Prayers to Broken Stone ((The Meddler VI/Allison Castiel))

[Allison Castiel]

Dalek.

Allie had never heard the word before in her life, but she found herself shivering just the same. There was something brutal about the name, something harsh and ugly. Her eyes were fixed on the hovering platform. The creature inside had ceased to propel it further up river. It had paused, the dome of its head turning back and forth constantly. Had it sensed them? The thought made her skin feel clammy, despite the sticky heat.

"Things like that... I..." He bit off his words, uncertain what he was trying to say. "Yeah. Could be they experimented on the wasps, made them into yer unstoppable murder machines.”

“But why?” she murmured, sickened. “Why would anyone do that? Even robots... why destroy the entire world?”

“Kinda thing they do," Rob replied. There was a bleak look on his face that made Allie wonder what dark memories were stirring in the back of his mind. "Be handy if we had that saucer though... Get us upriver a church of a lot faster, wouldn't it?"

“I suppose so.” Allie couldn't help the touch of doubt that had entered her voice. She was trying to picture herself sailing up the river on the alien transport device, but couldn't quite convince herself. Besides, she really didn't want that Dalek to know they were anywhere near the Amazon jungle. Not if it wasn't already hunting them, that was. Even so, something told her that Rob had no intention of asking it politely for a lift.

"Yeah, it would." The smile he offered Allie was almost manic. "Got me a plan. I'll need... five minutes, should do it. After that, think you can attract it's attention?"

She hesitated briefly, wondering if she should protest, tell him that she'd rather plod along on foot than go anywhere near that menacing pepperpot, even if it was damaged. But the fact of the matter was, Rob's plans – as mad as they might seem – had been the only thing to get them this far. Because of him, they had a real chance at setting things right. It didn't make sense to start questioning him now, after all they'd already been through.

“Yes,” she said quietly, reaching up into the tangled mess of blonde hair and unwinding the strip of leather that held it back from her face. She showed it to Rob, so that he could see the slightly wider middle section, attached to two narrow dangling cords. “It's a slingshot,” she explained. “All the scavengers carried them. Bullets were in short supply – we used these instead of guns where we could. I'm quite good with it.”

Confidently, she spun the leather thong, and it hissed through the air. “There should be some smooth, round stones closer to the riverbank. You do whatever you have to do. I'll be waiting to do my part.”

With that, she gave him a quick hug, told him to be careful, then slipped noiselessly away into the undergrowth, heading for the edge of the river.

[Rob "the Meddler" Goodfellow]

"Slings are good weapons," Rob said with a slight nod. "Yer folk used 'em ta kill wolves an' lions an' even each other." He glanced at the river, watching the saucer bank and drift along as the 'Dalek' quartered the bank in a search pattern. "Use yer lump, you hear? Don't go gettin' killed."

With that he slipped off into the undergrowth, wracking his brains. He felt like had a plan in him, he really did. But what sort of a plan let him go up against some sort of murder robot (alien his memory corrected, murderous alien in a tank) with the contents of his pockets and a rucksack? It was madness, it was. Pure and unadulterated madness. But I am mad, the strange-familiar voice in his head laughed, and he found himself beginning to agree. Sane people didn't have conversations with themselves like this, did he?

As he woolgathered he collected things by instinct. His parachute, mostly, gathering up the cords and silk into a bundle and hustling back towards the riverbank. Zanniga's knife came in handy there as he chopped branches and trimmed twigs and sliced fabric, constructing a deadfall. "Not bad," he mused, eying his handywork. "Don't look like much, but silk's stronger'n steel it is. Should be enough to jerk a bleedin' murderbot into th' air an' fling it." He inspected it once more. "I hope."

With that he dug a small mirror out of his pack, and flashed it in the sun. "All ready, Alley-cat," he laughed, trying to cover the anxiety that gnawed at his guts. A lashed-together structure of wood and cord and silk against a bleeding Dalek - whatever, exactly, they were - was a textbook example of insanity. "Get 'im to me, an' I'll handle the rest."

[Allison Castiel]

Five small stones...

That was all David had, in the Bible, when he went to face Goliath.

Crouching in the bushes at the river's edge, Allie looked down at the collection of rounded pebbles in the palm of her hand, each one as uniform in size and weight as she could find. Five small stones and a slingshot... and the giant had laughed when he saw the boy coming.

A shiver ran up her spine as she peered through the concealing undergrowth at the Dalek, hovering over the water. She couldn't deny the fact that she was afraid. Even though she'd never come across one of these things before, it radiated a sense of hatred and malice. It would kill her if it could.

But she knew Rob was counting on her, so she slid her thumb through the loop at one end of the leather thong, before grasping the tab at the other end in the same hand, and then loading one of the stones into the dangling pouch. Because sometimes, against all the odds, the little people had to fight back. If the Apocalypse had taught her anything at all, it was that not everything was about brute strength and firepower. Accuracy and cunning could be equally as dangerous.

Just like in the story, she told herself fiercely. One stone had been all that it took. Goliath had laughed... but then he had died.

She shifted herself slightly, so that she had a clear line of fire. Then, seeing a brief wink of light from Rob's general direction, and judging the time to be right, she gathered all her courage together and leapt to her feet. Elaborate wind-ups were a waste of motion, and a good way to get yourself killed before you could get off a shot. Allie gave one single underhand swing, like a softball pitcher, the leather slingshot hissing savagely through the air. At the highest point of the arc, she loosed the cord, sending the stone flying across the river at an astonishing speed.

