AN: This episode has a rather large continuity problem. Dalek Sec tells the Doctor they're going to use a solar flare to power the genetic hybridisation, but by the time the Doctor reaches the top of the building, that's changed to a lightning strike. The Daleks mention the solar flare once more, but otherwise, it's a gamma strike/lightning strike. I researched the possibility of a solar flare causing a thunderstorm—no. So, given that it's obviously lightning that strikes the Doctor, I've changed the earlier conversation with the Daleks to match the reality of what happens.
Chapter 17: …I Can't Say
The Doctor stared at the being that had formerly been Mr. Diagoras and Dalek Sec. The blend of human and Dalek created a grotesque parody of both species.
Dalek Sec pointed at the humans who'd been selected for their superior intelligence. "These humans will become like me," he said, and the pig men approached.
Sensing this was his best opportunity, the Doctor grabbed Rose's hand and tugged her behind the scientific equipment with him. I'm going to create a little diversion, he told her, and it'd be best if you weren't where they could see you. She nodded, and he pulled the radio out of his coat pocket.
"Prepare them for hybridisation," Dalek Sec commanded.
"Leave me alone!" Martha ordered. "Don't you dare!"
The Doctor tuned the radio in to the closest station, and "Happy Days Are Here Again" started playing.
"What is that sound?" Dalek Sec asked.
"Ah, well, now, that would be me." The Doctor stepped out from behind the equipment and set the radio down next to a Bunsen burner. "Hello. Surprise. Boo. Et cetera," he told Dalek Sec, putting his hands in his pocket.
"Doctor," Dalek Sec spat out.
His minions were quick to spout out the typical Dalek rhetoric.
"The enemy of the Daleks."
"Exterminate."
They both rolled forward, but Dalek Sec threw his hands out. "Wait!"
The Doctor walked slowly towards the hybrid. He'd wondered how merging with a human would affect it, and already he was seeing differences. "Well, then. A new form of Dalek. Fascinating and very clever."
"The Cult of Skaro escaped your slaughter," Sec growled.
The Doctor pressed his lips together. Reminding him of Canary Wharf was not the wisest move. "How did you end up in 1930?"
Sec answered, putting a slight pause between each word in a way the Doctor was quickly realising was his new speech pattern. "Emergency temporal shift."
"Oh." The Doctor hummed smugly, looking around at the four Daleks. "That must have roasted up your power cells, huh?" He slowly walked away from the Daleks, tugging on his ear in a studied show of nonchalance. "Time was, four Daleks could have conquered the world, but instead you're skulking away, hidden in the dark, experimenting." He looked back at Dalek Sec. "All of which results in you."
The hybrid clearly felt the implied insult in the words. "I am Dalek in human form."
"What does it feel like?" the Doctor finally asked. He sauntered up to the hybrid and looked it straight in its cyclopean eye. "You can talk to me, Dalek Sec. It is Dalek Sec, isn't it? That's your name? You've got a name and a mind of your own. Tell me what you're thinking right now."
"I feel humanity," Sec said, and turned away.
That was exactly the answer the Doctor had hoped for. "Good. That's good."
"I feel everything we wanted from mankind," Sec continued, turning back to the Doctor and advancing slowly on him, "which is ambition, hatred, aggression and war. Such a genius for war."
That was not the answer the Doctor had hoped for. He shook his head. "No, that's not what humanity means."
Sec cut him off before he finished the last word. "I think it does. At heart, this species is so very Dalek."
The Doctor pivoted and started pacing in front of the Daleks. "All right, so what have you achieved then, with this final experiment, eh? Nothing! Because I can show you what you're missing with this thing." He pointed at all four Daleks, then at the radio. "A simple little radio."
"What is the purpose of that device?" one of the Daleks asked.
"Well, exactly," the Doctor said, nodding sagely. "It plays music. What's the point of that? Oh, with music, you can dance to it, sing with it, fall in love to it." He looked straight into the eyestalk of the Dalek standing on his right. "Unless you're a Dalek of course. Then it's all just noise."
Before the Daleks realised what he was doing, the Doctor whipped his sonic out of his pocket and pointed it at the radio. Painful feedback came through the speakers, and the Daleks and pig men all cringed in pain.
The humans were barely keeping their feet, but they didn't have the same kind of sonic hearing that the Daleks and pig men did. "Run!" the Doctor ordered them. Rose darted out from her hiding place, and the Doctor followed them out of the room.
They exited the basement through the same service door, escaping back into the tunnels. "Come on!" the Doctor shouted, moving up towards the front of the group. "Move, move, move, move, move!" They met Tallulah on the way, which somehow didn't surprise him. "And you, Tallulah! Run!"
