We Will Rise |2| The Ascension

Chapter Seven: Daleks In Manhattan

The next day, the TARDIS materialised next to one of New York's most famous landmarks. The door swung open and Martha walked out, closely followed by McKenzie—who was wearing a fluffy grey jumper with blue jeans and boots—and the Doctor, wearing his usual suit and trenchcoat.

"Where are we?" Martha asked, slipping her jacket on. She knew it was New York, but not where in New York.

The Doctor took a deep breath. "Ah, smell that Atlantic breeze. Nice and cold. Lovely. Oh, girls, have you met my friend?"

The pair looked up, and saw the Statue of Liberty in all her glory. "Is that—?" Martha gasped. "Oh my God. That's the Statue of Liberty!"

McKenzie grinned, taking off her jumper and tying it around her waist. "I'm sorry. Once in a lifetime chance. I've got to touch it." She sped off in a blur, before leaping into the air and flying all the way up to the statue's face and—

"Did she just boop the Statue of Liberty's nose?" Martha laughed as the redhead returned.

"Gateway to the New World," the Doctor grinned.

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free," McKenzie quoted in an American accent, grinning.

"That's so brilliant," Martha cheered. "I've always wanted to go to New York. I mean, the real New York, not the new new new one."

"Clint made a good choice," the Doctor agreed. "Well, there's the genuine article. So good they named it twice." He frowned. "Mind you, it was New Amsterdam originally. Harder to say twice. No wonder it didn't catch on. New Amsterdam, New Amsterdam."

"I wonder what year it is, because look." McKenzie pointed across the city. "The Empire State Building's still being built."

"Work in progress," the Doctor nodded. "Still got a couple floors to go, and if I know my history, that makes the date somewhere around—"

"November 1st 1930." Martha waved a newspaper at the aliens.

"You're getting good at this," McKenzie complimented.

Martha smiled. "Eighty years ago. It's funny, because you see all those old newsreels in black and white like it's so far away, but here we are. It's real. It's now." She sighed happily. "Come on then, you two. Where do you want to go first?"

McKenzie pointed at the back page article of Martha's newspaper. "There."

"'Hooverville's Mystery Deepens'," Martha read, before looking at the aliens. "What's Hooverville?" As they set off walking, she dumped the newspaper in a bin.

"Herbert Hoover, thirty-first President of the USA, came to power a year ago. Up till then New York was a boom town, the Roaring Twenties, and then—"

"The Wall Street Crash, yeah?" Martha guessed, interrupting the Doctor. "When was that, 1929?"

"Yeah," he agreed. "Whole economy wiped out overnight. Thousands of people unemployed. All of a sudden, the huddled masses doubled in number with nowhere to go."

"So they ended up here, in Central Park," McKenzie finished, linking hands with the Doctor.

Martha stared at her. "What, they actually live in the park? In the middle of the city?"