Kristoff spun over himself, trying to get a view of all the corridors that were leading into the large room. But he could not detect anybody, apart from the prone puppet who had been standing guard there before the Doctor had managed to immobilise it permanently.
"It does not seem anybody is coming," he said to the Doctor, who was busy working on the large machine in the centre of the room.
"I told you, they were not going to use their conversion now. They diverted all their energy to power their geothermal converter now that they are so close. And their conversion process would have taken too long anyway for their puppets to be ready for the battle outside."
Kristoff shivered while looking at a couple of Ice Warrior bodies lying near the sarcophagi.
"Are you sure we can't do anything for these ones over there?"
"Daleks are not keen on keeping people incapacitated, Reindeer Man. They exterminate by default, and they only make prisoners when they have something else in mind. If these Ice Warriors were alive, they would be restrained."
"So, what are you doing exactly? And don't tell me I won't understand, and don't go on using complicated words on purpose."
"I told you already, I'm going to try hacking into their Pathweb."
"And I told you already, I don't understand what this Pathweb is. You said it was some kind of… net, for sharing information. Will it allow you to free the puppets from their enslavement?"
The Doctor sighed, probably more loudly than necessary.
"No. There is no way to do that if the process was allowed to complete. The conversion itself is essentially brainwashing, at least for living subjects. For dead ones, they just need to grow their puppeteer inside. Either way, once it is there, there is nothing to be done, unless the victim was an exceptionally strong individual to begin with, and that's very rare. Did you understand this?"
"Well, er… I understood that it's awful. So, where does this, uh, Pathweb, fit into this?"
"It's a communication network shared by all the puppets. It is a crude version of the Dalek's own Pathweb, and it allows them to share information with one another, report to their masters, and receive orders."
Kristoff gave another look at the corridors around them while doing his best to try understanding what the Doctor was saying.
"So… you are trying to stop them from communicating with one another?"
"On the contrary," the Doctor said with one of his mad grins, "I'm trying to improve it."
"You are helping them?"
"In a sense, yes. You see, normally the Pathweb will filter out every information they don't need. Right now, I'm removing all the filters. I could not do this with the real Pathweb, but this one is a heavily watered down version."
"So, er… what exactly is this going to do?"
"Well, it should allow the puppets to share any kind of information they experience with all the others, instead of just tactical data. If I can get the bandwidth to hold…"
"But how will that help Anna? What could they transmit anyway that could help us?"
"Anything unusual for a puppet."
"But what is unusual for a Dalek puppet, then?"
Anna's weapon shot a beam of light that hit the ground a few yards from Elsa. There was a small explosion and pebbles flew away.
"Exterminate!" she said again, firing another beam of light that also missed Elsa by a wide margin.
Elsa felt a twinge of panic. Meeting Anna in the flesh was much more devastating than she had anticipated. Her sister's face was closed, her gaze hard and unflinching. She walked slowly but resolutely, like a clockwork soldier. Her emotionless voice was harder to hear than it had been through the screen. And she had shot at her, twice, although thankfully she had missed both times. Elsa did her best to steel herself against the despair she felt threatening to overwhelm her.
"Anna, this is me, Elsa," she said, trying to keep her voice steady. "Your sister."
"You are an enemy of the Daleks," Anna said in a monotonous voice. "Enemies of the Daleks must be exterminated."
"I'm not your enemy, Anna. I'm your sister. I love you."
"Exterminate," Anna said, firing her weapon once more. The beam of light lost itself somewhere on Elsa's left. Elsa briefly hoped it would not hit anybody. The Ice Warrior army was still some distance behind her, judging from where its giant flurry was, but Elsa had no idea of the range of this weapon.
"You don't have to do this, Anna. You don't have to exterminate anyone."
"Enemies of the Daleks must be exterminated."
"You are not a Dalek, Anna," Elsa said as calmly as she could, slowly stepping back as Anna kept advancing on her in that mechanical step of hers, broken only by the occasional stumbling. "You are Anna, Princess of Arendelle. You are my sister."
"Enemies of the Daleks must be exterminated," Anna repeated, firing another beam of light that hit the ground some distance away.
Elsa clenched her fists, concentrating on stopping her powers from manifesting despite her. Using her powers on Anna, even for doing something harmless, was not something she wanted to even consider.
