The trio – plus one ghostly blonde – were promptly escorted to an office where a young man was showing a strange-shaped device to an older, balding man in a suit that was seated behind a desk.

"...see the tubes on the side?" the young man explained, his accent British, "It must be to channel something. I think maybe fuel."

River snorted, causing Katrina to glance at the curly-haired spirit with a raised eyebrow, still feeling her heart racing inside her chest. The red head couldn't see how River could find the situation they had landed in amusing.

She is already dead.

The thought flashed across Kat's mind, and it almost caused the red head to let out a snort herself. She was reminded once more how often she forget that the deceased didn't have the same mortal restrictions that the living had, despite how many years she had spent around them. I guess it's because they still seem so... alive!

"I really wouldn't hold it like that," the Doctor spoke up, his somewhat serious tone drawing Kat from her musings and back to what was going on.

"Shut it!" the blonde that had brought them up to the office snapped at the Time Lord. Goddard if Katrina was correct.

"Really, though, that's wrong," the man continued on as if he hadn't heard the woman, and the red head wondered what his deal was. It appeared to her as if he really liked to correct people.

"He's always like this," River remarked, almost as if she had been reading Katrina's mind. Her tone was amused as she added, "Always had a big ego."

"Is it dangerous?" the young British man enquired, glancing at the item he was holding in a way that had Kat thinking that he expected it to blow up on him at any second.

"No, it just looks silly," the Time Lord stated with a grin before he reached across the desk for the item.

He froze, and Kat and Rose jumped when there was the sound of firing bolts clicking around them as the armed guards raised and readied their weapons. The red head glanced to her ghostly companion for direction, having decided that she'd be taking her cues off River. Something was telling the red head that the spirit had dealt with stuff like this before.

And aside from rolling her eyes, River didn't move.

The man sitting behind the desk raised his hand, stopping the guards from doing anything else before personally handing the Doctor the oddly curved object.

"You just need to be..." the Time Lord gently ran his fingers over the object and soft, musical notes were produced at his touch. "Delicate."

Watching the man curiously, Kat found that he was rather difficult to place. And for a person that read the living through their actions over words, the red head was surprised to find that she was enthralled by the leather jacket wearing alien as he continued to play several more different notes on what could only be described as a musical instrument.

"It's a musical instrument," the balding man pointed out rather unnecessarily as he eyed the Doctor.

His words had Kat fighting back the urge to roll her eyes. Anyone could see that, dingbat, she thought sarcastically.

"And it's a long way from home," the Time Lord agreed with a nod.

"Here, let me," the other man said before he snatched the instrument from the Time Lord. He tried to play a few notes, but the noise he produced caused a few of the people in the office to wince.

"I did say delicate," the Doctor pointed out, "It reacts to the smallest fingerprint. It needs precision."

The man tried again, this time adjusting his touch and managed to make a few pleasant sounds, but nothing close to what the Time Lord had created.

"Very good. Quite the expert," the Doctor remarked.

"As are you," the man casually tossed the instrument aside, the Doctor and Kat's eyes followed where it landed. "Who exactly are you?"

"I'm the Doctor," the Time Lord stated, and Kat noticed his shift in body language once again as he looked back to the balding man. There was a hint of disdain she could hear in his tone, and she couldn't help but wonder why. "Who exactly are you?"

"Like you don't know," the man replied with a disbelieving scoffed, "We're hidden away with the most valuable collection of extra-terrestrial artefacts in the world, and you just stumbled in by mistake."

"Pretty much sums me up, yeah," the Doctor admitted unabashedly.

"He's not wrong, either," River spoke up again, gaining Kat's attention and the red head glanced at the spirit in confusion.

"The question is," the man continued, oblivious to the ghost's comment, "How did you get in? Fifty-three floors down, with your two cat burglar accomplices," he looked to Rose before glancing at Kat in a way that had the red head gritting her teeth, shooting the man a dark look. "You're quite the collector yourself, she's," he nodded at Rose, ignoring Kat, who was thankful that he did, "Rather pretty."

