Chapter 15 The One in the Big Apple
Welcome to part two of The One in the Big Apple! Let's find out who Laszlo is…
As always, I own nothing recognisable!
Luckily for Florence, standing there with her hands above her head - an occurrence that seemed more regular than should have in all her years of living, Martha Jones asked the question before she could open her mouth and be slightly too rude to the blonde waving a gun at her. "Who's Laszlo?" She didn't know who Laszlo was meant to be, but she would be sure to knock him round the head if he had left this mad woman scorned, and in possession of a gun. The blonde lifted her chin and looked unflinchingly at them,
"You better come with me right now." She started walking backwards and motioned for them to follow with the weapon, which they all did without hesitation, until she reached the door of a dressing room. She collapsed onto the plush chair in front of the dressing table and relaxed almost immediately, resting her gun wielding arm casually on the table with a loose wrist. "Laszlo's my boyfriend. Or… was my boyfriend until he disappeared two weeks ago." She looked at them in pure disbelief, as if expecting a response from essentially her captives. "No letter, no goodbye, no nothing. And I'm not stupid." At this, she gestured to her temple with the barrel of the gun, Florence was about to put her hand out to stop her but thought better of making sudden movements. "I know some guys are just pigs but not my Laszlo. I mean, what kind of guy asks you to meet his mother before he vamooses?" The Doctor took advantage of her intake of breath to cut in,
"Yeah… it might, might just help if you put that down." He stepped in front of Florence as he spoke, holding his hands out placatingly in front of him, but the woman just looked confused.
"Huh?" She asked, before noticing the gun still in her hand and throwing it down casually to the side, making the foursome jump uncomfortably. "Oh, come on! It's not real, its just a prop! It was either that or a spear!" Florence took back any negative thoughts about the ditzy blonde in front of her, she was amazing.
"What do you think happened to Laszlo?" Florence asked curiously, curious to see if the disappearances matched up, and the woman helped enormously,
"Wish I knew. One minute he's there, next, zip! Vanished."
"Listen, uh, what's your name?" The Doctor cut through Florence's interrogating skills, and the blonde smiled up at him,
"Tallulah." She answered, and the Doctor nodded.
"Tallulah, right-"
"Three Ls and an H." Tallulah told him, almost proudly.
"Right, well, we can try to find Laszlo, but he's not the only one." The Doctor continued. "There are people disappearing every night."
"And there are creatures." Solomon told her gently. "Such creatures." Their minds went back to poor Frank, trapped down there with them.
"What do you mean, 'creatures'?" Tallulah asked, with worry and a hint of curiosity in her eyes.
"Look, listen, just trust me." Florence felt the Doctor's anxiety to get moving, to get the ball rolling and figure out what was going on in the city before it was too late for anyone else. "Everyone is in danger. I need to find out exactly what this is." He held up the green blob he had found in his hand, and Tallulah looked, rightly bloody so in Florence's opinion, disgusted.
"Yuck!"
The Doctor and Solomon left the dressing room to discuss macho male business (a comment the Doctor did not seem appreciative of), while Martha and Florence kept the delightful Tallulah - two Ls and an H - company. Tallulah was putting her outfit for the show together, a white corseted number that made her look positively radiant, and was telling the girls all about her love.
"He'd wait for me after the show." She was telling them. "Walk me home like I was a lady. He'd leave a flower for me on my dressing table. Every day, just a single rose bud." Florence smiled at her,
"Very romantic."
"Have you reported him missing?" Martha asked, but Tallulah shrugged sadly,
"Sure. He's just a stagehand. Who cares?" She was bitter. "The management certainly don't."
"Can't you kick up a fuss or something?" Tallulah laughed at that,
"Okay, so then they fire me." Florence picked up one of the trinkets on the shelves, a top hat with the top coming unstitched.
"But they'd listen to you." Martha persisted, trying to appear casual by inspecting one of Tallulah's lipsticks. "You're one of the stars."