"What's happened to Laszlo?" she asked.
The Doctor ignored her and kept running. When he reached the ladder leading to the theatre, he stood to the side, letting everyone else go up first. "Come on! Everyone up! Come on!" Rose had been at the back of the group, making sure they didn't have any stragglers, and the Doctor followed her up the ladder.
oOoOoOoOo
Rose shivered in the cold November night, despite the campfire she, Martha, and Tallulah were all huddled around. The Doctor had taken them straight to Hooverville as soon as they'd left the sewer so they could warn the people.
Solomon paced on the other side of the fire, pausing occasionally to shoot disbelieving looks at the Doctor, who stood watching him with his arms crossed over his chest. "These Daleks," he said finally, "they sound like the stuff of nightmares. And they want to breed?"
The Doctor nodded. "They're splicing themselves onto human bodies, and if I'm right, they've got a farm of breeding stock right here in Hooverville." He looked around at the tents and shook his head. "You've got to get everyone out."
"Hooverville's the lowest place a man can fall." Solomon shook his head. "There's nowhere else to go."
Frank was crouched on the ground on Rose's right, and she felt a pang in her heart when she saw the scared look on the young man's face. Was there anyone else who would take care of him the way Solomon had?
"I'm sorry, Solomon," the Doctor insisted. "You've got to scatter. Go anywhere. Down to the railroads, travel across state. Just get out of New York."
"There's got to be a way to reason with these things."
Rose snorted. "Not bloody likely, mate."
Frank stood and looked at Solomon. "You ain't seen them, boss."
"Daleks are bad enough at any time, but right now they're vulnerable," the Doctor explained in a low voice. "That makes them more dangerous than ever."
A high-pitched whistle pierced the air, followed by a shout. "They're coming! They're coming!"
Rose's stomach twisted into knots. They were too late.
"A sentry. He must have seen something," Solomon said and adjusted his hold on his rifle.
"They're here!" the sentry yelled. "I've seen them! Monsters! They're monsters!"
The Doctor's jaw twitched as the whole camp flew into a panic. "It's started."
Solomon took command of his city. "We're under attack! Everyone to arms!"
Men reached into a shack and pulled out rifles, handing them out to each able-bodied person. Even Frank took a gun and pointed it into the night.
"I'm ready, boss," he said, then looked at the unarmed men and women standing around. "But all of you, find a weapon! Use anything."
The group scattered, people running off into the night as Hooverville descended into chaos. "Come back!" Solomon shouted after them. "We've got to stick together! It's not safe out there! Come back!"
The pig men seemed to be everywhere, and none of the humans with guns were willing to leave the relative safety of the fire to track them down. Instead, they formed a tight circle, with the three women at the centre. All around them, the sound of pig men squealing echoed in the dark, mixed with the screams of the men they dragged off.
"We need to get out of the park," Martha said.
The Doctor broke into the circle, brushing a hand over Rose's shoulders. "We can't. They're on all sides. They're driving everyone back towards us," he said, indicating the people joining them in groups of two and three.
"We're trapped," cried Tallulah.
Solomon held steady. "Then we stand together. Gather round. Everybody come to me. You there, Jethro, Harry, Seamus, stay together. They can't take all of us."
Rose flinched when the first shot rang out, and then the air was filled with the sound of rifle fire. The Doctor slipped back through the crowd to stand behind her and Martha.
"If we can just hold them off till daylight," Martha said hopefully.
"Oh, Martha, they're just the foot soldiers."
The Doctor's voice sent a chill down Rose's spine, and she followed his gaze upward. "Oh, my god." A Dalek was flying towards them.
Whose idea was it to teach those things how to fly?
The Doctor looked over at her, the smallest hint of a smile teasing the corners of his mouth and she shrugged her shoulders. Well, wouldn't it be easier if they couldn't?
"What in this world is…?" Solomon mumbled.
"It's the devil," one of the men said. "A devil in the sky. God save us all. It's damnation."
"Oh, yeah?" Frank said. "We'll see about that!" He fired at the Dalek. Its force field didn't seem to be working, but even as weak as they were, the polycarbide shell still protected them from the bullets.
The Doctor darted forward and pushed the barrel of Frank's gun down. "That's not going to work."
A second blip in the sky came closer and closer, and Martha crept up next to the Doctor and Rose. "There's more than one of them."
The two Daleks hovered in the air for a tense moment, and then they started flying around the camp, firing their death rays at the tents, blowing up munitions and driving out anyone who was still hiding.