Released at such a high velocity, the small missile was almost invisible. Absorbed in scanning the jungle on the opposite bank, the Dalek didn't even see it coming. With a sharp, metallic ping, it struck the very centre of the creature's smooth, domed head.

Furiously, the creature swung around to face the direction from which the unexpected attack had come, only to encounter another deadly stone smashing into its body, this one narrowly missing its protruding eyestalk.

“EX-TER-MIN-ATE!”

The awful, grating scream of rage rang out through the jungle, swiftly followed by a searing blast of laser fire that tore a blackened path through the undergrowth, reducing trees to smoking ash. Terrified, flocks of brilliantly-coloured birds rose into the sky, their wings beating at the air, squawking in a deafening cacophony of fear.

Confident it had destroyed the hidden attacker, but wanting to be sure, the Dalek sent the hovering platform closer and closer to the bank, every sense on high alert, searching for any sign of life.

[Irkk]

Yelwes brought his hoverbout onto the riverbank, eying diagnostics carefully as the heavy ship settled into the muddy surface. Stubby, fuzed fingers waited nervously over the controls, ready to return full power to the gravatics if the ship tipped dangerously. But the ship's own weight worked to its advantage, driving the hull deep and coming to rest with a crunch.

He scanned the foliage, eyestalk traversing like the muzzle of a cannon. Ambient heat masked much of the thermal signatures, and his optics had been incompletely repaired in the aftermath of the crash. Protocol required that he check back with Command before disengaging from the hoverbout. But the jungle and the curve of the earth made laser communications ineffective, and Command had forbidden accessing the primitive native satellites except in dire emergency. Humans knew the Daleks existed, after all. And Humans were the favored client species of the Predator.

And none of them wanted the Predator to come upon them, when they were trapped on this world.

Stacatto noises rang out like gunshots as clamps disengaged, and Yelwes slid his travel machine down the hoverbout's ramp and onto the slick surface of the jungle floor. One lone Human, armed with stones, was no threat to him. Whether it was alive or dead, he would confirm extermination before returning. "Show yourself!" he ordered, his amplified electronic voice tearing through the foliage and echoing off the trunks of the trees. "Show yourself, or you will be exterminated!"

It would be anyway, of course. But Humans were more likely to respond when they believed they might live.

He slid forward at a slow walking pace, eyestalk scanning the path of destruction he'd created. The chemical sensors were damaged, of course, so he couldn't detect any residual vaporized human remains. But... wait. Footprints. Embedded in the ash. The Human had survived. He grinned, drool trickling from one corner of his irregular lipless mouth. He hadn't been able to kill an inferior in months.

Proximity alarms squalled. He checked the display, and found that a local vine had fallen upon his travel machine. A nuisance, no more. He acclerated slightly, angling to follow the footsteps. And then the world spun wildly as his travel machine accelerated and spun into the air, faster and harder than the damaged mechanism could cope with. Before he could bring his stabilizers on line it impacted the river hard, and water flooded through the cracks in his hull. He screamed in agony as actinic lightning arced from comprimised systems, and the smell of cooking flesh filled the cockpit until the inrushing water replaced it.

[Rob "the Meddler" Goodfellow]

Rob watched the Dalek-machine flip end over end as his makeshift catapult demonstrated that it really did work as intended. "Whew," he sighed, dusting his hands off and feeling a weight lift from his shoulders as the machine struck the water. Steam erupted in its wake, and then a muffled explosion blasted a geyser into the air. "You all right, Alley-cat?" he called, laughing. "Because he sure ain't!"

He waited to see her emerge from the undergrowth, then headed for the small flying saucer. It hummed underfoot as the strode up the ramp, tingling with power as it idled. Hands on hips, he surveyed his new find. It was nothing to write home about. Clearly designed to interface with the machine he'd chucked in the river, with minimal controls. Just a hemisphere emerging from a yoke of some sort, that one of the machine's appendages had interfaced with.

The clawed, pincer-like appendage.

"Hmmm..." he mused aloud, gripping the hemisphere and pushing. The saucer jerked up, then smashed back into the mud when he pulled back. "Well well well," he cackled, flashing a cheeky sort of grin at Alley. "Bit of a rough spot I put you through, but look! We've got a ride! Wanna take her for a spin?"

[Allison Castiel]

Never be where they expect you to be. That was basic Scavenger training. Running from cover to cover. Guerilla warfare, relying on the advantage of surprise, rather than strength of arms. Allie had been through it all and more, during the Apocalypse. Now, it was almost second nature.

As soon as she had loosed the stone, she had turned and run like hell. Confident in her own ability, she hadn't paused or even looked back to make sure she had hit her mark. Instead, guessing that deadly repercussions would soon be heading her way, she had concentrated on being nowhere near them when they arrived.

Even so, it had been a near thing. Whatever these Daleks were, their weapons could definitely pack a punch. She'd only just managed to wedge herself behind a large, moss-covered boulder when an enormous blast of laser fire incinerated a large patch of jungle that was far too close for comfort.

After that, she heard a series of strange noises. Peering over the edge of the rock, through the eerily drifting smoke, she saw the strange craft docking at the edge of the river. The Dalek disembarked, slid ominously down a ramp, and paused for a moment, the smooth dome of its head swinging back and forth.

Searching... for her....

"Show yourself!" he ordered, his amplified electronic voice tearing through the foliage and echoing off the trunks of the trees. "Show yourself, or you will be exterminated!"

Allie ducked down again and huddled back into the protection of her hiding place, praying that whatever Rob was planning, he would do it now, before that thing managed to find her. She had no illusions that it would allow her to live, even if she did surrender.

