EIGHT.

There's a war on, Robert, and you're our only hope. You are the Chosen One, the one boy in all the world. You must fight the forces of darkness.

And by the way, your mum? She's not your real mum. How could the Chosen One have a mum like that? You must go to this ordinary coach station only it doesn't look like a coach station, it looks like a fortress where you will be transported to your destiny here we are, this is the collection point, this is where we were supposed to go, now aren't you looking forward to it?

But it was really weird because the stupid promotional people were still wearing their costumes. And then they'd been taken into this strange room, and they'd been zapped to his destiny his destiny.

To an alien planet.

And it was real.

These are aliens, they are called Quevvils and they look a bit like porcupines, and they are in a war against these giant insects called the Mantodeans. They've been at war a long time, and they've developed all sorts of technology, but the Mantodeans have this force field round their stronghold which kills Quevvils and stops teleportation, and so they need humans to get through it, and you are the one boy in all the world who can save their race... This scratchcard promotion was all just a clever plan to get you here, to bring you to our rescue we arranged for your mum (not that she is your mum) to win a holiday in the sun so you could embrace your destiny... and you are the one boy in all the world who can save their race... This scratchcard promotion was all just a clever plan to get you here, to bring you to our rescue we arranged for your mum (not that she is your mum) to win a holiday in the sun so you could embrace your destiny...

They hadn't even totally lied, not really. There was sun and there was sand, just like they'd said, because this planet was desert stretching out for as far as you could see.

But it wasn't a holiday.

They'd grabbed people one by one, and stuck these things on their heads. Into their heads.

'All carriers augmented, Frinel.'

'Place them in the holding pen. The controller that will bring us victory has been located on Earth. Carriers must be prepared.' All except the boy Robert, he is the chosen one he is the one who will bring us victory... All except the boy Robert, he is the chosen one he is the one who will bring us victory...

'Bobbles, darling, it'll be all right, Bobbles, it'll be all right...'

It wasn't fair. He was really scared, and this was terrible and real, and however much he'd longed for something out of the ordinary to happen this wasn't nice and it wasn't fun and it wasn't even the good scary that you got from being the hero because he wasn't the hero, he wasn't special and he wasn't important, he was just one of the nonent.i.ties and maybe there wasn't even a hero who'd turn up in time to rescue him and his mum.

And that really wasn't fair, because never, in any fantasy scenario in the world, did your mum get to go on the adventure too.

Rose stopped breathing for a second as she looked down at Mickey on the floor. Then she realised that he was still breathing, and so she allowed herself to do the same. But what damage had the Quevvil's gun done to him? At least with human guns, terrible as they were, you knew that a bullet went in one place and out another, but something like this it could have scrambled his insides, for all Rose knew, and in rolling him over, she could have done any amount of damage. But just as she was wondering whether to attempt to move him into the recovery position, Mickey gave a groaning sigh and his hands fluttered by his sides. A second later, he opened his eyes, and gazed without focus towards the ceiling.

'Mickey?' Rose said urgently. 'Mickey, are you all right?'

He groaned again, and seemed to realise where he was. 'Ooph,' he said, exhaling heavily. Then a moment later, 'Ow!'

'Are you hurt?' asked Rose. 'Tell me where you hurt.'

Still groaning, Mickey propped himself up on his elbows. 'My leg! That bloomin' porcupine shot me in the leg!' he said indignantly.

Rose sighed in relief. 'Thank goodness for that.'

Mickey stared at her. 'Oh yeah, it's great. All hail to the porcupine for shooting Mickey in the leg.' He leaned forward and began to roll up his jeans leg. The skin on his right knee had exploded in blisters, and he winced sharply as the denim brushed against it.

'You know what I mean. All hail to the porcupine for not shooting Mickey somewhere where it might've been fatal.'

He appeared slightly mollified by that. 'Reckon they meant to, though. Probably just distracted by all of what was going on.'

'Probably dizzy with high blood pressure from a salt overdose,' said Rose.

