Evolution of the Daleks
Dalek Laboratory, Manhattan
1st November 1930
The creature took a deep breath and in a very slow pace, and in a rasping voice, it started to speak. "I…am…a Human…Dalek." It blinked for a moment, then it declared for all to hear, "I…am your future!" It, no, he, pointed a wrinkled finger towards the group, but he did not see the Doctor, who had moved to hide behind a stone pillar. "These...Humans...will become like me. Prepare them...for hybridization."
"The female must be questioned!" Dalek Caan interrupted. "She knows about our species, our names, our behaviour!"
Dalek Sec blinked and looked at Clara. "Then...she will be questioned first."
"I'm right here." Clara snapped, earning the attention of the Daleks once again. "It's a bit rude, talking about someone in third person."
"But how do you know?" Dalek Sec blurted out, and Clara cocked her eyebrows at him. "Is she...a Time Lady?" Dalek Sec asked.
"No. She is..." Dalek Caan turned it's eyestalk to Clara, and a small moment of silence passed before it proclaimed, "She is a modified Human!"
Dalek Sec blinked. "Are you...a hybrid?" He asked, but Clara shook her head.
"I'm a contradiction." Clara answered. "I'm not really supposed to be alive."
"In...what way?" Dalek Sec asked, and Clara just smirked.
"Wouldn't you like to know?" She quipped, and Dalek Sec just stared at her for a small moment.
"Prepare her...for information extraction." Dalek Sec ordered, and the pig slaves immediately moved towards Clara, who was rolling her eyes at them, but the pig slaves stopped their movements as music suddenly began to blare into the room. The Daleks were spinning around in utter confusion, whilst Dalek Sec was obviously scrunching his face in frightened bewilderment. "What is that sound?!" Dalek Sec demanded.
"Ah, well, now, that would be me." The Doctor said, poking his head out from behind a stone pillar. The Daleks and the hybrid looked straight at him as he placed a radio on a table, and he turned the music off. "Hello. Surprise. Boo! Et cetera." He said with a beaming grin.
"Doctor." Dalek Sec muttered in surprise, and the Doctor just waved at him.
"The enemy of the Daleks!" Dalek Caan blurted out.
"Exterminate!" Dalek Jast exclaimed.
"Wait!" Dalek Sec ordered, holding up his hands to stop the Daleks, and the Doctor just shot Clara a mocking look of surprise before turning back to the hybrid.
"Well then, a new form of Dalek." The Doctor said, looking over Dalek Sec with an inquisitive eye. "Fascinating, and very clever." He commented.
"The Cult of Skaro escaped your slaughter." Dalek Sec bit back, and the Doctor just gave him a dull glare.
"How did you end up in 1930?" The Doctor asked.
"Emergency temporal shift." Clara answered in unison with Dalek Sec, who gave her a shocked glance. "What?" She asked with a shrug.
The Doctor gave Dalek Sec a mischievous smirk. "Oh, she's good, isn't she?" He asked rhetorically, giving a wink to Clara. "But that would have just roasted up your power cells, huh?" He turned with a chuckle to glance around at the other three Daleks in the room. "There was a time when four Daleks could have conquered the world. But instead you're sulking away, hidden in the dark, experimenting, and all of which results in you." He said, looking straight at Dalek Sec.
"I am Dalek in Human form." Dalek Sec proclaimed proudly.
"And whose body did you use?" Clara asked, and Dalek Sec glanced over to her. "Did you give them a choice?" She asked with gritted teeth, but Dalek Sec did not answer. Instead, he gained an unreadable gaze in his eye, and it made them squint their own in puzzlement.
"You are feeling something strange, aren't you?" The Doctor asked, stepping forward only just a bit to stand right in front of Dalek Sec. "What is it? How does it feel?"
Dalek Sec's gaze shifted from side to side, and Clara stepped up to stand beside the Doctor. "You can talk to us, Dalek Sec." She said before blinking. "It is "Dalek Sec", right?" She asked, and Dalek Sec nodded. "You've got a name and a mind that is all yours. But what is it you are thinking right now?"
"I..." Dalek Sec paused, his gaze shifting between the inquisitive couple. "I feel...Humanity." He answered.
"But what kind of Humanity?" The Doctor asked. "What is it?"
"I...feel...everything we wanted from mankind." Dalek Sec continued. "Which is...ambition." He answered, and the couple's gazes turned into a dull glare. "Hatred, aggression, and war. Such...a genius for war." He said with a wide, agitated eye.
'That is not what Humanity means." Clara retorted with a growl.
"I think it does!" Dalek Sec refuted. "At heart, this species...is so very...Dalek." Dalek Sec declared.
The Doctor just glared at him, and Clara gave out a sarcastic, dry laugh. "Well, that's a load of crap, isn't it?" She snarled to the other three Daleks, who were watching wordlessly and unmoving. "As a Human being, modified as I may be, I call that complete and utter crap!" Clara snarled.
"Give him a break, Clara." The Doctor sarcastically said, earning a smirk from Clara. "He's just a novice at the hybrid game." He said with a dull glare to Dalek Sec. "So, let me ask you, hybrid Dalek thingamabob, what have you actually achieved here with this "Final Experiment"?" He asked rhetorically. "I'll tell you. Nothing! You have achieved nothing! You want to become more Human, but you don't simply understand a single thing about Humanity, don't you?!" He spat with a fierce glare in his eyes. "Because you are missing the vital parts about Human beings. Starting with this." He said, moving over to the table, grasping the radio and tossing it up into the air before catching it in one hand.
"What is the purpose of that device?!" Dalek Thay demanded as the Doctor placed it back down upon the table and thrust his hands into his pockets.
"Well, exactly." The Doctor spat in a dry tone. "It plays music. What's the point of that?" He asked rhetorically before shaking his head. "No, music is something more. With music, you can dance to it, sing with it..." He paused, turning to look at Dalek Jast beside him, "fall in love to it." He said with a shrug, before he gave a snort towards Clara. "Unless you're a Dalek, of course." He said dryly before looking to the radio. "Then it's all just noise!" He pulled out his sonic and flared the radio onto a high, screeching volume that made both the Daleks and the pig slaves' spasm and jerk about in an erratic fashion.
"Protect the hybrid!" Dalek Caan ordered as Dalek Sec clutched his hands to his head to block out the noise. "Protect! Protect!"
"Run!" The couple screamed to the prisoners behind them, and they all raced from the room, straight back into the tunnels again.
"Stop the prisoners!" They heard Dalek Caan scream out an order."Recapture the prisoners! Locate the Doctor! Find him!"The response to the order came in the horrific yelling and squealing of the pig slaves, which quickly turned into relentless anger, and now they knew that they had no time to wait around.
"Run!" The Doctor ordered to everyone that was following him. "Come on! Move, move, move, move, move!" He exclaimed, running down past another turn in the tunnel and straight into a frightened and bewildered Tallulah. "And you, Tallulah, run!"
Tallulah sputtered for a moment, even as Clara grasped her arm and began to tug her into a sprint alongside them. "W-what's happened to Laszlo?!" She demanded, but no one had the time to answer.
"Come on! Ladder!" Clara yelled, turning a corner until they reached a ladder that they had discovered mere hours ago.
"Come on! Everybody up!" He said, letting Clara dart up the ladder to open the hatch for them to escape through into the theatre above.
For the first time since he had quite literally emerged from his shell, Dalek Sec was alone in the laboratory. His fellow Daleks had disappeared in the pursuit, and all the pig slaves had joined with them. Before they had left, Dalek Caan had demanded, "Report status!"
Dalek Sec had, at the time, thought that the answer was very simple. His head was throbbing from the high-pitched ringing that the Doctor had created, and it was something that all Daleks had felt, but not for a long time. "Pain." He had immediately answered in his rasping voice that sounded almost breathless. "Pain of the flesh, like no other Dalek has felt for thousands of years."
"The Doctor has escaped, and the female has gone with him!" Dalek Caan reported, and Dalek Sec had turned around to give him a stern glare.
"Then find them! All three of you, find them!" He ordered, and the three Daleks were disappearing from the room within seconds, taking the pig slaves with them. Yet the silence came as...a confusion to Dalek Sec. He did not know what to make of it. Is this fear? Is this claustrophobia? Is this... His own inner ramble trailed off as he glanced over to the table. There, he spotted the small device that lay untouched by the silent radio, which had shorted out from the loud noise it had been screeching into the room. It was a blue device and it comprised only of a small screen, no buttons on it, except for two small protruding buttons on its side, one longer than the other. I don't remember seeing the Doctor place it there. And it would not be a weapon, for that is not within his nature. Dalek Sec mentally reasoned before he picked up the device and pressed the small button, and it brought up a silhouette picture of a bald man with his head cracked open, with at least twelve other men trying to climb out of the crack to the top of his head, a sight that made Dalek Sec rather puzzled. Underneath the picture was some words, but he found, to his own irritation, that he could not read with his newfound Human eye. But there was a sign underneath the discernible words, a sideways triangle within a thin circle. Dalek Sec would have frowned, if his newly formed face had a brow to do so, and slowly, with a tentative hand, he pressed a single finger onto the button. The triangle then turned into two thick lines, but it seemed like nothing was happening. Dalek Sec squinted his single eye, but for a moment, he could hear something coming from the device. He leaned forward just a bit, and it grew a little louder, but not loud enough. Getting the idea, he gently took the device in his grasp and held it up closer to his head. The sound became comprehensible now, but he still could not discern it. It almost sounded like someone was whistling, but the rest of it he could not describe. It bore no words, and yet, in the span of a few short seconds, he began to feel...still. He felt his thundering heartbeat slow just a fraction, his breathing quietened, and the room fell into a silence, yet it felt...different. Dalek Sec quickly discovered in his own mind that, even though he could not stand there forever, for his fellow Daleks would return eventually, he almost wished that he could. He did not even know why he felt this way; he just knew that the room felt like it had melted around him and it was only him, surrounded by these strange sounds. Glancing down, his gaze fell onto the radio that still stood upon the table, and then suddenly, the word of what the sounds was came back into his head. Music. He deducted, remembering what the Doctor had said about it. Taking the initiative, he turned pressed the button to pause the music and thrust the device into his pocket, and just like that, the sudden feeling he had experienced mere seconds ago, was now gone. Whilst he did not know the words to express how he felt, anyone else would have said that he missed the music already.
