Rose, Solomon and the Doctor make their way to the props room. After listening to the Doctor explain what it is that he needs Rose and Solomon start to search the cramped room. Solomon disappears from Rose's view. It is silent aside from the Doctor's occasional muttering's to himself.

Rose pulls a box off a shelf to dig through. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed the Doctor pulling a ridiculous amount of things from his pockets. She laughed to herself quietly. Solomon enters the room with a small red radio in his hands. "How about this? I found it backstage."

The Doctor looks up from his work table. He eagerly grabs the radio from Solomons hands. "Perfect. It's the capacitors I need. I'm just rigging up a crude little DNA scan for this beastie. If I can get a chromosomal reading, I can find out where it's from."

"I recognize it," Rose inserts. The Doctor looks at her sharply. "I've seen it before. But I don't remember where."

"That's what this is for. I'll scan it and then we'll know where it's from." The Doctor smiles at her but his eyebrows are still drawn down in deep thought. Rose nods back even though he can't see her. He's already turned back to his gizmo.

Solomon looks between the two. "How about you, Doctor? Where are you from? And you Rose? I've been all over. I never heard anybody talk like you. Just exactly who are you?"

The Doctor shrugs dismissively. He doesn't look at Solomon as he responds. "Oh, I'm just sort of passing by."

"I'm not a fool, Doctor," Solomon tells him sharply.

The Doctor looks at him in surprise. It isn't very often that someone tells the Doctor off. Usually Rose is the one yelling at him. It even surprises Rose to hear someone yell at the Doctor who wasn't her. "No. Sorry," the Doctor tells Solomon. He sounds dismissive but Rose knows that he means his apology. He turns his focus back to his scanner.

Solomon walks to the sewer entrance that they had all entered through. "I was so scared, Doctor. I let them take Frank because I was just so scared." Rose walks over to him and pats his shoulder. She smiles sadly at him. She may not have liked his decision but she did understand it. Solomon nods to her appreciatively. "I got to get back to Hooverville. With these creatures on the loose, we got to protect ourselves. Ain't no one else going to help us."

Rose walks over to the Doctor and notices him staring at her. He smiles before turning his attention to Solomon. "Good luck."

Solomon nods. "I hope you find what you're looking for, for all our sakes." Solomon leaves the room quietly. Rose looks around for a chair but finds none. She turns and leans against the Doctors make shift work table.

Rose watches quietly as the Doctor continues piecing together his scanner. "Can I do anything?" Rose asks him. The Doctor just shakes his head. Rose continues to look around the room quietly. If she had known coming with the DOctor would have been so boring she would have stayed with Martha and Tallulah. But she had missed it being just her and the Doctor. Even though she didn't have anything to do she was glad to have a moment alone with the Doctor. Lately it had felt like all of his attention had been on Martha.

The Doctor leans back from where he had been hunched over the table. "Finished?" Rose asks hopefully.

"Yep," the Doctor says popping the 'p'. "We just need to find a way to heat it up."

Rose looks around the room and notices the Doctor doing the same. She notices the stage lights that the Doctor had taken some pieces from. "What about the lights?" She points to them.

"Those ones are broken but if we can find some around here that are still working then they should heat it up just fine." The Doctor muses before grabbing his scanner and the blob. "Nice work, Lewis." Rose smiles at him and follows him out the door.

They end up on a balcony of some sort. From up here Rose could see a closed off stage and a crowd of people. All the chairs in this balcony are covered in large sheets. The Doctor grabs a stage light and positions it above the blob and scanner. She leans against the balcony edge to look down as the show begins. At first she watches the show before turning to watch the Doctor instead. "That's it. We need to heat you up."

The Doctor pulls out his glasses and Rose feels her stomach swoop. It wasn't right for someone to look as sexy in glasses as the Doctor does. And every time Rose saw him whip out those glasses she felt a swell of desire for him. It just wasn't fair."This is artificial. Genetically engineered. Whoever this is, oh, you're clever." He pulls out a stethoscope to listen to the blob creature. Rose inches closer to him. "Fundamental DNA type four six seven dash nine eight nine. Nine eight nine. Hold on, that means planet of origin. Skaro."

