Hi everyone! Finally finished this, sorry it took so long. It takes time when work and other parts of life has to take first place. The goal is to finish this serial before too long but who knows. Anyway, enjoy!


The Escape

"How much do you know about radiation poisoning?" Barbara asked Ian.

The man was on his knees beside the bench where Trixy lay breathing shakingly, he had a hand on the girl's arm and looked up at the woman who was tiredly pulling her fingers through the child's hair.

"Not much" he admitted. "But like most illnesses it supposedly strike children and the elderly hardest" he continued and three pairs of eyes turned to look at the Doctor.

"But" Trixy's voice was weak but both adults heard her and turned back to her. "He's not human"

"Yeah, kind of figured that" Ian said and Barbara turned to stare at him instead. "Don't tell me you hadn't guessed that"

The woman sighed and Trixy felt her hand run through her hair again. The girl struggled to keep awake as Ian stood up and carefully moved Trixy so he could sit with her head in his lap and an arm around Barbara beside him.

"I – I tried not to think it" she said leaning into Ian's shoulder. "But yes, I guessed that"

They were quiet for a few minutes, the sound of their weak breaths mixing in the silent cell. Trixy twitched her neck slightly to look up at the other two.

"How long was I out?" she asked.

"An hour, hour and a half, something like that" Ian said with as much of a shrug as he could manage. "It's hard to tell in here"

Suddenly the door opened and in hurried Susan, the door closing swiftly behind her. She was smiling and at once started to babble away in a language none of the three awake inhabitants of the cell could understand, in her hands were a box.

"Susan" Ian interrupted her. "Please speak English, and did you get them?"

"Yes, Mr Chesterton" the girl said holding up the box. "We just need some water to make it work easier"

"Have you asked for it?" the man asked and the girl nodded glancing at her grandfather. "Have you taken them?" he continued earning another nod. "Good then Trixy and your grandfather are next"

"What about you?" Susan asked and Barbara shot him a weak frown at his self-sacrificing.

"It affect the elderly and children more" was the answer "they are worse of"

Susan nodded in understanding as the door opened to let a Dalek enter, leave some water and disappear again. Susan hurried over to the levitating tray with a few strangely shaped water bottles, spent a few moments trying to figure out how to open them before just grabbing the edge of the tray and pulling it back to the others.

"Give me that" Trixy said reaching for the bottle and Susan handed it to her as she was on a total loss on how to open it.

Trixy put her index and middle fingers together as well as her ring finger and pinkie together leaving her thumb free before twisting the top of the bottle of as if she had always done it. She looked up at Susan who was fast to give the younger girl her share of the drugs. Gulping down the water Trixy sighed in relief.

"Your immune system should also be the fastest to recover" Ian said to the group's youngest member. "Hurry to your grandfather Susan"

"Here" the supposed teenager said handing Ian the drugs with some quick instructions on how to use them for himself and Barbara.

Trixy sat up and watched as Ian figured out how to open another water bottle and poured it into bowls which he and Barbara then used as cups while taking the drugs. On the floor was a strange cloak that Susan must have dropped when she entered. It was obvious that Ian and Barbara was already feeling better as well. Barbara had moved to the floor while Susan desperately tried to get the Doctor better. While working Susan told them of how she had gotten a second stash of drugs from a Thal called Alydon.

"The Thal said the drug would act quickly" Susan said trying to give the old alien more water.

"Don't give him any more water, Susan" Ian said having taken the Doctor's pulse. "His pulse is steady now anyway, if a bit fast"

"No, binary vascular system, it should be faster than yours" Susan said and Ian blinked.

"Binary – you have two hearts?" he asked and Susan nodded. "Oh, why not" the man shrugged taking a seat at the bench.

"My arms are tingling" Barbara said after a moment rubbing down said limbs.

"Yes, Alydon said you'd feel that. It just means the drug's working, that's all" Susan said.

"This Alydon of yours seems to have kept his wits about him. Giving you that extra supply of drugs" Ian said.