"They have ascended." Dalek Caan deducted, glancing at the ladder with a closed hatch with Daleks Thay and Jast, the pig slaves standing with shifting feet behind them. Dalek Caan turned its eyestalk around to the pig slaves and ordered, "Return to base." The pig slaves gave a series of grunt like mutters before they turned and left the three Daleks alone. Once the tunnel had fallen into silence, Dalek Caan turned back to Daleks Thay and Jast, and said, "Request information. What is your opinion of Dalek Sec?"
"We were created to follow him." Dalek Thay responded, and Dalek Caan glanced at Dalek Jast.
"He is our leader. We carry out his orders." Dalek Jast responded.
"But you have doubts?" Dalek Caan asked the two of them.
They both looked around behind them, checking to see if anyone, Dalek or no, was watching, and when they were certain that they were well and truly alone, they turned back to Dalek Caan and said in unison with one blunt word, "Affirmative."
"Go!" Clara commanded to the survivors as they scrambled up into the familiar props room, the Doctor closing the hatch shut once everyone had gotten through. "Just get out of here! Go home! Get out!"
The survivors, despite the fear in their eyes, ran straight out of the room, whilst Tallulah gave out a shuddering whine. "It's stinking down there, not to mention the cold." She complained.
"Never mind that, that's the least of our problems." Martha retorted. "Can the Daleks follow us up?"
"They could, but they're not strong enough to take on a whole city." The Doctor answered. "Not yet anyway."
"But hold on a minute." Frank quickly interrupted. "They need people, right? For this experiment thing?" They nodded. "Only, we just escaped, so where's the one place they can go for replacements?"
"Hooverville." They muttered after a moment of slow realization.
"We have to get back there and warn Solomon." Frank urged, the response coming from the couple racing from the room at once.
"Come on!" They yelled, the three following swiftly behind.
Central Park, Manhattan
"Ugh, what is with the insects?" Tallulah asked, waving back a few nagging flies that hung around them.
"Tallulah, please." Martha retorted. "We've got other things to worry about than a few nagging insects."
"Oh yeah? And when did your boyfriend get turned into a pig?" Tallulah retorted.
"Don't." Clara responded, and Tallulah gave a small sniff as she wiped a stray tear from her eye.
"Why did they have to go and do that?" She asked. "Why to Laszlo?"
"I'm sorry, Tallulah." Was all Clara could say in response.
"Is he stuck like that?" She asked, moving forward as they came to a stop beneath a large tree. "Oh, Clara, please say you two can help. There must be something, just say you can do it."
"There is nothing we can do." It was the Doctor that responded to her this time, and Tallulah's shoulders slumped with a sigh.
"Just my luck." Was all she said before offering a smile that had yet to reach her eyes. "Got any more bad news?" At that, they turned to continue walking but they were immediately greeted by the sight of rifles pointed straight at their faces. "It's me." Tallulah said sarcastically. "I'm a jinx."
"Frank, tell them." Clara quickly said.
"Hey guys, it's me. It's okay." Frank said, and the guns were lowered as a man stepped forward in front of them, his face quickly turning from a frown of warning into pure relief.
"Frank? Is that you?" Solomon asked, slinging his rifle over his shoulder as he strode up and brought Frank into a warm embrace.
"I made it home, boss." Frank said with a laugh that Solomon returned before they parted from the hug.
"It's so good to see you. I...I thought you were lost." Solomon admitted, but Frank shook his head.
"He's back now." The Doctor inputted, and Frank stepped aside to let Solomon shake the couple's hands in turn.
"Thank you, Doctor, Clara, for bringing him home."
"I would save the gratitude, Solomon." Clara responded with a sigh. "It's not all good news."
Solomon just gave them a tired and weary look, but he nodded in response. "Let's get back to Hooverville. You can explain it as we go." He said, and the couple nodded as the group started back off to the shanty town.
Hooverville, Central Park
"You sure about this?" Solomon asked a very stern yet incredibly worried TARDIS couple, who were glancing around at the sudden sight of the shanty town's inhabitants armed with some form of weapon, be it a blunt or sharp weapon, or even a rifle.
"If they weren't sure about this, they wouldn't be a single step away from begging you to listen." Martha inputted, after her, Tallulah and Frank sat by an open fire. Frank now bore a very anxious expression on his face, whilst Tallulah, who despite the warmth of the fire, still shivered from the cold air of the night.
"They sound like the stuff of nightmares." Solomon commented in a mutter. "And they want to breed?"
"They're splicing themselves onto Human bodies." The Doctor said. "And if we're right, they've got a farm of breeding stock right here in Hooverville. You have got to get everyone out."
Solomon blinked with a small scoff. "Hooverville is the lowest place a man can fall. There's nowhere else to go." He said, and the couple groaned.
"We're sorry, Solomon, but you have got to scatter." The Doctor pleaded. "Go anywhere. Down to the railroads, travel across state, anything, just get out of New York."
Solomon took those words in, but after a small moment, he shook his head. "There's got to be a way to reason with these things." He said, and Martha scoffed.
"There's not a chance." She said simply, earning a glance from Solomon as Frank stood up from his seat.
"You haven't seen them, boss." Frank said, and Solomon shifted his gaze to Frank before it moved back to the TARDIS couple.
"Daleks are bad enough at anytime, but right now they are vulnerable, and that makes them more dangerous than ever." The Doctor said in a low grim tone.
Before anybody could respond, a loud whistle blew from the outskirts of Hooverville, and it was quickly answered by more loud whistling from the edges of the town. The people began to look around in nervous confusion, and their silent questions were answered by a man sprinting into the camp with a rifle in his arms. "I've seen them! Monsters! They're coming!" He yelled, and everyone began to panic and cry, starting to rush around the camp either to get weapons or to collect any belongings they had.
"We're under attack!" Solomon yelled, grasping tighter onto his rifle as some of the people began to crowd around him. "Everyone to arms!" He ordered.
"It's started." The Doctor muttered under his breath, grasping onto Clara's hand as they stayed with Martha and a terrified Tallulah by the fire, watching as Hooverville began to fill up with such loud clamouring noises that it was hard to hear anybody that was shouting or screaming. People began to hand out armed rifles whilst some, be it man or woman, began to run away from the centre of the town and out in all directions.
"Come back! We've got to stick together! Come back!" Solomon yelled, but they did not listen. The people that ran just kept on running until they were out of sight, and then a sudden as it was, there was more screaming flittering around the town. But no one could tell over the loud noises if it was screams of terrified people running or being abducted.
"We need to get out of the park." Martha said as the commotion of running slowly died down until there was a large group surrounding them in the centre of Hooverville.
"We can't." The Doctor denied. "They're on all sides, and they're driving everyone back towards us."
"We're trapped." Tallulah muttered, but everyone was now able to hear her as the noises quietened down into a nervous, tense stand off.
"Then we stand together." Solomon retorted. "That way, they can't take all of us." The response came from the cocking of rifles and the squealing and grunting of pig slaves as they began to come out into view, surrounding them on all sides. "These monsters, they are not here to kill us. They are here to take us, to use as they will, whether we want to or not." Solomon said.
"Get back!" Frank yelled as a pig slave inched closer towards the group, but it jerked away at Frank's command. "Get back!"
The pig slaves continued to grunt and squeal, peering inquisitively at the large cluster of people in front of the fire, and yet, none of them moved forward. Everyone kept flittering the aims of their weapons between each pig slave within their line of fire, but they still did not move. "What are they doing?" Martha asked with a nervous yet puzzled blink.
"They're good little soldiers, waiting for their commander." Clara muttered grimly. "And here he comes."
The people around them gave a sudden gasp of surprise as a Dalek came soaring out of the sky, descending towards them before it stopped, hovering far in the air above their heads. Its eyestalk swivelled back and forth around the town, until it locked its gaze upon the large cluster of people that were staring up at it with fear in their eyes. "What in this world is that?" Solomon asked.
"It's a Dalek." The Doctor responded.
"There's more than one of them." Martha pointed out, and to the dismay of the people around them, yet another identical Dalek appeared out of the skies, and hovered a few feet away from the first Dalek, both staring down upon the people of Hooverville.
"Dalek Caan and Dalek Jast have arrived!" Dalek Thay reported from the main console.
"Establish visual contact." Dalek Sec ordered, and the view from Dalek Caan's eyestalk appeared before him.
"It's a devil!" Someone from the crowd proclaimed in despair. "Devils in the sky! God save us all, it's damnation!"
"Devil"? Odd. "Give the order, Dalek Caan."
"You will surrender!" Dalek Caan's voice ordered to the people of Hooverville.
"Oh yeah?!" Frank retorted before he raised his shotgun towards one of the Daleks. "We'll see about that!" Frank fired out a single shot at the Dalek, but the bullet just sparked and bounced off, leaving not even a dent, and the TARDIS couple shot their hands out to grasp his weapon and point it down to the ground.
"That's not going to work!" Clara growled, and Frank said nothing in retort, the group watching silently as the Daleks stared down at them from above.
Dalek Caan shifted it's eyestalk back and forth between the people and the small tents or huts that surrounded them, and without a warning, it pointed its weapon towards a small cluster of huts and fired three blasts, and the huts immediately combusted into smoke and flames as they collapsed into piles of rubble. The simple action by the Dalek made the people gasp or cry out in terror, before Dalek Caan refocused its attention back on the Humans below."The Humans will surrender!"
"Leave them alone!" The Doctor demanded, stepping forward to stand in front of the people as he glared in defiance up at Dalek Caan and Dalek Jast. "They've done nothing to you!"
"We have located the Doctor!" Dalek Thay exclaimed.
"So, if he's there, where is the female? Where is Clara?" Dalek Sec asked, and in silent response, Dalek Caan's vision zoomed out just enough from the Doctor's face, and they saw Clara standing right behind him.
Then, to Dalek Sec's own surprise, which he did not voice, Solomon stepped forward to stand beside the Doctor, and said man immediately took hold of his arms to keep him back. "No, Solomon, stay back!" The Doctor hissed, but Solomon ignored him.
"I'm told that I am addressing the Daleks. Is that right?" Solomon called. "From what I hear, you're outcasts too."
"Solomon, don't!" The Doctor tried again, but Solomon wrenched his arms out of the Doctor's grasp.