"The humans will surrender," one of the Daleks said.
"Leave them alone," the Doctor shouted. "They've done nothing to you!"
Rose didn't say anything when Solomon slowly walked out in front of the group. She recognised the fierce determination on his face and knew he wouldn't be persuaded to let this go without attempting to negotiate.
The Doctor wasn't as willing to accept the other man's decision. When he noticed Solomon, he rushed over and tried to push him back to relative safety. "No, Solomon. Stay back."
Solomon straightened his back. "I'm told that I'm addressing the Daleks. Is that right? From what I hear, you're outcasts too."
"Solomon, don't!" the Doctor pleaded, desperation making his voice harsh.
Solomon stared him down. "Doctor, this is my township. You will respect my authority." He put a hand on the Doctor's chest and pushed him firmly back into the crowd. "Just let me try."
The Doctor backed away a few paces, knowing what was going to happen, feeling helpless to stop it. Solomon was so brave, and he was going to die.
Solomon stepped farther away from the group and held his gun out at his side. "Daleks, ain't we all the same? Underneath, ain't we all kin?" He slowly bent down and set the rifle on the ground. "Right. See, I've just discovered this past day, God's universe is a thousand times the size I thought it was. And that scares me. Oh yeah, terrifies me right down to the bone. But surely it's got to give me hope—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. Well? What do you say?"
The Doctor knew what the Dalek was going to say, but it was still painful when the word came.
"Exterminate."
Solomon's body glowed green for a moment when the death ray hit him, and the light illuminated his skeleton. The people in the camp screamed in fear as he slowly fell to the ground.
Frank darted forward. "No! Solomon!"
"They killed him," Martha sobbed. "They just shot him on the spot."
"Daleks," the Doctor growled quietly, his chest heaving as he watched Frank grieve for Solomon. His anger pushed him forward—anger, and a sense of responsibility for the humans standing around him. He felt Rose's protest when he looked up at the two Daleks, but her presence only solidified his decision. If he could save just one person… if he could save her…
"All right, so it's my turn!" he shouted over the din. "What can I do to get you to stop attacking these people?"
The Dalek hovering over the group looked down on him, and the Doctor could almost feel its glee. "I will be the destroyer of our greatest enemy."
"Well," the Doctor drawled, shoving his hands into his pockets, "could we maybe discuss other options? Because frankly, I'd rather not die. Besides," he added, "do you want to live in a world without me? I mean, what would the Daleks be without an arch enemy?"
"Ex—"
"No!" Rose shouted before it could complete the word.
The Doctor felt time slow around him, which seemed to surprise Rose as much as it did him. She recovered quickly and moved to stand by his side.
"Rose…" The Doctor tried to push her back into the crowd, but she grabbed his arm and refused to leave him.
She lost her tenuous hold on time, and they both froze when it returned to normal, looking at the Dalek.
"—terminate."
The Doctor flinched, waiting for the death ray, but it never came. Instead, the Dalek started talking to someone only he could hear, presumably Dalek Sec, who must have been watching the battle on CCTV.
"I do not understand. It is the Doctor… The urge to kill is too strong."
This is weird, Rose said during the next pause. They don't usually hesitate.
No, they don't. I don't know what's going on.
Finally, the Dalek said, "I… obey."
"What's going on?" the Doctor asked.
"You will follow," the Dalek said resentfully.
"No!" Martha cried out. "You can't go."
Rose answered their friend's protest before the Doctor could. "He has to, Martha," she said, glancing back over her shoulder at her. Then she looked at the Doctor and nodded, and he smiled,drawing strength from her resolve.
"The Daleks just changed their minds," he explained to Martha. "Daleks never change their minds."
"But what about us?" Martha whispered.
The Doctor looked at the crowd of frightened humans, then back at the Dalek. "One condition," he said, looking steadily into the Dalek's eyestalk. "If I come with you, you spare the lives of everyone here. Do you hear me?" he demanded harshly.
"Humans will be spared. Doctor, follow."
Okay, this is getting really weird, Rose said. D'you think Dalek Sec came out a bit more human than they anticipated?
That's my only guess. I need to find out though.
The Doctor nodded, then turned back to Rose and Martha.
"Martha, do what you do best," he told the young medical student, who was still unhappythat he was leaving. "People are hurt. You can help them." She nodded once and swallowed back tears before walking away.
Rose put a hand on his chest and tugged on his lapel. "You'd better bring this back to me in one piece," she said severely. "I hear Janis Joplin gave you that coat—it would be a shame if it got ruined."