"She's going to smack you if you keep caller her 'she'," Rose shot back, seemingly to not have appreciated the way he had been eyeing her as well.

"She's English too!" the man exclaimed, ignoring the blonde's threat as he turned to the young man next to him, "Hey, Lord Fauntleroy. Got yourself a girlfriend."

"This is Mister Henry Van Statten," the younger man said, giving Kat the impression that he was rather use to the way that Statten acted around others.

"And who's he when he's at home?" Kat questioned, unable to help herself. Though she was distracted when River poked her arm. Rubbing her arm, she frowned at the spirit as she tried to get the spot where the ghost had poked her to not feel as though it was frozen, wondering what the curly-haired blonde problem was.

"Don't go with the Doctor," the spirit told her seriously.

"What?!" Kat asked at the same time Rose scoffed, "Don't be stupid. No one owns the internet."

Kat turned back to the others, a little confused as to what, exactly, was going on. She didn't know if anyone 'owned' the internet, but she gathered that there must be someone, or a group of people who had shares in such a large business. And that someone, like the egoistic man named Henry Van Statten, could possibly be one of those people.

"And let's just keep the whole world thinking that way, right kids?" Statten remarked with a grin.

"So, you're just about an expert in everything except the things in your museum," the Doctor cut in, getting the topic back to where it had been, "Anything you don't understand, you lock up."

"And you claim greater knowledge?" Statten questioned, raising an eyebrow.

"I don't need to make claims, I know how good I am," the Time Lord retorted, and Kat couldn't stop herself from being under the impression that the Doctor really did think highly of himself.

"And yet, I captured you. Right next to the Cage," Statten remarked rather smugly before asking, "What were you doing down there?"

"You tell me."

"The Cage contains my one living specimen," the balding man stated proudly, though Kat could only feel aghast at the thought.

"He has an alien for a pet?" she questioned River quietly, earning an odd look from one of the guards. The red head ignored them however, having grown use to people thinking her odd or crazy. Though if she thought about it, Kat guessed she could be. She did talk with dead people after all.

The spirit grimaced, "The worst kind."

Katrina felt her face drain of colour as she stared at the curly-haired blonde. "Please don't tell me it's the killer kind...?" she asked, her voice wavering slightly.

River didn't say anything and the red head swallowed heavily as her shoulders dropped, turning back to the others. All she wanted to do was go home and sleep. Dead people, she could handle them any day. But after been thrown through strange vortexes and ending up in an alien museum with not one, but two aliens was far too much for the red head to handle.

"Show me," the Time Lord stated.

"Are you crazy!" Kat almost shouted, only to freeze when the two males, and Rose turned to look at her. But it wasn't them that had her frozen to the spot. It was River's hand that lay across her mouth as the spirit tried to stop her from saying anything more.

Turning his attention away from the odd red head, Statten eyed the Doctor curiously. "You want to see it?" he asked.

"Blimey, you can smell the testosterone," Rose muttered, and Kat would have found the comment amusing, if she hadn't felt as though she had just jumped into a pool of ice cold water.

"Goddard, inform the Cage we're heading down," Statten started to order, "You, English. Look after the girls," he glanced at Kat before shaking his head, "Go and canoodle or spoon or whatever it is you British do," he told the young man, deciding to ignore the red head. He finally turned to the Time Lord, "And you, Doctor with no name, come and see my pet."

"Kat, come on," River said as the others started to leave.

The red head glanced at her, still feeling the effects of being touched by a ghost but nodded and followed after Rose and the young man, snatching the instrument off the floor as she did so.


"So, this, er, killer alien..." Kat spoke to River quietly while Rose was talking with, um, Adam?

"Dalek," River corrected absentmindedly, a small frown on her face as she looked at some of the items that were in Adam's workshop. "That's a hairdryer," she pointed to something in a box that was sitting on a table.