"Doctor, this is my township, you will respect my authority!" Solomon retorted back, and it, yet again, made Dalek Sec feel just a bit surprised, and even a little bit proud. "Just let me try." He reassured in a calmer voice than just before, whilst he held up a hand to the Daleks and wordlessly placed his rifle down on the ground.
"Observe Humanity." Dalek Sec muttered aloud. "For all their faults, they have...such courage."
Solomon stood straight back up again, his hands still out in wordless defence. "Daleks, we're all the same, aren't we?" He asked rhetorically, and Dalek Sec noted how a sudden and tense silence fell from the people that stood behind, watching him nervously. "Underneath, aren't we all kin? See, I've just discovered this past day that God's universe is a thousand times the size I thought it was. And that scares me." He suddenly admitted with a shaky chuckle. "Oh yeah, it terrifies me, right down to the bone. But surely it's got to give me hope!" He declared, and Dalek Sec could only squint his single eye in soft confusion as he watched. "Hope that maybe together, we can make a better tomorrow! So, I beg you now, if you have any compassion in your hearts, then you'll meet with us and stop this fight!" Dalek Sec's own gaze drifted down to the floor as he contemplated the man's words, yet there was no other noise that responded to Solomon's plea, even the two Daleks were keeping silent. Dalek Caan's vision stared down upon the man, whose gaze briefly flittered back and forth between it and Dalek Jast before he gave a small nervous gulp and spoke again. "Well?" He asked, with a small squint of his eyes. "What do you say?"
The answer from the two Daleks came only after a small moment of tense silence, but it should have been obvious to everyone. It should have been obvious to the contemplating Dalek Sec, who was repeatedly blinking his single eye, or even the TARDIS couple, who felt an unabashed feeling of hope in their hearts, or dead heart in Clara's case, as they all stared back up to Dalek Caan and Dalek Jast. But in a single word, it was shattered into nothing. "Exterminate!" Dalek Caan then pointed its weapon to the man and shot a single blast, striking the man point blank, and he slowly fell to his knees, screaming in agony, before he collapsed to the ground and moved no more.
At that, the silence was broken. Dalek Sec unconsciously let out a gasp of shock, which unknowingly to him attracted the inquisitive attention of Dalek Thay. Back in Hooverville however, the group of people all let out gasps and wails of despair at the death of Solomon, the TARDIS couple stared down at his dead body with clenched teeth, and Frank immediately burst out from the group to kneel beside him, dropping his shotgun to the ground as he did. "Solomon!" He cried, but there was no answer.
"They killed him!" Martha's horrified and disbelieving voice cut through Dalek Sec's broken thoughts. "They just shot him on the spot!"
"Daleks." The Doctor growled low in his throat, and Dalek Sec did not hear it, but he did see the Doctor stepped forward from the group with his arms raised out and his face a fire of rage as he stared up at Dalek Caan. "All right, so it's my turn! Then kill me!" He demanded, and Dalek Sec, for a small moment, did not know what to say against that. "Kill me if it'll stop you attacking these people!"
"I will be the destroyer of our greatest enemy!" Dalek Caan declared, and it pointed its weapon straight at him.
"Like hell you will!" Clara's voice roared in as she suddenly stepped in front of the Doctor, who gazed down at her in a blazing glance of concern.
"Stay back, Clara." He ordered, his voice calmer than before, but she gave a shake of her head.
"You will not die alone." She retorted with a hard stare. "Not now, not ever." She promised and took his hand before staring back up at the Dalek. "Well?!" She growled, and Dalek Caan's vision just stared at her in silence. "Do it!" She ordered, and Dalek Sec began to shake his head.
"If the female will join him, then she will die with him!" Dalek Caan declared.
"Well, do it!" Clara roared, and the Doctor's expression of rage returned tenfold. "Just do it!"
"Exterminat-"
"Stop!" Dalek Sec blurted, and Dalek Caan stopped talking. "I command you: Stop."
Dalek Thay's eyestalk turned to Dalek Sec, but Dalek Sec ignored him as Dalek Caan began to stutter in restrained confusion. "I...do not...understand. It...is the Doctor."
Dalek Sec watched as the couple's glares slowly melted into a curious and bewildered frown. "But I want him alive. I want the female alive."
"The urge...to kill...is to...strong!" Dalek Caan blurted out, but Dalek Sec drew himself up straight, even though Dalek Caan could not see him.
"I have decided that the Doctor and Clara Oswald must live. And you will obey me."
Dalek Caan's gave shifted up to stare at the night sky, then straight down to stare at the dark ground before it slowly said,"I...obey."
Dalek Caan's gaze then slowly lifted back up to the Doctor and Clara, whose grip on each other had loosened, but they still did not let go. "What's going on?!" The Doctor demanded, whilst Clara just blinked silently.
"You will follow." Dalek Caan ordered, but it made them frown even more.
"Which one?!" They demanded in unison.
"Both." Dalek Caan answered simply, and Martha immediately burst out of the group towards the couple.
"No!" She exclaimed, moving to stand behind them, but they did not turn to look at her. "You can't go." She said, her voice border lying on a whimper.
The Doctor and Clara turned around, with the Doctor stepping to the side just a fraction to allow Clara vision of Martha. "We've got to go." The Doctor said with a shake of his head, but there was an obvious determination in his eyes, one that blended with a touch of rage that still had not left. "The Daleks just changed their minds, and Daleks never change their minds."
"Unless they themselves change." Clara added in his mind, to which he agreed, but they did not voice that thought out loud.
"But what about us?" Martha asked with fearful eyes, motioning to the terrified yet bewildered group that had watched the entire exchange nervously.
The couple quickly understood the danger that the people were in, but it was the Doctor that spoke back to Dalek Caan. "One condition! If we come with you, you will spare the lives of everyone here! Do you hear me?!"
Dalek Caan just stared at them, silent for a few moments, until it slowly declared, "Humans will be spared. Doctor...Clara...follow."
"Then I'm coming with you." Martha said, and they turned back to shake their heads at her.
"Martha, stay here." Clara denied. "Do what you do best. There are people who have been hurt, and you can help them." Martha, whilst she wanted to deny that and go with the couple, she knew they would not allow it, so she relented with a silent nod, despite her eyes shining with concern. Just as they were about to leave however, the Doctor let go of Clara, and she moved over to take Martha's right hand in both of hers. "Can we just say; it's been a pleasure." She said earnestly, shaking her hand before letting go and the couple walked away with the two Daleks hovering over their heads, their gaze and their path now turned away from Hooverville. However, when Martha looked down into her hand, she saw a small black wallet with a blank piece of paper within, and it made her blink. She knew that it was Clara's, but for a small moment as she stood there in silence, she did not know on what to do with it. Martha then turned to look back at the group of people, all of which were looking at her with looks of lost puzzlement. Close by stood the three huts that had caught fire after being destroyed by Dalek Caan's weapon, and she knew that if not dealt with, the fires could spread to any nearby hut or tent. "Get some water." She demanded, and the people just stared at her with the same expression. "For the fire!" She ordered, and the group, including Frank and a frightened Tallulah, moved into motion. "Quickly!"
"You saved the Doctor and the female. Why?" Dalek Thay demanded to Dalek Sec, as the link to Dalek Caan's vision shut off minutes ago.
"The Doctor is a genius, and we can use him. The future of the Daleks might well depend upon the Doctor." Dalek Sec responded.
"And the female?" Dalek Thay asked again.
"She may not want to admit it, but she is a hybrid." Dalek Sec responded. "She knows our species, how we operate, even our names, and she is a functional hybrid. We have had troubles making hybrids in the past, have we not?" Dalek Sec asked rhetorically. "There are questions that I...we...must ask her and gaining an understanding of what she is might help us in return." He reasoned. Dalek Thay said nothing in response as Dalek Sec turned away, his thoughts turning back again to the calming music from the device that lay within his pocket.
Martha sat alone in the tent that used to belong to Solomon, having finished her rounds of work as a doctor. There was nothing major required, no drastic injuries due to the thankfully short Dalek attack, but cuts and bruises were in her field. Martha placed down an empty pot of water on a table before sitting in a chair, and she remained there in silence for a single minute, staring down at Clara's psychic paper that lay in her hands. As she tried to contemplate about what she should use it for, the tent entrance flap opened, and Tallulah entered to greet her. "You all right? I can put some more water on the boil if you want." She offered, but Martha shook her head.
"There won't be any need for that now, thank you." She said as Tallulah moved to sit beside her.
"So, what about us? What do we do now?"
"Clara gave me this." She said, briefly holding up the wallet so Tallulah could see. "She must've had a reason."
"What's that for?" Tallulah asked with a squint of her eyes.
"It tells you whatever I want it to tell you." Martha said simply, before she opened the wallet and showed the blank paper to Tallulah.
""These aren't the droids you're looking for"." Tallulah read, and her eyes quickly widened. "How did you-"
"Long story." Was all Martha said, and it earned a puzzled, shifty gaze from Tallulah. "Come on, think." She muttered, standing up to pace to and fro inside the tent, flapping the psychic paper upon the palm of her hand as she contemplated. Then, she suddenly stopped, the psychic paper hovering in the air as she blinked, and her eyes slowly widened. "Wait a minute." She muttered under her breath, but Tallulah heard her.
"What?" Tallulah asked, and Martha turned to look at her.
"Down in the sewers, the Daleks mentioned this...Dalekanium was in place, and their energy conductor is complete."
"Oh." Tallulah said with a blink. "What's...Dalekan..."
"No idea." Martha said with a wave of her hand, and Tallulah nodded.
"What...energy conductor? Where would it be?"
Martha squinted her eyes ever so slightly as she thought. "Frank might know." She said, so she and Tallulah moved to exit the tent. Outside, they walked over to the open fire to Frank, who was sitting silent and alone with his head bowed down beside the fire. "Frank?" She asked, and Frank looked up with a sniff and a smile.
"Yeah?" He asked, and Martha just moved over with a sigh.
"I'm sorry." She said, and Frank let his smile slide away.
"It feels odd, you know. Hooverville without Solomon." Frank said, but his voice was more of a mutter. "It's just..." Frank sighed with a shake of his head, before he stood up and gave out a breath. "Sorry." He said, and Martha just gave him a sad smile.
"Frank, that Mr. Diagoras, he was like a fixer, yeah?" Martha asked. "Get you jobs all over town?"