The Doctor shook his head. "Oh, Rose Tyler, I do love you," he said softly. He dipped his head down to give her a tender kiss, and at the same time, he managed to press the psychic paper into her hand.
"Social interaction will cease," the Dalek ordered. "Step away from the female."
It wasn't easy to step back from her to go with the Daleks, but he had to find out what was going on, and if maybe there were finally Daleks in the world who weren't completely evil.
oOoOoOoOo
The Doctor stalked through the tunnels, one Dalek in front of him and one behind. With each step he took, he remembered another person, another terrified face looking up at the sky as the Daleks fired down on them, and by the time he reached the laboratory, he was in a towering rage, all his curiosity over the Daleks' strange behaviour temporarily forgotten.
"Those people were defenceless!" he yelled at Dalek Sec as he strode across the room towards him. "You only wanted me, but no, that wasn't enough for you. You had to start killing, because that's the only thing a Dalek's good for."
Dalek Sec bore his anger stoically, and then he said the one thing the Doctor had never expected a Dalek to say. "The deaths were wrong."
"I'm sorry?" the Doctor asked, wondering if he'd heard correctly.
The single eye blinked repeatedly. "That man, their leader, Solomon. He showed courage."
"And that's good?" the Doctor clarified.
Sec nodded slightly. "That's excellent."
The Doctor looked at this new human/Dalek hybrid. "Is it me or are you just becoming a little bit more human?"
"You are the last of your kind, and now I am the first of mine."
The Doctor had wished for an end to the Daleks for so long, it was hard to contemplate the start of a new kind of Dalek. But he bit back his retort, finally remembering why he was here.
"What do you want me for?"
Sec walked past the Doctor towards the other end of the room. "We tried everything to survive when we found ourselves stranded in this ignorant age." He gestured to the lab equipment, a solution bubbling away. "First we tried growing new Dalek embryos, but their flesh was too weak."
"Yeah, I found one of your experiments," the Doctor bit out. "Just left to die out there in the dark."
"It forced us to conclude what is the greatest resource of this planet. Its people."
He flipped a breaker switch and all the lights came on. When the Doctor looked up, he realised hundreds of stretchers were suspended from the ceiling. Sec threw another breaker and one of the stretchers was lowered down.
The Doctor walked over to its side when it reached eye level. The body lying on the stretcher was wrapped in a shroud, but the outline was clearly human.
"We stole them," Sec explained. "We stole human beings for our purpose." He gestured to the covered body. "Look inside."
The Doctor's anger simmered again when he pulled back the cloth to reveal a man's pasty white face.
"This is the true extent of the final experiment," Sec told the Doctor.
"Is he dead?"
Sec looked down at the body. "Near death, with his mind wiped, ready to be filled with new ideas," he said as he stroked the man's face with his sausage fingers.
"Dalek ideas," the Doctor snarled.
"The Human Dalek race."
The Doctor looked up at the stretchers—hundreds of them. "All of these people. How many?"
"We have caverns beyond this storing more than a thousand."
The number made the Doctor sick. "Is there any way to restore them?" he asked. "Make them human again?"
Sec looked down at the man, and there was something almost like regret on his face. "Everything they were has been lost."
"So they're like shells," the Doctor said, finally grasping the scope and purpose of the so-called final experiment. "You've got empty human beings ready to be converted. That's going to take a hell of a lot of power. This planet hasn't even split the atom yet. How're you going to do it?"
oOoOoOoOo
Rose watched the Doctor walk away, escorted by the two Daleks. Her throat ached with all the protests she was choking back. If she could choose one enemy to never see again, the Daleks would be at the top of the list, and she wished they could run straight back to the safety of the TARDIS. But he was right. The Daleks had changed their minds; they'd given up a chance to kill him. Something unprecedented was happening, and he had to figure out what it was.
And of course, his sacrifice allowed us all to live. The sounds of the camp seeped into her consciousness at that thought, and Rose turned and walked slowly towards Solomon's tent.
The moonlight reflected off of Tallulah's white costume and sparkly necklace as she pulled a pot of water off the fire. "Is Martha inside?" Rose asked, nodding to the tent.
Tallulah brushed a strand of hair out of her face and pushed the flap back. "Here you go," she told Martha. "I got some more on the boil."
Inside the tent, Martha was wrapping a bandage around a man's wrist. "Thanks," she told Tallulah, then looked at her patient. "You'll be all right. It's just a cut. Try and keep it clean."
He stood up and nodded gratefully. "Thanks."
Tallulah looked at Martha and Rose after he left. "So what about us? What do we do now?"
