Free Winner Takes All by Jacqueline Rayner

jogging forward, jiggling up and down as if created by a camera held by a running man.
    â€˜Here we go!’ called the Doctor.
    And as Rose watched, something appeared on the screen, something she’d not seen in the game before. She glanced over at Mickey’s screen. Something similar was coming into focus there too, coming closer and closer.
    Both screens swam into focus at almost the same moment. Each screen showed . . . a figure. A human figure. A familiar human figure.
    Mickey’s screen showed a lad in his twenties. He had shoulder-length hair and was wearing glasses and a black T-shirt with a picture of screaming skulls on it.
    Rose’s screen showed a woman in her sixties, wearing a tea-cosy hat and a buttoned-up coat. Both had flashing discs sticking to their foreheads. Both had metal cubes – the disruptor of the game’s introduction – strapped round their necks.
    â€˜I’ve seen him down the pub,’ said Mickey, sounding confused.
    â€˜That’s Mrs Hall,’ said Rose, feeling a bit shell-shocked. ‘Mum said she’d gone on holiday.’
    The Doctor had come back into the room. He crouched down next to Rose. ‘Your mum said she’d won a holiday. On the scratchcards.’ He waited for that to sink in.
    Rose turned to stare at him. ‘There are real people playing the games?’ she said, making sure it was a question, giving him the opportunity to tell her, no, don’t be stupid, Rose, what a ridiculous idea . . .
    â€˜Yes,’ he said, his jaw set in anger. ‘Here you go, humans, have something for nothing. Oh, wait, actually we want something in return after all. You think you’re getting a holiday, well, let’s make it an action-packed one. Come to our planet and die for us.’
    Rose felt sick. ‘All those people – all those people who’ve won holidays . . .’ She looked at the screens again. Mrs Hall was staring, her eyes trying to say something to the lad from the pub. The lad from the pub was looking the same, desperate and scared.
    Mickey dropped his control pad, his eyes wide with horror. ‘What happens when you lose the game?’ he yelled. ‘What happens? What happens when you see those insects coming towards you and they open their jaws? What happens when it says “game over”?’
    Rose turned back to the Doctor, hoping for . . . She didn’t really know what she was hoping for. For him to put it right, she guessed. To wave a magic wand and make it OK again, or better yet, to make it never have happened at all. ‘Did you know?’ she said, trying not to sound as if she was accusing him. ‘Did you know what was happening?’
    He shook his head. ‘I didn’t, no. I just thought there was something going on. Once we knew it was happening for real, I wanted to see what they were using to play the games.’
    Mickey suddenly pointed a trembling finger at the screen in front of him. ‘Oh no, oh no, oh no,’ he muttered. As Rose looked, the green forelimb of a Mantodean appeared, waving at the side of the screen.
    â€˜Don’t just sit there!’ shouted the Doctor. ‘Get them out of there!’
    Rose pressed a button. On Mickey’s screen, she saw the black T-shirt bloke turn to his right. Her hands were shaking. ‘I can’t do this!’ she said. ‘I can’t control a person like they’re a toy!’
    The Doctor grabbed the controller from her. He started manipulating the controls, and in seconds the lad had disappeared from Mickey’s screen, but the Mantodean was still there. Mickey had dived for the controller that he’d dropped on the floor, but he wasn’t quick enough. He began to stab frantically, desperately, at the buttons, trying to move Mrs Hall – to reach for the gun – anything . . .
    The mandibles of the Mantodean filled the screen.
    And then there