Winner Takes All

by Jacqueline Rayner

  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 embarrassed 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 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 pawn. 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 ol’ 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 assured 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 pricked 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 assured 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. ‘Hello,’ 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 god, 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 xxx.

  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, screwing 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 space 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.

  NINE

  All Rose could think of doing was, somehow, finding out where her mum had gone. Maybe she could win a holiday too, and follow her. She still had forty-two untouched scratchcards, after all. Perhaps one of them was a ‘lucky’ one.

  Rose scrabbled in her pocket, dragged out the wodge of cards, began frantically scratching off the silvery covering. No. No. No. No. She began to despair of the Quevvils. Surely they wanted people to win? Surely they wanted an endless supply of players for their deadly games? So why couldn’t they have stuck in a few more winning scratchcards?

  Sixteen cards in, and she got a result: not a holiday but another games console. Which was no good, not what she wanted, but something. Twenty-one cards more, nearly at the end of the pile, and she got another one. Try to look on the bright side: at least that was two winning cards not in the hands of people who might use them, claim their consoles, kill some friends.

  Not a single holiday in the whole lot. And Rose still didn’t have a plan.

  Maybe Jackie hadn’t left the planet yet, maybe Rose could find out where the ‘winners’ were taken and go there. She’d think of a plan, she knew she would. For now, she decided, she had to get into town, as quickly as possible, and hope that by the time she got there she’d know what to do.

  Rose left the flat, locking the door behind her, and hurried down to the road. She stuck out her arm as a bus approached, and it pulled into the kerb. She jumped on it, and waved her pass as she moved in the direction of a seat.

  ‘Oi,’ called the driver. ‘Oi, you.’

  After a second, Rose realised he was addressing her. She backtracked, and looked at him expectantly. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Let’s see your pass again.’

  Her heart sinking, she held it up, smiling, as if she knew that there wasn’t really a problem.

  ‘That’s over a year out of date!’

  She looked at it, so surprised. ‘I’m really sorry. I must have picked up the wrong one by mistake. I won’t do it again.’

  But he wasn’t to be swayed by a charming smile and an apologetic manner. ‘That’s £1.20, then.’

  ‘I don’t have any cash on me,’ she said. Didn’t say, I’ve got out of the habit; I haven’t needed money for months.

  ‘Can’t let you on the bus then,’ he said. By now the other passengers were starting to grumble. Holding everyone up. Young people these days. Thoughtless kids. Selfish cow.

  ‘But it’s really important,’ she said. ‘I’ve got to get to town. Please?’

  ‘Not my problem,’ said the driver, and she could tell that he was enjoying this, that it was the highlight of his day. ‘I’m not moving this bus until you’ve got off it.’

  ‘It’s a matter of life or death!’ she tried.

  But the bus driver was implacable, and the noise from the other passengers was beginning to get ugly, and precious seconds were ticking away, so in the end she had to get off. What did they care that her mum could be on her way to an alien planet right now, could be on her way to her death? Even if she told them that, even if they believed her, they wouldn’t care. The difference between life and death: one pound and twenty pee.

  Hating them, hating humanity, Rose started half walking, half jogging her way into town.

  After a bit of running around, a few shouts and threats and so on, the Doctor was leaning back in his chair, a gentleman of leisure. Eventually, faced with not many options, he’d voluntarily taken his old seat in the games room, hoping that the Quevvils would thus register him as being a prisoner again without remembering that prisoners are usually tied up. So far, it seemed to have worked. He was holding the control pad in his hands, but hadn’t started playing the game again. If he had his way, that would never happen. He’d been trying to keep a conversation going instead, and had managed it for quite a while now, without, however, finding out anything of use.

  ‘Bit of a waste,’ he said to the Quevvil guarding him. ‘Blowing up your pawns if they leave the game. Just means y
ou’ve got to get more of ’em.’

  ‘We cannot risk the carriers returning to our base,’ said the Quevvil. ‘If the primed disruptors were then activated . . . That is, in the game –’

  The Doctor raised his eyebrows. ‘Exactly how thick do you think I am? It’s not a game, I have worked that out.’

  The Quevvil seemed flustered. ‘Humans do not have the intelligence . . .’

  The Doctor didn’t point out that he wasn’t human. ‘Yeah, you’re right, teleport a couple of humans into your secret underground base, shoot ray guns at them, force them to play – they’ll never work it out.’

  The Quevvil snarled. ‘Your mind cannot comprehend the truth.’ It raised its gun. ‘But you will play the game.’

  ‘Don’t think I will, thanks all the same,’ said the Doctor. ‘I’m a bit anti setting off to kill these Mantodeans who’ve done nothing to me. And I’m not that keen on risking the life of some poor kidnapped human, either.’

  The Quevvil started to wave its gun – and then lowered it. It had a cunning look in its eyes that the Doctor didn’t like.

  ‘So far, you are the human who has progressed furthest into the Mantodean stronghold. But it is only a matter of time before others penetrate into the heart of it. We have waited for years; we can wait longer. We came to this planet and started in this small area to see if the idea had merit, if the humans were intelligent enough, if our technology was sufficient on Toop –’ the Doctor grimaced in frustration; they kept merrily mentioning the name of their planet but it meant nothing to him, he’d never heard of it; why couldn’t they drop its galactic coordinates into the conversation? – ‘if it could cope with a small number of carriers and controllers. We hardly expected to find a controller who would succeed immediately – indeed, with hundreds of games out there, only a very few controllers have passed our training level, a mere handful showing themselves worthy of our dedicating our full resources to them. So we are already prepared to extend the plan. We will take it to more towns, across this country, and then to other countries. We will increase the number of winning cards. Humans are greedy: order them to aid us and they would protest, but make it seem like a prize, like something for only a select few . . . ha! They will snatch at any chance of getting something for nothing! The more humans who play the game, the more competent controllers we will find, and the more carriers we will need . . . If you played the game for us now and did as we wanted, got to the centre of the Mantodean stronghold, no more humans would have to die. But until someone succeeds, the game will continue to be played.’