Doctor Who: The Invasion (7 page)

Shaking with outrage, Watkins brazened it out for a few more seconds. Finally he slumped meekly in defeat. 'You'll let the poor child go if I cooperate?' he muttered faintly.

'No, no, no... She is our guarantee,' Vaughn protested indignantly. 'But she'll come to no harm.'

Watkins blinked at his smiling tormentors in anguish. 'Very well,' he conceded at last. But I want to see Isobel first.'

'Of course you do,' Vaughn agreed. 'However, one more thing.'

The Professor started suspiciously and retreated a few paces.

'Some friends of yours are here and they're determined to see you,' Vaughn informed his victim.

Watkins frowned. 'Friends? I'm not allowed visitors,' he retorted. 'I might tell them everything!'

Vaughn threw hack his distinguished head and laughed. 'You know nothing to compromise me. Besides, Professor, don't forget Isobel.'

Packer thrust his pale perspiring face at Watkins. 'Because
I
certainly shan't forget Isobel,' he threatened, baring his discoloured teeth.

The Professor hesitated for a moment, then bowing to the inevitable, he turned reluctantly to his half-assembled apparatus and sighed, shaking his domed head in distress.

Vaughn paused in the doorway. 'Conduct the Professor's visitors down to him, Packer,' he ordered benignly and walked out.

In Vaughn's office, Jamie and the Doctor were at the window and Jamie was pointing out a strange building he had noticed in the distance. The Doctor fished out a small brass telescope and extended it. 'My goodness me!' he muttered, focussing on the three large spheres mounted on the roof of a small windowless building on the far side of the complex. 'It looks like a deep space communications installation, Jamie.'

'What's it doing here, Doctor?'

The Doctor shrugged. 'The plot thickens...' he murmured, studying the structure carefully.

Suddenly Jamie pointed to a tiny black shape high above the distant woodland. 'A helicopter! Perhaps it's the Brigadier's mob,' he whispered.

Before the Doctor could refocus the telescope the door slid open and Packer swaggered in. 'Come with me,' he snapped malevolently.

The Doctor turned and stared at him with raised eyebrows.

Packer stared back, thrilled at the prospect of trouble. But the Doctor's steadfast gaze eventually disconcerted him and at last he got the message. 'Please, gentlemen...' he added through clenched teeth.

With a brilliant smile, the Doctor led Jamie to the door.

As soon as he was alone with his visitors Professor Watkins seemed to conquer his profound suspicion and to relax a little. 'Of course... Anne Travers told me all about you, Doctor,' he beamed.

'She was a brilliant student.'

'Indeed. They're in America now, I believe,' replied the Doctor, his eyes shifting surreptitiously around the jumbled room while they chatted.

'But what are you doing here?' Watkins inquired brightly.

The Doctor coughed and blew his nose loudly. 'That's rather a long story.' he murmured confidentially. 'But the fact is, I need help with some faulty circuits out of the TARDIS.'

Watkins looked puzzled. Then he nodded and smiled.

'Ah yes... your machine. I remember Anne's description was most intriguing. I'd like to hear more...'

Again the Doctor coughed and then blew his nose violently. 'I fear Miss Travers may have allowed her imagination to run rather wild,' he replied, weaving his way through the disorder towards the Professor's bunk.

Watkins's eager face clouded with disappointment. 'You mean the travel machine doesn't exist?' he cried.

'Och, of course it does,' Jamie burst out, 'we landed in it this morning not far from...'

His words were muffled by a prolonged fit of wheezing and coughing from the Doctor who was now perched on the bunk facing them and shooting significant glances towards a small ventilator grille set into the wall.

Then Jamie noticed something glinting in one corner of the grille. 'Och... Aye...' he mumbled shamefacedly, turning to the Professor and mouthing a frantic warning.

Professor Watkins glanced from one to the other, utterly confused by their extraordinary antics. 'Are you all right?' he ventured kindly.

'Never felt better!' the Doctor laughed, starting to rummage feverishly in his many bulging pockets. 'Tell us something about your important work here, Professor,' he suggested with exaggerated enthusiasm.

'My work?' Watkins echoed with flattered delight. 'Oh, it's really just a new kind of teaching aid...'

The Doctor nodded energetically, grimacing as if to encourage Watkins to keep talking regardless.

