"It'll just be a bit more, Alpha, give me a minute," Taylor tells the kneeling Alpha while she's arms deep in the exposed chassis, trying to see if she can rewire the robot to reject the Dalek programming, and if she can help the tongue-tied robot give insight what's going on.

Doctor Ivo had everything planned to the detail, down to preventing anyone from tampering or copying his designs, however while Taylor struggled, she let her hands guide her, and they moved on their own, going between areas in the chassis, taking things apart, putting them together.

"Let me know if I'm doing anything wrong, okay?" Taylor briefly glimpsed up to Alpha, before returning to her work, attempting to figure out how Alpha worked.

It was hard, her hands gotten cramped multiple times, but Taylor saw a change in Alpha.

"Processing," Alpha monotonously said as it began assessing and reworking everything Taylor done to it.

It went quiet for a few minutes that Taylor worried that she done something wrong, but to her relief, Alpha wasn't damaged by her attempt, simply rebooting itself to allow the changes to go through, and updating its hardware changes in its HUD.

"Destination. 101. Classification. Alpha. Creator. Doctor Ivo," Alpha began assessing. "Last contact. 120 hours ago. Last order: hunt down the intruder."

It'd appear that Doctor Ivo not too long after he made contact with Alpha and gave a command that perturbed Taylor, causing her to ask Alpha about the intruder.

"Intruder alert!" Alpha recalled. "Intruder somewhere in the complex."

"Alpha, was it the Dalek?" Taylor asked about it.

Moving its head as it processed her words thoughtfully, Alpha quietly replied, "It came. They came. They searched for the intruder."

Just before it blanked out, Alpha remembered Doctor Ivo sending out a warning that there was an intruder in the complex, they got in somehow, but they couldn't find them.

It was made worse when the Daleks came suddenly, seemingly intent on finding the intruder much to Doctor Ivo's shock and dismay.

Alpha remembered attacking the Daleks, but was dealt with considerable damages by their weapons.

Beta-100 was almost completely destroyed, its bottom half was non-functional, hence what became of it.

Alpha and its brethren fought against the Daleks while Doctor Ivo hid, but after destroying the last of the Daleks, things gotten worse for them.

One by one, robots were jumped by the assailant, until they were destroyed completely, including Alpha.

Their remains were processed through the factory.

Alpha was the last one that came through the factory.

When Alpha rebooted, much of its programming was altered.

Permissions were suddenly revoked, it had new commands that wasn't there prior, it made it difficult to process any commands outside the set ones by the assailant.

"And is it possible this assailant used the damaged Daleks to rebuild you?" Taylor gestures as she brought up the chance on the assailant using the remains of the Daleks for their own use.

Processing this, Alpha responds, "Possible."

This would explain how the Dalek programming got mixed into Doctor Ivo's, but it didn't explain the captured Dalek.

"What about the one we found?" Taylor tilted her head, her ruby red hair flowing.

Alpha couldn't explain, but it suspected the assailant captured that one to use.

Doctor Ivo wouldn't use Daleks.

Too dangerous.

Always able to communicate with their motherships.

He might've been mad, but he wasn't a fool.

Curious, Taylor questioned, "Why are there mental blockers in the complex?"

Apparently, there weren't any originally, but the assailant might've made sure to have them added.

"100% the assailant knew the Doctor was coming," Alpha believed that the assailant suspected that their actions would draw the Doctor to the complex, especially when Doctor Ivo attempted contacting him.

Hearing this, Taylor's stunned at the revelation that Doctor Ivo was doing everything by the book, after all.

Now, the question, who were the Daleks chasing?

Alpha couldn't remember the assailant, obviously, but they were capable of attacking large robots capable of defending themselves and Doctor Ivo, capable of rewriting programming, and using the Dalek remains to supplement the damages incurred by the fighting.

Daleks chasing the assailant didn't mean much, Daleks chased anything that angered them, they're not particularly focused on just one, unless of course, it's the Doctor they're after.

Even then, they'd send a fleet, not just a couple.