'What about the Doctor, though? Reckon they got him?'

Rose had been trying not to think about that. 'Nah. He'd've got out of the way in time, easy. They were looking at us. And anyway, they want him to play that game. Even if they caught him, they wouldn't have hurt him.' But she wasn't anywhere near as sure as she sounded.

She helped Mickey up on to a chair. 'Will you be all right?' she said.

'Yeah, I'm fine, babe. I can always play a game to pa.s.s the time,' he said, and then added, 'I'm joking,' at her scandalised face. 'Of course I'm joking. Because one, it's obviously a joke. And two, someone's nicked the telly.'

Rose looked. He was right. 'Oh, what?!' she said. 'Oh, brilliant. He'll only go and say "I told you so" now.'

'Don't tell me, the Doctor,' said Mickey. 'I bet it's that bloomin' Darren Pye that's nicked it. Anyway, that's not important now.'

Rose laughed. 'You, saying telly's not important?'

But Mickey suddenly looked as serious as she'd ever seen him. 'You just get out there and collect them up, all those consoles. You've gotta stop it, Rose. Stop them from killing people.' And then Mickey was trying to push himself up off the chair. 'I've gotta come with you, gotta help. Can't sit around when there are people still playing that game.' He started running on, babbling almost, panicking, about the people going on the holidays and the people sat at home, killing them... All very well for the Doctor to say it wasn't his fault, but Mickey still had the guilt, she could see that.

She tried to calm him down, explain why he couldn't help. 'You can hardly stand up, let alone get up and down all the stairs round here!' But looking at his agonised face, she had an idea. 'Tell you what, how about this? If we can get you to the computer, you can go online. Tell people not to play the game that there's a fault or a bug, or it explodes if played for too long or something.'

'Yeah, all right,' he said. 'If the computer's still here.'

But Rose checked and it was, and so she helped him up, and he hobbled, leaning on her shoulder, into the bedroom.

They both heard it, the noise from outside. 'Front door's probably still open from where they kicked it in,' said Rose. 'Probably the wind blowing it.'

'Probably whoever nicked the telly come back for more,' said Mickey.

'Or only just left,' said Rose. 'Could have been out there the whole time...'

She went to look. Couldn't see anyone, but they'd have had plenty of time to get away. If there'd been anyone there at all.

She came back in, shut the door firmly behind her. Went back to Mickey, realised he was shaking. Shock.

She picked up the quilt from off the bed, wrapped it round him, went and made him hot, sweet tea, like they said you should. Looked in the cupboards in case there was brandy, even though she knew there'd just be beer. He was still shivering when she got back, but he was beginning to look embarra.s.sed about it, so she knew he was getting a bit better.

They sat in silence for a while, neither knowing what to say. Then the silence was broken by the sound of a siren, somewhere on the estate outside, and it made her think of hospitals, of doctors. The other sort of doctor. But Mickey said he didn't need a doctor, and she couldn't force him. He kept saying she had to go, had to leave him and fetch those games, and she knew she must. 'You phone me if you need me,' she said, and then realised she didn't have her phone any more. So she said, 'I'll come back later. Let you know what's happening. Let you know when the Doctor's back.'

And she didn't allow herself to think if if the Doctor gets back. Because she knew he'd be all right. He just had to be. the Doctor gets back. Because she knew he'd be all right. He just had to be.

The Doctor was hiding behind the pile of old office equipment in the corner of the room. He'd dived into cover the moment he'd activated the teleporter, the moment the Quevvil had entered the room, and then he'd spent a sticky few seconds wondering if it'd spotted him or not. The Quevvil had fired an energy weapon, but he was pretty sure Rose and Mickey had vanished by then. Trouble was, they were dealing with split seconds here, and they were always tricky to judge. But he thought the two of them would be OK. Just hoped they'd do what he asked, collect up those games; reduce the number of players and you'd reduce the number of people being used, the number of people dying. He hoped.