"Skaro?" Rose gasps. "But that's…"

"I know," the Doctor tells her darkly. Rose sighs. When was this going to end? It felt like a never ending loop. She thinks it might finally be over but then the universe decides to throw another curveball at them. Scratch what she had thought about the Doctor in glasses being unfair. This was really unfair.

The Doctor runs out the door that leads off of the balcony. Rose hears a distant scream. "Martha!" The Doctor and Rose yell together. They run around a corner and notice Tallulah in the midst of a group of frightened girls. They are all wearing flapper outfits. If this had been any other time, Rose would have taken a moment to admire them. But right now all she could do was worry about Martha. "Where is she? Where is Martha?"

Tallulah shakes her head. "I don't know. She ran off the stage." There is another scream and Rose is positive that is must be Martha. They make their way pass the girls and to the props room they had been in before. The sewer lid isn't put on properly. The Doctor grabs his coat and puts it on before he makes his way over to the sewer entrance. Tallulah enters the room as the Doctor pulls the lid off. "Where are you going?" She demands loudly.

"They've taken her," the Doctor tells her.

Tallulah shakes her head. "Who's taken her? What're you doing?" The Doctor ignores her and makes his way down into the sewers. Rose follows him. "I said, what the hell are you doing?" Rose hears Tallulah mutter something but she doesn't hear what she says.

Rose hops off the ladder and looks up to notice Tallulah making her way down the ladder as well.

The Doctor looks up as well and starts shaking his head frantically. "No, no, no, no, no way. You're not coming." Tallulah hops off of the ladder and turns to face them. The Doctor starts pushing at her shoulders, urging her to go back.

Tallulah shrugs off the hands. She looks the Doctor square in the face. "Tell me what's going on."

"There's nothing you can do. Go back," he urges her again.

"Tallulah, you should go," Rose agrees.

Tallulah looks at them for several moments. Rose thinks that she is going to agree but then she sets her shoulders. With that look Rose knows that she won't listen. Even if they leave her behind, Tallulah is likely to wander around here by herself. Rose shudders at the possibilities of what might happen to her. "Look, whoever's taken Martha, they could've taken Laszlo, couldn't they?"

Rose smiles sadly. Whatever had been done to Tallulah's Lazlo likely wasn't very good. Rose knew that if she was in Tallulah's shoes she would be doing the same thing. Hell, how many times had she done something like this? All to protect the man that she loved, the Doctor. Rose knew that there would be no convincing Tallulah otherwise.

The Doctor however either didn't realize this or had decided to be stubborn. Which wouldn't surprise Rose at all. "Tallulah, you're not safe down here," he told her firmly.

Tallulah narrowed her eyes at the Doctor. "Then that's my problem. Come on. Which way?" Rose admired her determination.

As Tallulah set off down the tunnel in a random direction she could hear the Doctor sigh. If Tallulah was going to be down here, there was no way he was going to let her walk around by her self. "This way," he called to her before she could get to far away. Tallulah turns around to follow him. Rose clutches his hand tightly.

They walk in silence for several minutes. Rose is lightly trembling and she tries her hardest to stop in fear that the Doctor would notice. But she can't seem to get a grip.

Tallulah finally breaks the silence. Rose had listened to her sigh several times. She knew that Tallulah likely had thousands of questions but now was not the time. She had hoped that Tallulah would realize that. Clearly she had not noticed the tension rolling off the Doctor and Rose in waves. "When you say, they've taken her, who's they exactly? And who are you anyway? I never asked."

The Doctor shushes her. Rose hears her mutter, "Okay, okay." The Doctor shushes her again and this time Rose joins him. She had noticed the shadow of a feature that sent shivers down her spine. She had known, of course. But that didn't make it any easier to accept. But just seeing that shadow on the wall confirmed all of Rose's and the Doctor's worse fears. Because only one creature could make a shadow like that. It was a Dalek.