At last the Professor's feeble eyesight made out the miniature television camera lens fitted inside the grille. 'It's... it's called a Cerebration Mentor,' he burbled on. 'It is able to transmit encoded thought patterns directly into the brain... However the device can also induce emotional changes in the subject and therefore make it more susceptible to rapid learning...'

At that moment the Doctor found what he wanted. It was a small but exceedingly powerful magnet. 'Most ingenious, Professor,'

he exclaimed, reaching up and attaching the magnet to the grille right next to the lens. 'But not foolproof, I'm afraid!'

Tobias Vaughn's faintly amused smile abruptly vanished as the image on the monitor broke up, flashed violently and disappeared.

'Check the system,' he snapped.

Packer hastily pressed several buttons on the Director's desk.

At once the other eight video screens all showed clear, slowly scanning views of various sections of the complex.

Vaughn turned sharply away from the bank of screens, flushing with pent up frustration. 'Our friend, the Doctor, is a resourceful man. No wonder our allies fear him,' he grunted, staring across at the blank wall.

Packer's scalp crept visibly in surprise. 'They know him?'

'They encountered him on another planet.'

Packer's small but prominent eyeballs bulged. 'That's impossible.'

'No, Packer. The Doctor operates some kind of travel device.

The barbarian Scottish youth confirmed it a moment ago. Our allies ordered me to destroy the Doctor, but first I must discover the secrets of this extraordinary machine.'

Packer's face suddenly betrayed a deeply rooted unease. He licked his thin lips nervously. 'But if you were ordered to...

Vaughn thumped the desk decisively. 'I don't take orders, Packer, I give them,' he shouted, striding across to the elevator. 'The time has come to stop playing cat and mouse with the Doctor and his friends.'

4

Professor Watkins shuffled slowly round his basement prison wringing his gnarled hands in desperation. 'If Vaughn has your young friend Zoe as well as Isobel then we are completely at his mercy,' he submitted.

'Not entirely. There is still the Brigadier remember,' the Doctor pointed out. 'But quickly, Professor, we have little time. What do you know about Vaughn's activities? What's he up to here?'

Watkins fluttered his hands helplessly. 'I know no more than you do Doctor, except that he wants control of my invention to add to his electronics empire.'

The Doctor sighed. 'I've a nasty feeling he's aiming a lot higher than that, my clear fellow.'

'Someone's coming!' Jamie warned them, retreating from the door where he'd been keeping watch.

The Doctor hurried across to the ventilator and was just about to remove his magnet from the grille when Vaughn strode in with Packer sneering at his elbow.

'Please don't trouble yourself, Doctor... allow me,' Vaughn smiled, going over and removing the magnet. He held the tiny object aloft like a trophy. 'Most ingenious... but alas not foolproof,' he joked.

The Doctor bowed, acknowledging the irony of the situation.

Vaughn's bland manner abruptly changed, becoming cold and undisguised. 'You must realise that you force me to consider other methods of obtaining the information I want.'

Inwardly boiling with resentment and rage, the Doctor remained silent and impassive. Jamie's fists clenched and unclenched behind his back.

'Your friend Zoe will arrive here shortly...' Vaughn began.

'So you
have
got the lassie,' Jamie shouted, barging forward. 'If ye've harmed her...'

Vaughn waved him away disdainfully. 'Doctor, I want your travel machine,' he announced curtly. 'Either you hand it over to me or Packer will be obliged to introduce Miss Zoe to his rather crude form of hospitality. You have exactly sixty minutes to decide.

Packer!'

The gleam of anticipation shone in Packer's beady eyes as he drew his pistol and motioned the Doctor and Jamie towards the door.

The Doctor grasped Jamie firmly by the arm and guided him to obey.

As Packer marched them outside, Vaughn wandered over to the cowering figure by the bench. 'No more interruptions, Professor,'

he promised, with a bleak smile. 'And now I suggest that you continue with your vital work.'

Under Vaughn's pale gaze, Watkins picked up a soldering probe and bowed half-heartedly over his apparatus to resume his thankless task with trembling hands.

Meanwhile, Packer escorted his prisoners to the main elevator shaft and summoned the lift. As they waited, the Doctor stared up at the indicator and suddenly shivered.

'What's wrong?' asked Jamie.

'Just my little phobia about lifts,' the Doctor shrugged, grinning wanly at Packer. Then he turned to Jamie and swivelled his eyes and contorted his eyebrows in a brief pantomime of signals.