Frank nodded as he put his hands in his pockets, whilst Martha and Tallulah crossed their arms to hold out the chill. "Yeah. He could find a profit anywhere."
"But where, though? What sort of things?"
"You name it." Frank said with a shrug. "We're all so desperate for work, you just hoped Diagoras would pick you for something good. Building work, that pays the best." He added.
"But what sort of building work?" Martha asked, and he just pointed off to the Empire State Building.
"Mainly building that." Martha and Tallulah exchanged a glance and a nod, whilst Frank just furrowed his eyebrows. "What?"
Two pairs of footsteps accompanied by the whirring of two moving Daleks entered the laboratory, whilst Dalek Sec stood beside Dalek Thay, looking at the main console in front of him. Dalek Thay turned its eyestalk to the newcomers, but just as Dalek Sec started to turn around, he heard the wrathful voice of the Doctor exclaiming, "Those people were defenceless!" Dalek Sec finished turning around to stare upon the expressions of rage that the Doctor and Clara bore as they strode forward to stand in front of him. "Solomon laid down his weapon in surrender! You only wanted the two of us, but no, that wasn't enough for you, so you killed him without a second thought, and you threatened the others, cause that's the only thing a Dalek's good for!"
"The deaths were wrong." Dalek Sec said without hesitation. His blunt words of admission earned stares from his fellow Daleks, whilst the couple's glowering expressions slowly blended with disbelieving puzzlement.
"Sorry?" They asked in unison.
Dalek Sec took a single step forward, the tentacle fingers on his face twitching with his every waking moment. "That man, their leader, Solomon, he showed true courage."
The couple gave each other a glance, before the Doctor asked, "And that's good?"
"That's excellent."
They blinked, but now it was Clara that spoke. "I'm sorry, wasn't it just a while ago that you said-"
"What I said was wrong." Dalek Sec interrupted, and any rage left in their faces had melted away into a frown of pure disbelief.
"Is it me or are you becoming just a little bit more...Human?" Clara asked.
"You are the only modified Human we have found that we do not understand." Dalek Sec responded. "And you, Doctor, are the last of your kind, whilst I am the first of mine."
The couple shot each other another look, before Clara asked, "What do you want us for?"
Dalek Sec blinked, for he did not answer the question right away, for he had to explain. So, walking past the Doctor, Clara, and Daleks Caan and Jast, he held out a hand towards a table up against a pillar, bearing equipment that frothed with nameless liquid. "We tried everything to survive when we found ourselves stranded in this ignorant age. First, we tried growing new Dalek embryos, but their flesh was too weak." Dalek Sec explained, earning raised eyebrows from the couple.
"Yeah, we found one of your experiments." The Doctor said with barely restrained venom in his voice. "Just left to die out there in the dark."
"Those flesh were never truly alive, Doctor." Dalek Sec refuted. "You know as well as any Time Lord that living Daleks cannot die of rot and age. Why do you think our creator had sewers built beneath the ground on our planet?" He asked rhetorically. "It seemed fitting to leave them in the sewers on this planet."
"A sewer is not a graveyard!" The Doctor retorted harshly.
"And what would you have done with them, Doctor?" Dalek Sec asked. The Doctor did not have an answer, and Dalek Sec felt no need to retort, so he left the question to hang rhetorically in their minds. "The results of the embryos forced us to conclude that the greatest resource of this planet is its people." Dalek Sec then raised his arm up to a panel on the pillar and he threw up a breaker switch. The action switched on an array of lights far above their heads, which revealed to the Doctor and Clara rows upon rows of suspended morgue stretchers, their tops covered with large white sheets. Dalek Sec then threw up a second breaker switch that sat next to the first, and one of the stretchers started to lower down slowly towards them, moving down attached by large tube-like cables whilst steel wires held it in the air as it descended. Then, the stretcher stopped at waist height, the Doctor and Clara moving to stand on its right side whilst Dalek Sec stood on its left, and from the obvious shape underneath the sheet, they could tell that an unmoving body lay on the stretcher. "We stole them. We stole Human beings for our purpose." Wordlessly, he motioned to the covered body, and the Doctor, with a grim face, took grasp of the sheet and drew it back away from the face, which belonged to Mason Fifield. "This is the true extent of the Final Experiment." Dalek Sec admitted after the small moment of silence.
"Is he dead?" Clara asked.
"Near death." Dalek Sec answered as he laid a single hand upon Mason's head. "His mind has been wiped, ready to be filled with new ideas.
"Dalek ideas." The Doctor inputted dryly.
"The Human-Dalek race." Dalek Sec retorted, to which the Doctor and Clara said nothing. Instead, they looked up above their heads, towards the rest of the suspended morgue stretchers.
"All these people. How many?" The Doctor asked.
"We have caverns beyond these, storing more than a thousand." Dalek Sec answered.
"Is there any way to restore them?" The Doctor asked with a sudden bite. "To make them Human again?"
Dalek Sec shook his head, briefly grazing his hand against Mason's cheek before he withdrew it away. "Everything that they were has been lost."
"So, they're like shells?" Clara asked through a deduction. "Empty Human beings ready to be converted? That's going to take a lot of power, but from what, eh?" She asked rhetorically. "You roasted your power cells and this planet hasn't split the atom yet."
"Yes, we do not have that power, not yet." He said, and his last two words made them frown. "Open the conductor plan." He ordered.
The Daleks did as they were bade, bringing up a black screen with a hologram schematic of the Empire State Building. "Yeah, we're right underneath the building." The Doctor retorted. "It's obvious enough as it is. So...what?" He asked with a shrug.
"Doctor," Clara interrupted with a warning glance, "this building IS the conductor."
"Oh." The Doctor slowly drew out before he blinked. "What for?" He asked, him and Clara looking at Dalek Sec with furrowed eyebrows.
"I am the genetic template." Dalek Sec answered, and the screen changed to two different strands of DNA, one that was Human and one that belonged to Dalek Sec. "My altered DNA was to be administered to each Human body. A strong enough blast of gamma radiation can splice the Dalek and Human genetic codes and waken each body from its sleep." Dalek Sec explained, as the screen showed a flash of lightning hitting the gene strands, before they blended together into a single strand.
""Gamma radiation"?" The Doctor repeated with a blink, and Dalek Sec motioned to Dalek Caan to show him. "Where are you..." The Doctor trailed off as the screen changed, now to show the Earth in orbit of the Sun. "Oh." The Doctor slowly drew out in realization. "You're using the Sun."
"Soon, the greatest solar flare for a thousand years will hit the Earth. Gamma radiation will be drawn to the energy conductor and when it strikes-"
"The army wakes." The couple finished for him as Dalek Caan shut the screen off.
"But what do you need us for?" The Doctor asked, whilst Dalek Sec turned his head to look at them.
"Your genius." He answered simply, earning raised eyebrows from the couple. "Consider a pure Dalek, intelligent but emotionless."
"Removing your emotions makes you stronger." The Doctor retorted. "That's what your creator thought all those years ago."
"He was wrong."
The Doctor's eyes blinked, before they widened as his eyebrows furrowed. "He was what?"
"It makes us lesser than our enemies." Dalek Sec explained. "We must return to the flesh, and also the heart." He said, holding a hand to his own chest.
"Dalek Sec," Clara started, making him glance at her, "if you did that, you would not be the supreme beings anymore."
"And that is good." He said with a nod.
"That is incorrect!" Dalek Caan interrupted, making the three turn sharply towards the pure Daleks.
"Daleks are supreme!" Dalek Thay exclaimed.
"No! Not anymore!" Dalek Sec argued, and the couple exchanged wide eyed glances at each other as they watched the exchange.
"But that is our purpose!" Dalek Caan protested.
"Then our purpose is wrong!" Dalek Sec denied. "Where has our quest for supremacy led us?! To this!" He motioned with two hands towards the room around them. "Hiding in the sewers on a primitive world, and only four of us left! If we do not change then we deserve extinction!" The three Daleks turned their eyestalks towards each other before they returned to Dalek Sec, but they said nothing, staying in silence. "Do you see?" Dalek Sec asked the Doctor and Clara, both staring at him in disbelief. "We cannot be like this anymore."
"So, you want to change everything that makes a Dalek a Dalek?" Clara reiterated.
"If you can help me." Dalek Sec pleaded, and they blinked at him. "Doctor, your knowledge of genetic engineering is even greater than ours. And you, Clara, you may deny it, but you are a hybrid. But not just that, you are working, a functional, stabilised hybrid. And that is something we have failed to achieve."
"Until now." Clara retorted, nodding to his own form.
"We were far too close to failure with me." Dalek Sec denied with a shake of his head. "In fact, I could have died, and we barely avoided it. We can't allow that for the new race, and they must be ready by the time the solar flare erupts."
"But you're supposed to be the template." Clara pointed out, but Dalek Sec shook his head.
"I want to change the gene sequence."
"To make them even more Human?" Clara asked.
"Humans are the great survivors. We need that ability." Dalek Sec answered.
"Hold on a minute," The Doctor started with a shake of his head, "there's no way this lot will let you do it." He said, motioning to the other three Daleks in the room.
"I am their leader." Dalek Sec retorted, as the Doctor turned towards the Daleks.
"And that's enough for you, isn't it?" He asked.
"Daleks must follow orders." Dalek Thay answered.
"Dalek Sec is leader. We obey." Dalek Caan added, and the Doctor turned back to Dalek Sec.
"If you two don't help me, nothing will change." Dalek Sec pleaded.
"But there is no room on Earth for yet another species." The Doctor said. "Not even for the reptilian boys and girls still sleeping underneath us."
"You have your TARDIS." Dalek Sec refuted. "Take us across the stars. Find us a new home and allow the Daleks to start again."
"We could." Clara said with a shrug as she walked up to Dalek Sec. "But there is no guarantee that this can work."
"Look at us, Clara." Dalek Sec said with his hands out, motioning to the two of them. "We are two hybrids, perfectly working-"
"But we should have died." Clara interrupted sternly. "You realise that?" Dalek Sec said nothing in response. "Did it hurt? The change?" The hybrid's silence was enough of an answer. "Mine hurt too, and it hurt like hell."
"Why?" Dalek Sec asked.
