Fire With Fire (First of The Creators Saga)

Dalek

In a museum in Utah, nearly 50 years after the Alchemist crashed to Earth, a peculiar item appeared: a 1950s style police box, just appearing out of nowhere! The door opened, and a man with close cropped hair, large ears, and a leather jacket stepped out, looking around curiously. He was followed by a blonde girl in her late teens. "So, what is it?" Rose Tyler asked, looking around as well. "What's wrong?"

"Don't know," the Ninth Doctor replied. "Some kind of signal drawing the TARDIS off course."

"Where are we?"

"Earth," the Doctor replied. "Utah, North America. About . . . half a mile underground."

"And when are we?"

"Two thousand and twelve."

Rose blinked. "God, that's so close," she remarked. "So I should be twenty-six." She looked around when the Doctor flipped a light switch on. "Blimey," she breathed. "It's a great big museum!"

"An alien museum," the Doctor agreed, starting to investigate. "Someone's got a hobby. They must have spent a fortune on this! Chunks of meteorite, moon dust." He pointed. "That's the milometer from the Roswell spaceship . . . " He faltered, looking around.

"Doctor?" Rose asked.

"Just thought . . . " the Doctor trailed off before shaking his head. "Nah, must've imagined it."

Rose nodded slowly before seeing something that made her gasp. "That's a bit of Slitheen!" she exclaimed, running over. "That's a Slitheen's arm! It's been stuffed!"

"Oh, look at you!"

Rose looked over to see him peering at what appeared to be a robot's head. "What is it?" she asked.

"An old friend of mine," he replied before shaking his head. "Well, enemy. The stuff of nightmares reduced to an exhibit." He sighed. "I'm getting old."

"Is that where the signal's coming from?"

"No. It's stone dead. The signal's alive. Something's reaching out, calling for help." The Doctor reached out and touched the display case, and alarms began blaring.

Rose looked around as guards ran up, guns held up at them. "If someone's collecting aliens, that makes you Exhibit A," she commented.

***

"Attention all personnel. Bad Wolf One descending. Bad Wolf One descending."

Down further below the surface, an armed guard left the heavily guarded room he'd just been in, sealing the door behind him. The woman still wasn't awake, and it didn't seem likely that she would.

The instant the door closed, the brunette woman chained to the wall opened her eyes, shaking her head lightly and lifting one of her legs up to her hands. She fiddled inside for a split second before pulling out a hair pin that she'd had when she'd regenerated and began scratching the locks on the cuffs.

It was about time she got out of there.

She narrowed her eyes when she felt a familiar sensation brush through her mind. That was impossible. No one could have survived.

Unless . . .

Her eyes widened in realization, and she growled, picking the locks with a new fervor she hadn't had since she'd crashed.

There was another member of her species here.

***

"And this is the last," an English boy was saying as the Doctor and Rose were led into an older man's office. "Paid eighteen hundred thousand dollars for it."