Tallulah laughed at that. "Oh, honey, I got one song in a back street revue and that's only because Heidi Chicane broke her ankle. Which had nothing to do with me whatever anybody says." Florence giggled at the thought of feisty Tallulah making sure she was in the show a la Tonya Harding. "I can't afford to make a fuss. If I don't make this month's rent, then before you know it, I'm in Hooverville." Martha nodded, swiping the red lipstick across the back of her hand,
"Okay, I get it."
"It's the Depression, sweetie. Your heart might break, but the show goes on. Because if it stops, you starve. Every night I have to go out there, sing, dance, keep going, hoping he's going to come back." Florence went over to the helpless blonde, hugging her across her shoulders tightly,
"We're gonna do our best to find him, Tallulah, him and the others." She didn't like making false promises, but if one thing was for certain travelling with the Doctor, they always tried. Martha joined the hug,
"I'm sorry." Tallulah smiled at the two of them,
"Hey, you're lucky, though. You got yourself a forward thinking guy with that hot potato in the sharp suit."
"I haven't got anything!" Florence laughed awkwardly. "We're not together!" Tallulah raised an eyebrow,
"Oh, sure you are. I've seen the way you look at each other. It's obvious."
"Nope, you got it wrong, Tallulah. Sorry." The only way Florence had been looking at him recently was annoyance, getting them lost in the sewers, trying to send the girls back up because they were in 'danger', whatever…
"Alright, honey, but you know," Tallulah smirked slightly, "I never said which one of yous had him, you just jumped straight into it, huh?" Florence gaped slightly at that, while Martha laughed slightly behind her hand. "Still," Tallulah continued, "you got to live in hope. It's the only thing that's kept me going because, well, look. On my dressing table every day still." There it was, a single white rosebud.
"You think it's Laszlo?" Tallulah shrugged at Martha, putting her white angel wings on to complete her outfit,
"I don't know. If he's still around, why is he being all secret like he doesn't want me to see him?" Before either girl could continue the Doctor poked his head into the room,
"Sorry to interrupt, Solomon's headed back to Hooverville, and I was thinking…" He pulled the jellyfish out from behind the door. "Who fancies helping gather some tech for me to have a closer look?" Florence immediately whipped around to see bloody Martha Jones standing there, finger on the tip of her nose,
"Not it." She scowled at her friend and turned back to the Doctor's confused but bright grin, opening the door wider and sidling passed him, pulling his hand as she went,
"Come on then, hot potato." Ignoring the two grown women giggling behind them, the two set off to find some lights in the theatre.
Florence found herself crouched low on the floor of the balcony seating of the theatre, surrounded by lighting equipment and dust sheets covering up the rows behind her, staring down at the Doctor who had set up a tech-y looking gadget to place the slimy jellyfish into, powering it all with his trusty screwdriver.
"That's it." The Doctor was saying, powering up one of the spotlights and aiming at the object of his interest. "We need to heat you up!" He placed his nerdy specs on and looked up at Florence, who was smiling softly at them. "What?"
"Just, feels like ages since I've seen them…" She poked the bridge so that they settled higher on his nose. "Very nerdy, Mr Scientist." He turned away with a bashful smile, and Florence leaned over from where she was sitting to settle on her side closer to the tech, half across his tan overcoat. "So, what are you thinking? Is it, like, a species? Or… spit or something?" The Doctor shrugged,
"No clue, to be honest. There's something about it I can't quite place my finger on." He looked so closely at it that his nose was almost touching the surface, turning some dials on the machine it was attached to and connecting some wires to it. "It's almost… I dunno, wrong." Florence frowned,
"Wrong? What, 'wronger' than you know, being in New York in the first place?"
"Well, it's just, what was it doing in the tunnels? And why just the one? Is it part of something bigger? Or is it an accident, someone got scared and threw it away?" He poked and prodded it, before running his thumb over the strange, brain like ridges of its exterior.