Whoever this assailant was, they ended up on the Dalek's radar, for what reason, that's hard to say, as anything un-Dalek angered them.

Though that remains questionable.

"Why did the assailant come here, can you tell me?" Taylor asks, trying to get an idea what happened in the 120 hours.

There's no chance there's video footage of the assailant left, they would've taken every chance to destroy any proof they were here, could've easily commandeered any sort of mode of transportation.

Alpha responded that it doesn't know why.

There's sadness in its tone of voice, unsure why the assailant came here, bringing the Daleks with them, causing the chaos that resulted in Doctor Ivo's death and its brethren to turn "corrupt" as it calls them.

Trying to cheer it up, Taylor says that once they find Paul, they can work to undue the damages done to the robots.

It'll be difficult with the Dalek programming mixed in, but they'll do their best.

"They're not defective," Alpha asserts that its brethren weren't killers, just "corrupted" as it called them.

Flashing a smile at it, Taylor comforts it as she assured it that she and Paul will aid Alpha's brethren.

Now that she knows for sure what's going on, they just have to disable the mental blockers, and go from there.

"Doctor. Alive?" Alpha questioned.

Nodding, Taylor stated, "I know him. He's too stubborn to die."

And Taylor spent enough time with him to know this for a fact, Paul won't let any robot get the upper-hand.

Alpha believes her as it went with her to look for the control room, that room it remembers and has on its HUD.

It thinks if they get there, they can disable the mental blockers and allow Taylor to contact Paul with their telepathic connection, once again.

A bit annoying that the mental blockers expanded from the hidden areas to in the main ones, but Alpha suspected that the intruder purposely kept them variable.

The intruder knew the Doctor that came here would be telepathic and that by the time the Doctor realises something wrong, it'd be too late, incapable of reaching out to anyone.

However, once they reach the control room, it'll be as easy as turning switches, Alpha can override the commands with ease.

While trying to locate the command room, Taylor and Alpha came across Beta-100, again, it's been persistent trying to locate Paul, but given Doctor Ivo's programming, it can't get into the hidden rooms and corridors, it remained limited where it goes.

It didn't change its programming, however, and still didn't regard Taylor as a threat, so she was able to stand beside Alpha while it hovered close to look them over.

Well, it was better than turning into a smoldering piece of ash on the ground, since the heat generated from the levitation would incinerate her where she stood.

"Doctor. Locate?"

"Negative. Locate?"

"Negative. Error."

"Error. Locate?"

"Negative. Error. Disregard."

"Negative. Error. Doctor."

Alpha and Beta went back and forth from their limited vocabulary. Beta didn't consider Paul to be somewhere in the "error' even though Alpha insisted.

"Negative. Error. Alpha. Omega?"

"Omega. Unknown."

"Alpha. Locate. Omega. Locate. Doctor!"

"Confirmed. Alpha. Locate. Omega"

Alpha agreed to locate and command Omega to find Paul.

Beta-100 left, leaving Taylor and Alpha alone, causing her to turn towards the robot, asking it, "What is Omega?"

Alpha explained, "Omega. Brethren."

Omega was its "younger" variant.

However, due to the intruder, it was posed to be destroyed.

No doubt the intruder made sure it was repurposed, too.

Given the order, Omega was the first one off the production line after the intruder sent it through the factory.

Where it went after that, Alpha couldn't say for sure, since it hadn't come online until after.

"Possibly inducted with Dalek programming," Alpha assessed the situation.

Omega was the last iteration of their line, it had upgraded that Alpha didn't have, but with the Dalek programming, it would be even more dangerous.

Worse.

"Brethren…"

The robot quietly looked away from Taylor.

Alpha, Beta, Omega…

"Gone…" Alpha noted that the others were gone.

Destroyed by the Daleks.

The intruder had them go through the factory.

"Alpha… Beta…" the robot murmured.

Since it's been rebooted by the aid of Taylor, it was able to understand…

Quietly, it led Taylor through the corridors towards a hidden room, where it then told her that behind the false wall's the command room, it remembered because Doctor Ivo worried that the intruder might've gotten inside it.