"Because I'm a failure." She responded bluntly and grimly. "I wasn't supposed to be a hybrid. I was meant to be like him." She nodded back to the Doctor, who stayed grim and silent behind her. "But our friend, bless her, she did not understand a single thing about his kind. My brain could not handle it in the end." She said, before letting out a dry chuckle. "Humans have a single heart, Time Lords have two, but me...I have a corpse inside me. Sure, I look like its work fine, but this..." She tapped her chest with a single finger, "hasn't worked in a long time. And it won't work ever again. I only survived because he hoodooed that voodoo and calmed me down but...I really shouldn't have." She admitted with a sigh. "And you shouldn't have either."
"And yet here I stand." Dalek Sec responded simply, to which she let out a small, sad chuckle.
"That's a reference you will never understand, I'm afraid." She said, and Dalek Sec only blinked at her in puzzlement, before she shook her head, and then slowly held out her hand. "I will need it back now." She said simply. Dalek Sec blinked again, before he pulled out the device from his pocket and gave it back to her. "You felt something from this, did you not?" She asked, and Dalek Sec nodded. "What did it feel like?"
Dalek Sec's eye squinted in what would have been a frown, and the tentacle fingers on his face slowed their pace at his contemplation. "I don't know." He admitted, staring around the room in his absentminded state. "I..."
"It did not feel like sadness, did it?" She asked rhetorically, and Dalek Sec shook his head. Clara held up the device, which really was a MP3 player, and clicked the small button on its side, and her eyebrows briefly lifted with a small snort. "That's not exactly the most...calming story in the world." She muttered.
""Calm"?" Dalek Sec repeated.
"You want to evolve, to change the Daleks into something better?" She asked, and Dalek Sec nodded. "You would then have to learn many things that you would've had no concept of otherwise." Clara frowned for just a moment as she gazed back down at the device. "Do you know what "Calm" means?" Clara asked, but Dalek Sec did not respond. Clara then pressed a button on the device before she took out her sonic and used it to resuscitate the radio. The music came right on back into the room again, and the three Daleks behind Dalek Sec started to twitch in agitation at the noise.
"What is that-"
"Shut up!" Clara growled, and the Daleks listened, even as they turned their eyestalks towards her. "This is what "Calm" is." She said, pointing to the radio. ""Your heart is pure! Rejoice!"" She quoted, then she gave out a sigh. "Calm just makes everything melt away." She said, her voice growing softer by the second.
"I...do not...understand." Dalek Caan muttered out, and Clara moved to stand in front of it.
"You are a Dalek." She said simply. "You scream, and you scream, and you scream, but what if you just stopped? Just for a small moment?" She turned back to Dalek Sec, who was staring away from her and towards a smiling Doctor. "Evolution is not just survival, it's...living. Just for a small moment." Then, she took out her sonic and switched the radio off, the music gone in an instant from the room, leaving them in silence.
"We can help you." The Doctor spoke up. "But we would do it to change the Daleks, to let them be better, but only if you will let us do so."
"You already know my answer-"
"Not you." The Doctor said simply to Dalek Sec. "Them." He nodded to the three silent Daleks. "You may be their leader, but their vote still counts. So, will you let us help you?" The Doctor asked.
The three Daleks looked at each other, emitting no words as they stared in silence, before Dalek Caan said, "Solar flare in thirty minutes."
The Doctor and Clara just looked at each other with a roll of their eyes. "Well, I guess that's as good of an answer as you can get." He muttered as he strode up to join her. "Right then. Better get to work."
Top Floor, Empire State Building
"Whoa." Tallulah muttered as the lift doors slid open, her, Martha and Frank stepping out into the dark room. "Look at this place. Top of the world." She said, gazing out of the open and incomplete wall, the cold air of night rushing in to greet her. "Oh, bloody hell." She grumbled, wrapping her arms around herself.
"This looks good." Martha said, moving over to the untouched blueprint stand with Frank.
"Hey, look at the date." He said, tapping the tag at the bottom of the paper. "It was issued today. They must've changed something last minute."
Martha frowned, flicking the bottom of the sheet up just a bit to see the previous one. ""Dalekanium"." She muttered, before taking the two sheets in her hands. "We need to compare them. See what was changed." She said to Frank, and the two of them moved away from the stand to put the papers side by side on the floor.
"The height of this place!" Tallulah exclaimed as she looked out of the hole. "This is amazing!"
"Careful!" Martha and Frank ordered in unison.
"Sorry." Tallulah muttered, and although she still looked outside upon New York, she kept her feet planted inside. "New York City." She muttered in awe. "If aliens had to come to Earth...oh, no wonder they came here."
"There's no point in chromosomal grafting, it's too erratic." The Doctor gritted out as he pocketed his "Brainy Specs" away. "You need to split the genome and force the Dalek Human sequence right into the cortex."
"We need more chromatin solution!" Dalek Sec ordered.
"The pig slaves are bringing it in." Dalek Caan reported. They briefly paused their work and turned to look at the group of pig slaves bringing in a large wooden crate and lowering it onto the ground.
The Doctor and Clara recognised one of the pig slaves as Laszlo, and they gave each other a single look before glancing at Dalek Sec. "These pig slaves, what happens to them in the grand plan?" The Doctor asked.
"Nothing." Dalek Sec said with a shake of his head. "They're just simple beasts. Their lifespan is limited. None survive beyond a few weeks." Then, Dalek Sec turned to Dalek Thay, who was standing by the console in silence. "Power up the line feeds."
Dalek Thay wordlessly obeyed the command, whilst the Doctor and Clara slinked silently over to Laszlo. "Laszlo, we can't undo what they've done to you." The Doctor said grimly. "But they won't do it to anyone else anymore."
"Do you trust him?' Laszlo asked, nodding towards Dalek Sec, whose back was turned to them.
"The last time I saw a Dalek change, it could not handle it." Clara answered. "Yet he has taken it all in stride. I..." Clara blinked, then she just shrugged. "I don't know." She finally admitted, looking up to the Doctor for help.
"I know that one man can change the course of history. Right idea in the right place at the right time is all it takes. We've got to believe it's possible." The Doctor answered, and the three of them just gazed silently at Dalek Sec, unknowingly watched by Dalek Caan.
"I'll go keep an eye out." Frank said, standing up from his position on the floor. "Make sure nobody goes butting in." He said, moving off to the entrance as Tallulah joined Martha.
"There's a hell of a storm moving in." Tallulah pointed out, Martha looking over her shoulder for just a moment to see the dark clouds and flashes of lightning not far off from them.
"Everyone in Hooverville will be getting under cover by now." Martha agreed as she zipped up her jacket with a small shudder. "Blimey." She muttered.
"I know." Tallulah agreed, rubbing her hands together. "I forgot to ask; how did you meet those two?"
"It was in a hospital." Martha responded.
"Oh, of course." Tallulah muttered, but Martha blinked. "Him being a doctor." Tallulah reiterated, and Martha gave a snort.
Simplified reason, but we'll stick with that. Martha mused. "Well, I'm a doctor." Martha paused with a blink. "Well...kind of." She added with a shake of her hand.
"You're a physician? Really?" Tallulah asked with amused curiosity, and Martha nodded.
"Okay, well..." Martha started with a single finger pointed up, "I'm still in training."
"The doctors and the tutor." Tallulah quipped, before she frowned. "No, that sounds like an awful stage show." Martha laughed at that with her.
"Come on, there must be something here." Martha muttered. "Maybe it's on the mast." She hopped up and dashed back to the stand to grab two pieces of blueprint, placing them down on the ground as she re-seated herself beside Tallulah. "How anybody makes sense of these is beyond me." She quipped dryly, earning a snort from Tallulah. "Whatever the change was, it must be...miniscule." They gazed over the blueprint, running their eyes from top to bottom before their eyes landed on a small detail at the top of the mast.
"What's that?" They said in unison, pointing to two small black lines at the base of the mast's tip, which were not on the "Before" sheet.
"What would..." Tallulah trailed off, until she and Martha looked at each other with wide eyes.
"Dalekanium!"
"The line feeds are ready!" Dalek Caan declared, as Clara took a large syringe and stuck its end into a small tank of blue liquid.
"The solar flare is imminent. The radiation will reach Earth in a matter of minutes!" Dalek Sec rambled.
"Just one moment!" Clara yelled as she finished filling the syringe before inserting it into a brass still. "Just need this compound for a gene pattern edit." She muttered under her breath, fulling inserting all the liquid before she took out the syringe and placed it on the table. "There!" She grinned. ""Red leader, standing by!"" She winked, whilst the Doctor looked down at her ensemble.
"But you're not wearing red." He said with a blink, and Clara rolled her eyes.
"I'm not falling for that again." She retorted with a small growl, whilst he just chuckled at her.
"Start the line feeds." Dalek Sec ordered.
A single pig slave stood at one pillar and threw up the set of breakers upon it, whilst Laszlo stood by the neighbouring pillar and threw up the set upon it, just after Daleks Caan and Thay interacted with the console to issue the command codes. The blue liquid then shot up in large plastic tubes towards all the bodies hanging above their heads. Then, just as they saw the liquid reaching the bodies, a loud alarm started to blare in the room, and all the lights turned into a flickering red, causing the couple and Dalek Sec to glance around in puzzled anxiousness. "What's that?" The Doctor asked.
"What's happening?" Dalek Sec asked the Daleks, who only stared at each other in silence. "Is there a malfunction?" The Daleks did not answer, and his tentacle fingers began to twitch in agitation to match his own worried mind. "Answer me!" He ordered.
"Did they..." The Doctor trailed off, but just as he was about to step forward towards the console controls, the three Daleks turned on him with their blasters aimed at him and Clara.
"The Doctor and the female will keep away from the controls!" Dalek Thay ordered, and the Doctor's jaw set into a grim clench, whilst Clara's eyes started to blaze a wildfire at the three Daleks.
"Stop!" Dalek Sec ordered. "You will not fire!"
"They are enemies of the Daleks." Dalek Caan declared as the three Daleks advanced slowly towards them. "And so are you." Dalek Jast's blaster aimed at Dalek Sec, and the hybrid straightened himself up as best he could.
"I am your commander. I am Dalek Sec." He gritted out.
"You have lost your authority." Dalek Caan retorted. "You are no longer a Dalek. Pig slaves, restrain them!"
