Dalek Revival
Remains of the genocidal, robotic aliens called Daleks littered the sunny rooftops of the best city in existence, Boston. The phenomenon was worldwide, but local scientists were heading the experiments on the Dalek pieces. I tried to follow the advances in the news, but the scientific terms baffled me and made me feel stupid. It was interesting to hear if they found something they could explain, but it sounded like the scientists were hiding too much. They said they still didn't know what controlled the Daleks or what was inside it besides wires and other technical crap. But I'd seen the inside. In fact I was going to photograph it. I'd make millions.
I was a lame, amateur photographer living with her scatterbrained mom and pot-head skater brother. I was nothing special. I was nothing important. Or so I was beginning to think as of late. Sure, I had graduated high school, went through a year of community college, but I dropped out to pursue my dream. I was working on a photography portfolio to get into art school. It sounded shiny and perfect until I looked at my slow income, rent, and other expenses to see that there was absolutely no way I was going to make it into a good school. It was a humbling and heartbreaking realization to see that I was stuck. I was stuck living in a two bedroom apartment in Little Italy in North End Boston, working at an Italian Restaurant off the tourist route four nights a week, taking pictures of stupid lonely pipes and wilting flowers, and waiting for my rocket to come.
My future began to look up when I was following a whim and climbed the fire escape of a nearby apartment building. On the roof was the remains of a Dalek; the closest I'd been to one. Mom wouldn't let me get within ten feet of the one that was just outside our building. But now I was touching one, I was doing my own pathetic research on an alien. I poked and prodded the metal until I saw something not metallic within the heap. I pulled the metal pieces off in a frantic haste thinking of my neighbor's missing cat. What I discovered was so not a cat. I stared, horrified at what looked like a squid to me.
"What the hell?!" I exclaimed out loud. I stepped back with one hand over my open mouth and the other catching stray strands of my short, dirty blonde hair as it whipped my face and caught in my pale eyelashes.
I stared at the- the- squid blob for minutes before I darted back past the randomly placed retro, blue police box and down the old, iron fire escape. I sprinted home, ignoring the lost tourists that I would normally help, not stopping to catch my breath until I reached the bedroom I shared with Mom. I grabbed my camera bag and sprinted out of the apartment back to the strange dead thing. I didn't even look at anything besides the ground and stairs below me as I returned.
I snapped away at the squishy looking blob. Changing setting after setting on my camera and using up a whole role, trying to get the million dollar picture. As far as I knew, no one had seen this part of a Dalek. Surely I'd have heard of it on the news. People would want to know about it and see it, too.
"This is so cool!" I said out loud as I snapped the last picture.
"Yeah, well, until it moves the Earth and twenty-six other planets across the universe to use it as its personal everything-destroyer," a man's voice said with a British accent.
I spun around quickly, almost tripping over my own feet. "Hey, I don't know how they do things in England, but sneaking up on people is not nice here in America." Okay, so it was harsh, but he startled me.
"I'm not from England," he said with a smirk that implied that that was a weighted statement. "I'm from Gallifrey."
"Where's that? Ireland?" I asked as I put away my camera.
"Sure," he said as if he was just letting me think that so that he could keep his mystique or something.
"Right, so why are you stalking me?" I said standing in front of him with my arms crossed and my blue-green eyes narrowed in what I hoped was angered suspicion.
He didn't look like any of the creepy guys I'd had trouble with in the past. He was in a navy blue suit, not a tattered winter coat in summer or a maroon, velvet jumpsuit (don't ask), and he appeared well-groomed. He didn't seem to be drunk or on some kind of drugs, so I relaxed my stance a little.
"I'm not stalking you. I was just up here examining the Dalek remains," he said as he went over to the heap of metal and squid blob. He crouched over it and took something from his pocket and held it over the metal and blob. It buzzed and lit up. My brother used to have a toy that resembled it and I wondered if this man was just fooling me and was, in fact, going to rape me.
"What's your name?" I asked, as I memorized his face so I could describe it to the police later.
"The Doctor," he said simply, as he stared sadly at the dead squid blob.
"The Doctor of what? And don't you dare say Gynecology, because I'm not falling for that," I said, glancing back at the fire escape to make sure he didn't have buddies blocking it off.
"What?" he looked at me as if I was insane. "No, no, that's my name. The Doctor."
"Riiight. And I'm the Nurse." I rolled my eyes.
"Nice to meet you, Nurse. But I have to leave, I have something I must do," he said with a nice smile as he stood up.
"Back in Gallifrey?" I asked. Since when did tourists have business in Boston?
His face went empty and his hand clenched around the light up toy. "No," he said in a quiet voice. Then after a moment he snapped out of his reverie and looked at me with friendly eyes. "What's your real name?"
"Sunny. Actually it's Mary Alice, but no one calls me that," I said with a blush as I told a stranger my what-was-my-mother-on name.