With Taylor's help, she gotten the false door opened, this time Alpha was able to come with her without having her go through and find a way to undo the restrictions.

The corridor getting to the command center's shorter and upon entering the marred door, they're melt with a command control with several monitors above the keyboards and buttons.

Seeing the monitors and the footages of the complex, Taylor wanted to find the live footage of Paul.

The setup's different and while trying to shift the screens to different parts of the complex, Taylor discovers a part of the factory that caught Alpha's eye.

A heap of spent parts.

There's a tonal shift with Alpha as it focused on the heap.

"Gamma… Epsilon… Zeta…"

They had been taken apart and reused in the rebuilding of Alpha, Beta, and Omega.

But when parts were scarce the intruder had the factory use the remains of the Daleks.

All that remained of them was heaps of metal scraps.

"Alpha, I'm so sorry," Taylor gave her condolences as Alpha studied the remains of its brethren.

It's hard to imagine what a machine must think about seeing this and Alpha forced itself to continue its mission in locating Omega.

Omega was offline, hooked up to the large tubes, the augmentation of different specs have resorted it in unable to function for a period of time due to the power consumption that it needed.

Having it offline was the only way the intruder didn't have it overextend the complex with the amount it needed.

They're stunned when they see Beta-100 having coming through the doorway, coming towards the offline Omega.

The camera feed didn't have audio, so they only watched as Beta-100 floated to the console next to Omega, proceeding to power it on, causing a power surge throughout the complex in that caused the screens to flicker, giving Taylor and Alpha enough time to watch Omega annihilate Beta-100.

"Omega…"

While Alpha helplessly looked up at the screens as Omega decimated Beta-100 shortly before the camera feeds went dead from the power surge, Taylor heard a familiar voice in her head.

"Grace?"

Her heart jumped as she communicated, "Paul! Thank God! Are you alright?"

She heard back an immediate, "No worse for wear. Are you hurt?"

Subtly shaking her head, Taylor replied that she wasn't, asking Paul where he is, and him the same.

Once Taylor told him, Paul stated that he'll be there in a few seconds.

He found a way into the air ducts.

A bit drafty with more cobwebs than a castle, but Paul found that Beta couldn't get him in the air ducts, and well, there was no chance in hell he'd go out in the open with the robot after him.

"Paul, Beta has been destroyed!" Taylor warns him of what happened.

Paul sighs as he admitted that he suspected something wrong, but he'll talk to her more, he needed to focus on squeezing himself through the 'L.'

The grate at the top of the wall adjacent of the command control popped open and two legs squirmed their way through as Paul guided himself out of the air ducts.

Popped down to the ground, beginning to dust himself as he looked like he went through a chimney without the soot.

Covered head to toe in dust and God only knows what else before he's stopped by Taylor wrapping her arms around him tightly.

He happily held her close to him, greedily stealing kisses from her, as he held her his angel eyes crossed sight of Alpha.

His body language changed as he was quick to pull Taylor behind him, his angel eyes narrowing on Alpha as it focused on him.

"Identity confirmed. You are the Doctor," Alpha responded to Paul's silent accusations.

Holding his arm, Taylor asserted that Alpha wasn't a danger to them, but Paul felt adamant about it, still.

"Doctor, one last message from Doctor Ivo," Alpha insisted that Paul listen to it.

Adamantly, Paul allowed Alpha to turn its body towards the controls where it uses its one hand to make contact with an unseen port, and its long eye stock inserting into a port that opened.

The power surge knocked the cameras offline, but the controls remained partially online since Doctor Ivo was careful.

The screens changed to different segments of one video, though there were severe degradation in the quality with audio cutting in and out.

"Doctor…" wheezed Doctor Ivo as he's hiding with Alpha recording his final wishes. "If you get this message… *static* came here… wanting my help… foolishly… I agreed… *static* betrayed me… then the Daleks came here. I do not want forgiveness, Doctor. I wish for you to do one thing for me. Destroy everything."

TO BE CONTINUED…

Alpha Omega