The metal box does a sickening flip, then thunders to the floor with a bone crunching clang. The vials shatter, spraying the remaining oatmeal glop all over the place.
Fortunately for us, the place where the vent had crashed allowed us enough space to crawl out, and we found ourselves inside the foggy room with the squid incubators.
The place was indeed as humid as it had looked on the outside, the temperature a womb-like ninety seven or ninety eight degrees that made you feel drowsy.
The incubators sat bolted to these modular aluminum shelving units you see in electronics labs, and tentacled jellyfish-like creatures pulsated inside their devices, swelling and shrinking as if breathing.
Although some of them appeared to be in calm slumber, our entrance had not gone unnoticed. I saw hundreds of cyclops eyes opening, glaring at us with a wild fury, their tiny tentacles flapping against the sides of their incubators with the sound of meat slapping together, and one by one I heard them wailing in alarm.
Eve set down the gun, tossing me my shirt, then, with no hesitation whatsoever, my woman says "shh" and puts her hand on one of the wailers like it's a little girl with a fever.
To my astonishment, it works, and she silences the others in a similar fashion. I could only stare open mouthed at her actions, quickly coming to the realization that she wasn't my wife anymore.
As she calms down one of the creatures at the end of the row, I notice a tall white object rolling in front of the aisle. A Dalek. I shout, but to no avail.
Eve pays it no mind, crooning and smiling as she caresses one of the wiggling things in an incubator.
The white robot held one of the creatures in a pair of mechanical hands, seemingly prepared to drop it onto one of the nearby racks. It pointed its eyestalk at her, not moving or saying a word.
Eve ignored it, stroking another one of the creatures.
The robot was unarmed, but it could have sounded an alert across the whole complex and gotten us killed if it wanted to.
For some reason, though, it didn't. Instead, I saw it turn its dome, gently depositing its payload into an incubator. A moment later, it rolled away with seeming confidence, like it were pleased with the new candy striper.
"They're so beautiful," Eve purred as she calmed another. The room had fallen quiet, the voices of the screamers fading, the cyclops eyes falling into heavy lidded slumber.
"Can we please get out of here?" I hissed.
She sighed like she were sorry to go, then pointed to a gray door a couple rows down from the one I'd seen the white Dalek go through.
After Eve cuddled a few more "babies", we reached it, and we were squeezing down an impossibly narrow corridor choked with a myriad of tangled wires. How these robots could go in to repair such things was unclear, except if it were Eve's ultimate purpose.
As if in answer to my presupposition, I saw Eve reaching into the mess, yanking this and that cord out like she knew what each one did. The lights grew dim, and I heard robotic screaming.
We turned a corner, and I found myself in Dalek Central.
The place looked like the war room in some movie. Big computerized displays showed a minute to minute readout of...something on topographic maps, and scores of computer interfaces occupied every inch of wall space in this rounded drum-like room. A lot of the equipment had been rendered inoperative thanks to Eve's meddling, but a few remained flickering brightly in the semi darkness.
The room was not empty. Two gold Daleks stood poised over the machinery, and a third had left its console to scream at us.
I thought my wife was going to run, or open fire, but she didn't. Instead she only stood tall before the robot with her hands on her hips, shouting, "Dalek 9161236! Stand down!"
It screamed at us some more, but she acted unafraid, repeating herself three times in a calm, even tone.
It should have blasted her, but instead the robot shut up, bowing its eyestalk in submission.
As I stood silently gawking at her, my wife boldly strode into the room, seating herself in a command chair like she belonged there, and a metal antenna popped out of her neck.
"This is the Dalek Queen!" she barked. "All units return to your post!" She shot me an apologetic smile.
"You?" I stammered. "Queen?"
She shrugged. "Does this please you?"
I swallowed. "For the time being, yes."
Eve grinned at me. "Good. Because I am very pleased to have you as my king."
I approached the throne, leaning close to her ear. "Eve! How long can we safely keep up this charade with no one noticing?"