"No! You can't do this!" Dalek Sec exclaimed as two pig slaves came up to restrain him, grasping onto his arms tight, even as he struggled fruitlessly to break free. "Release me! I created you! I am your master!" He ordered, but the pig slaves ignored his words.
"Well, now I know how you felt against the gas ghosts." Clara grumbled to the Doctor as they were both restrained separately by the pig slaves, yet it was Laszlo that restrained Clara.
"What are they doing?" Laszlo asked in a whisper to Clara under the noise of the alarm.
"The race will be pure Dalek, not hybrids." Clara answered simply as the pig slaves forced Dalek Sec onto his knees before the Daleks.
"You betrayed me!" Dalek Sec accused as Dalek Caan moved up before him.
"You told us to imagine, and we imagined your irrelevance." Dalek Caan retorted.
"I was your leader. I am Dalek Sec! Obey me!"
"You are no longer leader!" Dalek Caan retorted yet again, getting the final word just in time before another alarm began to sound, and the three Daleks began to move about the room in anxious agitation.
"Solar flare approaching!" Dalek Thay reported.
"Prepare to intercept!" Dalek Caan ordered.
Clara saw the Doctor shoot a glance towards the radio, and Clara just gave a small arch of one eyebrow in response. "What now?" Laszlo asked.
"Fooled them once, but why not twice?" Clara asked with a sly smirk, pulling out her sonic and using it to blare a loud screeching noise out of the radio yet again. The pig slaves squealed and screeched, immediately letting go of anything they held and cupping their ears to block the noise. The three Daleks and Dalek Sec froze up at the noise, whilst the Doctor, now free from the pig slaves grasp, used his sonic on the lift to slide the doors open. He and Clara grasped onto Laszlo, who was shaking and shuddering from the noise, and hauled him up into the lift, before the Doctor slammed a hand on the top Floor button, and the doors slid shut in front of them, just as they heard a Dalek blaster fire, and the screeching noise was cut off.
"We've only got minutes before the gamma radiation reaches the Earth." The Doctor said, the only response being Laszlo's ragged breathing as he leaned against the wall of the lift with a single hand upon his chest. "Laszlo, what's wrong?" He asked.
"I'm out of breath." Laszlo dismissed with a smile and a shake of his head. "We've escaped them, that's all that matters."
"Oh no, it isn't." Clara growled.
"Don't." The Doctor warned as Clara clenched her teeth at him. "You tried, and you tried your best."
"And it wasn't enough." She bit back. "It's never enough. Not for Daleks, not for Cybermen-"
"Clara, stop it!" The Doctor spat, grasping her arms with a glare to match her own. "We can deal with that later. Right now, we have to do something about the flare." He said simply.
"Fine." Clara growled, but she did not say anything more until the elevator slowed to a halt at their desired destination and the doors slid open, greeted by the relieved sight of Martha, Tallulah and Frank.
"Doctor! Clara!" Martha greeted, and the couple set aside their earlier grievance to give their friend reassuring smiles as they stepped out of the lift. Yet it was Tallulah that first broke from her rooted place and she bounded forth to embrace Frank.
"I never thought I'd see you again." She admitted, and Frank just gave a small chuckle in response.
"There's no stopping me."
"We've worked it out." Martha said as the Doctor and Clara moved to stand beside her and Frank. "There's Dalekanium on the mast, and it is good to see you two, by the way." She added, lightly smacking Clara's arm.
"Oh, come here then." Clara returned, embracing a laughing Martha as the Doctor brought Frank into their own hug. But the moment died in an instant as the lift doors slid shut, and they immediately parted from their hug as the Doctor raced back to the lift.
"No, no, no, no, no!" The Doctor pulled out his sonic and tried to stop the lift, but it did not work for one obvious reason. "Deadlock seal." He growled, placing his sonic back inside his pocket again.
"Where is it-"
"To the Daleks." The Doctor finished for Martha as he strode back towards them. "And they're not going to leave us alone up here. The time would be..." He gazed around the room with a quick eye, landing swiftly upon a clock that hung upon the wall. "11:15. We've got eleven minutes to remove the Dalekanium before the flare hits."
""Flare"?" Tallulah repeated. "What the heck is a "Flare"?"
"Sun stuff." The Doctor and Clara said in unison as they raced over to the open wall, and the sight of New York below made them recoil with a sharp breath for just a few moments.
"Oh, that's high." The Doctor muttered with a blink and furrowed eyebrows, but his eyes were wide. "That's very...blimey."
"And we've got to go even higher." Clara muttered in agreement. "Shit. What a charming life we lead." She muttered, and it brought just a small smile to their faces that quickly melted back into anxious fear. "How many pieces of Dalekanium were there?" Clara asked.
"No clue. They never wrote it down." Martha answered.
"Yay." They sarcastically muttered.
"It'll be a hell of a time for us in this cold wind, plus the storm." Martha added with a small shiver.
"Not "Us"." They denied.
"You're going to let me just stand there and watch you?" Martha asked accusingly.
"No, because you're going to have your hands full anyway." The Doctor retorted. "The Daleks will be sending up the pig slaves to stop us. I'm very sorry, Martha, but you have to fight."
Martha looked to Clara for help, but Clara just shook her head. "I'm sorry, too." She said, before they raced up the scaffold ladder and out of sight.
Martha just gave a small sigh with a shake of her head, but she did as she was bade and made her way back to join Frank, Tallulah and Laszlo, spotting the meter above the closed lift doors moving up Floor to Floor in their direction. "Arm yourselves." She ordered, moving to grab a steel rod. When the three of them looked at her in question, she explained simply, "The lift's coming back up, and not empty."
Laszlo armed himself with a large lump hammer, Tallulah with a large charcoal black wrench, and Frank a large mallet sledgehammer. "I should've brought that gun." Frank muttered to himself.
"Pig slaves. They'll be here to kill." Laszlo said, more so to himself. "They're trained to..." His muttering stopped as he gave out a groan, collapsing to his kneels and the lump hammer dropped with a "Clang" beside him, thankfully missing any body parts.
"Laszlo?!" Tallulah gasped, moving down to support him as his own breathing started to grow raspy by the second yet again. "What is it?!"
"No, it's nothing." He dismissed through a wheezy groan.
"One man down and we haven't even started yet." Frank cursed lightly, and Martha agreed.
"It's not looking good, Frank." Martha said as the storm outside grew closer and closer, the clash of thunder almost made them think it was right next door. "We're going to get..." Martha stopped, turning to look behind her, staring out of the open wall. "Lightning."
"What the hell are you two clowns doing?!" Tallulah demanded as the pair started to race about the room, grabbing large pieces of steel and metal.
"This place is going to get hit by a great big bolt of lightning, all the way up and down the building. We just need to send it to the lift as well." Martha explained simply, and Tallulah, after a moment of puzzled blinking, gave a broad grin of approval.
"Oh my god, that could work."
"Then give us a hand." Frank retorted dryly, and Tallulah sprang up to her feet, racing about to set up a long line of steel upon steel upon metal, linked with each other and lined up to the metal scaffold outside the building.
"Is this going to work?" Tallulah asked as they vaulted over the steel and hoisted Laszlo up to move them against a stone pillar, the group huddling around it and away from the metal.
"It's got to." Martha said simply. "Just don't touch anything." She warned, and they silently agreed as the lift got closer and closer.
"Report! Initiate countdown to gamma strike!" Dalek Caan ordered.
"Countdown unnecessary! Gamma strike imminent!" Dalek Thay answered.
A sudden gush of frozen wind, combined with the loosening grasps that the Doctor and Clara had on their sonics, and a moment later, the devices were out of reach on the floor down below. "Shit!" The Doctor swore, and Clara silently echoed his statement. Looking down, they saw only two panels of Dalekanium left on the mast, and no time to get the sonics back. The Doctor looked up at the sky, both seeing and hearing the storm intensifying by the second, the lightning dancing above their heads, getting closer and closer. Oh, this is going to hurt. The Doctor whined in his head as he quickly climbed up the mast and grasped onto the pole.
"Doctor!" Clara exclaimed, trying to shift about the bottom of the mast, but another gush of wind threw her back down onto the wooden scaffold planks. "Doctor!" She tried to call, but another clap of thunder roared above them, but it was followed by another, and another, then a single bolt arced down and struck the mast. The Doctor screamed and cried as the bolt coursed through his body, his body and his head wracking from side to side and his arms grip on the mast loosened, but he did not let go. "Doctor!" Clara stood up and took a two-handed grasp onto his arm, and the lightning began to course through her own body, even as she pulled the Doctor away from the mast and the pair of them went flat on their backs onto the wooden scaffold planks. The couple groaned and moaned in pain, their ears ringing, their bodies numb and their minds, for a small while, completely wrecked.
Dalek Caan moved into the centre of the room as the morgue stretchers were lowered down to the ground, and the white sheets were pushed away as the army awoke before them. The new hybrids stood up from their stretchers, still dressed in the clothes of their deceased life and they stood in front of the Daleks in a single line. "You will identify." Dalek Caan ordered.
The man once called "Mason" stepped forward, his eyes dead and his posture straight but stiff. "I...am...a Dalek." He responded, his voice just like a Dalek, minus the modulation and the screaming.
"What is your purpose?"
"To...destroy. To...conquer."
Dalek Caan's eyestalk swivelled around to look at Dalek Thay. "Report. What is your opinion of the hybrids?"
"They show...promise." Dalek Thay responded. "They must prove their worth to the Dalek cause."
Dalek Caan did not voice any agreement to that, for it did need to. So, it swivelled its eyestalk back around to Mason and said, "We have one example of a hybrid failure before you." The three Dalek eyestalks turned to Dalek Sec, who lay chained up to a stone pillar, and silent as the grave. "If you follow his example, only destruction will await you!" Dalek Caan warned. "Battle positions! Arm yourselves!" The hybrids got into motion, starting a march as they grabbed a handheld Dalek blaster, whilst Dalek Caan returned to the control console. "War demands strategy! I am now the designated Controller!" Dalek Caan declared.
"That was meant to be MY position!" Dalek Sec snarled from his manacles.
"You are unfit!" The three Daleks retorted in unison.
"Connect me to the military computer!" Dalek Caan ordered. "I will coordinate all units!"
"Doctor! Clara!" Martha called, her and Frank carefully but swiftly climbing up the scaffold to find the two in question lying on their backs, groaning and moaning as they tried, and failed to help each other up.
