The insectoid machines continued to star at us, perplexed, perhaps disturbed, or maybe even a little jealous.

"They are clear-ly in-sane," said one of them. "Why else would they leave the safe-ty of their ve-hic-les?"

"Yes," said 42362.22. "We are. For each other." And then she kissed me.

Such a long forgotten activity was still new to me, but I welcomed it, despite the contamination risk, responding with a kiss of my own.

"What should we do with them, 235M?" said another of the insect creatures to its companions.

"Separate them, number 380M" said the first one that had spoken. "They must be de-stroyed, to re-duce the risk of con-tam-in-ation."

"No!" I cried. "No no no!"

The creatures carried us through a small hatch on a concrete wall, and down a narrow hexagonal corridor.

"Let us not de-stroy them right away," said 380M. "The Mite Queen could have other use-es for them."

The Dalek brained machines dragged us further down the tunnel, past rows of small hatches the size of their bodies.

"Please," I begged. "Do what you wish with me, but do not harm 42362.22. Take me instead."

The ant machines did not respond. They just kept pulling me along.

"You should not eat us," I said. "We were put in this asylum because we're in love."

"I have ea-ten more de-fect-ive Da-leks than you," said 380M. "We would prefer to re-move your brain from its flesh ca-sing and place it in a strong me-tal body like ours."

"You would make a good Dalek Mite," another Mite agreed.

"I'm scared," 42362.22 whimpered.

"We will take you to Su-preme Da-lek Mite to determine your place in our clan," said 235M.

"Can't we...join your clan without becoming a Dalek Mite?" I asked.

The machines paused, staring at each other as if they had never thought of this before.

"But you are ex-posed and weak. You face con-tam-in-ation."

"We are willing to risk this for love," said 42362.22.

They murmured to one another, shook their glistening heads. "We will place you in new bod-ies. We make them our-selves. They are su-per-i-or in every way. You will see."

They dragged us through a small hatchway that barely allowed for our bodies. Beyond was a large hive-like chamber filled with hundreds of Dalek Mites.

Like a hornet's nest or a beehive, the place was riddled with tunnels all around, and in the center there stood a raised dais where a machine that looked like a queen ant sat, parts of its body plugged into various transmitters and machines, I suppose, necessary for the hive's survival.

The Mites dragged us through a crowd of their comrades and up a staircase leading us to this `Queen'.

"Su-preme Mite!" the leader of our captors barked. "We have two more for the hive!"

The queen stared at us. "More de-fective Da-leks? We can-not win a war ag-ainst the pro-to Da-leks with noth-ing but mal-funct-ioning mis-fits!"

"There is a hu-man ex-pres-sion `When life gives you lem-ons, make lem-o-nade!"

"Lem-o-nade int-er-feres with my cir-cuit-ry."

"The point is, we should use ev-ery-thing we can to de-feat the en-emy!"

"370M, I do not und-er-stand what a fruit bev-er-age has to do with this!"

"An ex-pan-sion of our def-in-it-ion of suc-cess will al-lowus to op-tim-ize use of mas-sive res-ources we ord-in-ar-ily would have over-looked!"

The Supreme Mite stared at us for a whole minute, then said, "Pre-pare them for sur-ger-y."

The Mites led us through one of the widest tunnels in the hive, to a domed room filled with machines, medical machines, robotic surgical arms, automatic injection devices, monitors, and a conveyor system that, even at present, busied itself inserting the pulsating brain of a Dalek into a shiny ant body.

42362.22. and I stared at the scene in mute horror.

The Mites grabbed me, strapping my body and tentacles to a low surgical table.

"41629! No!" 42362.22 cried.

"Don't wor-ry," said 370M. "You're next."