Rose started pacing the length of the tent. "I have half an idea, and I'm hoping the two of you can help me figure out the rest of it."
"What's your idea?" Martha asked.
She held up the psychic paper. "The Doctor handed me this when we said goodbye." She tapped the wallet against her hand and started pacing again. "I know he had a reason… I'm just not sure what it was."
"What's that for?" Tallulah asked, looking at the battered leather wallet.
"It's called psychic paper," Rose explained, opening it up and letting Tallulah see the blank sheet of paper inside. "It shows people what you want it to."
"Get out of here!"
Rose closed the wallet and opened it back up. The showgirl gasped, and Rose grinned at her.
"What did you tell her?" Martha asked.
"Just because you've never seen it before doesn't mean it isn't true." Rose closed the wallet and started pacing again, tapping the leather cover against her fingers. "Anyway, I know the Doctor had a reason for giving it to me, but I don't know what it was." She ran a hand through her hair. "And I'd ask him, but I don't want to distract him while he's negotiating with the Daleks."
But no, the Doctor must have thought she already knew enough to figure out what he wanted her to do… because he knew she'd already heard the Daleks' plan. "When we were in the sewers, the Daleks mentioned an energy conductor."
Martha's eyes lit up with recognition, but Tallulah was still lost. "What does that mean?" the showgirl asked.
Rose looked at Martha. "I was trying not to get noticed, so I didn't pay very close attention. Martha?"
It was Martha's turn to pace the tent. "Maybe like a lightning conductor," she said, then her eyes widened. "Or… Dalekanium!"
"Oh," Tallulah said quietly.
Rose remembered now. "They said the Dalekanium was in place."
Tallulah looked at them hopelessly. "In place where?"
The two time travellers looked at each other, then Martha said, "Frank might know," and darted out of the tent, leaving Rose and Tallulah to follow behind.
They found the young man sitting in front of a tent a few rows over, tears running down his face. "Frank?" Martha asked.
He wiped the tears away. "Hmmm?"
"That Mr. Diagoras, he was like some sort of fixer, yeah?" she said. "Get you jobs all over town?"
"Yeah. He could find a profit anywhere," Frank said bitterly.
"But where, though? What sort of things?"
"You name it." Grief had thickened Frank's southern accent, adding a twang to the vowel sounds. "We're all so desperate for work, you just hoped Diagoras would give you somethin' good." He drew in a long breath, then blew it out slowly and looked down at his knees, trying to maintain his composure. "Building work, that pays the best."
Martha crouched down in front of him, meeting his eyes. "But what sort of building work?"
"Mainly building that."
Rose followed the direction he was pointing and sucked in a breath when she saw the not-quite-finished Empire State Building.
Of course.
oOoOoOoOo
"Open the conductor plan," Dalek Sec ordered.
A three dimensional representation of the Empire State Building rotated slowly on the screen. "Yeah, yeah, yeah," the Doctor said. "The Empire State Building. We're right underneath that. I worked that out already, thanks." He suddenly realised he hadn't actually told Rose that bit, but hopefully she could piece it together, too. "But what, you've hijacked the whole building?"
Dalek Sec gestured to the screen, and then vaguely at the lab. "We needed an energy conductor."
The Doctor stared at him blankly. "What for?" So far, none of the parts of this story went together to make any sort of sense.
"I am the genetic template," Sec explained. "My altered DNA was to be administered to each human body." The image onscreen changed to a picture of two different strands of DNA, and as Sec talked, the pictures illustrated what he was saying. "A strong enough blast of gamma radiation can splice the Dalek and human genetic codes, and waken each body from its sleep."
"Gamma radiation?" the Doctor asked, and a picture of a massive lightning strike flashed onscreen. "Oh, gamma rays. You're going to use a lightning storm."
"Tonight, one of the strongest thunderstorms in a century will hit New York City. Gamma radiation will be drawn to the energy conductor and when it strikes—"
"The army wakes," the Doctor finished, finally understanding the plan. "I still don't know what you need me for."
"Your genius." The Doctor looked at Sec expectantly, and he continued. "Consider a pure Dalek, intelligent but emotionless."
"Removing the emotions makes you stronger," the Doctor reminded him, thinking bitterly of Davros. "That's what your creator thought, all those years ago."
Sec looked the Doctor in the eyes. "He was wrong."
The Doctor sucked in a breath; he'd been wrong before—that was the last thing he'd ever thought he'd hear a Dalek say. "He was what?"
"It makes us lesser than our enemies." Sec put his clenched fist over his human heart. "We must return to the flesh, and also the heart."