"I'm not your enemy, Anna!"
"You are not a Dalek. You are an enemy of the Daleks."
"You're not a Dalek either, Anna! You're human, like me. Look at you! You have nothing in common with a Dalek!"
"Exterminate!" Anna shouted, firing her weapon again. This time the beam hit the ground less than a yard from Elsa's feet, sending more pebbles flying away, some of which hit her boots.
It occurred to Elsa that Anna had managed to miss her five times in a row. She knew that her sister could be clumsy, and this weapon was possibly harder to fire than a crossbow or a rifle, but Elsa had never been further than a dozen paces from her since they had met. Missing even once at this distance seemed difficult. Maybe there was some hope.
"Anna, you don't want to do this! You don't really want to kill me!"
"I must exterminate all that is not Dalek."
Elsa stopped backing down from her sister. Anna fired another shot that passed a few inches above her head and kept advancing.
"Do you want to exterminate me, Anna?"
"You are not a Dalek! All non Daleks must be exterminated!"
"But do you want to, Anna?" Elsa said, taking a tentative step forward.
"I must exterminate all enemies of the Daleks!" Anna said. Her last step had brought her a couple of feet from Elsa. She aimed her weapon at her, but Elsa noticed that her sister's hands were trembling as she did so.
"Anna, I'm really sorry I left you alone… again. I should have been there with you. I should have stopped the Daleks from doing this to you. But I'm here now. I'm here for you, Anna. Please, let me help you."
"There is no need for, for help! Daleks do not need need help! Inferior creatures must must be exterminated! The Daleks will will will prevail!" Anna said, her face wincing for a second before returning to its blank expression.
"Do you want to exterminate me, Anna?"
"I must exterminate y… I must exterminate non Daleks!"
"Tell me what you want, Anna. I think you don't want to do that." Elsa took a deep breath, feeling her heart racing. For the first time in her life, she had trouble reading Anna's expressions, which were not her own any more. But her sister's trembling hands, suddenly halted speech and occasional stumble were, if not more familiar, at least less alien than how she had behaved until now. Elsa could only hope she was not interpreting them wrong. "Tell me you want to exterminate me," Elsa said, as gently as she could. "Tell me you don't love me. If you truly think so…" Elsa hesitated for only a second "I will let you do it. Life has no meaning for me without your love. But I want to know it's your decision, not the Daleks'."
This time Anna's hesitation was visible.
"I must exterminate all enemies…"
"I don't care about what you must do, Anna!" Elsa said, taking a step forward. This time it was Anna who backed off. "I want to know what you want to do. Do you want to exterminate me?"
Anna's hands began to shake visibly. The weapon muzzle wobbled, moving away from Elsa and back.
"I hate... all that... is not Dalek," she said at last, her voice much slower than before. "I want to… to exterminate... all that I hate."
"So you hate me too?"
"I hate y… I hate y… I hate all that is not Dalek. All that is not Dalek must be exterminated."
"Anna, this is me, Elsa. Your sister. Do you remember me?"
"I must… exterminate… all… I must… hate… all…" Anna said, taking another step back.
"We grew up together. Do you remember how we used to play in the snow when we were little?" Elsa brought her hand up and conjured a small flower of ice that danced above her palm for a few seconds. "I love you. I'm not your enemy. I'll never be your enemy."
"You are… not… Dalek… All non Daleks… are enemies… of the… Daleks," Anna said, stumbling backward, the gun wavering in her hands so that its muzzle almost never pointed directly at Elsa.
"Am I your enemy, Anna? Not the Daleks', yours? Do you hate me? Do you think I'm your enemy?"
"I'm… You're… I hate… ext… exterminate!" Anna stammered, firing a beam of light from her weapon that hit the ground a long distance to the side. "G… go away."
"No, Anna. I'm not leaving you. Not again," Elsa said, taking another, more decided step toward her sister.
"Go away… please," Anna said.
Elsa felt a surge of hope. For the first time since they had been talking, Anna's voice had sounded, if not like her own, at least less like a parody of the shrieks of the Daleks or a mechanical stutter as it had until now. There had been an actual pleading edge to her intonations, and if Elsa had any doubts that she had imagined it there was the fact that Anna had just said "please". That did not seem to be the kind of word Daleks would say.