"Always and forever!" she said with frightening calm. "It was for this purpose I was made. The Daleks have become destabilized after the loss of Unit 464656 and need new leadership."
I stepped back a bit, staring at her like she were possessed by the devil. "Why you?"
"I was the only one who completed treatment with my personality still intact. I had the strength of will, the determination, and the physical strength of an Amazon. I was the ideal specimen of what a Dalek human hybrid should be."
I shuddered, slumping against a wall.
"This displeases you."
"Eve," I whispered. "I don't like it here. I don't want to live here. I want to go home."
I felt Riversong clamp her hand around my arm, silently agreeing with me by huddling close.
"I have no home," Eve said quietly. "But I feel a sense of belonging here." She straightened in her chair. "And you can too if you try. We can live here together. Start our family. We even have a daughter." And she smiled lovingly at Riversong.
"I don't want to live here!" the girl nearly screamed.
The Daleks looked like they were about to train their laser cannons on her for a quick barbecue.
"What upsets you, dear? Name your problem and I swear I will do my best to fix it."
"You can't." The girl's breathing was shallow. She paced the room like a caged animal. The eyestalks of the robots followed her as she circled the throne.
"Mom and dad hated the Daleks! They did so much evil in the world and here you are snuggling up to them like it's no big deal! Well it is a big deal!"
Eve sighed. 'Dear, do you remember the Doctor? How he nearly wiped all the Daleks out of existence with explosives, but didn't? Do you remember any of the stories at all? Riversong, honey, he loved the Daleks. He just acted like he didn't."
The girl started crying. "I'm so confused!"
Eve held out her arms, and Riversong ran to her, accepting her embrace as she wept on her shoulder.
"The last thing the Doctor wanted to do was eliminate our species. He just didn't know we were capable of love."
"Then what about the Time War?" she said quietly.
"Did you ever notice the look of anguish on the man's face? So much sadness, on account of the hurt he did to us. He didn't want to. He really didn't. Just like I really didn't want to kill Dalek 875456 or 4654564 or even 4545469."
Riversong cried again. "It's like you know him. But you can't know him. You were just born yesterday."
Eve patted her back. "I've studied the recordings. The Time War hurt him a lot."
Eventually the girl calmed down, staring at the robots. "They're not going to kill us, are they?"
"No dear," Eve cooed. "After all, they're family. 777845 and 678979 really aren't so bad once you get to know them."
I saw all three eyestalks pointing down at the floor. Could the mere mention of their names in a positive light stir up buried emotions in these mechanical mutants? Were they crying inside? Praying? I couldn't tell. Their eyestalks raised again, fixing on their alleged queen.
"Can you contact the TARDIS?" I asked.
She shrugged. "I could, but what then?"
"Well," I said. "You could tell it to come back so I can go home!"
I heard an edge creep into her voice. "We are home, honey."
"No we're not."
"Honey, let's not fight."
"Please. Call the TARDIS."
She pushed a button on her chair. "Unit 7016123. Come in."
I heard static.
"Unit 7016123. Respond." She shrugged. "I don't know what 7016123 is doing."
She tried again. "7016123. This is the queen. Respond."
Long pause.
"I ACKNOWLEDGE NO QUEEN!" it barked.
The eyestalks of the Daleks at the consoles turned to us expectantly.
"Unit 7016123. You will be disciplined," she said with a commanding voice.
The static returned.
We were left unharmed. Apparently 7016123 wasn't that high in their hierarchy.
"I'm hungry," said Riversong. "All I've had are those test tubes of stuff."
"I'm sorry, that is our main source of nourishment at this compound. Other food supplies at this location have largely spoiled due to age. However, I will see if 4531855 can locate something suitable."