For a few moments, there was nothing but silence. In the end, Allie couldn't stand the tension any more. Was it coming for her? Was it close? She had to see, she had to know. Trembling, she peeked over the top of the boulder again. There it was, much nearer now... and, oh God, her footprints... she could see them clearly now, outlined on the scorched earth in the orange light of the setting sun. Inadvertently, she'd left a path leading the creature right to her.

If she ran, it would shoot her, as soon as she broke cover. If she stayed, it would find her, and kill her anyway. Paralyzing indecision rose in her throat, threatening to choke her.

And right at that instant, an invisible hand seemed to miraculously snatch the Dalek up into the air and toss it violently into the river. There was a hiss of escaping steam, and a booming sound reverberated through the muggy air, followed by an enormous uprush of water. Allie gasped, and clapped her hands over her mouth to muffle a startled squeak.

Then she heard Rob's voice calling her name, and she couldn't have imagined a more welcome sound.

"You all right, Alley-cat?" he called, laughing. "Because he sure ain't!"

She popped her head up further, so that she was visible to him, a wild tangle of dirty, blonde curls.

“Here, I'm here,” she replied, her relief bubbling over into her voice. She wasn't quite sure what he had done, but it had worked. The monster was dead, and that was all she needed to know. “I'm fine!”

With shaking hands, she laced the leather cord back into her hair, tying it securely back from her face, before hurrying down the ashy slope to rejoin him at the river's edge. Now that her heart rate was slowing and her breathing was normalising, she found that she was surprisingly exhilarated. Adventures like these were part of her life now – a life she had never expected to have, but which she was beginning to adapt to surprisingly well.

Rob was examining the captured flying saucer.

"Hmmm..." he mused aloud, gripping the hemisphere and pushing. The saucer jerked up, then smashed back into the mud when he pulled back. "Well well well," he cackled, flashing a cheeky sort of grin at Alley. "Bit of a rough spot I put you through, but look! We've got a ride! Wanna take her for a spin?"

"We did it, though!” she whooped, her eyes bright and her cheeks flushed with relief and elation. “Goodfellow and Castiel, an unbeatable team.”

Crouching down, she looked warily at the humming saucer, before glancing back up at him. “I suppose we'd better try it. Otherwise all that work getting hold of it will go to waste.” An answering grin lit her smut-covered face. “Looks like you just scored yourself a First Mate, Captain. How do we get on this thing?”

[Rob "the Meddler" Goodfellow]

"We did it, though!” Alley-cat exulted, sounding relieved as she did it. “Goodfellow and Castiel, an unbeatable team.”

"We did it," he replied, suddenly serious, "with a bloody great heap of old Donald Duck." Staring at her, he suddenly felt old. Old, and tired, and ashamed of himself. He'd used her as bait without batting an eye, and the fact that his gamble had paid off didn't change what he'd done. Bleeding church, he wondered, looking away, who am I? Really? Those people in the pictures, the ones he thought were his children... would he have risked them the same way?

Sighing, he dug out his pack and drew a silk cut. Then he slapped his pockets until he found a lighter. "Now that we've got it," he continued, puffing the cigarette into life, "we should maybe bugger on out of here."

Alley-cat hesitated, examining the saucer warily. “I suppose we'd better try it. Otherwise all that work getting hold of it will go to waste.”

"True, that," he replied, leaning on the yake and blowing a smoke ring into the air. "We put a lot of work into this, after all."

She grinned, starting slow and picking up speed. “Looks like you just scored yourself a First Mate, Captain. How do we get on this thing?”

"I ain't no captain," he replied, waving off the comment. "No interest in titles here." His tone was light, but it struck a deep chord in his soul. Some utter contempt for authority that seemed deep-seated in his personality. Reaching down, he took her hand and helped her up onto the platform. "Now, I've already figured out part of this..."

---

The controls didn't take too much time to figure out. That made since, given that they seemed to be made for use by something with only one hand. There was an interface port of some sort in the bulb-handle, though, meaning that the controls probably weren't entirely mechanical. If he had to guess, which he did, he'd guess that (at a minimum) things like velocity and direction and altitude and the like fed back into the machine that piloted it. So, he had no clear idea how fast they were going or exactly which way they were headed. Just 'fast' and 'upriver'.

Of course, all of that had come with a great deal of trial and error. The controls were sensitive, and had resulted in him being thrown from the disk more than once. Twice into the mud, once into the foliage, and once into the river. Which is when he discovered that, mercifully, leeches didn't like the way he tasted. But Alley-cat had proved to have more of a knack for the device, or at least a gentler and less impatient touch. Which was why he was sitting on the disk with one arm aroundthe yoke, watching the river rush by underneath.

"I'm guessing... thirty miles an hour," he said, raising his voice a little. "Based on the way the wind feels. This thing could probably go faster, but we'd hit a point of diminishing returns. Particularly if we got ourselves flung off as it sailed off into the trees." He grinned up at his co-conspirator in their unlikely world-saving jaunt. "What do you reckon?"

[Allison Castiel]

It amused Allie very much that she turned out to be better at piloting the alien hovercraft than Rob. So much for all those jokes people made about women being bad drivers, she told herself, with a bubble of laughter, as she eased the little craft down the river.

She thought it was just that he was trying too hard. He'd been attempting to enforce his will on the ship. Allie couldn't understand the science of it all, but she found the controls to be more intuitive than that. It was like riding a skittish horse, she supposed - although that was just a guess, since she'd never actually tried that either. You needed to relax and almost let your mind drift, to become one with the motion of the disc, keeping only a light touch on the bulb-handle, and swaying slightly in the direction you wanted to take.