"Sorry, that is not going to happen, Anna," Elsa said with renewed confidence, taking another step toward her sister.
"I want to… exterm… ext… I hate y… I want to exterm… I hate… go away, please!"
"I'm not leaving you, Anna."
"I must… ext… I must… It's my orders," Anna said, stumbling backward, sounding more and more like herself. "I must follow… orders. I must ext… ext… I don't want to… not you. Not you! Go away!"
Elsa walked up to her sister, covering the distance before Anna had the time to stumble backward again. She took a deep breath as she reached her. She trusted Anna, but she was not sure exactly how the weapon she was wielding behaved. She knew crossbows could go off by themselves accidentally, even if the trigger was not pressed, and maybe this weapon could do something similar if touched. She reached out slowly and gently pushed the muzzle of the weapon away, then took another step toward her sister, extending her other arm toward her, stopping just short of touching her shoulder.
"Come with me, sis. We will fix this. The Doctor will help."
"No!" Anna said, taking a step back and tensing again. "The Doctor is an enemy of the Daleks! I must exterminate the Doctor!"
"You're not a Dalek, Anna. He's not your enemy."
"The Doctor is an enemy of the Daleks! The Doctor must be exterminated!"
"But you are not a Dalek," Elsa said again patiently.
"I'm… I'm… I must exterminate! I must obey! I must hate! I hate the Doctor! I shot the Doctor!"
Elsa felt a brief pang of panic that she quelled instantly. She remembered that the Doctor had mentioned that Anna had shot him, and he had not seemed the worse for wear at the time.
"The Doctor is all right, Anna. He told me you also hit Kristoff."
"I hit Kristoff… I hit Kristoff… Yes… I hate… I hate the Doctor. I hate Krist… I hate Kr… I… "
"You don't hate anyone, Anna," Elsa said, taking a resolute step toward her sister. "You kept loving me for all these years, while I was shutting you out, and you kept loving me after I hurt you, and you saved me. And you even did it in the… other time, where I… the other past me tried to hurt you. The Daleks can't take your love away from you. No one can, Anna."
"I hate… I must… I exterm… I hate…" Anna said, cringing and walking back.
"Do you hate me, Anna?" Elsa said gently.
"I hate y… I hate y… I hate everyone!"
"Anna," Elsa said, catching up with her again. "Look at me and tell me that you hate me."
"I hate y… I hate… I… I… I hate y… I hate El… I hate.. I ha… hate… hate y… y… y…"
Trying to stay clear from the weapon that Anna now kept mostly pointed at the ground, Elsa gently reached out and this time touched her sister's shoulders. Anna cringed and almost snarled for a second, but did not move to escape.
"No, please," she said, in a voice that was becoming more emotional by the second. "Go away. I will exterminate you if you stay. I must exterminate. I must hate. Go away, I will hurt you!"
"Now why does that sound familiar?" Elsa said, managing to smile softly.
"It's not… same... I must hate… I hate… everyone… I am dangerous. Please."
"And why don't you want to exterminate me, Anna?" Elsa said, looking in her sister's eyes and slowly coming closer.
"I… I… I…" Anna stuttered, trying to escape the gentle embrace as ineffectually as if it had been a steel grip.
Elsa gently touched her sister's forehead with hers, still lightly holding her shoulders.
"We will fix this together, Anna," she whispered. "I will never leave you again. I swear."
"I can't," Anna said, sounding as if she was almost about to cry. "I hate everyone. I must exterminate them. It's… it's my orders."
"You are the strongest person I know, little sis," Elsa whispered. "You are stronger than the Daleks. They can't order you to do something you don't want to do."
"But I… I hate… I must exterminate them, I hate them all…"
"So you hate me?"
"I … I hate… I don't… I… I… I don't… don't hate you…"
"Are we going to stay here long?" Kristoff said.
"Why, is it not to your liking?" the Doctor said, still fiddling with the large conversion apparatus.
"Well, those Daleks could arrive at any moment, you keep not answering my questions apart to make fun of me, and I still don't see how all of this will help Anna."
"For the Dalek part I asked you to keep watch," the Doctor said, waving his whistling sonic screwdriver over parts of the device. "How are you doing about that?"
Kristoff sighed and pivoted over himself once again, looking into each of the corridors branching into the room.
