Dawn turned back to the Auton Dave. Its gun-hand closing up. As… all the plastic shine to the Auton seemed to drip away, its skin growing into actual flesh, its eyes darting around in a completely natural organic manner, its hard face growing softer…

"Ha! Look at that!" came a familiar voice, behind him. As Alison clambered into the dome, her own skin also shedding its plastic appearance. She examined her hands. "Didn't think the Barbie-doll look suited me."

Dawn rushed forwards, and grabbed up Alison into a hug.

Then pulled away, looking at the two of them. Examining them, closely.

"Seo did something really smarty-pants, huh?" Dawn guessed. "Like, to make you guys come back to life, and be all organic-skin-stuff, again!"

"Expected nothing less from Seo," said Alison.

Dave didn't answer.

Picked up Zed Square's fallen gun. "It's time to get back to the chamber that houses the Consciousness," he said. "She saved us. Now… we save her."

"…really don't want to kill me!" Seo was insisting, backed up against the wall, Autons all around her, their guns pointed squarely at her hearts. She was now back in the chamber with the Nestene Consciousness, but in a considerably worse position than she'd been in, before. "Listen, you saw inside Dave's mind! I've got a time machine! I can give it to you! But it only works when I use it."

The Nestene Consciousness gave a garbled reply.

And the Autons stopped their advance.

Seo breathed a sigh of relief.

"The Consciousness saw your claim of time travel in the Dave organic's mind," said the Autons. "But it does not believe you."

Seo swallowed.

"How did you use the organic female to regenerate herself and the organic male?" the Autons demanded. "That is impossible. The organic 'Dave' had already been consumed by the Consciousness."

"Yes, but the Consciousness had also already made a plastic duplicate of him," said Seo. "And of Alison. I worked that one out." She turned to stare straight at the Consciousness. "You were planning to see if I was telling the truth, weren't you? Pretend you were Dave and Alison, get me to take them into my ship, then find out how it worked and steal the secrets of time travel for yourself."

The Nestene Consciousness didn't answer.

Didn't have to.

"So I used your replicas," said Seo. "Added some genetic material overlap from Alison — she is related to Dave, you know. Then channeled that energy surge from Trinch's machine straight into the plastic, to burn away the alien influences from them. Thus turning them completely human."

The Consciousness gurgled.

Then surged in its vat.

"The Consciousness believes you are too clever to remain alive," said the Auton. "You will become a threat to us. You must die."

But it never got the chance to shoot.

As Dawn barreled into its side, shouting and wrestling it to the floor.

"Seo!" said Dawn, leaping to her feet. "You're okay." Calling over her shoulder. "I found her, Timmo!"

Timmo emerged, strolling into the room behind her. Flashed a smile at Seo, as he charged forwards, lashing out with a machete and cutting down the Autons.

"Come on! We've got to go!" Dawn shouted at Seo. Turned on her foot, knocking aside two other Autons, and beginning to run the other way. "I just left Dave and Alison. They're in mega-trouble!"

Seo stayed where she was.

"No."

Dawn slowed. Turned around. "Seo, seriously!" she said. Pointing the direction she was running. "Those Auton things are after Dave and Alison! You can't just—!"

"What the…?!" shouted Dawn's voice, from across the room.

A second Dawn raced inside, staring at her duplicate in amazement, Dave and Alison right beside her.

The real Dawn pointed.

"Seo, that's not me!" she shouted. "It's an—"

"Auton, yes, I figured," Seo replied, calmly. "The Nestene Consciousness duplicated all of us, when we first started helping it. Not just Dave and Alison. But also you, me, Timmo, and Zed Square. So… yes. I worked out, pretty quickly, that this Dawn was an Auton."

The Auton Dawn turned on Seo, making a gesture at Timmo, who lunged at Seo and held a machete to her throat.

"One wrong move…" the Auton Dawn warned.

Seo didn't seem concerned. "But Dave's taking over must have scrambled the Nestene Consciousness pretty substantially," she went on. "Because… its Autons can't tell the obvious, anymore. Don't know who's plastic." Her eyes fixed on Timmo. "And who's real."

"Funny, that," Timmo agreed.