Rose wasn't sure how Tallulah could think that it was okay to be talking right now. Rose also wasn't sure how she didn't pick up on the fear that Rose could feel coursing through her body. every inch of her was terrified. These creatures had been partially responsible for her mum and her being separated. But Tallulah continued talking. "I mean you're handsome and all…"

The Doctor let go of Rose's hand to clamp a hand over Tallulah's mouth and physically drag her into a dark alcove. Rose quickly followed. The space is cramped but all Rose could focus on is staying as quiet as possible. The Doctor stilled as they heard the Dalek get closer. He still hadn't removed his hand from Tallulah's mouth. Rose wanted desperately to hold his hand. To offer him some comfort and maybe get some in return. She held her breath as the Dalek rolled by and slammed her eyes shut hoping and praying that the Dalek wouldn't see them. That it would just continue to roll by.

Once the Dalek had cleared the tunnel, the Doctor stepped out of the alcove and released Tallulah. "No, no, no, no, no, no, no. They survived. They always survive while I lose everything." Rose stepped closer to him and grabbed his arm. She leaned against him as he wrapped his other arm around her back and she leaned her forehead on his shoulder. She willed the tears away. Now was not the time to cry. There would be time for that later.

Tallulah hesitantly voiced her question. "That metal thing? What was it?" Rose almost laughed at how quiet the usually loud girl was. Of course, now that danger had passed the girl was quiet.

"It's called a Dalek. And it's not just metal, it's alive." The Doctor continued to hold Rose against him tightly. He started to rock her gently.

Rose could hear the disbelief in Tallulah's voice. "You're kidding me."

The Doctor nearly shouted, "Does it look like I'm kidding?" Rose squeezed his arm and he lowered his voice again. "Inside that shell is a creature born to hate, whose only thought is to destroy everything and everyone that isn't a Dalek too. It won't stop until it's killed every human being alive."

Tallulah laughed as if this was some joke. But it wasn't a completely real laugh. Tallulah was scared. And she was even more scared because she knew that the Doctor was telling the truth. Despite this, Tallulah voiced her doubts, "But if it's not a human being, that kind of implies it's from outer space." Rose didn't look up but knew that the Doctor was staring at Tallulah seriously. "Yet again, that's a no with the kidding. Boy." Tallulah was silent for a moment. Then she asked another question. "Well, what's it doing here, in New York?"

The Doctor doesn't answer Tallulah's question. Likely because he doesn't know. Instead he tells her, "Every second you're down here, you're in danger. I'm taking you back right now." He releases his tight grip on Rose but doesn't let go of her hand. He grabs Tallulah's arm with his other hand and drags her around a corner before jerking to a stop. Standing in front of them is a pig man. Rose flinches as Tallulah screams. Anyone could have heard that.

The Doctor let's go of Tallulah and rose to step closer to the pig man. "Where's Martha? What have you done with her? What have you done with Martha?"

"I didn't take her," the pig man says. His voice is low but still audible. Rose raises her eyebrows. She hadn't expected the pig man to respond. The other pig men hadn't seemed capable of talking.

The Doctor looks just as surprised as Rose. "Can you remember your name?"

The pig man backs up while cowering. "Don't look at me," he tells them.

Tallulah steps forward and the pig man jumps back. He's trying to hide, Rose realizes. He's ashamed of what he looks like. Tallulah asks him, "Do you know where she is?"

"Stay back!" The pig man shouted. "Don't look at me." And as Tallulah stepped closer he seemed to shrink even further into himself.

The Doctor stepped closer so that he was next to Tallulah. "What happened to you?" he asked in a calming voice.

The pig man wavered and turned his back to the Doctor, Tallulah and Rose. "They made me a monster," he finally whispered. His voice was soft and heartbreaking.

"Who did?"

The pig man took several seconds to respond. "The masters."