"I'm guessing... thirty miles an hour," he said, raising his voice a little. "Based on the way the wind feels. This thing could probably go faster, but we'd hit a point of diminishing returns. Particularly if we got ourselves flung off as it sailed off into the trees." He grinned up at his co-conspirator in their unlikely world-saving jaunt. "What do you reckon?"

She returned his smile impishly, gesturing at the mud caking both their faces, unable to resist teasing him about his earlier mishaps. “I think we've already been thrown off enough for one day, don't you?”

Then her expression sobered again, and became tinged with worry. Perhaps she had become too cynical during the course of their adventures, but this all suddenly seemed much too easy.

“The thing is, Rob, I'm not entirely sure I am flying this thing. Steering it, maybe, to avoid hazards and so forth, so we don't crash. But that Dalek was already heading in this direction. What if this machine is on some kind of pre-programmed route? Like a sort of auto-pilot thing?”

She stared anxiously ahead of them down the smooth, sparkling river. It looked deceptively peaceful in the orange-tinted light of the lowering sun. Who knew what lay below the surface, or what lurked in the thick jungle that fringed the banks? And it would be dark within the hour.

“That Dalek... what if there are more of them? And this ship is taking us right to them?”

If, as Rob suspected, these awful creatures were responsible for the Apocalypse, sooner or later they were going to have to find a way to deal with them, to change the course of history. But Allie wasn't sure that blithely sailing right up to their front door, in the middle of a terrifying jungle, just as it was getting dark, was really her preferred approach.

[Rob "the Meddler" Goodfellow]

"I'm guessing... thirty miles an hour," he said, raising his voice a little. "Based on the way the wind feels. This thing could probably go faster, but we'd hit a point of diminishing returns. Particularly if we got ourselves flung off as it sailed off into the trees." He grinned up at his co-conspirator in their unlikely world-saving jaunt. "What do you reckon?"

She offered him an impish smile in return, then used her free hand to gesture at the mud coating them. “I think we've already been thrown off enough for one day, don't you?”

"Oi!" he laughed, voice full of mock outrage. "It was only twice! Have a heart!"

She didn't join in the laughter, though. Instead she turned serious, eying the controls carefully. “The thing is, Rob, I'm not entirely sure I am flying this thing."

The statement sobered him as well. "Not flying it? But..."

"Steering it, maybe," she continued, altering their path slightly, "to avoid hazards and so forth, so we don't crash. But that Dalek was already heading in this direction. What if this machine is on some kind of pre-programmed route? Like a sort of auto-pilot thing?”

"You are not making me feel any sort of warm fuzzies here, Alley-cat.' Rob took a final drag on his cigarette and tossed it into the river. The crimson glow of the butt disappeared behind them before it hit the water. "That's a thing to think about, that is."

“That Dalek..." Her voice was slow, as if she wasn't sure what she was saying. Or as if she didn't want to say it. "what if there are more of them? And this ship is taking us right to them?”

He didn't reply right away. Instead, he stared out over the river and tried to use his patchwork memories. He knew about Daleks, that much was certain. He'd encountered them before. He must have. After all, he knew what they were named. How this saucer-thing operated. Knew enough to be terrified of them. But... he couldn't bring much more to mind. "I remember..." he began softly, hesitantly. "I remember... flames. A... a city, maybe. and these Dalek things. Hundreds... no, thousands of them. All screaming and murdering. 'Exterminate. Exterminate.'" On the last two words he pitched his voice differently, mimicking the screaching speech of the machine they'd tossed into the river. "I... ran. I think. Maybe, maybe I fought first?"

Falling silent, he stared out over the river again. "Probably are more, Alley-cat. If we can trust what i think I remember, that is. But not too many more, I think, or everyone on Earth would be dead or enslaved." he couldn't remember them, but the thought that there might be more churned his gut with terror. "Probably can't run, though. Where would I go?" He looked back over his shoulder. "Besides, if I did, there wouldn't be anywhere to run to in a few years. Would there?"

The pitch of the engines changed, and the saucer began to slow. "You doing that, Alley-cat?" he asked, slightly concerned as the saucer banked to the left and began to drift towards the darkening jungle. "Please tell me..."

a sudden impulse seized him, one so strong that he dragged himself to his feet as adrenaline surged through his blood. He could feel the next few seconds, and he had to act now. Without waiting to explain he hooked one arm around Allison's waist and hurled them both from the back of the saurcer, twisting in midair to put himself between her and the river. At the speed they were goin git was very nearly like hitting solid ground, and he gritted his teeth as he bounced along the surface before finally sinking heavily. Somehow he'd maintained his grip on her, and kicking desperately he dragged them both back above the surface.

Streaks of light erupted from the foliage, illuminating the saucer like a photographic negative. It seemed to soften slightly, losing focus, and he shoved her head back beneath the surface of the water before following her down. Dimly, staring up through the water, he could see the saucer explode in a blinding blue-white fireball. A spli-second later, the shockwave of the explosion hammered the surface, sending a geyser high into the air.

Finally, Rob let his head break the surface. "Well," he remarked, "I guess we know there really are more of them."

[Allison Castiel]

"I remember..." he began softly, hesitantly. "I remember... flames. A... a city, maybe. and these Dalek things. Hundreds... no, thousands of them. All screaming and murdering. 'Exterminate. Exterminate.'" On the last two words he pitched his voice differently, mimicking the screaching speech of the machine they'd tossed into the river.