"Yes. It was strange when the Daleks found it. I thought first of all they were going to keep both lots. Then they suddenly seemed to change their mind and gave the second lot back to me" Susan said frowning lightly.

"The Thals still seem friendlier" Trixy said and the adults nodded in agreement.

"Oh, yes. Alydon gave me this cloak to keep me warm" Susan said lifting the strange garment from the floor.

"Looks sort of more like scales than skin" Trixy commented. "But nice"

"Why do the Daleks think they're mutations?" Barbara asked confused as Susan had described Alydon as humanoid.

"I don't know. Judging by Alydon, they're magnificent people" Susan said hugging the cloak to her and Barbara let out a small giggle while Ian rolled his eyes.

Trixy blinked, she didn't really understand what was funny. She silently figured that it probably was an adult and teenaged thing, like romantic love. She knew her parents had had it and had seen it in books and sort of in real life but the real concept of it? Still escaped her.

"Susan" came the Doctor's voice weakly and the girl in question hurried over to him.

"Grandfather? You'll feel better soon. I brought the drugs back" she said putting her arm under his head while Barbara took his hand.

"Give me a little while and then we must go back to the ship" the old alien said still quite out of it not realising what was going on.

"No, we're still prisoners" Susan corrected.

"Oh, are we? Oh, yes. Well, we must leave here soon. We must, must leave. Yes" the Doctor said and Trixy frowned, did he just mean in general or did he know something they didn't?

"As soon as grandfather's properly awake we must try and find a way of helping the Thals" Susan said standing up.

"We can't even help ourselves, locked up in here like this" Barbara said rubbing her arms.

Susan then started to tell the story of what had happened to the Thals, how the lack of rain threatened to starve them if they didn't get a deal with the Daleks. What was it with Daleks? They reminded Trixy of something but she couldn't remember what. It had something to do with her uncle…


It was a several hours later, a few of them even spent asleep, that a Dalek entered the room startling them awake as it neared the door. It was just as well, none of them had felt all that safe to sleep anyhow and Trixy had been more or less awake for the last hour after another nightmare.

"We have brought you food and more water" the Dalek said and Barbara accepted the tray of it. "The girl is to come with me" it said turning it's eyestalk at Susan.

"Why?" Ian frowned.

"It's all right" Susan assured him.

"Well, what are they going to do to her?" Barbara asked, also frowning.

"She will be returned. We are going to help the Thals, which is what you want us to do. Come now" the Dalek said and Susan left with the creature.

"I can't understand" the Doctor said after the door closed. "Why have they taken Susan?"

"How do they know we want to help the Thals?" Ian asked looking around the room with narrowed eyes.

"You combine sound with film in your time, right?" Trixy asked looking at Ian and Barbara who nodded.

The Doctor's eyes widened. He pointed at Trixy and mimed something that to the girl looked mostly like he was waving his fingers. As her eyebrows raced up her forehead the alien frowned.

"Pen and paper" he said quietly glancing around the room.

Trixy's eyes widened and produced said items from a pocket.

"Can we eat?" she asked wanting a reason to be closer to the Doctor. "I'm hungry"

"Of course" Barbara said. "As long as we save some for Susan"

"What is that?" Trixy asked as they sat down. She slipped the notepad and pencil she had found in her pocket to the Doctor as Barbara started to divide the food. The old alien scribbled something on the paper and passed it to Barbara as he accepted his food of her.

"We don't know more than you, think it's safe Doctor?" Ian asked looking at him.

"Hm? Oh, yes, it should be safe enough" the Doctor said his eyes unclouded by age as they followed the notepad into Ian's hands.

"I get the feeling that Daleks prefer other ways to kill if they need to" Trixy muttered causing the adults to look at her in concern.

"Let's enjoy the food in any case if there's no danger" Ian concluded slipping the notepad back to Trixy who read it with a glance.

Camera and microphone, possibly more than one, was written in the Doctor's strangely rounded and wrongly tilted handwriting. Having seen the way he wrote his own language she paid it no mind that his handwriting was a bit off. She glanced around the room as they ate and waited for Susan to return. As the minutes ticked on however most of them got more and more worried.