"My head." The Doctor groaned, as Frank moved to help the Doctor and Martha moved to help Clara.
"You two are getting careless, you idiots." Martha half growled as they climbed down the scaffold ladder, but for once they did not retort to her admonishment.
"How did you guys..." Clara's question trailed off as they saw the linked pieces of metal connected to the scaffold. Right at the end, crowding around the lift were the unmoving bodies of the pig slaves. "Right. Lightning." Clara muttered, as Martha placed their sonics back into their hands. "Thank you." Clara said, the Doctor nodding in agreement, but Clara paused as Martha just stared at the dead pig slaves with sad eyes. "Martha?"
"They used to be like Laszlo." Martha muttered as the couple's bodies started to recover from the strike. "They were people, and I killed them."
"No, Martha." Laszlo interjected before the Doctor or Clara could respond. "The Daleks killed them. They took them and turned them into monsters. Whoever they were, it is long dead." He said grimly.
"Martha." Clara said simply, holding out her arms and Martha moved in for a hug. "Don't blame yourself." Clara reassured, whilst she glanced over at the Doctor. "What now?" She asked as the Doctor clicked his back, rubbed his neck and leaned against a stone pillar.
"The Daleks would have gone straight to a war footing. They'll be using the sewers, spreading their new soldiers out underneath Manhattan."
"They could have been more than soldiers if the Daleks just-"
"Clara, not now." The Doctor growled low, and Clara relented with a sigh.
"How do we stop them?" Frank asked the Doctor, his question easing some of the tension in the room. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but there was still Dalekanium attached to the mast."
"We covered that." The Doctor said simply. "We got in the way of the strike. Now, we need to draw their fire. Before they can attack New York, I need to face them. Where can I draw them out? What's a good, empty space?"
"The theatre's empty." Tallulah nonchalantly offered, earning silent stares from everyone except Laszlo. "What?" She asked, and the only motion was Martha detaching herself from Clara with a frown and a squint of her eyes. "What? It's midnight, and at midnight the theatre is empty." She explained simply.
The couple glanced at each other before bright grins slowly grew across their faces. "Tallulah..." The Doctor sighed, "no, we won't kiss you for that. One..." The Doctor nodded over to Clara, "and two..." He nodded at Laszlo. "Anyway, is there another lift?" He asked.
"We came up in the surface elevator." Martha responded, her and Frank darting from the room.
"That'll do." The Doctor said, taking Clara's hand. "Allons-y!"
The Laurenzi Theatre
"This should do it." The Doctor muttered in approval as the group ran into the dark and silent theatre. The Doctor shed off his overcoat and tossed it onto a random red seat before he hopped up onto two seats and took out his sonic. "Here we go." He muttered as he flicked it on and kept it on.
"Ugh, there isn't anything creepier that a theatre in the dark." Tallulah muttered in shuddering disgust.
"I'd reckon schools in the dark are worse." Clara retorted.
"Laszlo." Tallulah said worriedly as said man collapsed onto an empty seat, his breaths coming in long gasps. "What's wrong?" She asked.
"Nothing." He dismissed. "Its just so hot."
Tallulah frowned. "But it's freezing in here." Turning to look at the Doctor and Clara, she asked, "Doctor, Clara, what's happening to him?"
"Not now, Tallulah, sorry." The Doctor responded as the sonic began to let out a string of beeps, the light flickering in tune with the sounds.
"What are you doing?" Martha asked.
"If the Daleks are going to war, they'll want to find their number one enemy. I'm just telling them where I am." The Doctor nonchalantly explained with a shrug.
"You're going to get the both of you killed?" Martha asked with a bite, and neither of them answered her question.
"Go back to Hooverville." Clara responded. "You'll be safer there."
"No." Martha said simply with a shake of her head.
"I'm telling you to go." Clara insisted. "Frank can take you back."
"And I'm telling you, I'm not leaving either of you to die." Martha retorted.
"If you stay, you might die as well." Clara responded with a clenched jaw.
"I'm not leaving either of you alone!" Martha retorted, but their argument was cut short as two side doors into the theatre were slammed open. Through the doors came eighteen hybrid soldiers, split into nine on either side of the rows of chairs, and they marched down their aisles before quickly stopping, turning on the spot to look at the group and waited. An intense silence fell inside the theatre as the group just darted nervous yet puzzled eyes between them and the hybrid soldiers.
"Well, I guess that's them, huh?" Tallulah asked. "The hibridi things."
"It's all right. It's okay." Clara quickly said to her, Laszlo and Frank. "Just stay calm, and don't antagonize them."
"But what of the Dalek masters? Where are they?"
"Exterminate!" A sudden Dalek voice sounded from behind the stage, followed by a Dalek blast that shattered and destroyed a large portion of the stage wall, filled by smoke and debris. The explosion made the group kneel behind the chairs to protect themselves from any debris, but the hybrid soldiers did not move. After a small moment, they poked their heads above the chairs to see Dalek's Thay and Jast moving through the large hole in the wall, staring directly at them, whilst between the two Daleks crawled Dalek Sec on all fours, his manacles linked to both Daleks on either side of him. "The Doctor and the female will stand before the Daleks!" Dalek Thay ordered. Shooting each other a small look, the Doctor and Clara climbed up to stand on the seats and moved down to the front row.
"It's Clara." Clara quickly said with a small growl, but the Daleks did not respond to her retort.
"You will die at the beginning of a new age!" Dalek Thay proclaimed.
"Planet Earth will become New Skaro!" Dalek Jast added.
"Oh, and what a world." The Doctor retorted sarcastically. "With anything just the slightest bit different ground into the dirt. That's Dalek Sec, by the way." He pointed to the hybrid chained and on his knees. "Don't you remember? The most clever Dalek ever made and look what you've done to him. Is that your new Empire, hmm?" He asked, but the Daleks did not answer. "Is that the foundation for a whole new civilization?"
"Listen to them!" Dalek Sec pleaded to the Daleks, even though they did not look down at him in response.
"Oh, and I am sorry, Dalek Sec, forgive me." The Doctor said as he took a deep, trembling breath. "But how many worlds have suffered like you?" He asked rhetorically. "How many victims? How many millions have wept and pleaded in front of the Daleks, and been shown no mercy, just like you are now?"
"I know." He nodded with a weak smile, his voice hoarse and rasping for air as he spoke. "Don't you see? I know." He said simply, gazing down upon his manacles before he turned to look at the Daleks. "My Daleks," Dalek Sec started as he tried to look from one Dalek to another, "just understand this. If you choose death and destruction, then death and destruction will choose you."
"Incorrect." Dalek Thay retorted at once. "We always survive."
"Now we will destroy our greatest enemy, the Doctor!"
"And the female will die with him!" Dalek Thay added.
"But they can help you." Dalek Sec protested.
"They must die!" Dalek Thay retorted.
"No!" Dalek Sec pleaded, crawling in front of Dalek Thay as he did so. "I beg you, don't!"
"Exterminate!" Dalek Sec stood up in front of Dalek Thay just as it fired, and the blast shot him straight in the back. The hybrid screamed and cried in agonising pain before he promptly collapsed onto the stage and moved no more.
The couple did hear gasps of shock from the group behind them, but they just clenched their fists and glared at the Daleks. "Your own leader." Clara snarled under her breath. "The only person who could have led you out of the darkness and you killed him." She continued, her voice higher with barely contained, accusing rage but the Daleks did not retort. "Isn't a Dalek supposed to be a genius? You're war veterans, not...this! You had one good chance to be better! To live! But now it's dead, all because you chose to be a complete moronic dumbass!"
"Dalek Sec was no longer a Dalek-"
"Shut up!" Clara spat back. "For all your proclaiming about "Daleks are the supreme beings!" you don't understand a single thing about surviving! You can't survive if you are stuck, hiding inside cold metal, lashing out at anyone that is different! At least the Cybermen know how to survive, even if I wish they would all just go extinct and rot in the darkness, never to return, at least they knew that killing anyone else was just a bad idea! "New Skaro on Earth!", that's bullshit, and you know it! If you kill one hybrid and then kill any other race, you can't leave any abominations running around! You want to know why?" She asked, trembling with rage despite her cold smile. "It's against the Dalek code."
"The hybrids shall serve their purpose and prove themselves to us!" Dalek Thay retorted.
"I give up." Clara said simply to the Doctor, who only bore a grim face despite a wild glare in his eyes. "If we're going to die, why don't we give the new kids a chance?" She asked, and the Doctor nodded.
"The Dalek Humans." The Doctor said, his tone ice cold. "Their first blood. How about it?" He asked with his head held high. "Go on. Baptise them!"
"Dalek Humans, take aim!" Dalek Thay ordered. The hybrids pointed their guns up, cocked them into a ready form and then pointed straight at the Doctor and Clara.
"What are you waiting for?" The Doctor asked with a snarl. "Give the command."
"Exterminate!"
Nothing happened. The hybrid soldiers did not fire, did not speak, did not even move. "What?" Martha muttered, everyone but the couple staring at the soldiers in fearful puzzlement.
"Exterminate!" Nothing happened still. "Obey! Dalek Humans will obey! Exterminate!"
"Why?" Mason suddenly asked in a dead voice, and everyone that wasn't a soldier turned to look at him.
"Daleks do not question orders!"
"But why?"
"You will stop this!"
"But...why?"
"You must not question!"
"But...you are not our master." Mason said in puzzlement despite his Dalek inspired pronunciation. "And we...we are not Daleks."
"No, you're not." The Doctor said earnestly, earning a glance from Mason. "And you never will be." He then looked back to the Daleks, who were staring at him once again, and he just shrugged. "Sorry. We got in the way of the lightning strike." Then, he gave a small scrunch of his face. "Specifically I got in the way, Clara only was there for a second to pull me off. Time Lord DNA got all mixed up. Add a dash of weirdo-shorto Clara, and they get a little bit of freedom." He finished with a wink.
"If they will not obey, then they must die!" Dalek Thay proclaimed before promptly firing one blast at Mason and sent him screaming to the floor.
"Get down!" The couple ordered to the group behind them, whilst they immediately ducked behind the theatre chairs and watched as the hybrid soldiers turned on the two Daleks and fired.
"Exterminate!" Dalek Thay yelled, firing three blasts that hit three soldiers and they fell stone dead.