The Doctor nodded. "The Daleks," he practically hissed. "Why?" He stepped back from the pig man and brought his hand up to rub at his forehead. Rose stepped forward and grabbed his arm. He looked at her briefly but then turned back to listen to the man explain.

"They needed slaves. They needed slaves to steal more people so they created us. Part animal, part human. I escaped before they got my mind, but it was still too late." So they really had been made from people, Rose thought. This is probably what happened to the missing people from Hooverville.

"That's horrible," Rose whispered. The Doctor grabbed her hand off his arm and squeezed it comfortingly.

"Do you know what happened to Martha?" he asked the pig man.

He shook as he responded. "They took her. It's my fault. She was following me." Rose couldn't see his face but she knew that he felt ashamed that Martha had been captured because she followed him.

"Were you in the theatre?" Tallulah asked loudly. She looked shocked.

"I never…" he trailed off. He struggled for several moments before responding, "Yes."

Tallulah stepped even closer. "Why? Why were you there?"

"I never wanted you to see me like this," he whispered. Rose was pretty sure who the pig man was.

Tallulah still hasn't connected it. Or maybe she doesn't want to make the connection. Either way, she still wants answers. "Why me? What I got to do with this? Were you following me? Is that why you were there?" She demanded.

The man turns to face them. His face is still partially hidden in the shadows. "Yes."

"Who are you?"

"I was lonely," he whispers.

"Who are you?"

"I needed to see you," he confesses. Rose squeezes the Doctor's hand and he squeezes it back.

"Who are you?" Tallulah asks for the third and final time. She asks so quietly that Rose has to strain to hear it at all.

"I'm sorry." He starts to turn away to leave but Tallulah grabs his hand.

She tugs on his hand to turn him towards her. "No, wait. Let me look at you." She stares at him silently for a couple of seconds. Rose can feel the Doctor getting impatient beside her but he doesn't interrupt. "Laszlo?" Tallulah asks. She brings her hand to his face gently. "My Laszlo? Oh, what have they done to you?" She looks and sounds horrified and once again Rose feels her heart clenching in sympathy.

"I'm sorry. So sorry," Laszlo says again. But none of this is his fault. It's all the Dalek's fault. Which isn't all that surprising. The Dalek's have a certain knack for ruining people's lives.

A couple more quiet seconds pass before the Doctor can't wait any longer. "Laszlo, can you show me where they are?"

Laszlo's eyes widen. "They'll kill you," he protests.

The Doctor nods seriously. "If I don't stop them, they'll kill everyone."

His voice is so matter of the fact that Laszlo doesn't ask again. "Then follow me."

Laszlo leads them down several tunnels. Rose can tell that they are getting closer because she can hear raised voices. They get as close as they can without being spotted. From hear she can hear Frank ask, "What're they doing? What's wrong? What's wrong?" She is incredibly relieved to hear his voice.

Then she heard a different more robotic voice. One that sent shivers down her spine. "Silence. Silence," one of the Dalek's ordered. It turns and Laszlo barely has time to hide before he is spotted.

"What the hell is that?" Martha wonders.

The Dalek's ignore her question. "You will form a line. Move. Move." The small group of humans huddle together looking very scared. And they have every right to be scared with nightmare's like the Dalek's wandering around.

Martha remains calm and jostles everyone into action. "Just do what it says, everyone, okay? Just obey."

The Dalek looks at her briefly before moving on. "The female is wise. Obey." If Rose didn't know any better she would say the Dalek sounded please. But Dalek's can't feel anything. At least, not without going insane. She thinks back to her very first encounter with a Dalek. That hadn't been a very pleasant day. But that Dalek had developed emotions and it had gone insane because of it.

Another Dalek demands, "Report."

The Dalek that had been demanding that the humans obey responds, "These are strong specimens. They will help the Dalek cause."

"Dalek?" Martha mumbles looking scared. Rose looks at the Doctor but he doesn't look at her. He must have told Martha about the Dalek's. But when?