"But how long are they going to keep Susan, Doctor?" Ian asked after a while.

"What do they want with her?" Barbara agreed.

"Perhaps they're going to let us go. I don't know" the Doctor said with a sigh. "We can just hope she returns soon"

She did. Susan returned soon after with news that they had been right about the camera and she even managed to point it out. A quick, simple but bold plan was hatched and Ian moved into position out of the camera's sight. Trixy pulled herself up on the edge to be out of the way. Due to her age, but mainly her size, she had gotten the role of just looking horrified on the side-lines as the Doctor and Ian staged a fight. It began as an argument, the Doctor taking the Daleks' side and Ian took the Thals. Barbara stood by Ian's side and it was getting clear to Trixy that those two would always have each other's backs. Ian walked up to the Doctor and grabbed him after accusing him to accept bribe from the Daleks. Barbara and Susan stepped in about then with Barbara appearing to pull the two males apart while Susan pushed at Ian from the edge around the room to get him to leave her Grandfather alone. After a few moments of confusion Susan jumped onto Ian's back and he released the Doctor and stumbled across the room with Susan on his back towards the camera.

"Susan, what are you doing?" Barbara asked rushing over to pull the girl from Ian's back.

They were straight underneath the camera by then however and Susan grabbed it and pulled it out as she and Ian tumbled to the floor.

"Did I hurt you?" Ian asked as he picked up the camera.

"No, of course you didn't" Susan said laughing slightly.

"Don't waste time" the Doctor said and Ian gripped the camera with a grim look.

"Fix you for a while" he said.


They were safe from the spying, at least for now. Now they could at least discuss how they would get out without being overheard. That didn't take them long though.

"The point is, how do we get out of here? Wait until the Daleks open the door, and force the issue?" the Doctor asked.

"But we'd never get near them" Barbara protested.

"We must try and trick them. We must all pretend to be dead. Then when they come in to investigate, we must rush down the corridor –" Susan said but Trixy interrupted her.

"And then? There are possibly hundreds of Daleks here, we wouldn't be able to get out" she said earning nods in agreement from the two humans.

"She is right, we must find a way of putting these machines out of action" Ian said.

"Yes. Remember what they did to your legs" Barbara agreed.

Ian agreed and Trixy silently thought that these creatures probably could, and would, do much worse than paralyze their legs if they wanted to.

"The floors are metal" the Doctor realised, pointing down as he took a few steps forward. "All the floors are metal"

"Well, so are the streets of the city outside" Barbara said.

"Why?" the Doctor asked.

"Isn't this place some kind of bunker for post war radiation?" Trixy asked confused. "Maybe they used metal because of that?"

"Some things really makes one wonder at what rate your mind age" Barbara said shaking her head at the girl. "I don't know why, Doctor"

"No, I know you don't know. I mean, why do they use metal? Is it because it lasts longer? Or because –" the Doctor said trying to lead them on the right track but Trixy got the feeling that he didn't even realise that himself.

"Because it's essential to them. That's an idea" Ian interrupted the Doctor.

"Well how is that going to help us?" Barbara asked.

"Well, if metal is essential –" Ian started before the Doctor reversed the rolls from a moment before.

"No, no, no, now listen. Let's concentrate on the Daleks. Have you noticed, for example, that when they move about there's a sort of acrid smell?" the Doctor asked.

"Yes, yes, I've noticed that" Susan agreed.

"I know. A fairground" Barbara said.

"That's it. Dodgems" Ian realised where he also recognised the smell from.

"It's electricity. I think they're powered that way" the Doctor said.

"Yes. But just a minute. They have no pick-up or anything. And only the base of the machine touches the floor. How do they complete the circuit?" Ian asked thoughtfully.

"Batteries?" Susan suggested.

"No, no. I believe the Daleks have discovered a way to exploit static electricity. Very ingenious, if I'm right" the Doctor said crunching down to put a hand on the floor.