The Doctor looked at this Dalek who'd done nothing but surprise him. Does he even realise what he's suggesting? "But you wouldn't be the supreme beings anymore." As repulsive as the results were, the Daleks and Cybermen were both right in thinking the lack of emotions made them stronger in some ways.
Dalek Sec nodded slightly. "And that is good."
That bold statement drew immediate reactions from the three remaining Daleks, who the Doctor now realised had all been listening to the conversation closely.
"That is incorrect," one of them said.
"Daleks are supreme," another Dalek agreed.
Dalek Sec shook his head. "No, not anymore."
"But that is our purpose."
"Then our purpose is wrong," Sec declared. "Where has our quest for supremacy led us? To this." He pointed at the laboratory equipment. "Hiding in the sewers on a primitive world, just four of us left. If we do not change now then we deserve extinction."
"So you want to change everything that makes a Dalek a Dalek," the Doctor said, still not sure he was hearing correctly.
Sec leaned towards him, almost like he was imploring him. "If you can help me."
oOoOoOoOo
Static electricity crackled over Rose's skin as she ran down 5th Avenue towards the Empire State Building, with the three humans following her. "What're we doing?" Frank gasped as they ran.
"Whatever it is the Daleks are doing, it's happening here," Rose said as they skidded to a halt in front of the building. "It all comes back to this—the reason they stole all those people, why they came to the camp tonight…"
"Well fine, but how're we going to get past that guy?" Tallulah asked, pointing at the guard.
"I'll take care of that," Rose said, flashing her a quick smile and leading the way.
The guard held up a hand as they approached the door. "Sorry, folks, but the building isn't open yet. Come back in three months," he said.
Rose showed him the psychic paper. "We have urgent work we need to do on the top of the building," she told him.
He glanced at the paper and nodded. "Oh right, I'm sorry. You should have said. Here, I'll just open the door for you."
They met another guard by the lift bays. The man raised an eyebrow, but when Rose showed him the psychic paper, he directed them into a hidden alcove. "The service elevator is your best bet," he suggested. "It'll take you straight to the work area."
"Thanks," Rose said.
No one said a thing until they were safely inside the lift, away from prying ears, then Martha said, "I always wanted to go to the Empire State. Never imagined it quite like this, though."
"Where are we headed anyway?" Frank asked nervously.
Rose nodded towards the ceiling. "The top, where they're still building."
Frank shook his head. "But how come those guys just let us through?" He looked down at the psychic paper. "What is that?"
"Psychic paper," Rose told him. "Shows them whatever I want them to think." She flipped it open and smiled. "According to this, we're three engineers and an architect."
oOoOoOoOo
Dalek Sec led the Doctor back over to the body he'd lowered from the ceiling. "Your knowledge of genetic engineering is even greater than ours. The new race must be ready by the time the lightning strikes."
The Doctor looked down at the body, feeling a twinge of sympathy for the lost human. "But you're the template. I thought they were getting a dose of you."
"I want to change the gene sequence," Dalek Sec told him earnestly.
"To make them even more human?" the Doctor asked, unable to believe what he was hearing.
Sec looked down at the man and touched his face. "Humans are the great survivors. We need that ability."
The idea of a new Dalek race fascinated the Doctor, but he suddenly realised there was something Dalek Sec hadn't considered. "Hold on a minute. There's no way this lot are going to let you do it," he said, jerking his thumb at the still-Dalek Daleks.
"I am their leader," Sec declared, and the Doctor could almost taste the arrogance dripping from those words.
He looked at the other three. "Oh, and that's enough for you, is it?"
"Daleks must follow orders."
"Dalek Sec commands, we obey."
Dalek Sec turned towards him slowly. "If you don't help me, nothing will change."
The Doctor looked over at him. "There's no room on Earth for another race of people."
"You have your TARDIS." Sec moved to stand with the other Daleks. "Take us across the stars. Find us a new home and allow the new Daleks to start again."
The Doctor stared at him for a long moment. When he'd been sent back to exterminate the Daleks before they began, he hadn't been able to do it. Looking back on it, he knew the first seeds of the Time War had been sown in the Time Lords' determination to interfere with another species. Maybe by changing them from the killing machines they were into something more human, he could atone for his part in it.
"When's that lightning strike?"
"Eleven minutes."
Eleven minutes to transform the Daleks into something else, something safer. "Right then. Better get to work."
oOoOoOoOo
The top of Empire State Building was still open to the elements on one side. Tallulah spun around slowly, her eyes wide. "Look at this place. Top of the world."
Rose and Martha both spotted the drawing board with the architect's plans at the same time. "Okay, now this looks good," Martha said.