He didn't have a particular plan, he just knew he had to find the location of the Quevvils' planet, so he could bring home all the people trapped there. And sort out the Quevvils as well, of course. They couldn't keep on doing this sort of thing. He'd known maniacs who played human chess real chess, not symbolic and that was bad enough, making a knight stick a lance through a castle, making a bishop decapitate a p.a.w.n. But there was something so prosaic about what the Quevvils were doing: just using humans to do their dirty work or rather, worse, tricking humans into doing it. Using their greed. Playing on their desire to get a free lunch. And there ain't any such thing.

The other Quevvils had joined their fellow now, one of them limping a bit. Good of Rose and her lip balm. They seemed to be arguing about who would report the loss of the Doctor and Mickey to Frinel. The leader of the Quevvils was obviously feared.

'Frinel will be displeased!' a Quevvil said. 'We had a.s.sured him that victory was near at hand. He will have prepared for the final defeat of the Mantodeans.'

'Death to the Mantodeans!' shouted the other three Quevvils, shaking their fists in the air. Their arms were so short and stubby that, even at the fullest extent, they reached no higher than their snouts.

There was a beeping noise from the control panel in the wall. One of the Quevvils moved over to it. 'Incoming message,' he said. The Doctor p.r.i.c.ked up his ears.

A voice came out of the panel, of a harsher timbre than those Quevvil voices the Doctor had heard so far. 'This is Frinel speaking. Respond, Earth party.'

The Quevvil said, 'Earth party here, Frinel. This is Revik.'

There was a snort from Frinel. 'Report status. Revik. You a.s.sured us you had found a controller who would complete the task. Two controllers, in fact. But the carrier controlled by one was killed by the Mantodeans. And the other was somehow allowed to remove his carrier from the Mantodean stronghold! Explain!'

Revik paused, obviously not relishing the task. 'We were forced to leave our positions temporarily,' he said at last. 'It was a matter of urgency. When we returned, it had happened as you describe it.'

'Then you will deal with the situation!' screeched Frinel through the speaker. 'Or you will be replaced!'

'It will be done as you say,' replied Revik.

A beep indicated that Frinel had terminated the link.

Revik turned back to the other Quevvils. 'We must recapture the controllers,' he said.

'But we do not know their location,' replied one of them. 'Unless they play the game again...'

'We do know their location,' said Revik. 'They obviously reversed the teleportation field. It will have returned them to their original location. We merely need to follow and retrieve them. Ready your weapons.'

Revik reached out a paw for the control panel. But the Doctor had already moved. Before the teleporter could be activated, he had grabbed hold of a cracked computer monitor, heaved it off the pile of junk, and thrown it as hard as he could. His aim was good. There was a shower of sparks as it smashed into the control panel. No one would be teleporting anywhere, certainly not to Mickey's flat. Rose and Mickey would be safe. On the other hand, though, dodgy vision or no, the Quevvils could now hardly fail to notice that there was someone else in the room with them.

The Doctor raised his hands above his head as he stood up straight. 'h.e.l.lo,' he said. 'No need to go after anyone. You've got one of your controllers right here.'

Four guns were aimed straight at him.

'You don't want to shoot me,' he carried on. 'You were just running on to Frinel there how you were going to be getting me back. I've saved you the bother.'

One of the Quevvils turned to Revik. 'This is the human who got the furthest with the task,' he said. 'He is the one most likely to bring us victory.'

'But he has destroyed our teleporter! We cannot return to Toop! He must be punished!' Revik's quills started to bristle. The Doctor couldn't decide which he'd prefer the least, being blasted with energy weapons or turned into a pincushion by an angry Revik.

'It is inconvenient. But it can be repaired,' said a Quevvil.

'And we must not return to Toop until a controller has completed the game,' said another Quevvil. 'This is the controller that will do it.'

All four seemed to agree. Revik relaxed, his quills no longer quivering. The guns, however, were not lowered.