"What, drawing power from the floor?" Barbara asked, she and Susan had crunched down beside the old man.

"That means they are stuck in the city?" Trixy asked, she was watching the discussion in fascination trying to understand what they were saying.

"Precisely. If I'm right, of course. Now, what do we know apart from guessing how they are powered?" the Doctor continued the speculations.

"Well, they can see all round them" Susan said.

"Yes. Their eye is flexible, like a large camera lens" Barbara agreed.

"Yes, yes, yes, yes. Now, Chesterton, do you mind concentrating, young man?" the Doctor said turning to Ian who was still crunched on the floor thinking.

"Hmm?" the man said looking up. "Susan. The cloak the Thals gave you" he asked pointing at the young woman.

"Yes, it's just behind you" she answered slightly confused.

Ian reached behind him and pulled it forth to study.

"Barbara, come here. What do you think this is made of?" he asked as the woman came down beside him soon followed by Susan, Trixy and the Doctor.

"I don't know. It isn't plastic, I don't think it's nylon either" Barbara answered fingering the material.

"We sure it isn't organic?" Trixy asked and Ian nodded.

"Whatever it is, it'll do for what we want" he said.

"And what will it do, young man? Hmm?" the Doctor asked sounding sceptical.

"Insulate" Ian said at once and everyone stopped to stare at him. "If you are right, Doctor, about the Daleks taking up power from the floor, this is a perfect way of putting them out of action" he continued to smiles all around as he finished speaking.

"Can I ask something?" Trixy said and all the older beings in the room turned to her. "What are dodgems?"


They spent maybe half an hour explaining concepts of the plan, including dodgems as Ian and Barbara soon realised Trixy wasn't the only one who had never seen them. Someone always kept an ear to the door however and in the end it was Susan who heard the approach of their captors.

"Shh. It's coming" she said moving slightly away from the door.

"Ready?" the Doctor asked and they nodded.

"Now all of you watch very carefully. See that you notice every detail in that machine, right?" the Doctor said and everyone nodded again.

"Move back from the door" the Dalek that started to enter said still standing in the doorway. Susan and Ian did as asked, the man making sure to keep his hand with the camera in behind his back. "Take the food" the creature continued and Susan dis as asked.

As the younger alien handed the food to her grandfather the Dalek backed out of the doorway. Ian moved back towards the door as soon as it was too closed for the Dalek to see through. The Doctor held up a hand to stop him, probably from doing anything rash from what Trixy could see.

"I'll be able to jam the door with a piece of this" Ian said holding up the camera.

"It seemed to be able to cover all of us" Susan said in concern.

"It's impossible to hide from it" Barbara agreed.

"Yes. Perhaps we can throw a coat over the lens" Ian suggested.

"Surely it would see you" Barbara argued.

"Yes. Doctor, perhaps we can stage something. You know, a distraction. And when the lens looks the other way, throw something over it" Ian said.

"Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes" the Doctor agreed thoughtfully.

"Now, wait a minute. Susan, throw me your shoes" Barbara said and Susan did as asked.

Barbara started picking soil of the shoes and put it in a bowl with water. They all looked confused at the woman, the look on the Doctor's face told Trixy he was wondering if this was normal human behaviour.

"What are you up to?" Ian asked curiously.

"Making mud" Barbara answered and Trixy laughed.

Soon the girl was joined by Ian in her laughter and after another moment also Susan while a ghost of a smile played on the Doctor's lips. Trixy also pulled her shoes off to provide more soil and Barbara smiled at her.

"What do you think they are?" Trixy asked as Barbara started to mix the mud with the girl's pencil. "Robots or tanks?"

"I don't know" Ian said. "I'm slightly hoping for tanks because a tank of that size we should be able to move and maybe pretend one of us is a Dalek. Theory, Doctor?"

"Hmm? Tanks, there is something living in there but what it could possibly be I don't know" the Doctor answered. "Not anything good I imagine"

"Must be pretty small though" Trixy frowned. "Maybe the armour is the only way it can do anything" she grimaced.

