Differences

Chapter 20

Serena's POV

The metal robot glided along the ruins of metal. This planet had been made entirely from metal - the Daleks could only move over metal, before they had been upgraded, The Doctor had explained to them all.

We were taken to a large room that looked very much like a rather large police court, with stands filled with uncountable amounts of Daleks. There were a few Humans in the middle of the room - Humanoid Daleks, The Doctor whispered to us as we descended the stairs and into the middle of the courtroom.

The four Daleks that had escorted us had joined the circle of Daleks at the top of the stairs. With every step, a different Dalek stood on either side of me, starting and ending a ring of the robotic creatures.

God, I would love to analyse one of these things...

Once we were at the bottom of the stairs, we were ushered into the middle of the room by a Humanoid Dalek.

Then, a Dalek stepped towards. 'Hello, Doctor.' The robotic voice was toneless, electric and emotionless. 'I am the Dalek Prime Minister.'

Not a court room, then.

The Dalek Parliament.

'Something brought us here.' The Doctor said, his voice cold and full of hatred. A tone that I could tell he rarely used. 'What was it?'

The Daleks were The Doctor's greatest enemy. I could read it.

'We have a planet known as the Asylum - which the Parliament is orbiting as we speak. That is where we keep the battle-scarred Daleks, the ones who have been driven into insanity. We shall not kill these Daleks. Doing so would contravene our sense of beauty.'

The Doctor looked sickened.

But these creatures were beautiful. In a way. They clearly brought a fire of pure hatred beyond words to The Doctor - they were not a good race. They destroyed something within The Doctor. But, the complexity of their design, the technological advance they showed, the evolution from only traveling on metal to being able to travel wherever...

I really wished I could take one apart and analyse it properly!

And, in all fairness, The Doctor probably wouldn't mind the whole 'taking one apart' part of the process.

'We have received a transmission of the Habanera Aria from the heart of the Asylum. We have contact with them.'

'What do you want from me?' The Doctor said coldly.

One of the Humanoids handed The Doctor a phone-like device - although, it didn't actually look much like a phone, with all of the pieces sticking out of the ends of it. But it was pocket sized, though.

The Doctor presses a button on the device.

'Hello, clever boy.' Says a woman's voice.

'Who are you?'

'Oswin Oswald, Junior Entertainment Manager of the star liner Alaska. You know, the ship that crashed into the Asylum.'

'What're you making?' I asked, too curious. I was always too curious. But I could hear the sound of a whisk in a bowl.

'Soufflé.' Oswin Oswald replied.

'But, where do you get the eggs and the milk?' I muttered, but the transmitter device picked up the sound.

'From the fridge.'

Something about that wasn't quite right...

'When the ship crashed, it ruptured the planet's force field.' Said the Dalek Prime Minister. 'We wish to remotely destroy the Asylum, but the force field is not ruptured sufficiently. It can only be deactivated from the planet itself.'

'And, because you're too afraid to do it yourself, you want us to do it?' I said, more of a statement than a question.

'Yes.'

One of the Humanoids passed each of us identical bracelets. 'These bracelets protect you from the nanogene cloud.'

'Nanogene cloud?' Lily asked.

'To stop us from turning into one of their brainwashed puppets.' The Doctor hissed.

'The bracelets stop the conversion process.' Said the Dalek. 'Now, we shall drop you onto the planet.'

Then, we were dropped through the force-field breach onto the surface of the planet via a gravity tunnel.