Until We Burn | Dr Who

Chapter Fifty-Two: The Last

Martha has begun to pace again but stops abruptly. Tallulah and I watch her, silent in anticipation for her next words. "Wait a minute," she breathes. "Down in the sewers, the Daleks mentioned this... energy conductor."

Sending my thoughts back to that moment, I gasp. "My Gods, you're right."

"'Right' about what? What does that mean?"

She looks to me but I have nothing. "I don't know," she stammers, "maybe like a lightning conductor or... Dalekanium!" The girl flinches at Martha's sudden shout. "They said the Dalekanium was in place."

"'In place' where?"

"Frank might know."

We find the boy sitting alone at the edge of the square. My gaze softens the second I see him. The grief must have finally hit him. "Frank?"

Hastily wiping his eyes, he hums in reply.

Martha sighs, "That Mr Diagoras, he was some sort of fixer, yeah? Get you jobs all over town?"

"He could find a profit anywhere."

"But where, though, what sort of things?"

He keeps his head down, sniffing quietly. "You name it. We're all so desperate for work, you just hope Diagoras would pick you for something good. Building work — that pays the best."

Sending us a sharp, knowing look, she crouches in front of him. "But what sort of building work?"

"Mainly building that." He points behind him, off to the spire of light rising in the distance. The Empire State Building.

——————

Sandwiched in between the rest of us in a cramped lift, Martha glances warily at the wooden boards that wall us in. "I always wanted to go to the Empire State Building. Never imagined it quite like this, though."

Frank hugs himself against the cold. "Where are we headed, anyway?"

"The top, where they're still building."

Frowning, Tallulah asks, "Hey, how come those guys just let us through? How's that thing work?"

"Psychic paper. Shows them whatever I want them to think," she chuckles. "According to this, we're three engineers and an architect."

Even unfinished, it's clear that the space is already being occupied. We pass a desk and chair on our way onto the floor, immediately entranced by the uncovered gaps in the wall where windows have yet to be installed. Beyond them, the city buzzes with midnight activity.

Shivering from the cold and sheer wonder, Tallulah stumbles towards the view. "Look at this place. Top of the world!"

An easel holds schematics for the building. I wave the others over to it. "This'll be it."

I examine its crisscrossed sketches of the floors, tracing the lines of scaffolding. Frank leans over to point out the red box at the side marked 'Revisions'. "Hey, look at the date. These designs were issued today. They must have changed something last minute."

"You mean the Daleks changed something?"

"Yeah, could be."

Martha turns the large page to reveal an almost identical one. "The ones underneath, they're from before. That means whatever they changed must be on this top sheet, but not on this one. Check one against the other."

"The height of this place," Tallulah gaps, nearing the edge. "This is amazing."

"Careful! We're a hundred floors up, don't go wandering off."