as two little white lights headed towards the outside. That left four white lights, apart from Rose, and six blue lights. No five. Another blue light had gone out, another player had been found by the Mantodeans. He was trying not to think... Trying not to hope...

Not that he didn't have enough else to think about. Robert was calling out routes to the Doctor, as the Doctor, keeping his eyes on Rose, relayed them to someone called Mickey on the other end of the phone. Mickey, the Doctor said, used to go out with Rose, so Robert hated him.

'That's it!' Robert said. 'Both of them are out!' Mrs Nkomo and Mr Johnson were safe well, safe*ish at last. Thank goodness. Five white lights now (including Rose), five blue lights.

Suddenly there was a buzzing on the sort of intercom thing. Robert jumped. His mind was so full, so busy, so concentrated on the ten remaining tiny specks of light*life, that he'd almost forgotten where they were, that they were in a scary room in monster HQ.

'This is Frinel,' said a voice. 'Gerdix, the carrier appears to no longer be approaching the centre of the Mantodean stronghold. Why is this? You will report immediately.'

Robert looked at the Doctor, hoping against hope that he had a plan. What had they said before? Something about Robert being there to keep the Doctor in line. He had a feeling the Quevvils didn't bluff, either. If they came in and found what had happened, it would be goodbye, Robert.

But the Doctor seemed just as taken aback as Robert was. He jumped up, giving the control pad to Robert and telling him to keep an eye on things and hurried over to the door. There was some sort of alien lock on it, but the Doctor didn't bother with that. Instead he began pushing cupboards and benches and anything he could find in front of it.

'Gerdix!' said Frinel's voice again testily. 'Gerdix, answer immediately!'

The Doctor's actions had only just been in time. The door rattled as someone tried to open it from the other side.

Frinel spoke again through the intercom. 'Herryan reports she is unable to gain access to you. If I do not hear from Gerdix in the next thirty seconds, we will a.s.sume he has been overpowered. Extreme force will be deployed. All humans will be killed. Thirty.'