The Closing of Doors

Part Five

The room was quiet for a few minutes; the only intrusion upon the silence was the low humming of Cai's Stratagem Computer and various electrical modules tied within their placement in the center of the massive saucer. Camille, her senses heightened with adrenaline, was slightly thrown off by the lack of action. She found herself trying to read what Cai had pulled up on his circular monitor. They looked like schematics of some kind, but they were labeled in a different language, the language of the Daleks. She knew Cai shouldn't bother translating them, not with the intensity of the situation.

It was without warning that the silent black-cased Dalek in the corner suddenly perked up. Ayl sputtered with a threatening tone from his place backed against the wall, "The Strategist was connected telepathically to the computer!" He tore through the silence, the blue of his eyestalk blazing on Camille. She whipped her head around, startled, to face him. He continued, relaying each of his words in a sharp staccato, "He connected to the machine as he connects to you now!"

Baffled and nonplussed, she stared at him, almost daring him to keep screeching whatever fowl message he felt it important to say.

He did. "You mean nothing more to him than the purpose of that computer!"

Cai had been listening. After this statement, something inside of him snapped. Ayl could have done anything else and it would not have gained any of his notice. But in just a few words, Ayl managed to underestimate not only the value of his connection with Camille, but also insult her. In the split of a second, Cai found himself red hot with the familiar rage of the Daleks that he had tried so hard to extinguish from himself. In that instant, he lost control.

"Silence!" he demanded, his voice surpassing the levels of a shout, as he immediately jerked around. Instinctively, he aimed his gun at Ayl and began to feed it power.

Camille's heart skipped a beat. She was startled a little by what Ayl had told her, but she was frightened by Cai's thundering reaction. He was normally so collected, and he worked so hard on throwing every last remainder of the Dalek in him away. Therefore, in this instant, she found it terrifying to see him act so... Dalek-like.

Cai, gliding over, was upon the prisoner in an instant. All traces of his carefully-constructed facade had left his voice, and, with the authentic tone of the cold, heartless Dalek that he wasn't, he shrieked, "Your position is incorrect! You lie!"

Camille then understood. Insulting her hadn't weakened her, it had weakened Cai. Now the once-was Dalek was exposed and vulnerable.
"Cai," she warned him quietly, and the words parted from her lips in a desperate whisper. It did no good.

"I state the facts I gain from observation!" Ayl argued, glad to have provoked the enemy.

"That is not a lot to go by," Cai retorted, regaining a bit of his humanly tone. His limbs were twitching, his manipulator literally revolving in its socket as though he were turning a doorknob in some sort of nervous tick. Inside the armor, Cai's heart was beating rapidly in his little slimy chest again; his small lungs were bringing his respiration systems to their limit, and he began to feel the oncoming flood of panic wash over him. He refused to let his life-support systems take action, however; the sedatives would cause him to lose concentration, and right now, he needed as much of his brilliant mind as he could collect.

At this instant, it seemed that Ayl wasn't clever enough to regain high ground, but it was clear that Ayl still had ideas.