Oddly enough, our new home, this Dalek place, had showers, an eating area, and a bed. Eve said they were leftovers from the Khaled and Dal scientists who used to live there a long time ago, and they looked the part. Everything had a thick layer of dust, which we had to clear off with vacuums before anything became livable. The water came from filtered reservoirs, and our meals were basically the same oatmeal glop that we had before. "Something suitable" turned out to be some old cans of unidentifiable freeze dried meat substance, and something that looked and tasted like Clif bars. The glop was better.
In a few hours, we all recovered our strength, and I resigned myself to my new life as sort of a servant/housewife to my queen, busying myself with tidying the place up to avoid going mad while my wife commanded the robots to repair our damages, dismantle weapons, and, oddly enough, garden.
I had once thought of the Daleks as mindless killing machines, but they didn't fight us removing their laser cannons. She spoke to them like people, and these robots seemed to love it.
I followed her around as she supervised the operations, overseeing repairs, settling disputes with the parties that fought us, then, of all things, she taught them how to arts and crafts, like using their lasers to carve murals on the wall, or etching patterns on their shells. There were even plans to make miniature beds so the blob things inside the shell could crawl out and sleep in comfort. She taught them to be independent, how to be free. I don't know how much of it sunk in, but she tried.
Becoming weary, we retired to the bedrooms, I and Eve in one room, Riversong in a room by herself.
While Eve tucked her in and read her a story, I took a shower. The place seemed to have serviced a wide range of people, so after bathing I quickly found fresh clothing, some silky chrome colored briefs that really weren't my style, a cream colored jumpsuit like Eve wore, and a pair of boots that actually fit.
As I'm laying clothed in my old military style bed under a fine layer of silky silver sheets, my wife peels off her jumpsuit, proudly displaying her shiny chrome underwear.
She smiled at me, but I didn't smile back. While her clean, muscular body looked stunning in those gleaming undergarments, my eyes kept returning to the Dalek's butcher job. I sighed.
She frowned. "What's the matter?"
"I could have saved you. I wish I had that TARDIS thing so I could go back and make things right."
She laid down on top of my cover. "It's okay. I knew you were weak when I first found you."
"But I'm a man!" I stammered. "I should have done something."
She chuckled. "You sound just like Heglock the Strong." She flexed her muscles mockingly. "Strong man! Woman weak! Man save woman!" Woman stay in cave and cook!" She giggled. "Come to think about it, he had a lot of similarities to Cookie Monster!"
"So, what, you like sensitive guys?" I said.
She nodded. 'You reminded me of Lugunk the Weaver, who was bitten by a poisonous snake, and Keglump, the man of flowers, who fell off the edge of Bone Chasm while running from Demon Tooth. I knew you were weak. I knew I had to grab you immediately, to protect you, so you could be mine."
As she spoke, I saw tentacles wiggling out the sides of her panties. I cringed.
"You were about to die. I saved you."
She made it sound like she bought me. I was okay with that, under other circumstances, but she had been weirding me out all day. Just looking at that cyclops eye and hair tentacles put me in a deep depressed funk.
"So you just dragged me by the hair and had your way with me."
She seated herself on my legs, sliding her hand up the sheets. "You didn't seem to mind."
I gawked at her. "You've...saved other men?"
She shrugged. "Let's just say I never let a man drag me by the hair." She tugged on the zipper of my jumpsuit. "Better?"
I swallowed, unable to put together the right words.
"C'mon," she said. "I want to see that sexy ivory white skin again."
"Was that really why you married me?"
She shrugged. "Maybe part of the reason! And your face! Oh, I had never seen a man of your age with such a clean shaven face before. Like a baby! As you can probably tell, the people of the Zedwa don't have anything remotely close to razors."
Yes, an astounding pronouncement from Lady Bigfoot. "No!" I said in mock surprise.
I glanced down at her legs. "If you like it so much, why don't you shave?"
She looked genuinely shocked. "Me? Why would I do that?" It only looks good on you. Some have tried, but it's not pretty."
I rolled my eyes and let the topic drop. She pulled my zipper down further, squeezing me between her knees.