"'Sunny,' I like it. Very sixties," he said, walking towards the blue police box. I'd figured the box to be part of someone's retro decoration collection or storage or something. But he was approaching it like it was his home's front door or his car. "Would you like to help me?"
"With what?" I asked, not being able to help the excitement over a mystery task from running through my blood.
"Finding where the rest of the Dalek remains are and getting them out of scientists' reach," he said, stopping before the door of the police box and turning to me.
"Why?" I asked, confused. Why wouldn't he want to advance in science and discover more about aliens? Maybe he was working for England- Ireland, whatever, and trying to sabotage our advances?
"Because they're trying to bring them back to life," he explained briefly. He studied my face for a reaction.
"But- but they would try to kill us all again!" I exclaimed in outrage.
"Exactly!" he said, excited that I was on his level of oh-my-god.
"How do we stop them?" I asked.
He sucked in air through his teeth and looked as if he was thinking. He let out his breath "Well, I planned on going in and asking nicely."
"I don't think saying 'please' and 'thank you' works when madmen are making scientific discoveries," I scoffed.
"You're probably right. But I always try that first and then work my way up to yelling," he said lightheartedly.
"Where are they doing it?" I asked, running through the subway routes in my head.
"A warehouse. I'll drive," he said and before I could open my mouth he snapped his fingers and the doors to the blue police box opened.
"How did- wha- you just- huh?" I asked as I followed him to the box. My instincts to run away from a possible rapist were fading. He would have acted by now if he meant harm, right? Besides, he didn't give me the creeps at all.
My speechlessness only increased as I took in the view of a large room in the small box. I took a step in and held out my hands, waiting to run into a green screen and a projector or a mirror. But the Doctor was already changing gears on a big circular control panel and the sound of a machine whirring to life was overwhelming. I stepped in and out of the box in awe at the impossibility of it. He watched with amusement as I stuttered and tripped in my wonder.
"Well, shut the door, we have to get going!" he exclaimed as a grinding sound surrounded us. I shut the door quickly and continued to stare at the inside of the box.
"What- how?" I couldn't form a sentence to ask about how this was possible.
"This is the TARDIS, a time machine. We're not traveling in time; we're just using it as a really fast car of sorts," he explained.
"This is insanely cool," I said in a whisper.
"I normally get impossible, but I'll settle for 'insanely cool,'" he laughed.
A few moments later we came to a somewhat rocky stop and he ran to the door. I followed on his heels and found myself in what used to be a space for a payphone in a long corridor but was empty until the TARDIS landed. We looked both ways down the hall and saw a shadow of movement to the right. The hallway walls were white and the floor a light blue marble. It was completely empty save us and three doors. One, we discovered, was a simple broom closet, and the next was to a lab room.
The Doctor put his ear to the second door and listened. I did the same; all I could hear was a strange beeping noise and someone tapping a pen. It didn't sound dangerous, but I couldn't tell by just listening if they had guns. When he realized this, he turned to me with a look of regret and self-hate. "I shouldn't have brought you here," he whispered.
"Why? I agreed to come. We have to stop them," I whispered back.
"You could get hurt," he whispered and then looked away. "Everyone always gets hurt."
"Then that's my problem. Come on," I insisted and nodded towards the door.
He hesitated, shaking his head. He wasn't going to let me help and that made me mad. So I pushed his thin frame out of the way and yanked open the door he unlocked with his light-up toy moments before. He tried to stop me but I slipped my short, petite frame out of his grasp and into the room. He followed me quickly and stood next to me inside the room.
An older man in a white lab coat stood up and glared at us. I took a quick look around and saw at least four other Dalek squid blobs on lab tables with various tubes stuck in them. Machines all around were beeping and flashing the readings of the Daleks. I looked back at the man who was reaching for something on his desk.
"Excuse me, sir, but before you kill us or call for help, can we please talk to you?" I asked in my sweet, polite voice I saved for really old people.
"About what?" he asked suspiciously.
"About what you're doing," I replied simply.
"What about it?" He crossed his arms over his chest challengingly.
"I understand that you want to be the first to figure out the interworkings of a Dalek and that multitudes of honor would come from it, but it's wrong," I said in the same polite voice.
"Let me guess, P.E.T.A?" He laughed.
"No, the Doctor and Sunny," I said defensively.
"Then what do you want? I have work to do," he said and picked up his clipboard.
"These Daleks were created to kill, to destroy. It was their purpose in life. You can't think that bringing them back to life wont cause trouble and kill more people," the Doctor reasoned.
"They are under controlled circumstances and in a safe environment. The world will be safe while the Daleks are here being retrained," the man explained.
"Retrained?" I asked. "Ever heard the expression 'you can't teach an old dog new tricks?'"
"We're going to train them to cooperate and coordinate with our life and to help us," the man said.
"That's not going to work! It hasn't worked any other time that's been applied, even with intelligent humans!" I scoffed. The Doctor smiled.
"I'm sorry, but I have to ask you to leave," the man said in a false polite tone.