"Hey, look at the date." Frank pointed to the lower righthand corner. "These designs were issued today. They must've changed something last minute."
"Something on the mast," Rose added, reading the rest of the note. "See sheet number 49B for new mast cladding."
Martha started rifling through the pages. "The ones underneath, they're from before. So if I compare sheet 49B to an older sheet showing the mast…"
"The height of this place!" Tallulah exclaimed. "This is amazing."
Rose looked up to see her walking towards the edge of the building. "Careful, we're a hundred floors up. Don't go wandering off," she said, groaning silently as she echoed the Doctor's frequent admonition.
"I just want to see." She walked to the very edge and stared out at the city. "New York City. If aliens had to come to Earth, oh, no wonder they came here."
"They seem to be awfully fond of London, too," Rose muttered, drawing a snort of laughter from Martha.
"Here," Frank said, "let's put these blueprints down on the floor. We've gotta look at them side by side if we're gonna find the changes."
Rose and Martha sat on the floor with the sheets spread out around them. Outside, thunder rumbled as a storm rolled into New York City.
"I'll go and keep an eye out," Frank told them. "Make sure we're safe up here. Don't want nobody butting in."
As he walked back towards the lift bay, Tallulah retreated from the edge of the building, her fur coat wrapped tight around her body. "There's a hell of a storm moving in."
"I wish the Doctor were here," Martha muttered as they flipped through the pages, looking for an older one that detailed the mast. "He'd know what we're looking for."
Rose shook her head. "I wish he were here because then he wouldn't be with the Daleks." The only thing that had kept her calm was the fact that she'd felt the strangest emotion coming from him—hope. She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Anyway, we'll figure it out."
"So tell me," Tallulah asked, "where did you and him first hook up?"
The corner of Rose's mouth turned up. "In the basement in the shop I worked at," she said. "He saved me from living shop window dummies, and then he blew up the building."
"Wow!" Tallulah whistled. "I've heard of being swept off your feet, but that takes the cake."
Rose laughed. "Yeah, it kinda does," she agreed. "He definitely made an impression."
"Well, a man who looks like that doesn't need to work hard to catch a girl's eye," Tallulah pointed out. When Rose choked back a laugh, she mistook it for a sound of protest and said, "Oh, not that I'm interested, or even looking, but you've got to admit, he's pretty good-looking."
"He's gorgeous," Martha agreed. "If he hadn't been married when I met him…" Rose looked over at her, and she shook her head quickly. "You've got nothing to worry about," she promised. "I'd never go after a married man."
Rose remembered the argument she and the Doctor had witnessed outside the restaurant the night they'd picked Martha up, and thought she understood.
"Still," Martha said, mischief in her eyes, "I have to say your husband is one of the fittest blokes I've ever laid eyes on."
"Just don't let him hear you say that," Rose groaned. "His ego is bad enough as it is."
She paused on the next sheet of building plans. "I think this might be it," she said, looking at the mast. "Come on, let's put the two side by side and see if we can figure out what mast cladding means."
They were silent for a moment, then Martha jabbed triumphantly at the page. "Gotcha. Look. There, on the mast." Rose saw it right away. "Those little lines? They're new. They've added something, see?"
"Added what?" Tallulah asked.
All three women realised it at the same time. "Dalekanium!"
The wind picked up and the plastic that provided some shielding from the elements fluttered loose of the ties. Rose looked out at the storm and considered the building static charge she could feel in the air.
"They're going to use a lightning strike," she said, speaking slowly as the pieces fell together. "They've got Dalekanium on the mast, and lightning will strike, and then…" She stopped and shrugged; that was all she'd figured out.
She jumped to her feet and jogged over to the ladder that led to a trap door, hearing Martha behind her. "I've got to get up there and take the Dalekanium off," she said.
"Let me help," Martha said. "Even just as a spotter to make sure you don't fall—it isn't safe to be that high up by yourself."
"Yeah, sure," Rose said. She had one foot on the ladder when a sudden surge of anger caught her off guard. Something was going wrong, something that had been going right was now going very wrong. The tenuous calm she'd had regarding her Doctor being alone with four Daleks disappeared.
"Rose? What is it?"
"I think we're about to run out of time," she answered, and started climbing.
oOoOoOoOo
The Doctor bent down to look at the Dalek gene solution, bubbling away. The Daleks had top notch equipment; he had to give them that. "There's no point in chromosomal grafting, it's too erratic," he said. "You need to split the genome and force the Dalek human sequence right into the cortex."
"We need more chromatin solution," said Dalek Sec.
