Chapter Four: The Dalek Espionage

Time seemed to pass as slowly as it could possibly go for Clara. She felt like her journey inside the Dalek casing with Kwinx would take forever. After going up many levels, and moving around for what felt like too much, Kwinx stopped.

'Hey, are we here? How much longer?' whispered a half-Dalek voice from Clara, with underlying traces of impatience and whining. Kwinx told her that the Doctor lay just a couple more rooms further on, but that Clara would have to go alone, as the yellow Dalek didn't have clearance on this level.

Unwillingly, Clara bottled up her confidence and moved towards the experimentation labs. Almost immediately, she was lost, but soon captured the sound of a moaning voice emanating from the very next room. As subtly as she could, she stopped the casing in a position so that her eyestalk only just reached around the arch, but the sheer size of the Dalek meant that almost half the body was also showing.
What she saw caused an invisible hand to clasp around her throat.

An amalgamative form of Doctor and see-through Dalek stood held down by chains at the far end of the lab. In between her and him, was only a single red Dalek about halfway across. Clara, now once again grasping onto confidence by the hand, mustered the courage to enter the room silently. Remembering how Kwinx talked to another Dalek not long ago, she spoke to the patrolling Dalek in a monotonous, emotionless voice.

'You are relieved from duty.' ordered the Clara-Dalek.

'Why?' asked the red Dalek, with hints of aghast.

'I am to take over your position while you get…' she couldn't think of the right word. Desperate, she flicked through her mental dictionary; 'Reassigned!' came out rushed.

Without response, and a little standoff from both of them, the red Dalek left the room. Triumphant, Clara waited merely a few seconds before attempting to jump out the casing with difficulty, and rushed over to touch the Doctor's only viewable body part – the torso – to let him know she was here.

'Cl- Cla- Clara-a-a-a?' spoke the Dalek.

'No!' gasped Clara. The Doctor couldn't have been turned into a Dalek! He just couldn't! How could she survive without him?!

'Clar-r-r-a-a! It's me-e-e-e! Doc-tor-r-r-r!' slurred the Dalek's voice, fragmenting into the voice of the Doctor's.

'Doctor, how do you open this thing?!' whined the Impossible Girl, while she pulled exasperatedly at the casing. Something within the case sparked, and the eyestalk gently swung around to stare single sighted at the control panel. She almost ran into it, desperate to save that big chin.

'Wh- what do I do? How do I get you out?' she spoke, half to herself.

'Touch…big blue…on left….then re-e-e-d.' strained the Dalek, now becoming more Doctor than robotic. Carefully she pressed the 'big blue' domed switch on the left, followed by the red switch in the middle.

And with a buzz of computerised noises, a whoosh of air caused Clara to jerk her head towards the Doctor. As she witnessed, the dome headpiece slowly rose away from the Doctor's head, now revealing a face with a deep wide gash on his right cheek, where a connector cable – now hanging from the mechanical headpiece – had been forcibly integrated with blood and flesh: some of which was still attached to the end of the wire. Once it completely removed itself from him, the Doctor's seemingly lifeless head slumped down.

'Doctor?' mumbled an anxious Clara. Something was wrong.