"So...this Dalek," Kat said slowly, gesturing for the ghost to elaborate further, "What is it doing here?"

The curly-haired blonde's frown deepened as she glanced at Kat. "It's being tortured," she explained to the red head, who gaped in shock, "Escaped a...war, and crashed onto Earth about fifty years ago."

Kat just nodded dumbly, unsure on what else to do. "And, the Doctor?" she questioned after a moment, slowly starting to get her mind to wrap around on what exactly she had 'fallen' into.

Her question had River smiling as the ghost moved around the bench. "Well," she glanced at Kat once more before shrugging, "He's the Doctor."

"And that tells me...nothing," the red head drawled as she leant against the bench. She let out a heavy breath as she glanced around at the 'junk' that the young man had accumulated before watching Rose talk with Adam. It was the one thing she could say was a downside of communicating with the dead. They could never outright lie to her, but they could withhold information. Though the red head would never push them for questions. They were dead, and it was the least she could do for them. Especially if they had come to her for help.

"I'm gobsmacked, yeah," Rose remarked as she looked over the table that she and Adam were at, "And you do what, sit here and catalogue it?"

"Best job in the world," the young man replied.

"Imagine if you could get out there. Travel amongst the stars and see..."

"So, why are you here?" Kat suddenly asked as she turned back to River, not overly interested in listening to whatever was happening with the others. And doing something familiar was somewhat calming for the red head. Grounding, in an odd sense.

"Well, I have some unfinished business," the ghost answered with a shrug, barely glancing at Kat.

"If you really do know me, you know that I don't believe that bullshit," Kat countered, "That's not how it works. You came to me and haven't left, which tells me that you want something that only I can help you with."

River raised an eyebrow as she looked at Kat, her expression rather thoughtful.

"Oh, right. You're a genius," Rose's voice cut through the pairs staring match and the red head glanced towards the younger blonde, missing River's lip twitched upwards into something akin to a smile as a thought occurred to the curly-haired spirit.

"Sorry, but yeah. I can't help it. I was born clever," Adam all but boasted, trying to play his words off with a disinterested shrug. Kat could tell that he was soaking up the attention he was getting off Rose, despite his actions. "When I was eight, I logged onto the US Defence System. Nearly caused World War Three," he continued, unable to keep how proud he felt about that accomplishment from his tone.

"What?!" Kat exclaimed, rather aghast that someone would even think of doing something like that. Kid or not. "How could you be proud of doing something so stupid like that?"

Rose and Adam jumped in surprise; both having forgotten that the red head was even there. The young man looked to her with a frown before shrugging again. "Well, you should've been there just to see them running about," he told her before turning his attention back to Rose, a smile forming on his lips, "Fantastic!"

"You sound like the Doctor," the younger blonde remarked.

"They're kidding, right?" Kat asked River, only to find the spirit frowning at the pair. She looked back to Rose and Adam, wondering what had caught the curly-haired woman's attention, though she couldn't see anything out of place. She was more attuned with reading peoples expressions over their words, especially when some of the spirits she had met over the years didn't all communicate in English.

Kat suddenly wondered how odd the people at the orphanage she had grown up in thought she was when she started to teach herself different languages. But she knew that she couldn't really tell them she was learning French, Italian, or even Russian because she wanted to understand what the dead were trying to tell her.

She had learnt the hard way as to what happens when the wrong people find out about her ability.

"Are you and him...?" Adam asked Rose, eyeing her curiously.

"No, we're just friends," Rose answered, though Kat could clearly see, and heard the hesitation in the younger blonde's words.

"Good," Adam said with a smile, almost seeming relieved.

Kat looked to River; her expression dubious. "Is he serious?" she whispered, and although the spirit didn't reply, her expression said it all. For whatever reason, one that Kat didn't know, River clearly didn't like Adam...or even Rose for that matter. She eyed the curly-haired blonde for a moment before looking back to the pair when River just shook her head.