"What is the status of the Final Experiment?" One of the Dalek's ask.

Another one responds, "The Dalekanium is in place. The energy conductor is now complete." Rose was having a very difficult time keeping track of the Dalek's. They all looked the same and sounded the same.

"Then I will extract prisoners for selection," the other one responded. A pigman drags a dark-skinned man froward. "Intelligence scan, initiate." The Dalek shoves his sucker into the man's face. Rose and the Doctor lean forward eager to know what the Dalek's are doing. "Reading brain waves. Low intelligence."

The man steps back indignantly. He tries to pull his arm from the pigman's arm but he isn't strong enough. "You calling me stupid?" He demands of the Dalek.

The Dalek barks at him, "Silence! This one will become a pig slave. Next." The Dalek rolls to the next person in line.

The man tries to break the grip again. "No, let go of me. I'm not becoming one of them. No! No," he continues to protest as the pigman drags him away.

"Intelligence scan. Initiate." The Dalek continues.

"I don't understand," Rose whispers while shaking her head. "What are they doing? And why?"

Laszlo looks at her. "They're divided into two groups. High intelligence and low intelligence. The low intelligence are taken to become pig slaves like me." Rose shudders. Everything about this day was turning out to be horrible.

"Well, that's not fair." Rose winces as Tallulah's voice pierces the air. She quickly checks that the Dalek's and pigmen hadn't heard anything. The Doctor hushes Tallulah and she continues in a much quieter voice. It's still not quiet enough for Rose to be comfortable but she has a feeling that Tallulah's voice is just naturally high pitched. "You're the smartest guy I ever dated," she tells Laszlo. Laszlo looks away with a small smile.

"And the others?" The Doctor interrupts the sweet moment.

"They're taken to the laboratory," Laszlo informs him.

The Doctor furrows his brows and starts to pull on his hair. This is always the biggest sign to Rose that the Doctor is feeling stressed. "Why? What for?" She rubs his arm but isn't sure what else she can do right now.

Laszlo just shakes his head. "I don't know. The masters only call it the Final Experiment."

Frank is scanned as "Superior intelligence." The Dalek rolls onto Martha. Rose has no doubt that Martha will be scanned as having a superior intelligence. Rose briefly wonders what she would scan as but then shudders at the thought of being scanned as low intelligence and being dragged away to become a pig person. "Intelligence scan, initiate. Superior intelligence. This one will become part of the Final Experiment," the Dalek says.

Martha looks outraged. "You can't just experiment on people. It's insane! It's inhuman!" Rose winces. The Dalek's are no where near being human and they won't care if experimenting on people is considered inhuman.

Predictably the Dalek responds, "We are not human. Prisoners of high intelligence will be taken to the transgenic laboratory."

The Doctor grabs Rose's arm. "Look out, they're moving!" He pulls her to be better hidden in the shadows. Laszlo leads Tallulah away but the Doctor doesn't budge and Rose stays right at his side.

Laszlo notices and turns to them, "Doctor. Doctor, quickly!"

The Doctor shakes his head. "I'm not coming. I've got an idea. You go." He points down the tunnel.

Tallulah urges Laszlo to go with her. Rose doesn't listen to their conversation. She looks at the Doctor as he turns to her. "Rose…"

She raises her hand to stop him from continuing. "Don't even think 'bout sayin' what I think you're gonna say. I'm comin' with ya. End of story."

"It's dangerous," he protests weakly. Rose glares at him before he sighs and nods his head reluctantly. She turns back to notice Tallulah running down the tunnel as quietly as she can. Laszlo is turned to face them.

The Daleks glide pass them. The Doctor's grip on Rose's hand tightens and doesn't loosen. Quickly, he pulls her into the line of people with him. Rose can't see him but she desperately hopes that Laszlo has managed to slip into the group equally as unnoticed as them. "Just keep walking," the Doctor mutters before Martha or Frank can say anything.

"Oh, I'm so glad to see you," Martha breathed without turning to look at them. rose was certain that that comment was directed at the Doctor and not her.