After a baffled pause Jamie nodded furiously. 'Och aye, Doctor... Yer wee phobia?' he murmured sympathetically.

As the lift arrived and the doors slid open the Doctor suddenly turned to Packer and gave a hopeless shrug. 'It's no good Mr Packer, I can't bear to let Zoe suffer,' he admitted. 'I'd better tell you what you want to know.'

Packer's bloodless mouth compressed with suspicion and he raised his gun. 'You're willing to talk?' he demanded, sensing his opportunity to redeem himself in Vaughn's estimation.

The Doctor nodded, nudging Jamie to enter the lift. 'Actually I'd rather tell
you
everything...' he continued, frantically gesturing to Jamie behind his back. 'I find Mr Vaughn rather...' The Doctor stared deliberately over Packer's shoulder. 'Too late. Here he comes now,'

he muttered, hacking into the lift as Packer turned to look down the empty corridor.

Meanwhile Jamie had pressed a button and the doors started to close before Packer could turn hack to them. The Doctor just managed to wriggle between the doors in time. They snapped together and the lift began to ascend.

'Quick, give me your dirk,' he cried.

Jamie reached into his sock and drew out a short, wicked-looking dagger. Snatching it eagerly the Doctor prised the faceplate off the control panel and yanked out a handful of wires.

'What are ye doing?' Jamie gasped in alarm.

The Doctor gave the bundle of wires a sharp tug. 'We shall either stop or crash back down the shaft,' he announced impassively.

Jamie glanced at the floor indicator. 'But we're six floors up!'

he shrieked.

'Then hold tight,' muttered the Doctor, tugging again.

There was a short burst of sparks and a few wisps of black smoke from the panel and the lift whined to a halt. They held their breaths. Suddenly there was a scream of distant gears and the lift dropped several metres before jerking to a stop again.

White-faced and sweating they picked themselves up off the floor. Jamie gazed in disbelief as the Doctor gingerly bounced up and down a few times. To their relief the lift stayed put.

The Doctor grinned. 'It was a fifty-fifty chance, Jamie, but we're safe,' he said smugly.

'We're not. We're stuck five floors up!' Jamie protested heatedly, snatching back his dirk and shoving it down his sock.

The Doctor smiled patiently. 'Jamie, the lift is stuck, not us,' he retorted, pointing up at the small trapdoor in the ceiling above them.

'Come on, up you go.'

The Doctor touched his toes and Jamie clambered reluctantly onto his back. 'Och, ye're a clever wee chap,' he admitted grudgingly, pushing open the trapdoor.

'Thank you, Jamie,' came the Doctor's muffled response, 'and you're a brave wee chap, so you can go first.'

A few minutes later Jamie had heaved the Doctor up through the hatchway and they crouched on the roof of the lift, gazing apprehensively up the long shaft where the greasy cables disappeared into the darkness.

The Doctor tested the narrow steel ladder clamped to the wall of the shaft. 'It's a long climb, Jamie, but with luck we'll reach the top before they realise what's happened.'

Something scribbled in the thick layer of dust on the lift roof caught his eye. 'Who's Kilroy?' he wondered absently.

Jamie grinned and wiped his finger. 'Och, nobody you'd know.

Come on, Doctor.'

With Jamie leading the way they started to climb the vertical ladder, their laboured efforts causing eerie echoes in the tall dark shaft.

'Doctor, what happens if... if they get the lift working again before... we reach the top?' panted Jamie after a while.

The Doctor grunted breathlessly. 'Quite simple, Jamie. We get squashed...'

Jamie smiled grimly to himself at the epitaph they had left below them in the dust... KILROY WAS HERE.

Vaughn stood by the elevator doors shaking his head incredulously.

'I'll kill them...' spluttered Packer, his hand over the mouthpiece of the service telephone.

'You'll do no such thing,' Vaughn snapped. 'I want them alive.'

'What the hell happened?' Packer yelled down the phone.

'Well, use the emergency circuits, man,' he ordered, slamming the receiver clown. 'The thing's stuck between the fourth and fifth floors.'

'So I gathered, Packer,' murmured Vaughn ominously. 'Our clever Doctor has outwitted you once again.'

Packer's cruel mouth twitched and curled with hatred. 'Well, now he's been a hit too clever. He's trapped,' he sneered.