Despite all her efforts to keep her hands steady, Allie shuddered. Just one of those things had been bad enough. Her mind just wouldn't stretch to encompass the thought of thousands.

"I... ran. I think. Maybe, maybe I fought first?"

Rob's voice was bleak in the extreme. As always, her first instinct was to comfort and reassure. Even after so long living as a scavenger, that intrinsic part of her nature had never been lost.

“Of course you fought!” she answered stoutly, absolute faith in her voice. “You wouldn't have been the Rob I know if you didn't. You would have fought them until there was no hope left. And if you ran in the end, it was because you had no choice.”

Falling silent, he stared out over the river again. "Probably are more, Alley-cat. If we can trust what i think I remember, that is. But not too many more, I think, or everyone on Earth would be dead or enslaved."

Allie bit her lip and didn't answer. Because if Rob couldn't prevail against these creatures – if he wasn't prepared to stand his ground and fight for the Earth – what chance did any of them have? She would keep trying until her very last breath, she would give everything she had to repair the timeline, but what use would that be? She was under no illusion that she would last five minutes out here without him.

"Probably can't run, though. Where would I go?" He looked back over his shoulder.

She caught her breath at his words. It was almost as if he'd read her mind, sensed her doubt and insecurity. “You... you have a home out there, somewhere, Rob. People who love you and miss you. You just haven't remembered them yet. When you do...” Her voice trailed away into uncertainty.

“Besides,” he continued, intent on making his point. “If I did, there wouldn't be anywhere to run to in a few years. Would there?"

“No,” she murmured. “I suppose not. Not on this planet, anyway. Unless we can stop it, Earth is already on a path to disaster.”

The pitch of the engines changed, and the saucer began to slow. "You doing that, Alley-cat?" he asked, slightly concerned as the saucer banked to the left and began to drift towards the darkening jungle. "Please tell me..."

She shook her head, wrestling with the controller, desperately trying to correct their course. “No!” she cried. “It isn't me. I can't... it's not responding any more!”

A sudden impulse seized him, one so strong that he dragged himself to his feet as adrenaline surged through his blood. He could feel the next few seconds, and he had to act now. Without waiting to explain he hooked one arm around Allison's waist and hurled them both from the back of the saurcer, twisting in midair to put himself between her and the river.

Rob moved so fast, Allie barely even registered what was happening. One second, they were both on the back of the saucer, the next they had hit the river with a huge amount of force. Rob took the brunt of the impact, but the shock of the water closing abruptly over her head nearly made the human girl pass out. It seemed like an eternity, but was probably only a few seconds, before he dragged her head back above the surface. Coughing and spluttering, she barely had enough time to clear her lungs of water, before the sky seemed to light up with searing blasts of pure-white flame.

Down they went again, surrendering to the river's cold embrace, Rob's strong hands thrusting her even deeper this time, as up above a tremendous explosion roared and rippled through the air, the fierce sound oddly muffled below the water.

It wasn't until he allowed her to surface once more that it dawned on Allie what had just taken place. The hovering saucer had completely vanished, nothing left but a shower of flaming debris and the stench of smoke on the wind. Treading water and still struggling to breathe, she turned to look at Rob, his wet head bobbing beside her, as sleek and unruffled as an otter.

“Wha... what... happened?” she gasped.

"Well," he remarked, "I guess we know there really are more of them."

An attack, she realised belatedly, still dazed and disoriented. An attack from the riverbank. And if Rob had jumped just a few seconds later...

“They'll be waiting for us to come ashore!” she exclaimed, horrified. “We'll have to swim for the other side!”

And right now, viewed through her exhausted eyes, the opposite bank of the river had never looked further away.

[Rob "the Meddler" Goodfellow]

Finally, Rob let his head break the surface. "Well," he remarked, "I guess we know there really are more of them."

“They'll be waiting for us to come ashore!” she exclaimed, horrified. “We'll have to swim for the other side!”

"I'm tired of this sodding river," Rob grumbled, treading water. Alley-cat looked bloody well exhausted though, for all she was trying to keep up a brave face. Poor girl probably hadn't had much sleep since they'd left Rio. "Here," he said, paddling against the current to get a little closer. "Lean your back against mine, and try not to struggle..."

---

His chest and arms were burning with exertion and fatigue by the time he reached the shore. It wasn't easy, swimming for two. Swimming for two, while carring a satchel and a knapsack, really. But he couldn't stop once they made it to the bank, not with barking mad murder-bots on the far shore itching for an excuse to exterminate something else. Like, say, him and Alley-cat. So he grunted and picked himself up, leaning on Alley-cat as they helped carry each other into the foliage . Only once they couldn't see the far bank did he lit himself sag against a tree and collapse onto the ground. "Filletin' church," he grumbled, digging into his pockets and pulling out his packet of cigarettes. "Cattle," he sighed, staring at the sodden mess within.

After a moment, he stuffed the pack back into his pocket. "Right. Well, enough of that. Gotta think, now." Turning to the knapsack, he tossed a ration bar to Alley-cat and tore one open for himself. "And thinking's easier on a full stomach, innit?" The next minute was spent noisily chewing on the dense bar and digging bits of dried fruit out of his molars. "We know where these Dalek-things are now, right? Right. Course, we don't actually know if they're the problem." Another bite. "I mean, they're a problem and we'll need to do something about them sooner or later, but we don't know that they're related to the Mutant Murder Wasps." Another bite. "Probably are, though, way my luck runs."