The atmosphere really didn't put me in the mood. I shook my head, patting the spot next to me. With a sigh, she settled into my arms. "What else is wrong?"
"I dunno," I said. "It's this whole place. How can I relax when I'm surrounded by robots with death ray arms?"
"We removed those, remember?"
"Most of them. Some of them still have laser cannons."
"I can take care of them for you," she smiled.
"It's still damn creepy. It reminds me of Maximillion and those corpse cyborgs in the Black Hole movie."
"I'm sorry. I missed that one. What's the point?"
I gave her a general synopsis of the film.
She sighed and shook her head. "We can make this place our home, Robert," she said. "You'll get used to it. You'll see."
But I wasn't so sure about that.
Ever determined to ease my tension, she straddled the covers, wiggling seductively above my stomach. "Oh Robert..." she called in a sing-song voice. "Look what I can do!"
And then I see tentacles tugging down the waistband of her panties.
"Look! No hands!"
They were down around her thighs when I heard a little girl's voice saying, "Excuse me."
I saw all three of my wife's eyes widen in shock. Her drawers came back up in a split second, without the use of a single finger.
Needless to say, I was relieved at the interruption. Well, mostly relieved.
"I'm scared, Eve," Riversong was saying. "Can I sleep with you?"
Kids don't know how bad that sounds, but I admired the innocence.
For once in the entire history of this type of thing happening, it was the female who was annoyed at the intrusion.
The moment I saw her in the cell, I had decided that this girl had nobody, so whenever I got her free, someone would have to be her guardian. Since no one else was present to do the job, I felt obligated. For awhile I kept thinking that she was actually the product of my loins, but then I asked at dinner and she said it was some people named Roary and Amy. When I inquired further, she said it was a long story, and I assumed the Daleks had gotten them. The adoption papers were going to be fun.
At any rate, I declared her my daughter for all intents and purposes, so when she said she was scared, I told her, "Me too, honey. Come here." And the three of us cuddled together under the sheets and went to sleep.
Near the early hours of dawn, or the time in which my unconscious brain had reached its deepest phase of REM sleep, I feel Riversong wiggling out of the covers, muttering something about a drink of water. Thinking it an ordinary and safe enough activity, I rolled over and tried to sleep.
I had only closed my eyes a minute when I heard the little girl screaming.
I sat bolt upright, and my woman tried to pull me back down.
"Go back to sleep honey," she purred. "They're just taking her to processing."
It was then that I knew that things had gone horribly wrong.
My little girl Riversong was screaming. I knew it was a bad idea to sleep in a giant warehouse full of killer robots, but my wife the Dalek Queen had deceived me into being complacent with her gardening and shiny silver underwear.
In the unstable world that had become my memory, I suddenly remembered speaking to an adult version of my adopted daughter, one with a giant eye in her forehead, tentacles poking out of her curly locks. The line about ER still didn't make any sense.
"DQ" tried to keep me in bed with her, but I squirmed out of her iron grip, running out the door in search of the girl.
I found her several feet down the hallway outside, weeping with fright as a gant of robots with laser guns, miniature circular saws and pointy drills forced her on a death march.
"Hey!" I yelled. "Stop!"
Their eyestalks turned to me for a moment, paused, then turned indifferently back to their victim.
I had to do something.
Riversong couldn't help herself.
Eve wasn't going to help me.
If anyone was going to rescue her, it would have to be me.
The corridor didn't present me with any useful weapons. Some wires I could possibly get electrocuted with if I yank them, some little chunks of debris that would only bounce off, a couple soft pieces of scrap aluminum that would get me killed before I could make use of them...
And so I get the bright idea of pulling one of their guns off.
It's harder than it looks.
After failing at that, I twist and I pull and I fiddle with one of the black spheroids built into a robot's shell, but nothing works. Yeah, I know. Brilliant. At least I tried.
A second later, I see a flash, my heart stops, and I collapse on the floor.