"Still no Dalek in sight," he reported wearily.
"You do remember they can fly, too?" the Doctor asked casually, his back still turned to him.
Kristoff quickly glanced upward, but to his relief the space above was also free of any Dalek.
"How can they fly, anyway?" he asked, not really expecting an answer, at least not one he could understand. "They don't have wings."
"Antigravity," the Doctor said, still engrossed in his work. "Basic, but quite effective."
Kristoff shrugged and gave the corridors around the room another quick check. That was when he realised that, in addition to flying, the Daleks were also able to move very quickly and silently.
"Er, Doctor?" he said, slowly sidling up toward the man. "There is one coming this way, very fast…"
"I know," the Doctor said, without looking up. "Haven't you heard it approaching? And it's right on time too."
Kristoff moved next to the Doctor. As abrasive and cryptic as the man liked to be, he still seemed his best bet to escape mostly unharmed from this unearthly situation. Kristoff was beginning to feel that, whatever strange and dangerous new thing this nightmarish universe would throw at them, the Doctor would be able to pull out something just as incomprehensible to escape more or less unharmed – although at the cost of some ribbing. So far the Daleks still seemed worse than the ribbing.
"INTRUDER ALERT!" the Dalek intoned as it moved swiftly toward them.
"Oh, come on, don't act as if this was news to you!" the Doctor said, retrieving a small device from the larger apparatus before stepping away from it. "We have been intruding for some time now. In any case we were just about to leave. I was trying to convince Reindeer Man here of that."
"DO NOT MOVE! YOU ARE THE DOCTOR! YOU ARE AN ENEMY OF THE DALEKS! YOU WILL BE EXTERMINATED!"
"Yes, yes, you always say that. Don't you want to check first what I had been doing to your machine there? You saw me tampering with it, didn't you?"
"NOTHING THAT YOU COULD HAVE DONE HERE COULD COMPROMISE THE DALEKS PLANS! ANY DAMAGE WILL BE REPAIRED AFTER YOU ARE EXTERMINATED!"
"Why don't you just ask me before exterminating me? It would save you the time of finding out by yourself."
The Dalek remained silent for a second, the eyestalk in its head moving slowly up and down as if it was staring at the Doctor. Kristoff realised he had been unconsciously trying to hide behind the smaller man and shuffled aside.
"YOU WILL EXPLAIN THE SABOTAGE THAT YOU HAVE BEEN DOING!" the Dalek shrieked eventually.
"I'm glad you decided so spontaneously to ask," the Doctor said. "But it is not sabotage. It is simply an improvement in the Pathweb that you have built for your puppets."
"WHAT KIND OF IMPROVEMENT? EXPLAIN! EXPLAIN!"
"Oh, I simply made sure every kind of information would be transmitted across all the puppets."
"THIS IS ALREADY THE CASE! IT IS LIKELY YOU HAVE AN ULTERIOR PURPOSE! YOU WILL EXPLAIN!"
"Why does no one ever believe me?" the Doctor said. "Your network was limited to sharing boring information, like tactical data or the latest order. I expanded it to transmit every information possible."
"HOW WOULD THIS SERVE YOUR PURPOSE?"
A series of sparks flew from the machine above them.
"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE? EXPLAIN!"
"Me? I've done nothing else than what I just told you."
"THAT COULD NOT HAVE CAUSED THIS SURGE! YOU WILL TELL WHAT YOU REALLY DID, DOCTOR!"
"Why don't you just check your machine?" the Doctor said, stepping aside. "Just in case I managed to do something incredibly clever."
"THIS IS A TRICK! THE DOCTOR IS LYING!"
"You just told me there was no way I did serious damage here, didn't you? And yet there are some sparks flying from your system. So either I did manage to do serious damage despite what you think because I'm much more clever than you, or your machine is experiencing an issue not caused by me. In any case, you'd better check what really happened and fix it before it causes more trouble. Wouldn't it be catastrophic to your plans?"
The Dalek remained unmoving for another second, then slowly glided toward the large machine, keeping its eyestalk pointed at the Doctor. It positioned itself in front of the machine so that its stick that threw deadly beams of light was still pointed at the Doctor and Kristoff, then extended its other stick toward the machine, placing the small bowl that terminated it on a spherical protrusion. There were some strange noises from the machine and various lights danced on the surface of the metal. Kristoff had given up trying to understand where these lights came from.