"Exterminate!" Dalek Jast yelled, yet the steady fire of the soldiers began to slow the two Daleks down tremendously, and their metal shells quickly weakened. Dalek Jast fired two blasts, swiftly killing two soldiers, and just as it yelled, "Exterminate!" Dalek Jast started to scream as the shell cracked and caved before it promptly exploded in a shower of smoke and debris.
"Exterminate!" Dalek Thay yelled, firing one blast to kill one more soldier before the lone Dalek began to scream as it promptly followed the same fate as Dalek Jast, exploding in smoke and chunked metal debris, and only two smoking corpses of broken Dalek shells stood on the stage, neighbours to the body of their former leader.
"It's all right!" The Doctor quickly called as the soldiers, despite showing no sign of fatigue, showed the signs of trembling rage and shaking hands that still touched the triggers of their weapons. "It's okay! Put them down!" The soldiers let the guns dangle free from their grasp, held to the bodies only by the strap slung over their shoulders. "You did it. You're all right now. You're free." Then, without warning, the soldiers clutched their own heads and began to scream in a sudden agony as rivers of crimson red began to flow out from their heads, blinding their eyes, shattering their hearing, and choking them on their own blood, leaving them to gasp or scream through clogged throats as they fell to their knees, shaking as their heads collapsed from within. "No, no, no!" The Doctor screamed, getting down to cradle one of the soldiers in his arms.
"They can't have!" Clara exclaimed from beside him as she held the soldier's head, but there was nothing to be done. They were all dead.
"They killed them." The Doctor muttered. "An entire species, but they would rather have let them die than live. Genocide." He spat as he began to tremble with a sudden rage, gently placing the soldier down on the floor as he stood up with Clara, whilst their friends quickly moved to join them. Then, the Doctor started to get a storm of fire in his eyes, but after clenching his fist, his body remained calm as still water, only betrayed by his own gaze. "Two Daleks died, and their leader before them. Now, there is only one. In the whole universe, just one." He said coldly before shooting a glance at the group. "Stay here." He ordered.
"I'm still coming." Clara said immediately, and he nodded.
"I know. But now, I would like a word with a Dalek."
The laboratory was as silent as a crypt, for its only occupants, one Time Lord, one modified Human and one Dalek stood in tense silence, the two none Daleks gazing at the last survivor with the same expression of anger. "Now what?" The Doctor asked with a bite.
"You will be exterminated!"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, we heard that already." The Doctor immediately retort, earning silence in return. "Just think about it, what was your name?"
"Dalek Caan."
"Dalek Caan." The Doctor repeated, thrusting his hands into his pockets as he calmly strode forward, Clara staying silent by his side. "Your entire species has been wiped out. And now the Cult of Skaro has been eradicated, leaving only you." He said, and Dalek Caan's eyestalk shifted just a tiny bit up, then stopped moving. "Right now you are facing the only people in the universe who might show you some compassion. No matter how much you pissed us off, no matter what you did, we are not going to condone another genocide." Then, he took a sigh to calm himself just enough before he said, "Caan, you can either run or stay. If you stay, we can help you. If you run, we can't, or we won't. The choice is yours. What do you say?"
"Emergency temporal shift!" Dalek Caan said, and at once, the Dalek turned into a hazy white shimmer before it disappeared in a flash, leaving nothing behind.
The Doctor gave out a smile that disappeared in an instant before he clenched his fist. "Goddammit!" He cursed, and Clara moved to restrain him as he attempted to kick at a nearby table.
"Don't you dare!" She warned, pushing him back and he stood still with a trembling expression.
"One chance." He snarled. "One chance and it just runs away." He shook his head, thrust his hands back into his pockets with a sharp laugh. "I really should not be surprised. It's not exactly a streak that will bend or break into something better. They could just-"
"Stop it." Clara interrupted sternly. "Don't finish that thought. You just said you can't condone a genocide, so don't go wishing for one."
"I know." He agreed, leaning against a pillar to calm himself, and Clara allowed a moment to do the same.
"It's not like I felt any different there." Clara added after a moment, earning a solemn look from the Doctor. "Just for one moment I felt like we could have changed them, but they didn't listen. If only I-"
"No." He interrupted, getting off the pillar and moving over to take her hands. "You did brilliantly, but unless you were their father, they would never really listen to you."
"I thought you said-"
"Creator, I know." The Doctor nodded. "He may not have been full Dalek like the rest of them, but he was their father regardless."
Clara gave out a sigh, and her shoulders slumped just a tiny bit. "Do the Daleks feel that?"
The Doctor gave a small snort. "If there is one feeling the Daleks can't help but feel, it's respect for their creator. And who could blame them?"
Clara smiled. "What was he to you? An...uh..." She trailed off with a blink.
""Arch-enemy"?" The Doctor finished, and she nodded, to which he gave a sigh. "Sometimes I thought the Master was mine, sometimes I thought it was myself. But..."
"Did you hate him?" Clara asked.
"Yes...and no." The Doctor answered. "For as unhinged and as diabolical as he was, he was always too brilliant for me to...truly hate him. I even tried to save him, in the end." He admitted, and Clara blinked.
"When? The Time War?"
"Very early." He answered. "Almost a lifetime ago. But I know that if I somehow ever see him again, I will be grateful, in a way." Then, he smirked. "After I scream in his face and give him a piece of my mind, of course."
Clara chuckled. "I assume you would do the same with the Master?"
"Probably worse." He quipped, bringing her into a hug after they let out a laugh, and placed a kiss on her head.
"Doctor! Clara!" The couple parted from their hug and they turned back to the entrance of the room, where Frank, Martha and Tallulah were helping a very pale Laszlo into the room, and said man was wheezing and gasping for air. "It's his heart. It's racing like mad." Martha explained.
"What's wrong with him?" Tallulah asked through an anxious voice. "He says he can't breathe. What is it?"
"He's dying." The Doctor said solemnly. "The pig slaves never lasted long."
"But he can't die!" Tallulah protested. "Not now! Not after all this!"
"If he wants to." The Doctor said, making Tallulah frown for just the briefest second. "Do you want to die, Laszlo?"
"If I die, then there will be no more Tallulah, right?" Laszlo asked in a weak voice.
"Afraid so." The Doctor answered.
"Well...that's a load of bollocks." Laszlo retorted with a small groan of pain.
"Of course it's a load of bollocks, Laszlo." Tallulah agreed before looking up at the couple. "Can't you do something?"
"Oh, Tallulah with three "L"s and an "H"..." The Doctor paused, looking to Clara who just raised her eyebrows at him, and he grinned in return, "you didn't even need to ask." He stood up and moved to the back to glance around the entire room. "What do I need, Clara? What I need is a great big genetic laboratory." He then smirked with a wink in her direction. "Wait, I do have one. Convenient." He said playfully before they dragged over a table and began to gather up small handfuls of science equipment. "You just hold on in there, Laszlo. Way too many people have died today, and I'm telling you right now, I am not having one more death!" He proclaimed, taking out a sonic to turn on a Bunsen burner, whilst Clara mixed around with a few coloured liquids, immediately creating a steaming white smoke from the glass jar. "Tallulah, out of the way." The Doctor ordered, coming over with a stethoscope in his hands. "The Doctor is in, and he's brought a tutor to help him."
2nd November 1930
It had taken the rest of the night to stabilize Laszlo, but to the gratefulness of Tallulah, Laszlo was saved from his door to death. After they wrapped him up in a warm scarf, grey trench coat and dark brown hat, the group escorted him back to Hooverville, but they sent Frank ahead, waiting on the outskirts of the town until he soon returned. "Well?" The Doctor asked as Frank came to a stop in front of them, standing beside a park bench.
"Well, I talked to them, and I told them what Solomon would've said, and I reckon I shamed one or two of them." Frank said with an unabashedly smug smile.
"What did they say?" Laszlo asked with a gulp.
"They said yes." Frank said with a smile, and Tallulah immediately embraced Laszlo at the news. "They'll give you a home, Laszlo. I mean...don't imagine people aren't going to stare, and I can't promise that you'll be at peace, but in the end, that is what Hooverville is for. People who don't have anywhere else to go."
Laszlo smiled with a shaky laugh. "Thank you. I...I can't thank you enough."
"And he never will." Clara interjected, earning a few chuckles in return as Tallulah just hugged Laszlo tighter.
"What about you?" Frank asked, looking to the trio. "Will you be staying?"
They smiled, but the Doctor shook his head. "Sorry. We've got to go home."
"Then you better take care of yourselves out there." Frank said, coming up to shake the Doctor and Clara's hands before wrapping Martha in a hug.
"And you take care of yourself." They returned, parting from Frank and giving a wave and a smile to Tallulah and Laszlo as they walked away, back in the direction of their box.
"Do you think it's going to work?" Martha asked after a few moments of comfortable silence.
"Hmm?" The couple mumbled.
"Those two." Martha said simply.
"We don't know." They said in honesty.
"If it was anywhere else in the universe, we might have something to worry." The Doctor said. "But New York?" He shook his head with a smile as he took Clara's hand in his. "That's what this city is good at. Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses...and maybe the odd pig slave Dalek mutant hybrid too."
Martha laughed. "The pig and the showgirl."
"The pig and the showgirl?!" They quoted back in exasperation, and Martha's response was to laugh even harder. "Are you okay, Martha Jones?!"
Martha just shrugged as they came up to the TARDIS doors, and the Doctor took out his key to unlock it. "Just wanted to say, I'm sorry."
They both stopped as they moved to enter, turning back to her with a frown of puzzlement. "What for?" The Doctor asked.
"The Dalek got away." Martha said simply, and it made the Doctor sigh, his face growing a tad sadder at the thought. "Do you think you'll ever see it again?"
The Doctor glanced down at Clara as they moved to let Martha in first, and he answered with a simple, "Oh yes." Martha gave a half smile as she moved into the TARDIS, whilst the Doctor gazed at Clara with a grim gaze as he added, "One day." Clara took his hand and stroked her thumb on the back, and he gave her a reassuring smile as they stepped inside the TARDIS and closed the doors behind them.
AN: That was fun, although it took me longer to finish than I anticipated. Also if you were still a little confused as to the music that Dalek Sec listens to, it's called "Rejoice" from the "Split" soundtrack. Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed reading and please leave a review if you wish. :)