'This controller shall play the game again,' he said. 'And this time, he will complete it. And we will watch him every second, no matter what distractions there are.'

The four guns gestured in the direction of the room with the games consoles, and the Doctor moved as indicated. Whatever happened, though, one thing was certain. He was not going to play the game again.

Rose decided to go to her own flat first. She could pick up her phone, and her mum'd probably know a few of the people who'd won stuff, that would be a start.

As she opened the door to the stairwell, she noticed a police car stopped out on the road. But as she looked, it started off again. Didn't have its lights on or anything, so probably wasn't important. Maybe it wasn't just Mickey who'd had a telly nicked. Hey, there was no sign of Darren Pye loitering around. Maybe he'd been in the back of it. Well, she could hope.

This time, Rose used her key. She pushed open the front door. 'Mum! You'll never believe it, there are only aliens here again... Mum?'

There was no reply. She pushed open the lounge door, but the telly was off and there was no sign of Jackie. She called down the hall, 'Mum? Are you home?' Still nothing. Oh, my G.o.d, they've got her too. The aliens have got her too!

No, that's silly. The front door was locked. She's fine.

Rose went into the kitchen. Empty. Mum's out, she thought. She's out, and she doesn't know there are aliens on the loose, but she's fine.

And then she saw the note. It was stuck on the fridge under a magnet that said 'Best Mum in the World', a Mother's Day present from years before. She sighed.

Dear Rose.

I won the holiday!!! Well, it wasn't me really, it was Dilys, she won two and she's given me one and said she'd only go if I did, you know what she's like about going abroad. Tried to ring but you'd left your phone here. Waited as long as I could but they said if we didn't go today we'd lose it, and Dilys really needs the break. Won't be for long, hope you're still here when I get back. Help yourself to anything. If you share a bedroom I don't want to know about it.

Love Mum x.x.x.

PS Took your phone, knew you wouldn't mind, so you can let me know what you're doing.

Rose wanted to scream. She tried to get angry, angry with her mum for being willing to rush off at a moment's notice, never mind that she'd got her daughter home for once, but her stomach had plummeted with fear and the anger couldn't drown it out, because she knew what these holidays were, what they really were, and she knew what might be happening to her mum right now. She thought she might be sick. 'You never get something for nothing!' she yelled, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up the note and throwing it across the room.

She took a deep breath, and then thought, the phone. I can phone her. I can let her know what's happening. They wouldn't have counted on that, on someone having a phone that works across s.p.a.ce and time, couldn't possibly have counted on that. She'd phone her mum, tell her all about it, what was going on, and Jackie could lead a revolution and it'd all be OK until the Doctor could get there, wherever it was, and bring everyone back home.

And inside, a tiny voice was saying, but they'd know what was going on, they couldn't help noticing that they're not on an aeroplane going to Ibiza, they're being taken to an alien planet and made to fight and die, even knowing that no one's ever come back, so ringing up and going, 'Oh, you've been kidnapped by aliens.' isn't going to come as a big surprise and isn't going to help.

But, of course, she had to phone anyway.

It took her a second or two to remember her own number you got out of the habit of giving it to people when you were trotting around the nineteenth century or whatever. But then she dialled.

It rang. And it rang and it rang and it rang.

She began to get panicky. The aliens would have heard the phone. They'd tracked it down, pounced on her mum. They'd think she was an alien because she had alien technology; they'd think she was a threat; they'd kill her.

Or maybe they'd heard the phone, and they were still tracking it down, and her mum was too scared to answer it but they hadn't found her yet, and if she left the phone ringing for just one more ring the aliens would find Jackie and kill her...

Or maybe if she left it for just one ring, Jackie would answer.

She left the phone ringing, knowing it was pointless, not being able to bring herself to put it down, to surrender that one chance of contact.

And then the phone said, 'The person you are calling has not responded. Please try again,' and there was a click and then the dial tone.

Slowly, reluctantly, Rose clicked off the handset.