EARTH. AFTER THE STORM.
Angel huffed one final huff and heaved herself up into the bedroom through the massive hole in the side of the house. Getting to her feet, she took care not to fall back out again. She dusted her hands and looked around. The Dalek, of course, was already there.
"I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR YOU FOR SOME TIME."
"Show off," she said.
"I OFFERED TO CARRY YOU," it said. "YOU DECLINED."
"Wanted the climb." Angel sucked the blood off her thumb. Damn bricks.
"ARE YOU DAMAGED? DO YOU REQUIRE A-"
"Don't..."
"I WAS GOING TO SAY 'HEALER'."
Angel finished sucking her thumb and gave it a reassuring shake. "I'm fine."
The Dalek paused for a moment as Angel looked around the room. Looked like a young girl's room. Massive teddy on the bed. One Direction poster on the-
"I HAVE CALCULATED A NEW JOKE."
Angel looked up at her friend, "Seriously? Now?"
"I HAVE DETECTED HOSTILES. BUT THEY ARE STILL SIX POINT THREE MINUTES AWAY."
Angel sighed, "Go on, then."
"HOW DO YOU DETERMINE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A TIME LORD AND A-"
"No jokes with Time Lords, Paul."
"APOLOGIES. ALTERING PARAMETERS OF JOKE GENERATION. ESTIMATED RENDER TIME OF NEW JOKE : FOUR POINT EIGHT MINUTES."
"Okay, well, while that little gem's cooking," Angel fastened her hair back, "can we please get started?"
"CHRONO-PARTICLE READINGS INDICATE DEVICE IS SOMEWHERE IN THIS DOMICILE. FURTHER DETECTION IMPOSSIBLE."
Angel started going through the girl's CD collection, "Sometimes no amount of chrono-scanners and techno-doodads can make up for something you'll never have, Paulie."
"EXPLAIN."
Without turning away from the CDs, Angel raised and wiggled her hands for the benefit of the Dalek behind her, "Fingers and thumbs, my friend, fingers and thumbs."
"I HAVE MINIATURE TRACTOR BEAMS CAPABLE OF MANIPULATING OBJECTS TO WITHIN A MICROMETRE OF DETAIL."
"Yet you can't pick your nose," Angel grinned, continuing to thumb through the CDs. "Those hostiles getting close?"
"FOUR POINT NINE MINUTES AWAY," said the Dalek. "PICKING YOUR NOSE IS AN IMPORTANT PRODUCT FEATURE?"
"There's nothing more human than picking your nose, Paul. Can't put a price on that kind of feature. Got to revel in every little aspect of the human 'product'." Angel picked up the last CD. The cover was a woman's face but it was totally smashed beyond any recognition. "Especially these days," she whispered to herself.
Angel gave her head a shake. Don't get stuck. Don't think. Keep going. She swept the CDs off the top of the chest of drawers and tipped the whole thing forward. The drawers all slid out and she set to going through them, one at a time, but very quickly.
Paul stood by what was left of the bedroom wall and kept watch over the ruined remnants of London. As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but empty desolation - and the Dalek eye could see pretty damn far.
London was as devastated as the rest of the world. From pole to pole, there was little left. Almost no brick was left upon brick. The human population of the planet was less than one twentieth of its numbers, pre-storm. The other nineteen-and-a-bit twentieths were now-
"Sing to me, Paul." Angel had moved on to the girl's wardrobe. "Keep my spirits up."
"I HAVE BEEN CALCULATING A SONG SINCE YOU FIRST MADE THIS REQUEST. THE SONG IS NOT YET RENDERED. COMPLETION TIME, UNKNOWN."
"Can't you just pick one from a database and sing that?"
"DALEKS CANNOT SING. A VOICE CAPABLE OF SUITABLE OCTAVE MODULATION MUST BE-"
"-rendered and a suitable song calculated, I know, I know, so you keep saying. So much for the superior race."
"WE MUST LEAVE."
"But I haven't found the-"
Wood and clothes exploded everywhere as a pulse bolt flew into the room, missing Angel by inches and smashing into the wardrobe. The woman dived to the ground as Paul swung in front of her, defensive protocols spinning to active.
"REMAIN DOWN," he said and disengaged safety locks. His cannon let fly and a house across the street was razed to the ground in a single devastating moment. The hostiles using it as cover were instantly killed but there were more in other houses. The chrono particles were interfering with Paul's scanners. Hostile targeting was well below acceptable battle parameters. As such, standing at the open wall, he was an easy target. And yet, he would not move.
"Paul?"
"HAVE NO FEAR," said the Dalek. "YOU ARE DEFENDED."
Angel covered her head as several pulse bolts blasted into the room - the One Direction poster was decimated along with most of the inside wall. Two or three bursts hit Paul full on. Angel knew his armour couldn't take much, compromised as it was. That was why the hostiles had arrived sooner than expected - it was a miracle Paul's scanners still worked at all after all the damage. They needed to get out of-
Under the bed! A small, grey, metal box, its corners glowing ever so faintly blue. Keeping her head down as Paul and the hostiles traded shots, Angel scrabbled over on her stomach until she could grasp the box. Unbelievable! There it was - just sitting there..! And now she had it right in her hand! Pulling her rucksack off, Angel rolled over onto her back and stuffed the cube in.
"WE MUST LEAVE."
"We must, we must," Angel wrestled the rucksack onto her back and crouched just behind Paul. She peeked round the Dalek and saw dozens of hostiles, pulse bolts flashing from the windows of several houses. "Any ideas on that score?"
"JOKE RE-CALCULATION COMPLETE."
"Paul, we really need to work on your sense of context."
"ESCAPE VECTOR CALCULATED. YOU WILL HANG ON TIGHT."
Angel threw her arms around the Dalek's neck - the area she thought of as its neck, anyway. "Don't you let me fall."
"HOW CAN YOU DETERMINE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A TIME LORD AND A HURRICANE?"
"I thought you were taking the Time Lord out of it?"
"APOLOGIES. JOKE / HUMOUR EQUATION DOES NOT RESULT IN POSITIVE INTEGER WITHOUT THE TIME LORD ELEMENT. I WILL NEVER LET YOU FALL."
"Oh, okay, then, how can you tell the difference between a Time Lord and a hurricane?"
Paul lay down a blanket of heavy covering fire, devastating half the street in the process. As the hostiles were sent into temporary disarray, the anti-grav generator span to full power and the Dalek carried his human charge away from the firefight.
"YOU CANNOT."
The hostiles - Angel couldn't bring herself to think of them as people, since less than one percent of their body contained any kind of flesh and the rest was pure cybernetic weaponry - disappeared into the distance. The sun began to fall below the London skyline, illuminating the devastated, abandoned wasteland from horizon to horizon with soft, melting orange-purple light.
"Funny, Paul," Angel hugged the Dalek tighter and tried not to cry. "Very funny."