"...you rather be downstairs?" she heard Rose ask the young man, "I mean, you've got these bits of metal stuff, but Mister Van Statten's got a living creature down there."

"Yeah. Yeah, well, I did ask," Adam admitted, "But he keeps it to himself. Although, if you're a genius, it doesn't take long to patch through on the comm system."

"Let's have a look, then," Rose said.

"Uh, is that really a good idea?" Kat questioned both River and Rose, rather not wanting to even see the killer alien. Spirits were her specialty. Not living, breathing aliens with a tendency to kill.

"It doesn't do much, the alien," Adam stated rather snidely, shooting Kat an unimpressed look as he begun to try and bring up a video of the Cage, "It's weird. It's kind of useless. It's just like this great big pepper pot."

Kat shot River a confused look, wondering how a pepper pot could be a killer, but her attention was quickly drawn back to the computer screen when screaming could be heard through the speakers. Her eyes widened in horror when she caught a glimpse of the Dalek screaming as someone in a specialised suit was drilling into its casing.

"It's being tortured!" Rose yelled in horror, "Where's the Doctor?" she asked, knowing that the Time Lord had gone down to have a look at the alien.

"I don't know," Adam replied.

Kat was still staring at the screen, her face pale as the alien continued to scream. She barely felt the cold touch of River as the spirit rested a hand on her shoulder. Flashes of memories she had hoped to forget crossed her mind and she took an involuntary step backwards.

Needles...so many needles.

Kat tried to fight off the faceless people that were holding her down, but there was only so much a five year old could do against adults.

"This is for your own good, Katrina," she barely heard a woman say as she screamed, her whole body arching off the bed as the band that was around her head sent jolts of electricity through her.

"They aren't real, Katrina," the same woman told her, and the red head could hear herself repeating the words, her tone almost lifeless and monotone.

"Take me down there now!" Rose demanded, turning to Adam before noticing that the red head was still staring at the screen. She frowned, unsure as to what she should do before taking a step towards the red head and resting her hand on Kat's shoulder. "Kat, are you okay?" she asked the woman, though was quick to remove her hand, wondering if she had done something wrong when the red head jumped in surprise.

"I..." Kat frowned, glancing at a clearly concerned River before shaking her head, "Yeah, I'm fine."

"That's good," Rose replied with a tentative smile, though she didn't believe the red head. Kat was looking very pale and was shaking slightly, but the younger blonde didn't say anything about it. Instead she asked, "Do you want to stay up here and wait?" remembering the panic attack the red head had had earlier when they met her. Though her eyebrows creased slightly when Kat glanced away once more before shaking her head again.

"No...I think I should come," the red head told Rose, frowning slightly at the thought. But River had told her that she would be okay, and she guessed that staying with Rose would be a lot better than being left alone in a place she didn't know with memories that she didn't want to remember.


"There is no way in the world I'm going in there," Kat muttered as she stood in the doorway of the Cage, eyeing the darkened room beyond with trepidation.

"No one said that you had to," River remarked, glancing at the red head with a small smile.

Rose and Adam had already stepped inside, but Kat had stopped the moment she had laid eyes on the alien. She had no idea why the sight of the giant pepper pot made her shiver, but she couldn't stop herself, and it had nothing to do with the flashbacks she had experienced minutes earlier. In addition to her own ill feelings, when the red head glanced to the spirit, she could see by the way River was standing that her unknown fears were well founded.

River looked stiff and ready to pull a weapon out as she eyed the Dalek, her face void of any expression. It did make Kat wonder if the curly-haired blonde had seen a Dalek before, for the blonde sure spoke like she had.

"Don't get too close," the red head heard Adam tell Rose and she turned to see the blonde slowly approach the Dalek.

Glancing one last time to River, Kat made the quick decision and slipped inside as the door begun to close. She had no idea as to what had crossed her mind and made her enter the Cage, but she felt as though she couldn't leave the pair inside on their own, even if she believed it was probably the stupidest idea she had ever done.