"The pig slaves have it," one of the Daleks said as a group of pig men entered the room, carrying large crates.
Laszlo was among the pig men, and the Doctor met his eyes, then looked over at Dalek Sec. "These pig slaves, what happens to them in the grand plan?"
"Nothing. They're just simple beasts. Their lifespan is limited. None survive beyond a few weeks."
Laszlo glanced back over his shoulder, and the Doctor knew he'd heard that pronouncement. He grimaced; it wouldn't be easy, but somehow, he had to at least try to save the man's life.
"Power up the line feeds," Dalek Sec ordered.
A Dalek placed his plunger arm over the computer terminal, and the Doctor sidled over to Laszlo. "Laszlo, I can't undo what they've done to you, but they won't do it to anyone else."
Laszlo's gaze darted over the Doctor's shoulder at Dalek Sec. "Do you trust him?"
The Doctor drew in a breath; that was the question of the hour. "I know that one man can change the course of history," he said slowly. "Right idea in the right place at the right time, it's all it takes. I've got to believe it's possible."
As surreal as it was, changing the Daleks into something other than the hate-filled creatures they were, the ones the Time Lords had originally gone to war against, would somehow redeem his actions in ending the War. It would mean that at least one good thing had come out of it, and he couldn't let go of the hope that it could happen.
He raced around the laboratory for the next two minutes, adjusting the various solutions that would be blended together to create the new DNA sequence that would be spliced into the human bodies when the lightning struck. This was the only chance he would get to make up for what he'd done when he'd pushed that red button.
"The line feeds are ready," one of the Daleks announced.
"Then it's all systems go," the Doctor said, injecting more chromatin solution into the line.
'The lightning strike is imminent," Dalek Sec said, looking at the monitor.
"We'll be ready for it." He injected a final solution into the centrifuge. "That compound will allow the gene bonds to reconfigure in a brand new pattern. Power up!"
The Doctor pushed back from the laboratory equipment and whipped his glasses off, watching as Laszlo and another pig man threw the breaker switches.
"Start the line feeds," Dalek Sec ordered.
The solution started pumping through the system towards the human bodies. "There goes the gene solution."
"The life blood," Dalek Sec said.
Everything was going perfectly, but then a klaxon sounded in the laboratory. "What's that?" the Doctor asked.
"What's happening?" asked Dalek Sec. "Is there a malfunction? Answer me!"
But the Doctor could see exactly what they were doing. The solution that had been pumping towards the humans was now going in reverse. "No, no, no. The gene feed! They're overriding the gene feed!" He looked at the controls, and they confirmed exactly what he already knew.
"Impossible," Sec denied. "They cannot disobey orders."
The Doctor glanced to his right to see the all-too-familiar sight of a Dalek death ray pointing directly at him. "The Doctor will step away from the controls."
The Doctor backed up slowly, helpless anger boiling up. This was exactly what he'd feared as soon as Dalek Sec had told him the plan, but he'd allowed himself to believe it could work. He should have known; Dalek Sec had sealed his fate and the Doctor's the moment he'd denied the supremacy of the Dalek race.
"Stop!" Sec ordered. "You will not fire."
Another Dalek rolled towards them. "He is an enemy of the Daleks."
"And so are you." One of the death rays pointed away from the Doctor to Dalek Sec.
The Doctor put a hand on Dalek Sec's shoulder, but he wouldn't be silenced. "I am your commander. I am Dalek Sec."
But the Daleks seemed to have a different view on things.
"You have lost your authority."
"You are no longer a Dalek."
"What have you done?" the Doctor asked. "What's going into the gene feed?"
"The new bodies will be one hundred percent Dalek."
"No!" Sec protested. "You can't do this!"
"Pig slaves, restrain Dalek Sec and the Doctor," one of the Daleks ordered, and several pig slaves came forward.
"Release me," Sec ordered the pig men. "I created you. I am your master."
The Doctor glanced over his shoulder and realised Laszlo was the only one holding onto him.
Alarms sounded throughout the lab, and two of the Daleks looked at the monitors. "Static charge building in the atmosphere."
"Prepare for the lightning strike."
Almost imperceptible over the loud buzzing, the Doctor heard a quiet ding. "There's the lift," Laszlo said.
The Doctor looked at the Daleks, all absorbed in their science project. "After you." Together, they turned and ran towards the doors, the Doctor using the sonic to get them open.
Their exit didn't go unnoticed. "The Doctor is escaping," a Dalek shrieked. "Stop him! Stop him!"
Pig men rushed at the elevator, and the Doctor pointed the sonic towards the controls, closing the door right in their faces.