Her uncle had always said that an armour should be more of a uniform than anything else. She did know that most armour included protection but one man, or probably one man, tanks? Somehow it seemed wrong. Had it been something her uncle said? She could vaguely remember both her uncles agreeing that an army of one person tanks was cheap tactic but really not something you ever wanted to meet. Was that what they were facing? An army of one man tanks filled with some mutated creatures almost too horrible to imagine.

"Trixy? Are you okay?" Susan asked placing a hand on the younger girls shoulder startling her out of her musings.

"Yeah" the half human said. "Just thinking"


They spent several hours waiting for the Dalek to return. They all knew the Dalek would come back eventually as they seemed willing to feed them. They had worked out a system for when the Daleks was coming and as such the Doctor constantly kept an eye at his pocket watch.

"If it's on time, we have three minutes" he said.

"I'm ready" Ian said standing up and moving towards the door and laying down beside it.

"How's the mud?" the Doctor asked Barbara who was baking the substance into a pad.

"It's very sticky and very nasty" the woman answered with a grimace.

"Very good. Very good idea" the Doctor said with a grin on his face.

"Shall I spread the cloak over?" Susan asked rising from said object.

"Yes, yes" the Doctor agreed and Trixy moved to help out. "Not too near the door. We don't want to make it suspicious"

"Just down there?" Susan asked pointing to the floor.

"Yes, yes. Quickly. Good, children" the doctor said as the two girls spread the cloak.

"It's coming" Ian said listening by the door.

"Mind your head" the Doctor warned soon before the door opened.

They all, except Ian gathered together in the middle of the room. The Doctor on the ledge, Barbara standing with her back to the door and the two girls on the cloak. As the door opened Ian slid the piece of camera in place at the base of the door before rolling back to the middle of the room to sit beside the cloak.

"Take this" the Dalek said holding out a tray with food and Susan did as asked.

As the Dalek started to back out Barbara moved closer to the door, the mudball carefully hidden in her hands. The door started to close but got stuck on the piece of camera in the way. The door opened again, tried to close once more and when it opened the second time an alarm started to sound. The Dalek came back into the doorway and turned its eye downwards to the broken equipment effectively turning its back to Barbara.

"Now!" the Doctor said and Barbara moved swiftly slamming the mud in place on the Dalek's eyestalk.

Ian and the Doctor grabbed onto the tank as Barbara got pushed back and fell to the floor, Ian grabbing the whisk-like gun while the Doctor grabbed the sucker arm. The females meanwhile pulled away from the cloak as the Dalek started to spin.

"Keep away. Keep away from me" it said actually managing to shake the Doctor off but he was soon on his feet again. "Keep away from me! Keep away! Keep away!" it kept saying pushing Ian to the floor as well.

"The gun! The gun!" Ian called to the Doctor from where he had fallen before getting up once more.

The Dalek kept repeating the same thing as it pressed Ian against the wall with its sucker while the Doctor held onto its gun. The females meanwhile dragged the cloak behind the Dalek and Ian finally, with sucker at his throat, managed to kick the thing onto the cloak.

"Yes, I got it!" Susan said and the Doctor, who had fallen again, pulled himself to his feet with hands on the Dalek.

"Well done, Susan" he said, one hand holding the gun tightly.

"Ian, come on out of the way" Barbara said hurrying up to the man who had collapsed against the wall panting.

"Are you all right, Susan, Trixy?" the Doctor asked looking to the girls.

"Yes, Grandfather" Susan answered and Trixy nodded, looking wide-eyed in fascination at what was happening.

"Splendid, splendid" the Doctor said as Ian and Barbara moved out of the way of the gun.