The Doctor absently responded, "Yeah, well, you can kiss me later. You too, Frank, if you want." He kept looking around tensely. She shook the comment away. There was no use reading to deeply into it. The Doctor often says things that he doesn't mean.

Rose's shoulders are tight and her back is straight. She looks around without moving her head. She doesn't want to draw attention to them. She is just waiting for the moment when they are recognised and then all of this would come crashing down around them. Hopefully, the Doctor would have a plan by then and if he didn't Rose would just have to stall. She had become very good at stalling since she began traveling with the Doctor.

The pigmen herd them into a room. It is some sort of lab but Rose isn't sure what they could possibly be doing down here. In the corner is a Dalek but something is wrong with it. It is shaking and smoking. "Report." Rose jumps and the Doctor puts a soothing hand on her back. This whole situation was making Rose jumpy. No one but the Doctor has noticed her nerves. Everyone else is watching the Daleks. Rose turns her attention that way as well.

"Dalek Sec is in the final stage of evolution." One of the Dalek's responds.

"Scan him. Prepare for birth." The robotic sound of the Dalek's voices are making Rose cringe. They are practically screaming when there is no need.

"Evolution?" the Doctor whispers to Rose. Rose shrugs just as lost.

Martha looks at the Doctor. "What's wrong with old Charlie boy over there?"

"Ask them," the Doctor juts his chin towards the Daleks.

Martha's face drops. "What, me? Don't be daft." Her voice shakes. Rose can practically see the question in her eyes. Why can't you ask them?

The Doctor notices as well. "I don't exactly want to get noticed. And I don't want Rose to be noticed by them either." Here, Martha's eyebrows draw together. "Ask them what's going on."

Martha looked at him for a few more seconds before looking past him and at Rose. It shocked her when Martha looked at her. She wasn't sure that Martha had looked to her for answers or guidance before. It made Rose feel unsure but also proud. Like Martha knew that Rose had been in these situations before and wanted to know what she would do because of that. Rose nodded hesitantly. As scary as this situation was Rose knew that she would always do what she could to help the Doctor.

Martha looked away, nodded to herself, then drew in a deep shaky breath. "Daleks, I demand to be told. What is this Final Experiment? Report!" As Martha talked she gained more confidence. Her voice lost the tremble. Rose admired the confidence even if it was fake. Rose never felt as if she could push enough confidence into her voice when she was uncertain. But here Martha was practically oozing confidence when Rose knew that she wasn't.

A Dalek turned to Martha. "You will bear witness," it responded.

"To what?"

"This is the dawn of a new age."

Martha shakes her head. "What does that mean?" Martha's voice isn't so much confident as it is desperate now. None of this is making sense and Martha is just as desperate to make sense of it as Martha is. Rose looks to the Doctor. He's looking at the ground and his hands are twitching at his sides. As if he struggling with the urge to run his hands through his hair because he knows it will draw attention to him.

"We are the only four Daleks in existence, so the species must evolve a life outside the shell. The Children of Skaro must walk again."

The Doctor's eyes widen moments before the Dalek stops shaking and smoking. The light goes out and the case opens in the same way it did when Rose had first met a Dalek. Except, back then it had been under much different circumstance. There is a figure in the casing and it slowly unfurls itself. For a second, Rose thinks it is a human but then it turns.

"What is it?" Martha asks with wide eyes. A hand reaches over and grasps Rose's tightly. Vaguely, she registers that it is the Doctor's. The creature faces them. It is wearing a nice suit but that isn't what catches Rose's eye. No. What she does notice is that the creature looks human except for the head. It has only one eye and and tentacles covering it's mouth. It looks like the blob that they had found. Rose realizes now that the reason it had looked so familiar is because she had seen it before. That very first time she had met a Dalek and it had opened it's casing and shown her the creature inside.

The creature finally speaks. "I am a human Dalek. I am your future." And with those words Rose feels a chill run down her spine.