Aliens of London
Chapter 10
Sherlock, Rose and Harriet were currently sat at the Cabinet room table, flicking through the emergency protocols to find out what they should do.
Meanwhile John and the Doctor were moving the bodies of the secretary and the Prime Minister into the cupboard, upon the request of Rose and Harriet.
"What was his name?" the Doctor asked, his hands underneath the secretary's arms as he dragged him across the floor.
Harriet glanced up from the papers in front of her. "Which one?"
"This one, the secretary of whatever he was called."
She stood up and walked over to the cupboard, looking inside at the bodies. "I don't know," she muttered sheepishly. John walked past her and she moved out of the way briefly, allowing him to sit down at the table next to Sherlock. "I talked to him. I brought him a cup of coffee. I never asked his name."
The Doctor crossed the man's hands over his body before looking down at the body. "Sorry." He strode from the cupboard and re-joined the rest of them in the cabinet room, standing next to Harriet. "Right, what have we got? Any terminals? Anything?"
"No," Rose said. "The place is antique." She paused in thought for a moment. "What I don't get, is when they killed the Prime Minister, why didn't they use him as a disguise?"
"He's too slim," Sherlock explained instead of the Doctor. "They're big aliens; they need to fit inside big humans."
The Doctor was staring at Sherlock thoughtfully.
"But the Slitheen are about 8 feet, how do they squeeze inside?"
The Doctor answered. "That's the device around their necks – compression field – literally shrinks them down a bit. That's why there's all that gas, it's a big exchange." He turned to Sherlock again. "What did you say you did?"
"I didn't," Sherlock replied, his eyes going back to the papers in front of him.
John answered for him, trying to make up for Sherlock's rudeness. "He's a consulting detective."
"A consulting detective?" Rose questioned, her eyebrows raised. "I didn't know such a job existed."
"It's because he's the only one with the title."
"So that's why you seem to know a lot about what's going on," the Doctor exclaimed, grinning from ear to ear. "It's just deduction. That and a good amount of intelligence."
"And guess work," John added, smiling as Sherlock glared at him.
The Doctor seemed to have changed his train of thought to something else. "Harriet Jones, I've heard that name before. You're not famous for anything, are you?"
She laughed. "Huh! Hardly."
"Rings a bell, Harriet Jones…"
"Lifelong back bencher I'm afraid, and a fat lot of use I'm being now – the protocols are redundant, they list the people who can help and they're all dead downstairs."
The Doctor took out his sonic screwdriver from his pocket and started to scan areas of the room. John watched him with interest, wondering what exactly the device did.
"Hasn't it got like, defence codes and things?" Rose asked. "Can't we just launch a nuclear bomb at 'em?"
Harriet stared at her. "You're a very violent young woman…"
"I'm serious! We could!"
"Well, there's nothing like that in here. Nuclear strikes do need a release code, yes, but it's kept secret by the United Nations."
The doctor stopped scanning the mantelpiece with his sonic screwdriver to listen into the conversation. "Say that again."
"What, about the codes?"
"Anything. All of it."
"Um, well… the British Isles can't gain access to atomic weapons without a special resolution from the UN."
"Like that's every stopped them," John muttered, but they all heard.
"Exactly, given our past record – and I voted against that, thank you very much, the codes have been taken out of the Governments hand and given to the UN."
The Doctor was deep in thought.
"Is it important?" Harriet asked.
"Everything's important."
"If we only knew what the Slitheen wanted." She laughed. "Listen to me; I'm saying 'Slitheen' as if it's normal."
John spoke up again. "What do they want, though?"
"Well it's just one family so it's not an invasion. They don't want Slitheen world… they're out to make money, which means they want to use something, something here on Earth… some kind of asset."
"It could be anything," Sherlock, "Gold, oil, water. The earth has a lot of assets that could make a lot of money for an alien species."
"He's right," Harriet said.
"Harriet Jones – why do I know that name?"
Rose sighed at the fact that the Doctor continued to keep going off track. She just hoped that it was something important that would help them, though she doubted it.
A ringing echoed throughout the room, making them all look up from what they were doing.
Rose took her phone out of her pocket and saw that it was her phone. "Oh! That's me."
"But we're sealed off," Sherlock said, confusion evident on his face. "How did you get signal?"
"He zapped it," she explained. "Super phone."
"Then we can phone for help!" Harriet exclaimed, looking at the Doctor. "You must have contacts."
The Doctor shook his head. "Dead downstairs, yeah."
John stared at Sherlock and mouthed the word 'Mycroft' at him, a questioning look on his face, but Sherlock shook his head. John reminded himself to ask Sherlock about that later.
Rose was still staring at her phone. "It's Mickey."
The Doctor sighed, folding his arms across his chest. "Oh, tell your stupid boyfriend we're busy."
"Yeah, he's not so stupid after all." She held up her phone so that everyone could see. The screen was small but on it was a clear outline of a slitheen. "Looks like Downing Street isn't the only place in danger."