"I think I'm all right. Swing it round. Keep out of the way, Susan" Ian said coming up beside the Doctor and everyone but Trixy, who was too short to be off much help, turned the Dalek around. "Now, I think it's worked. Take your hand off the gun" he said and Barbara carefully did as asked. "It has! It's worked!" there was laughter in Ian's voice as he spoke and they all smiled. "Now, there must be a catch here somewhere. I've found one" he said after a quick look around the things supposed neck. Ian and the Doctor lifted the lid just to quickly put it back in place again. "Susan, Barbara, Trixy, go in the corridor and keep a lookout"

"Yes" Barbara said and Susan was quick to follow her but Trixy stubbornly stayed.

"Trixy" Ian said nodding to the door but the girl just shook her head.

"Is it organic?" she asked and the Doctor partly lifted the lid again to check.

"I would assume so, you are not licking it" he added as he realised what she was thinking.

"What?" Ian asked. "Why would she?"

"Let her stay, she won't leave anyhow" the Doctor said waving away the question.

"You'll have to help me" Ian said to the Doctor and the two removed the lid, making sure Trixy couldn't see what was in the Dalek. Ian reached into it and released the creature inside from the machinery before they pushed it off the cloak again.

They wrapped the thing into the cloak and the Doctor disposed of it in a corner. Trixy hurried up to the open Dalek and managed to climb the side of it.

"Will you fit? It seems a bit tight" she said looking up at Ian

"We'll see. All clear in the corridor?" he asked turning towards the door briefly.

"Yes" coursed Susan and Barbara.

"I think there's a sentry down the other end of the corridor" Susan said lowly to Barbara.

"Well, they made such a terrible noise" the adult female said. "Ian, hurry"
"Not much room for my legs, but try the top" Ian said having gotten into the Dalek and was now sitting there, not comfortably but workingly.
"Barbara, Susan, give me a hand. Trixy, keep an eye out in the corridor" the Doctor said and the older females came back in to help. "Move it down gently" the Doctor said and they managed to secure the lid atop of Ian. "How is it?"

"It's very cramped indeed" Ian said sounding quite a bit like a Dalek.

"Well, can't you sound more like a Dalek?" the Doctor asked, somehow it was clear that he didn't like relying on other's acting skills for this.

"Yes, in a monotone" Barbara agreed, though she sounded much more comfortable with trusting Ian's acting skills. "You've heard them"

"Do you mean like this?" Ian said sounding so much like a Dalek that it sent chills up Trixy's spine but she grinned anyway.

"That's it" the Doctor said.

"Can you see all right?" Susan asked.

"No. There's some sort of screen" Ian said. "No, it's the mud. Wipe the mud off the lens"

"Oh, yes, all right" Susan said pulling out a napkin. "It's all clogged up. Is that better?"

"Yes, I can see now" Ian sad still sounding off even though he wasn't speaking in the Dalek voice.

"Good" Susan said.

"I can't make this thing move. It's full of controls" Ian said not really daring to touch anything with risk of finding the gun.
"Don't worry, we'll push you" the Doctor said and they did as such turning him around towards the door.

"It moves well enough" the man said sounding like he shrugged.

"Surely they'll know that we're pushing you" Barbara said in concern.
"No, no, no, it won't be suspicious at all" the Doctor disagreed but Trixy had to agree with Barbara, no one was going to fall for it if they had to push Ian like that to get the thing to move, three grown people pushing a Dalek around would not be suspicious at all.

"All right now, Susan, Barbara, Trixy. You get in front and pretend I'm taking you for questioning" Ian said and all three females agreed. "And Susan"

"Yes?" the supposed teenager asked.

"You lead us. You know the way" the man in the Dalek said.

"All right. This way, then" she said and both more or less fully grown females grabbed the plunger and started to pull Ian through the corridor.

"Have you ever been in a tank before?" Trixy asked in a low voice, snapping a quick picture on the Dalek as she suddenly remembered the camera.

"I drove one when I was doing my military service a few years ago, nothing like this though" Ian answered surprising them all.

"You know something a Dalek can never do?" Trixy asked a small grin forming on her face.

"Get up a staircase?" Susan suggested.

"That too, but I meant picking something off the floor" the child said and they all laughed slightly.


Yay! Seventh chapter done! This sure is going to be long. Next chapter is hopefully soon underway. Until then!