Finishing the bar, he tucked the wrapper back into his pack. "Course, that ain't even takin' Jem th' bloody Outrageous into account. She was wittering on about wanting everyone to suffer she was, like a domme with delusions of grandure." Rob considered that for a moment. "Well, delusions and the ability to whistle up a negative-polarity wi nteko wa and drag it this deep into the positive polarity side of the magnetosphere. So, there's that. Still, she puts us on a timeline, don't she? Cause she's looney and powerful, and that's a bad combination. Based on that..."

Sighing, he pointed out towards the river. "Probably need to eliminate those Dalek-things as the source of the wasps first, don't you think? Unless you know something else about the wasps that might change that up."

[Allison Castiel]

"I'm tired of this sodding river," Rob grumbled, treading water.

"Me too,” Allie replied, almost in tears. “And to think, just a few weeks ago, before I met you, I would have given my right arm for just a cup of water, let alone a whole river like this. Danny would be telling me to stop bloody well complaining.”

Her head sank beneath the surface again, causing her to inadvertently swallow a nasty lungful of water, before she could struggle back to the surface, gasping for breath. How ironic would it be if she drowned here, after suffering through the most extreme deprivations of thirst for five years?

"Here," [Rob] said, paddling against the current to get a little closer. "Lean your back against mine, and try not to struggle..."

Allie didn't even try to argue with him. She was worn out, physically and emotionally, utterly at the end of her tether. Positioning herself as he had instructed, she drooped against his back, and allowed him to tow her to the edge of the river, too shattered even to care if the Daleks caught them. Surely anything was better than drowning here, even being shot.

Rob must have been exhausted too, but true to his innate streak of stubbornness, it didn't stop him. Somehow he still managed to propel them both to the shore, together with all their gear. By the time they got there, Allie had gathered herself enough to manage to wobble to a standing position, as together they stumbled out of the water, up the bank and into the welcoming shelter of the wall of jungle greenery.

Only once they couldn't see the far bank did he lit himself sag against a tree and collapse onto the ground. "Filletin' church," he grumbled, digging into his pockets and pulling out his packet of cigarettes. "Cattle," he sighed, staring at the sodden mess within.

Flopped on to the ground, her face liberally caked in mud, Allie gave a weak laugh. “I feel like your cigarettes look. All waterlogged and mushy.”

After a moment, he stuffed the pack back into his pocket. "Right. Well, enough of that. Gotta think, now." Turning to the knapsack, he tossed a ration bar to Alley-cat and tore one open for himself. "And thinking's easier on a full stomach, innit?"

Allie didn't really want to eat, but Rob was watching her to make sure that she did, and she didn't have enough energy to argue with him. So she tore open the bar and munched into it, chewing mechanically, with no appreciation of what the food actually tasted like.

"We know where these Dalek-things are now, right?

Her mouth full, Allie merely grunted a reply. They knew where some of them were, anyway. Assuming there wasn't another nest of them buzzing around on this side of the river as well.

“Course, we don't actually know if they're the problem." Another bite. "I mean, they're a problem and we'll need to do something about them sooner or later, but we don't know that they're related to the Mutant Murder Wasps." Another bite. "Probably are, though, way my luck runs."

"A gang of deadly tinpot aliens in the middle of the same area, and at the same time, when the wasps first began to mutate,” Allie muttered. “It would be a pretty big coincidence.”

Finishing the bar, he tucked the wrapper back into his pack. "Course, that ain't even takin' Jem th' bloody Outrageous into account. She was wittering on about wanting everyone to suffer she was, like a domme with delusions of grandure."

Allie propped herself up on one elbow in the mud. “You don't think she could find us here, do you? I mean, the last we saw of her was on board that plane. Surely she must think we went down in flames with it. She won't even think to look for us, will she?”

Rob considered that for a moment. "Well, delusions and the ability to whistle up a negative-polarity wi nteko wa and drag it this deep into the positive polarity side of the magnetosphere. So, there's that.”

“A negative what?” Allie echoed. “You mean that monster? That was Jem's fault?”

It was still very hard for the blonde girl to get her head around the fact that the stewardess on board the plane had been Jem all along, and she'd never even suspected. And now Rob seemed to be saying that the other woman had somehow summoned the hideous, malformed creature she had watched murder Luiz Santos.  It hardly bore thinking about.

“Still, she puts us on a timeline, don't she? Cause she's looney and powerful, and that's a bad combination. Based on that..."

“I don't understand. Why does she want the Apocalypse to happen? How in the world does it benefit her?”

Sighing, he pointed out towards the river. "Probably need to eliminate those Dalek-things as the source of the wasps first, don't you think? Unless you know something else about the wasps that might change that up."

Allie put her head down on her scratched and filthy knees and racked her brain, trying her hardest to come up with something - anything - that would help him.

“I don't know... there were so many rumours when the wasp attacks first began.” She tucked her wet, muddy curls back behind her ears. “There was one particular newspaper reporter that kept insisting that tests had shown that the mutant wasps had alien DNA, somehow fused to the ordinary glyphanteles gene structure.  There was a huge uproar about it. Some people said she was crazy, others believed her and started screaming themselves hoarse about conspiracy theories.”

Allie's brow wrinkled slightly as she struggled to remember how it had all unfolded, so long ago, back before the world imploded and destroyed itself. “Sarah Jane Smith, I think her name was. She wrote for the Daily Telegraph. Then she just... stopped. I don't know what happened to her. One day, there just weren't any more articles from her. It wasn't long after that when everything went to hell.”