"THE BANDWIDTH HAS BEEN EXPANDED," the Dalek intoned. It was really hard to assign any kind of emotion to the shrieking voice, except a near constant exasperation, but Kristoff fancied the thing sounded disappointed or puzzled. "THE SLAVES CAN NOW SHARE ANY KIND OF INFORMATION. THIS WILL BE FIXED. IT DOES NOT EXPLAIN THE SURGE!"
"Depends on the information the puppets share now. Some of them may be incompatible with the system. Take emotions for instance…"
"DALEKS SLAVES DO NOT FEEL EMOTIONS EXCEPT HATRED OR PAIN! SHARING THESE EMOTIONS WILL ONLY MAKE THEM STRONGER! YOUR SABOTAGE IS USELESS, DOCTOR!"
The Doctor smiled broadly.
"But what if, and this is only hypothetical, what if one of your puppets were to experience a… different emotion?"
Anna was trembling. Elsa was very well aware that her sister was still holding her weapon, although she kept it away from both of them now. She focused on ignoring this and concentrated on her.
"I will help you, Anna," she said softly. "You will get over this."
"I must hate… I hate… I hate them all…"
"You just said you don't hate me."
"You're not… them. I hate… the others… All the others… I must hate them…"
"This is not you, Anna. This is the Daleks speaking. Forget them. Remember us. Remember… who you are."
"I must exterm…"
"No, that's not who you are, Anna," Elsa said, still holding her sister's shoulders and gazing into her eyes. "You are Anna. You are my sister. I love you. Try to remember, Anna, please."
"I… can't… I must hate all… I must exterminate all… there is only you who I don't want… I don't want to exterminate you. I don't want to hate you. I don't hate you."
Expressions appeared and disappeared on Anna's face as quickly as clouds during a storm. The horrible blank face she had been sporting when she had met Elsa kept reappearing, but was chased more and more often by other expressions, although these were not very happy ones – pain and befuddlement were the most common. Still, anything was better than these cold, hard eyes that had looked at Elsa as if Anna did not know who her sister was and did not care.
"Try to remember why you don't hate me, Anna," Elsa went on softly, slowly increasing the strength of her grip on her sister's shoulders. "Remember your birthday last month. I got this stupid cold. Me, catching a cold, that was ridiculous, wasn't it? And there were all those snoogies everywhere who Olaf and Kristoff had to catch…"
"Kristoff. I hit Kristoff. I must… I had to… I… shouldn't have… should have fired at… shouldn't have hit…"
"He loves you, too, do you remember?"
"I shot the Doctor. He's an enemy. He must be exterminated."
"No, Anna. He's not your enemy. He could certainly be nicer, but he's not your enemy. He helped us, remember? When we fought the ice man… and he built snowmen with you when you were younger…"
"Snowmen. I… I hate… I want to…. I build… I hate… build… snowmen…"
"Do you want to build a snowman, Anna?" Elsa said, feeling her heart race faster as she saw more emotions appear on her sister's face. "I can make it snow around us. Just like when we were little. Like Olaf."
"Olaf. I hate… I hate… I… Is he all right? I don't want to… build… exterm… I don't… hate… I don't…"
Anna trembling increased. Elsa gently moved her grip to her sister's shoulder blades and gently drew her toward her into a hug.
"We'll fix this together, Anna" she whispered, noticing as she did that a metal object had been attached to her sister's delicate ear. She fought a wave of revulsion at the disfigurement and hoped the Doctor would be able to do something about it later. "I won't leave you this time. I will stay with you."
"Yes… Stay with me… please… I don't want to… I want to be with… be with you… I don't want to… exterminate… I don't want to hate…"
"You don't have to. That's not who you are, little sis. You are the most loving person I know. You kept loving me after everything I did to you. You can love again, Anna."
"L…. lo…. lov…"
There was a clatter on the ground, and Elsa felt both of Anna's hands gently press on her own shoulder blades, and gradually hug her back.
"Remember everything, Anna. You are stronger than them. You are stronger than hate."
"I… I… I l… I lo… I lo… love… y…. I love…"
"I love you, little sis."
"I l… lo… love… y… you… El… sa."