Then hurled his machete straight at the Auton Dawn's face, as the blade embedded itself deep into her plastic expression.

It was all the distraction needed.

Dave, with one shot, vaporized the fake Dawn where she stood.

"I thought you were locked up," Alison pointed out, to Timmo.

Timmo shrugged. "Escaped. Ran into my duplicate. Got rid of him." He shrugged. "Lost my gun somewhere along the way. Figured I better play along, when the Dawn Auton showed up and thought I was plastic."

Dave turned back to the Nestene Consciousness. His gun aimed down at the vat, as he ramped up the power.

Hoping it'd be enough to kill the Consciousness completely.

"Wait!" Seo cried. Racing over to his side.

He hesitated.

But did as she asked.

"Nestene Consciousness," Seo announced, turning to address it. "We'll get you off-world. Get you very far away from here. But if you don't leave, we'll have no choice. We're going to—"

A shot from a nearby Auton flashed.

And Seo cried out, then slumped over, clutching her chest.

"The Nestene Consciousness does not bargain," said the Auton. "It knows you have nothing that can destroy it."

"Which would be a good point," said Seo's voice, as she stepped out from a bit of clustered machinery, to the left of them all, "if the Nestene Consciousness was able to control all its Autons. And wasn't thick."

Everyone looked between the two identical Seos.

The one by the machinery, just emerging. And the other keeled over, on the floor beside Dave, the hole in her chest showing nothing but clear, solid plastic through and through.

"I had some words with my Auton duplicate," said Seo. "Turns out, when Dave took over, he made the Auton-Me into the person he thought I was. Not the Auton the Consciousness wanted me to be."

"He thought… I was mentally indestructible," said the Auton-Seo. "Indomitable."

"So when Dave left, my Auton overcame the control of the Nestene Consciousness," Real-Seo confirmed. "And became… well, autonomous. And quite a bit like me. I found her, when I was running away. We had a bit of a chat."

The two smiled at each other.

"Uh… you do realize half of what you said made no sense at all," Dawn pointed out. "Right?"

Both Seos ignored her.

"One last chance," the Real-Seo told the Nestene Consciousness. "Either I take you away. Or you get what's coming to you."

The Autons shifted their aim to the real Seo.

"Don't say we didn't warn you," rasped the Auton-Seo.

And with a heave, she threw herself over the edge. Straight into the vat of the Nestene Consciousness.

The whole vat swelled and screamed, all the Autons jerking around sporadically in response. The vat rapidly began shifting colors, and everyone else in the room — everyone not made of plastic — huddled together, trying to work out what was going on.

Then it all quieted down.

And the Autons slumped over, lifeless.

Seo sprung forwards, racing towards the vat. "Hello? Hello down there!"

"This is… odd," came the voice of the Nestene Consciousness. "Extremely odd. Is this what it's always going to feel like?"

"Not sure," said Seo. "I've never been living plastic, before." She knelt down at the edge, speaking directly into the vat. "You succeeded, then? Supplanted him?"

The Consciousness chuckled. "Indomitable, remember? That's how Dave made me."

One of the nearby Autons began to twitch. Jerking into life, like a puppet on strings.

"Oh, look at that!" said the Nestene Consciousness. "I can manipulate anything plastic, anywhere!"

The Auton began to give a very rough interpretation of an Irish tap-dance, then bowed, at the end.

"This is brilliant!" said the Nestene Consciousness. "If I control all plastic, I can have a full Broadway cast at no extra cost! Singing, dancing, chorus lines — all thanks to me! And if the audience is a bit thin for a night or two, I'll just build my own audience! Get some Autons to sit in the seats and laugh at all the really funny bits."

Seo turned back to the others. "I don't think we'll have to worry about the Nestene Consciousness escaping this world, anymore. She seems pretty happy where she is."

"Or I could start my own chocolate factory!" said the Nestene Consciousness, as the Auton clapped its hands in glee. "Like Willy Wonka, except run by plastic people instead of Oompa-Loompas!"

Alison and Dawn exchanged looks.

Then giggled.

"Nestene Seo," said Dawn.

"How will the universe survive the chocolate barrage and general goofiness that is to follow?" Alison agreed.