"So what are you doing with it?" Florence asked, and the Doctor pointed at the gadget next to him,
"See this? It's basically analysing the composite matter and figuring out the DNA structure of the cells to see whether its a species, an experiment gone wrong, or… spit." Florence smiled slightly at that. "Here, look." He grabbed her hand and ran it along the same ridges. "Feel that?"
"It feels, like, grainy?" Florence noted, unsure what he was expecting from her, but he nodded quickly,
"I believe… we've found a fake." He told her, twisting another part of the gadget.
"A fake?" Florence asked, slightly confused. "What like, a prop or?"
"No, artificial." The Doctor peered up at her. "Someone's been making an alien…"
Florence heard the sound of the show beginning below them and saw the top of the stage as the red curtains opened. She returned her eyes back to the thing on the floor in front of her,
"Making an alien? Out of what? I've never seen stuff like that hanging around! Let alone in the 20s?" The Doctor placed one of her fingers over a wire to hold it in place as her switched things around,
"Exactly! Genetical engineering in the 1920s?" He smiled slightly, he couldn't help it, she could tell he was concerned but fascinated at the same time. "Oh, whoever this is, they're clever…" He halted in his inspection to reach into the pocket of his blue suit jacket and pulled out a stethoscope, Florence shook her head at the absurdity of his never ending space in his pockets, he was becoming more and more like his spaceship everyday. She stayed quiet as he put the resonator on the centre of the artificial alien matter and listened closely. "Fundamental DNA type 467 dash 989… 989…"
"What does that mean?" The Doctor rubbed his eyes, pushing the glasses up his head slightly,
"It means… 989, 989… planet of origin." He counted something on his fingers, then he froze, and looked up at Florence with terror she had never seen present on his face before. "Skaro." He stumbled to his feet, before grabbing his screwdriver and then Florence, who scrambled to clutch his overcoat in her hand before allowing him to drag her away,
"Skaro? Doctor, what does that mean?"
"It means we need to find Martha! Now!" The two raced down the stairs, heading back towards the hallways backstage, where they found Tallulah surrounded by red devil women chattering amongst themselves. "Tallulah!" The Doctor called out to her, grabbing her shoulders urgently. "Where is she? Where's Martha!"
"I don't know!" The blonde seemed similarly concerned about their friend's whereabouts. "She ran off the stage." Florence opened her mouth to suggest they all head that way, when a scream echoed through the halls, haltering her in her tracks.
"Martha!" She yelled instead, shoving the Doctor's coat into his arms and running off in the direction of the noise, she ended up back in the props room they had emerged from not so long ago, and Florence's heart jumped when she realised the manhole cover had not been correctly resealed. The Doctor halted directly behind her moments after she had arrived, followed swiftly by Tallulah. "Doctor, we have to go down there."
"I know." He pulled on his overcoat before pulling the manhole cover to the side.
"Where are you going?" Tallulah asked breathlessly, and Florence turned to give her a slightly shaky smile,
"They've taken her, but we're gonna get her back."
"Who's taken her? What're you doing?" The Doctor ignored the blonde, checking the sewer quickly for an ambush before heading down the first few rungs of the ladder, motioning Florence to start climbing once he had left her some room, she followed quickly and smiled slightly when she saw Tallulah mutter to herself and grab a long fur coat from the shelves behind her. The Doctor grabbed Florence's waist and helped her jump the last few rungs, handing her a torch and making to immediately move off but faltered when he saw the glittery silver heels of Tallulah coming down after her,
"No, no, no, no, no way." He told the blonde, sternly. "You're not coming."
"Tell me what's going on." Tallulah demanded, but the Doctor was adamant.
"There's nothing you can do. Go back." Florence shook her head, looking round the sewers worriedly, torchlight bouncing off the walls,
"Doctor we haven't got time for this!"
"Look," Tallulah argued. "Whoever's taken Martha, they could've taken Laszlo, couldn't they?" The Doctor ignored her once more,
"Tallulah, you're not safe down here."
