Part 17 (1/2)

'Gonna give them what they need,' said the Doctor. 'A hero.' Catching Rose's smirk and raised eyebrow, he added, 'I don't mean me. Hal Gryden. These people created him because they needed somebody. Least I can do is make him real for them I mean really really real make their dreams come true.' real make their dreams come true.'

'I don't get it,' said Rose. 'You're gonna what? pretend to be Gryden yourself?'

'And let everyone see him,' realised Jack. 'Or at least let them think think they've seen him. Don't you get it, Rose? Then, when they think about Gryden, they won't be imagining him they'll be they've seen him. Don't you get it, Rose? Then, when they think about Gryden, they won't be imagining him they'll be remembering remembering the Doctor.' the Doctor.'

'Using the left hemispheres of their brains instead of the right,' ventured Rose, her brow furrowing as she remembered what the Doctor had told her.

'Best way to stop someone dreaming is to make their dreams come true,' said the Doctor. 'Should calm things down for a while. One problem.'

'As always,' said Rose cheerfully.

'Inspector Waller won't be too chuffed about this.'

'We've still got the hostages,' Jack pointed out.

'Yeah, but the way the cops see it, ideas are more dangerous than any physical threat and we'll be spreading ideas like mad. Soon as I start my speech soon as they see what I'm doing, and they will, on the infoscreens outside, just like the rioters will they're gonna storm this building. Not much I can do about that. You'll just have to be ready, all of you.'

'We're ready,' said Jack.

'No, we're not!' said Rose.

'As we're ever gonna be,' Jack amended. 'We can't hold them back, but we can buy you, say, ten minutes.'

'Should be enough. I'll need a camera person. Volunteers?'

One of the patients raised a tentative hand.

'Fine,' said the Doctor. He clapped his hands together, took a deep breath and met the eyes of each of the onlookers in turn. 'Well, then,' he said softly, 'I think it's time to man the barricades!'

SIXTEEN.

There was a mattress blocking the barred window of the empty dorm, bolstered by a bed and a chest of drawers.

Rose peeled back the edge of it and looked out cautiously across the Big White House's concreted grounds. From up here, she could see over the perimeter wall to where the road was swarming with black uniforms. More police bikes were arriving all the time and as she watched a black truck pulled up on the edge of her field of vision and cops started to unload equipment through its back doors.

She hated this part: when the plan was made and the risks spelled out, but before everything had kicked off. And this time it was worse, because she knew she couldn't let herself think about what was to come.

It was the same for everyone, of course. She could feel their antic.i.p.ation, their fear, like a physical force. She was comforted by the weight of the table leg in her hand.

So long as she didn't think about what the cops might be carrying.

The Doctor had never pretended he could save her from everything. Rose didn't even want him to.

As if she hadn't read his expression when he'd asked for a camera person, caught the flicker of his eyes towards her. He had to know by now that she wouldn't have taken him up on his offer, his way off the front line. He had still had to make it.

She glanced at the TV screen on the wall. It was showing fires and riots and looting; people throwing concrete blocks at cops and even at the cameras. Rose could hardly believe she was looking at the same streets she had walked just a few hours ago. Everything had spun out of control so fast. It hardly seemed real.

One major channel, apparently, had been taken offair when its studios had been invaded. A police spokesperson was urging the public to remain calm, to stay in their homes until he broke down in tears and confessed to the world that there was nothing he could do, that his force was outnumbered and that, contrary to his previous statements, the truth was that everyone was going to die.

The programme's editors cut back to a stunned newsreader who fiddled with her data pad and tried to think of something to say.

She was spared the effort as her image suddenly crackled and died. There was a brief burst of static, then a new picture wobbled uncertainly into view.

The Doctor was out of focus at first, visible only from the neck down. He rushed forward until his navyblue s.h.i.+rt filled the screen. He seemed to be having a row with the patient behind the camera; Rose cranked the volume up and heard m.u.f.fled voices. Blurred fingers clashed over the lens. Then the Doctor's face dropped into view, ridiculously huge, his nostrils gaping like caverns. He blinked, grinned and backed away until he was perched on his desk, now perfectly framed.

'Um, yeah, hi,' he said and he smiled again, selfconsciously. he said and he smiled again, selfconsciously.

Come on, Doctor, thought Rose, pull it together!

'You're watching Static,' said the Doctor, playing with his hands, said the Doctor, playing with his hands, 'broadcasting on all frequencies for... for as long as we can. I think you all know me, though I might not look quite as you imagined.' 'broadcasting on all frequencies for... for as long as we can. I think you all know me, though I might not look quite as you imagined.'

Rose looked out of the window again. From here she could see an infoscreen and the edge of another out in the street, and they were both displaying the Doctor's image. His words were even subt.i.tled; presumably, that was automatic.

She wasn't at all surprised, then, to see that a change had come over the cops. Most of them had just been milling about, but now they all moved with a purpose. Some of them were returning to their bikes, while others...

...most of them were surging through the front gates...

'They're coming!' yelled Rose, racing out of the dorm into the corridor, careful to lock the door behind her. 'The cops are coming!'

The warning was echoed from six other doors and was greeted by agitated murmurs all the way up to the stairs.

An elderly woman dropped the kitchen knife she'd been carrying and fell to her knees. She was laughing hysterically, but crying too. 'You're finished now, you fiction geeks!' she wailed. 'You're headed for a real big dose of reality. You just wait till they get you back in the operating theatres, you just wait!'

And, over the racket, Rose could just make out the Doctor's voice: 'I'm Hal Gryden and I've got something important to tell you.' 'I'm Hal Gryden and I've got something important to tell you.'

The shouting began on the ground floor.

Rose's stomach tightened at the sound. There were only a few people down there. Their job was to hold the doors as long as they could, then fall back to the stairs. At best, they would buy seconds but even seconds counted.

Only a few people. But Captain Jack was one of them. Rose and the rest of the thirdfloor army were crowded into the s.p.a.ce in front of the lifts, the more eager of them spilling out onto the stairs with their makes.h.i.+ft weapons. They were listening and waiting, in a silence so heavy that it could almost have suffocated her.

Domnic was beside her. He had slipped through the crowd, trying to make it look like a coincidence that he'd ended up just here. She smiled at him and he smiled back weakly, struggling to be brave.

Rose was picturing Jack in the thick of the fight downstairs, giving orders, dispensing jokes and innuendo to keep up the morale of his troops. Living up to a rank that she was almost certain he had bestowed upon himself.

They'd never get the better of him. She believed in him.

But what if something went wrong?

'I messed up,' the Doctor was broadcasting, more confident now, getting into his role. the Doctor was broadcasting, more confident now, getting into his role. 'I've been telling you that fiction's good, and I stand by that. But I got one thing wrong. I was treating the symptoms, ignoring the cause.' 'I've been telling you that fiction's good, and I stand by that. But I got one thing wrong. I was treating the symptoms, ignoring the cause.'

Two of the four lifts began to rise. They rumbled past her floor, on their way to the fifth: a diversion, to make the cops think the Doctor was all the way up there.

She heard footsteps on the stairs. If everything was going according to plan, then Jack and a few others would be coming this way.