"Professor!"
"I'm pleased to see you too, Dorothy." The Doctor smiled, looming over her. She was on a hospital bed, dressed as before but resting. "Can you move yet?" he said.
"I feel stiff," she said. Her limbs were heavy and slow like a dream. "Have I been sedated?"
She tried to analyze the room around her. Very blue, very English, very Earth. But fluctuating like a limp tide at the edge of a beach.
"No," said the Doctor, looking around. "Well maybe. This room is just a fake. Are you seeing a hospital? Late Penumbra Gallifrey I think. Designed to reassure you."
The bubble cleared. It seemed so obvious as the background faded. They were inside the chamber housing the Brain. It was awful, dark and smelling of pungent smoke.
"How did I get thru the hole?" she asked. "It was way too small." She was just lying on the ground in the darkness. She rubbed her arms and legs, flexing them carefully. Pins and needles.
"You were folded up and squeezed thru," said the Doctor quietly. "Same as me. The plastic bubbles act as a temporary seal."
"I do feel a little toasted," she began. She looked at the ashes of the bokken still hanging from her thigh. "How come my weaponry was left outside of the envelope?"
"The system automatically disarms you. Sorry. You know the shui was all wrong anyway?"
"So I've heard."
They were stood behind the corroded remains of a control station. Just over the edge of the dials and controls they could look into the main space of the chamber. The Brain was still intact in the darkness, highlighted at a thousand tiny spots by the sparkle of electrical ire. A blurry outline of blue and grey reminded Ace of something.
"The bubble plastic?" she exclaimed. "The Brain was also protected from the blast."
"Ssh," hissed the Doctor. He had changed from relieved to wary. "They might have all sorts of sensors."
"Who is 'they'?" she whispered.
He pointed archly to the edge of the control panel. She looked around carefully. The blue-grey bubble was even more solid now. From the randomly reflected light she could see shapes buzzing around the base.
She would have blurted out the word "Daleks!" but the Doctor had already anticipated this and had a firm hand over her mouth. He nodded blankly then lifted a finger to his lips to suggest no further talk.
The Daleks were arranged in the distance in a floating diamond formation, three forming a fixed 'v' shape behind an obvious lead. In the dark it was hard to tell, but they all seemed to be of the same color, shiny but pitch black. She tried to recall the various and varying Dalek hierarchies. They were all evil but four black daleks was new to her.
"You shall not pass!"
Ace and the Doctor both jerked their heads up to look at the slight figure on the gantry way above everything.
"Who is that?" asked the Doctor. He seemed very irritated.
Ace felt a little swell within her that she knew even the tiniest bit more than the Professor.
"That's the man who persuaded me to bring the explosives. One of your lot. Crazy, sad, but friendly."
"But who is he?" hissed the Doctor. "What's his name?"
"He didn't say," Ace whispered. "Bit of a fighter though. Ex-military type?"
"He'll need to be," said the Doctor. The bubble was complete. The sparkling shadows of the Brain began to float loose of the floor and rotate toward the lead Dalek.
"There are many things about the Daleks that have been terrible, Ace. And will be in the future." He looked over the broken metal rim again. "This is another of those terrible things. But it's today's terrible thing."
She looked over the ledge trying to divine any meaning behind the red glow of the eyestalks.
"This..." he began. "...is the Hunt."
She glimpsed their focus again, their concentration. She let herself slide quietly back as the three rear Daleks began to sweep round to cover their escape. The eerie glow of their blacklight and the crackle of personal sensors buzzed around them.
"They're hunters?" she thought.
"No!" came the shout.
The Warrior was up on one of the higher gantries. A square device was propped on his right shoulder. A personal rocket launcher.
"Not this time!" he shouted. The rockets scorched out of the mounting in a block of four plunging squarely into the ascending bubble. The Warrior fell backwards, stumbled for a second then tumbled from the gantry to the fireball below. The scattered Daleks regained their diamond positions and converged on the fallen figure.
"Destroy," they intoned. "Destroy." The diamond formation rose up to the ceiling and paused. Ace could see the tiniest flicker of light and shadow on the young but old face. Then the Daleks opened fire. They were not careful nor were they surgical, she knew the Daleks rarely were, but their lack of control was unsettling. The ruby lasers burned and howled.
Now it was too loud and too hot for them to be discovered. "We have to help," shouted Ace.
"He's dead already," growled the Doctor. His grip held her upper arm without compromise. "And we've lost the Brain."
She could have broken free of him, despite his tricks. But it was already too late. The firefight was over. The cackling glee of the Hunt confirmed their victory.
"Time to return to the Tardis. For now." The Doctor dragged her to the back wall near to the pipe entrance blasted by her train of explosives. A larger hexagonal hatch was obscured by dirt and waste. "Combined Safe Room and Escape Pod. Ideal for prison staff handling the riskier inmates."
His self-satisfaction was not pleasing to Ace. There were too many unanswered questions. "We'll come back, Professor," she said as he slammed the pod door shut. "This can't be over…"
The End (For Now)
Ace and Warrior Return in 'My Dalek Spine'