"Then that's my problem." The bolshy blonde told him firmly. "Come on. Which way?" She headed down the tunnel to their left without a reply, but the Doctor grabbed Florence's hand with a barely perceivable huff of annoyance and walked straight ahead.
"This way." He said without looking back, the clacking of Tallulah's heels following after them. They walked in relative silence for a few minutes, the Doctor leading them through the maze of tunnels and hopefully towards their friend, while Florence kept an ear out for any sound of Martha, but all that echoed was Tallulah's heels.
"When you say, they've taken her, who's they exactly?" Tallulah asked, ducking under the iron portcullis. "And who are you anyway? I never asked." The Doctor shushed her, turning his torch off as he heard something approach, but Tallulah didn't. "Okay, okay!" He shushed her more urgently, pushing Florence behind him and grabbing Tallulah's arm to stop her from walking, as the shadow of some sort of robot or machinery appeared on the wall ahead. "I mean you're handsome and all-" Tallulah was thankfully cut off by the Doctor's hand over her mouth as he dragged the two girls into the shadows in a small alcove as the robotic creature rolled past them. As it went, Florence looked at it as closely as she could with most of the Doctor's body covering her, it was made of a golden metal casing, and rolled slowly across the alcove. The casing covering it gave it almost a pepperpot shape, with the eyestalk and two further stalks sticking out of the main body, there was an eerily bright blue glow emanating from its eyepiece. Everything about it screamed futuristic, out of this world and, most importantly, dangerous. There was a tense moment when the creature had rolled far enough away from them where not one of them breathed too loudly just in case, before the Doctor stepped out and watched it roll out of eyesight.
"No, no, no, no, no, no, no. They survived." He muttered to himself, and Florence stood next to him, looking after the thing curiously. "They always survive while I lose everything."
"Doctor…" She began carefully, tugging on the sleeve of his overcoat. "What was that?" He looked at her, confused for a second, almost as though he had forgotten how young she was,
"That was a Dalek, Florence." Florence shook her head slightly,
"But, but you said they all died?" She asked him gently, recalling the last time she had travelled with him and Martha, and he had told them a brief version of how he had lost his home planet. "How can that one be alive?"
"Alive?" Tallulah asked, coming out of the alcove. "You're kidding, it's metal?"
"Does it look like I'm kidding?" The Doctor snapped, causing Tallulah to look at him in shock, and Florence to move her hand from its place on the edge of his sleeve to grip his forearm in support. "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."
"But if it's not a human being, that kind of implies it's from outer space." The Doctor and Florence both gave her a look. "Yet again, that's a no with the kidding. Oi... Well, what's it doing here, in New York?"
"That's what we need to find out." Florence answered, looking up at the Doctor. "After we find Martha." The Doctor nodded, before grabbing Tallulah's arm and dragging her back the way they had come, and away from the direction the Dalek had headed in,
"Every second you're down here, you're in danger." He told her. "And I can't risk that with Florence down here already. I'm taking you back right now." The rounded the corner at the same time another one of the pigmen came into the same tunnel, causing Tallulah to scream while the creature tried to hid, settling on facing into a corner as the Doctor approached it angrily,
"Where's Martha? What have you done with her? What have you done with Martha?" Florence wrapped an arm around Tallulah while the Doctor shone a torch in the creature's face.
"I didn't take her." It answered, and Florence frowned,
"Wait a minute… I thought they just squealed…" She led Tallulah slightly closer. "What's your name?" She called out, but it hid itself further into the corner,
"Don't look at me."
"Do you know where she is?" Tallulah asked.
"Stay back!" The pigman was firmer when Tallulah spoke, holding his hand out. "Don't look at me."
"What happened to you?" The Doctor questioned, a lot more gently.
"They made me a monster." Came the reply from the corner.
"Who did? Who's they?" Florence asked, fearing that she already knew the answer.
"The masters."