[Rob "the Meddler" Goodfellow]

“Course, we don't actually know if they're the problem." Another bite. "I mean, they're a problem and we'll need to do something about them sooner or later, but we don't know that they're related to the Mutant Murder Wasps." Another bite. "Probably are, though, way my luck runs."

"A gang of deadly tinpot aliens in the middle of the same area, and at the same time, when the wasps first began to mutate,” Allie muttered. “It would be a pretty big coincidence.”

"There's that," Rob agreed cheerfully, popping the last of his power bar into his mouth. "And I tell you what, Alley-cat," he continued, a fine spray of crumbs accompanying his words, "I don't like it when coincidences coincide, know what I mean?" He stuffed the wrapper back into the pack. "Course, that ain't even takin' Jem th' bloody Outrageous into account. She was wittering on about wanting everyone to suffer she was, like a domme with delusions of grandure."

Allie propped herself up on one elbow in the mud. “You don't think she could find us here, do you? I mean, the last we saw of her was on board that plane. Surely she must think we went down in flames with it. She won't even think to look for us, will she?”

He considered the question. "Found us in Rio, didn't she? Five years in th' past an' on a different continent to boot, so we should probably assume that - even with her delusions - she can track us down and probably will." Cracking open a water bottle, he swished it around in an effort to dislodge sticky bits of food. "Well, delusions and the ability to whistle up a negative-polarity wi nteko wa and drag it this deep into the positive polarity side of the magnetosphere. So, there's that.”

“A negative what?” Allie echoed. “You mean that monster? That was Jem's fault?”

"Yep. She bragged about it and everything, like a proper gloating villain on the telly." He shook his head. "So I hit her with a fire extinguisher for her troubles, and she made snakes out of her blood, and frankly I don't want to see the bird ever again." He swallowed some more water and offered the rest of the bottle to ally. “Still, she puts us on a timeline, don't she? Cause she's looney and powerful, and that's a bad combination. Based on that..."

“I don't understand. Why does she want the Apocalypse to happen? How in the world does it benefit her?”

"I..." He let the words die, thinking back to what she'd said on the plane. "She said she was a champion of eternal pain and said 'eternal pain' like it was a person, so that ain't good. And she said she was, how'd she put it...?" The tone and pitch of his voice changed as he made a decent imitationof Jem's voice. "I have been using the anguish and distress of this world as a source of energy, to heal my TARDIS of the wounds you inflicted upon her."

Clearing his throat, he considered his cigarettes once more. "I don't have any idea what she's talking about, honestly, but then I don't remember anything before... what? A week ago? But she knows the Doctor and seems pretty sure I'm him, and she don't like me one bit." Something tickled his mind, a strange-familiar voice calculating the amount of energy a single human mind could release under prolonged torture and then multiplying that by an estimate of the planet's population. "Think it could work, though," he sighed. "Looney, powerful, and smart is a worse combination, you know?" Then he fell silent, eyes wide as another thing Jem had said struck him.

"I caused this Apocalypse, Doctor. I was the reason that Dalek crash-landed here, and became infected with wasp larvae. And now that my plans have almost come to fruition, I will not allow you to negate this timeline!”

"Bollocks," he swore, sounding tired. Then he sighed. "She brought them here," he made who 'them' was clear with a gesture towards the river, "so we probably need to eliminate those Dalek-things as the source of the wasps first, don't you think? Unless you know something else about the wasps that might change that up."

Allie put her head down on her scratched and filthy knees, thinking hard. “I don't know... there were so many rumours when the wasp attacks first began.” She tucked her wet, muddy curls back behind her ears. “There was one particular newspaper reporter that kept insisting that tests had shown that the mutant wasps had alien DNA, somehow fused to the ordinary glyphanteles gene structure. There was a huge uproar about it. Some people said she was crazy, others believed her and started screaming themselves hoarse about conspiracy theories.”

"Yeah," Rob murmured, "that sounds like what Jem-the-bloody-outrageous was saying. I..." He fell silent at Allie's next words, though.

“Sarah Jane Smith, I think her name was. She wrote for the Daily Telegraph. Then she just... stopped. I don't know what happened to her. One day, there just weren't any more articles from her. It wasn't long after that when everything went to hell.”

"Sarah Jane..." A few memories drifted free, memories of a dark-haired woman in a jungle, drawing on a tree with lipstick. Of a conversation about child labor. Of hearts-stopping terror as he stood in a ice-filled room staring at the wrecked corpses of... "Daleks," he breathed, remembering a black and gold engine of destruction, and the horrific blob of hatred within it. "Bloody hell, Alley-cat. It's them. Jem said so, and I wouldn't trust her as far as I could throw her, but if Sarah Jane backed it up..." Expression hardening, he stared across the river. "We have to get over there, Alley-cat. We have to get over ther and do something about..."

"HALT!" an electronic voice screeched as two shapes emerged from the trees, gliding silently over the mud. One was grey and the other gold, and both aimed stubby gunsticks at the bedraggled duo. "Do not move! Do not MOVE!"

The eyestalk of the gold one traversed from Rob to Allie and back. "You are prisoners of the Daleks! You will obey, or you will be exterminated!"

"Exterminated!" shrilled the grey one. "Exterminated! EXTERMINATED!"

[Allison Castiel]

"Daleks," he breathed, remembering a black and gold engine of destruction, and the horrific blob of hatred within it. "Bloody hell, Alley-cat. It's them. Jem said so, and I wouldn't trust her as far as I could throw her, but if Sarah Jane backed it up..."