Rose continued to slowly step toward the Dalek as she spoke, her tone soothing as if she was speaking to an injured, wild animal. "Hello. Are you in pain?" she asked the alien, "My name's Rose Tyler. I've got a friend, he can help. He's called the Doctor. What's your name."

The red head stiffened as the blonde continued, noticing right away the slight twitch of the aliens, er, eyestalk when the blonde had mentioned the Time Lord's name. She looked back towards the door where River was standing, wanting to ask the spirit if the Dalek knew the Doctor, but was drawn to look back to the alien when it spoke.

"Yes."

A shiver went down Kat's spine at hearing its voice.

"What?" Rose asked.

"I am in pain," the Dalek told them, and Kat couldn't help but flinch at what it said next, having seen just how the people in the museum had tortured it. "They torture me, but still they fear me. Do you fear me?" it questioned Rose, its eyestalk moving to look at the blonde.

"No," Rose replied with a sad shake of her head.

The creature then turned to Kat, causing her to freeze on the spot, almost as if it was pinning her down with its gaze. She once again felt River place a comforting hand on her shoulder, but couldn't help but wince when she was hit with an unintentional vision from the spirit.

"For what?" River asked a man with green eyes and floppy brown hair.

"Big Bang Two!" the man told her, "Now listen-" he was cut off when he was shot by a laser.

"Exterminate! Exterminate!" a Dalek screeched.

"You fear me, don't you?" the Dalek asked Kat who swallowed hard, glancing back to River when the spirit dropped her hand and took a step back, realising what had happened. The alien's eyestalk dropped when she didn't respond. "I am dying," it stated.

It wasn't as if Kat could respond. Whatever that vision had been, having been caused by what she guessed was River's emotions running so high, it made her blood run cold at the screeching of the Dalek. She felt as though she couldn't move, to speak, frightened that if she did, whatever she had seen happen to the floppy-haired man would happen to her. Whatever a Dalek was...whatever was inside that shell, it terrified her.

"No, we can help," Rose told the alien, but it sounded as though the blonde was far away to Katrina, who's mind was swimming with the possibilities of what could happen.

"I welcome death," the Dalek stated, though Kat jumped, almost as if the spell that had been placed upon her was broken when River scoffed. "But I am glad that before I die, I have met a human who was not afraid."

"Isn't there anything we can do?" Rose questioned. Her tone was sorrowful, but to Kat, it seemed like she didn't want to give up on the alien.

"My race is dead, and I shall die alone," the Dalek replied, its eyestalk looking away from Rose.

"Stop her," River's voice spoke up, causing Kat to jump once again at how close she was before noticing that the younger blonde was leaning towards the Dalek, her hand outstretched.

"Rose, no!" Adam shouted at the same time Kat rushed towards the blonde, trying to stop her from touching the Dalek, but it was too late.

Rose jerked her hand away from the Dalek, leaving behind a golden handprint that quickly faded.

"What did she do?" Kat asked in a harsh whisper as she backed away towards the door, her eyes locked on the alien as it started to become more animated.

"Genetic material extrapolated. Initiate cellular reconstruction," the Dalek screeched before it broke through the chains effortlessly.

Kat yelped when the door opened behind her, and she was quick to move out of the way as a man entered, carrying what looked to be the same drill she had seen earlier that had been used to torture the alien.

"What the hell have you done?!" the man yelled at Rose as he approached the Dalek, only for the alien to raise its sucker arm at him. The man grinned, "What are you going to do? Sucker me to death?" he asked.

"Stupid question for a stupid man," River said as she tried to get Kat to leave the room as the Dalek proceeded to do just as the man said. "Come on, Kat. You need to go." The red head was frozen in fear however and River sighed, deciding that now was not the time to ask for permission.

The next thing Katrina knew was darkness with the vague sense that she was moving.