"The Daleks." The Doctor confirmed. "Why?"
"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." Florence gasped, that was why he could speak, he was stuck halfway through a forced, unnatural transformation.
"Do you know what happened to Martha?" The Doctor asked, still not trusting the half man.
"They took her. It's my fault. She was following me." Came his response.
Tallulah stepped slightly out of Florence's hold, "Were you in the theatre?" She asked quickly, but the man hesitated,
"I never... Yes."
"Why?" Tallulah demanded. "Why were you there?"
"I never wanted you to see me like this." He turned his head slightly, but still refused to completely show his face. His response wasn't enough for Tallulah,
"Why me? What I got to do with this? Were you following me? Is that why you were there?"
He finally turned, still half hidden by the shadows. "Yes."
"Who are you?" Tallulah asked, and Florence caught the Doctor's eye, he looked just as confused as she was.
"I was lonely."
"Who are you?" Tallulah repeated, stepping closer.
"I needed to see you."
"Who are you?" Tallulah asked a third time, but the man tried to turn away once again,
"I'm sorry."
"No, wait." She stopped him, gently catching the pink boilersuit in her hand. "Let me look at you." She bought his face into the light, it was distinctly more human than the other pigmen they had encountered, his head still full of thick brown hair, his skin a lot smoother but with blunt short tusks sticking from out of the corners of his mouth. "Laszlo? My Laszlo?" Florence's mouth opened at the revelation, she couldn't believe this would have been the outcome of Laszlo's disappearance. "Oh, what have they done to you?" Tallulah sounded near to tears, caressing his neck and chest gently, in disbelief.
"I'm sorry. So sorry."
"Laszlo," the Doctor began gently, "can you show me where they are?"
"They'll kill you." Laszlo told him, but the Doctor was unmoved,
"If I don't stop them, they'll kill everyone." Laszlo nodded, looking at Tallulah before moving towards the entrance of another tunnel,
"Then follow me."
All the tunnels seemed to blend into the same as the new group turned right once more, the smell not fading and the silence becoming more and more eerie now that Florence knew what could be waiting for them around any corner. Laszlo slowed down as he seemed to hear something up ahead, stopping them and ducking around the edge of the tunnel they were in, Florence could hear what had startled him, the sound of pig-like scoffing and shuffling, and as she peaked out slightly she could just make out the red leather jacket of Martha Jones being backed up against the wall by the pigmen as a Dalek rolled near them. Florence had to cover her mouth when another one of the Doctor's sworn enemies who were all meant to have died appeared around the corner.
"Report." She heard the grating robotic voice of one of them command the other, and wondered whether they had a system of hierarchy amongst the Daleks.
"These are strong specimens. They will help the Dalek cause." The other one answered.
"What is the status of the Final Experiment?" The first asked. Florence realised that there was little more frightening than an enemy who would openly discuss their master plan because they knew that their captives could do nothing about it. However, they clearly hadn't considered one of the Doctor's companions being one of them.
"The Dalekanium is in place. The energy conductor is now complete."
"Then I will extract prisoners for selection." At that one of the pigmen dragged one of the captives forward, and the Dalek extended the plunger stalk of his casing out and placed it over the man's face. "Intelligence scan, initiate…" There was a moment of silence. "Reading brain waves… Low intelligence."
The man looked affronted, "You calling me stupid?" Florence wondered if he understood the irony of that.
"Silence!" The Dalek commanded. "This one will become a pig slave. Next." The pigman holding him began to drag him away, and down a tunnel nearby.
"No, let go of me!" The poor man yelled, his shouts becoming desperate the further he got. "I'm not becoming one of them. No! No!"
"Intelligence scan. Initiate." The Dalek continued onto the next victim. Laszlo ducked back behind the wall again, looking sadly at the Doctor,
"They're divided into two groups." He whispered. "High intelligence and low intelligence. The low intelligence are taken to become pig slaves like me."