Allie couldn't blame him for mistrusting Jem's word. After everything that had happened, if she had told Allie the sky was blue, the girl would have checked it first for herself. The horrible woman lied with every breath she drew, taking deceit to an entirely new level. But this Sarah Jane... Rob seemed to remember her. Who had she been, Allie wondered, this human journalist that had managed to engrave herself on to his erratic memory?

For the first time, she felt a small twinge of jealousy, imagining what sort of a person the other woman had been. Females like Sarah Jane, with their high-powered jobs, were always so cool, and calm and collected – intelligent, educated, capable, able to command and control every situation. Allie would bet that she had probably been beautiful too. Rob would have been much better with someone like Sarah Jane to help him save the world. Someone that could actually make a difference. And he probably knew it, she concluded miserably.

Expression hardening, he stared across the river. "We have to get over there, Alley-cat. We have to get over ther and do something about..."

"HALT!" an electronic voice screeched as two shapes emerged from the trees, gliding silently over the mud. One was grey and the other gold, and both aimed stubby gunsticks at the bedraggled duo. "Do not move! Do not MOVE!"

"Oh my God,” Allie whispered, all thoughts of Sarah Jane scattering like dust in the wind. Fear seemed to paralyse her, and all she could do was stare at the two gleaming cyborgs in utter horror, her eyes wide. Why weren't they muddy? she found herself wondering in a detached, numb sort of way. She and Rob were so very dirty, caked in filth, but they looked like they'd just been through the car wash on the Chiswick High Street.

The eyestalk of the gold one traversed from Rob to Allie and back. "You are prisoners of the Daleks! You will obey, or you will be exterminated!"

"Exterminated!" shrilled the grey one. "Exterminated! EXTERMINATED!"

Trembling, Allie raised her hands above her head, her despairing brown gaze fixing on Rob's face. It was all over. They had failed and were about to be killed, while the world continued on its merry and inexorable way to hell.  After all they had gone through to get here, the anger and sadness flooding through her was enough to bring her perilously close to losing her fragile grip on her sanity. Telling herself that the only option she had left was to die bravely, she closed her eyes, and prayed that it would be quick.

[Rob "the Meddler" Goodfellow]

Rob kept uncharacteristically quiet during the nightmare march along a vague trail of mud and leaf mould, racking his brain for anything - anything - he could remember that might help. A few memories jogged loose, but nothing useful. Just fragments of stone pyramids, and burning cities, and running through a dark library. And, of course, the constant refrain: Exterminate! Exterminate! EXTERMINATE! He hated them, he knew that much. Hated and feared them. But he couldn't remember why.

"HALT!" the grey Dalek shrieked as they stumbled out onto the river bank.

"Right, right," Rob muttered. "What now, hey?"

"SILENCE!' shrilled the golden Dalek. "You will not speak!"

Shrugging, he glanced at Ally again. Poor girl was terrified, and he couldn't blame her. Was it worse for her, he wondered, because she didn't know anything about them? Or better, because she didn't have tiny slivers of dread needling her as she almost remembered what they were capable of? "Buck up, alley-cat," he murmured. "We'll get through this."

"SILENCE!" the golden Dalek shrilled. "Do NOT SPEAK!"

Shrugging, Rob looked up and down the river. Then movement attracted his eye, and he watched a saucer emerge from the tree line on the far side of the river and drift towards them with a jerky, limping movement. Another grey Dalek piloted it, sucker arm working the control constantly to keep it out of the water. As it landed, the grey Dalek shoved him forward. "Step aboard!" it instructed. "Do not deviate, or you will be-"

"Exterminated?" Rob interrupted, then oofed as the Dalek shoved him harder. "Steady on, I'm boarding." He offered Ally a hand up. "Both of us."

"Do not attempt escape!" the grey Dalek barked. "Or you will be..."

"Treated to dinner?" Rob guessed sotto voice, just loud enough to let Ally hear.

"Exterminated!" the Dalek finished.

"Shock, that." And then he was too busy hanging onto the railing of the saucer to say anthing else. The flight had looked bad, but it felt worse. And this close up, he could see why. The hull of the saucer wad buckled and bent, and sections of armor plate were missing. Systems flashed and sparked, belching smoke. We might just have nicked the last fully functional one, he realized. Then he grinned, a slow, sly expression that stretched across his face. "We've got leverage, we have."

The pilot Dalek said nothing. It was too busy bringing the saucher in for a rough landing that sent dirt and muck spraying high into the air. Beyond was a clearing... no, he realized. Not a clearing. A crash site. Tree trunks that had been clearly snapped off by a tremendous impact had been dragged to form a makeshift wall. within was an honest-to-god flying saucer, two-thirds buried in a crater. And there were Daleks, more than a dozen of them, drifting over the torn-up earth around the crash site.

The pilot gestured for them to disembark, then followed them into the camp. Walking halfway around the crash site, stepping carefully over fragments of metal, they were confronted by a crimson and gold Dalek. "Report," it boomed in a deep voice.

"I obey," the grey Dalek stated. "These are the humans who captured the saucer piloted by Dalek Yelwes."

The crimson Dalek's eyestalk bored into Ally's eyes. "Time traveler," it boomed. Then it rotated to stare at Rob. "And... wait. This is no human. This is..." Suddenly, the Dalek lunged forward, sucker slamming into Rob's chest and driving him backwards into the hull of the grey Dalek. "You are a Time Lord! Who are you?"

Bollocks, Rob thought. Time to bluff. "I, uhm... I'm the Doctor. Lovely night for a..." suddenly, he was staring down the muzzle of the gunstick. It looked distressingly huge.

"Then you are an enemy of the Daleks," the crimson cyborg droned, "and you will be exterminated!"