"And I'm going to have to ask you to stop your experiments," the Doctor said.
"I can't do that," the man said gravely and quickly reached for whatever was on his desk behind his pen holder and photo frame. His hand came back with a gun.
I barely had time to gasp before I was flying through the air and landing behind a large file cabinet and another desk. The Doctor mumbled what sounded like "I am not going to lose another" before jumping up from behind the safety of the desk. No gunshot sounded but I heard the man's ragged, nervous breathing. I tugged on the bottom of the Doctor's pant leg, trying to get him to get behind the desk. My heart raced and tears of fear stung my eyes.
"Put down the gun," the Doctor said calmly.
"Get out of my lab," the man said in a stern voice.
"We will as soon as you put down the gun and stop your work on the Daleks," the Doctor said.
"Why should I?" the man asked.
"Because you have no idea how many lives and planets have been destroyed by them. Billions of lives have been lost. Not just on Earth, but countless other planets, as well. So if you value life at all, you will stop," the Doctor reasoned calmly. Obvious experience made his voice valid and serious.
I noticed a space behind both desks that could be used as a walkway that led behind the man in the lab coat. The two continued to talk as I, quietly as possible, crawled behind the man. I couldn't bear to hurt the man, so I stood up slowly behind him. His own breathing was loud enough to cover the sound of the slide of my jeans against the linoleum. I held my hands out hesitantly and then lunged at the man, knocking the gun out of his hands. It slid across the floor and the Doctor hurried to grab it. He took the bullets out quickly and then tossed it all to the side. I wrestled with the man on the floor for control. He kept trying to hurt me but he was too old and slow to hit me. The Doctor swiftly pulled me off of the man and then we forced him into a chair.
"You need to stop the work on the Daleks!" the Doctor yelled, visibly angry now. "It's not safe for anyone!"
Huffing and puffing, the man held up a hand. "Fine, fine, I'll stop. I'm getting too old for this."
I smiled. We had won!
"That's it? No reinforcements? No high-tech weapons?" the Doctor asked, looking slightly disappointed.
"Just me and that gun," the man said, still out of breath. "Less people to share the reward with."
Guiltily, I thought of my camera and the roll of film in the TARDIS.
"Does anyone else know about the true form of the Daleks?" the Doctor asked.
"Not of my knowledge, but that does not go to say that they did not do the same thing as me," the man said, truthfully.
The Doctor and I stayed with the man, whose name was Bruce, until he disposed of the Daleks and dismantled the complex machinery. I believed that he honestly and truly understood the depth of what he would have been doing when we left and wouldn't continue his work on the Daleks.
Back in the TARDIS, I handed the Doctor my roll of film. "I was going to use the money from the pictures to get into art school. But I think I'm going to study Astronomy, instead." I smiled.
He pocketed the roll of film and grinned at me. "You did great back there. I didn't expect you to be one to act."
"I'm just full of surprises," I giggled.
He turned serious. "You could have easily hit him unconscious but you chose to knock the gun from his hand. Why didn't you hurt him?"
"I could never hurt someone intentionally, I guess," I paused. "Damn! And I spent hundreds on karate lessons!"
"Well, if you were ever desperate to escape you could use it," he suggested.
"Oh, and being held at gun point isn't desperate?" I laughed.
"You weren't the one at gun point, I was!"
"Yeah, and what a great job you did with your pleases and thank yous," I teased.
"We're alive, aren't we?" he chuckled and started up the TARDIS
"Thanks to me!" I exclaimed.
We landed back on the roof of the apartment building where we met. I stepped out of the TARDIS and turned back to the Doctor. He was leaning on the door frame looking thoughtful. I was thinking, myself. What if I went with him and traveled in time? I could learn so much more that way than I would in school.
"Doctor?"
"Yes?"
"Could I go with you?" I asked quietly.
"Don't you have art school to go to?" he asked.
"No. I dreamed of art school at one point. But now I know it's impossible," I replied.
"Ah, nothing's impossible," he said, with a spark of an inside joke in his eyes.
"Well, for people without time machines there are a lot of impossible things," I countered.
"Sunny, everyone who comes with me gets hurt in some way. I don't want that to happen to you or anyone else. It's not fair to you. It would be selfish of me to put you in such danger. More than I did today," he said, gripping my shoulders. His eyes were intense, reflecting a battle within him.
"No, it would be selfish of you to hog the whole TARDIS to yourself and not share the experience of travelling in time," I insisted.
A small smirk tugged at his lips, but his eyes remained the same.
"Please?" I said in a small voice with wide, hopeful eyes.
"I'm sorry, no."
"Please, please, please?" I bounced on my toes and clasped my hands in front of me.
He paused to think about it for a few moments before sighing and turning back towards the TARDIS. "Fine, let's go."
I jumped up and down twice before practically skipping into the TARDIS after him. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!" I squealed in excitement.
"Okay, so where to first?"