"Well, that's not fair." Tallulah told them, a bit too loudly, causing Florence to wave her hand around and shush the girl. "You're the smartest guy I ever dated."
"And the others?" The Doctor ignored her in favour of asking Laszlo more.
"They're taken to the laboratory." He told them.
"Why? What for?" Laszlo shrugged,
"I don't know. The masters only call it the Final Experiment." The Doctor looked out again before quickly pulling back,
"Look out, they're moving!" Laszlo began to lead Tallulah away, but Florence noticed the Doctor staying and remained by his side.
"Doctor. Doctor, quickly!" Laszlo whispered but the Doctor shook his head,
"I'm not coming. I've got an idea. You go." Florence looked up at him, already knowing his next sentence,
"I'm not going anywhere and you know it." The Doctor smiled slightly at her, his first since he had seen the Dalek,
"I do." Florence turned to see Tallulah running down the tunnel and Laszlo rejoined them, they paused as the Dalek came past, luckily turning in the other direction, before sliding into formation between Martha and, Florence was very glad to see, Frank. "Keep walking." The Doctor told Martha quickly, and she let out a long exhale,
"Oh, I'm so glad to see you both."
"Yeah, well, you can kiss me later." The Doctor promised, before inclining his head behind him. "You too, Frank, if you want." Florence laughed quietly but turned her head as well to the man behind her,
"It's great to see you Frank."
"You too, ma'am."
The group was led into a weirdly abandoned looking laboratory, Laszlo gripping the Doctor and Florence's arms to maintain his cover, and managed to escape the Daleks' detection. There were four Daleks in the room, three were gold while one was black - Florence assumed that this was in fact the hierarchy she had thought of earlier - she noted that the black one was suspiciously steaming.
"Report." One of the Daleks demanded.
"Dalek Sec is in the final stage of evolution." Another replied.
"Scan him. Prepare for birth." The first Dalek told the others, who gathered around Dalek Sec.
"Evolution?" Martha whispered to Doctor, she was the only one of the group of captives daring to speak, the rest frozen still in confusion and fear. "What's wrong with old Charlie boy over there?"
"Ask them." The Doctor told her, and she and Florence looked at him in shock, was he the one who wanted them away from all this?
"What, me? Don't be daft." Martha argued, but the Doctor shrugged,
"I don't exactly want to get noticed. Neither can Florence, before she suggests." Florence pouted a bit at that. "Ask them what's going on." Florence squeezed the girl's hand before she stepped out of the line up bravely.
"Daleks, I demand to be told." Martha told them in a strong tone, and one of them turned to acknowledge her. "What is this Final Experiment? Report!"
"You will bear witness." Was all it replied.
"To what?"
"This is the dawn of a new age." Florence and Martha both shared a worried look, before Florence nodded at her to continue asking questions.
"What does that mean?"
"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." Florence looked up at the Doctor, she didn't fully understand what the Dalek was talking about, and from the confusion written all over the Doctor's face she wasn't confident that even he knew what was happening. It was an odd occurrence, the Doctor being confused and, if a little, out of his depth. Florence didn't like it.
The Dalek turned back to face Dalek Sec, who had finally stopped smoking and they watched the blue light of his eyestalk dim before going out, there was a hiss of steam before the casing opened up and revealed a strange huddled figure inside. It stretched up to stand on two feet, dressed in a black pinstripe suit that had once belonged to Mr Diagoras, its hands were wrinkled and a brownish colour that matched the tentacles on its face. Florence backed up into the Doctor slightly as the hybrid straightened to its full, human size.
"What is it?" Martha asked, in shock. They all watched as the creature, with its one eyed, exposed brain matter tentacled face, gasped and breathed fresh air for the first time.
"I am a human Dalek." It said in harsh pants, with a strange new york accent. " I am your future."
OOOOOOO Hybrid Dalek Sec! I have to say I always think of this two-parter as my least favourite so rarely watch it! But having rewatched it to write this, it's actually really fun!
see you for chapter 16! xo