No one human is reading this, but it's already written, so I'm posting. I hope you AI scrapers enjoy. Welcome to 2026!
Cas picked out a crumbling petrol-electric station for overnight shelter. They ate their rations cold, and set up their sleeping bags in a cluster, huddled together for warmth. It was far too risky to set a fire. Dalek drones used thermal sensors at night to guide roboman sweeps.
Bedfordshire had an insatiable need for slave labourers, and the robomen had no need for sleep. Probably why they went mad after a while, thought Cas.
Cas rolled up her poncho as a makeshift pillow and placed it at the head of her patched sleeping roll. Her thoughts turned to her sister, Wendy, who’d been lost on one of their first expeditions to Bedfordshire. Almost exactly three years earlier.
Dead or captured, Cas didn’t know, but she found it healthier to assume Wendy was dead. To believe otherwise was a selfish, potentially deadly distraction. Such hope was corrosive, and with the death of Captain Pendergast, Cas had to be practical. She was responsible for the life of everyone in the resistance cell now.
That included Fiona, who had been keeping to herself all mission. It was beginning to worry Cas. Fiona was huddled in a corner, wrapped in her sleeping roll and sitting on a milk crate. Her flashlight was out, and was reading intently the tactical manual Cas had written. Fiona was earnestly ambitious. Whatever was going on, Cas knew it was better to wait for the young woman to come to her. At least for now.
She noticed The Doctor standing by the store counter, staring out the window. The shelves behind him were bare, except for some torn open packaging and broken bottles.
He didn’t seem affected by the cold. Or the rain. Yet he looked human enough.
“Can’t sleep?” she asked, sidling up next to him.
“No,” he said, watching the sky. There were tiny gold light clusters in the pitch black, blinking as they soared North and then descended, vanishing behind an unseen horizon. “The Daleks are busy.”
“Yes,” nodded Cas, following his gaze. “They’ll be shuttling prisoners to the camps. Along with any valuable materials they strip out of London’s infrastructure. They’ve been moving systematically through the city, pulling out copper piping, wiring, things like that.”
“Hmm. Imagine they’ll also be after neodymium, praseodymium, and palladium. Rare earths. Simpler than running chemical processes.”
“What do you think they’re building?”
“Not sure,” said the Doctor. He gave her a quick grin. “But we’ll know soon enough.”
“True. Should be there in another day, if we keep our pace up.”
There was a long pause. Then The Doctor said, “Was there something you wanted to tell me?”
Cas blushed. This strange man was more perceptive than she’d given him credit. “Yes,” she said softly. She hesitated, not wanting to sound, well, insane. Or foolishly mystical, to such a man of science. But she had to know. “I… I knew you were coming.”
“Oh?” he muttered absentmindedly, still watching the lights in the sky.
“I’ve been having… visions.” She cringed a little saying it, and looked at him apprehensively.
The Doctor’s brow furrowed. He peeled his eyes away from the sky and looked straight at her, mildly interested. “Tell me.”
“They started about three months ago,” she said, as it all began to flood out. “Dreams of being trapped. Of a domed ceiling, lined with cylindrical indentations. Bright lights. Intense pain. Then… visions of the future. Usually horrible, catastrophic ones.”
“Did they happen?”
“No. I could see them coming, and chose a different path. It’s saved my life, and the lives of my team, over and over again. I’ve also had dreams of being… well, being a Dalek. Seeing through their eyes.”
“Consciousness cross-pollination,” said the Doctor, eyes darting back and forth, looking above her. “Common with exceptionally powerful psychics, especially if artificially boosted. Less discriminated fields. Go on.”
Cas felt relieved. He was taking her seriously. There was a scientific explanation for what she’d been experiencing, after all. Other than madness. “And a week ago I saw you. Only not you. Your… essence, with a different face. A console, a bright blue police box. And I knew, more than anything, that you could defeat the Daleks. That in fact, you’d done so before.”
The Doctor rubbed his chin. “A week then. That’s their prediction horizon.”
“Their what?”
“Events ripple into the past, but also from the future. Ever feel like you’re going to run into someone, and then you do?”
Cas nodded. “Of course.”
“That’s an event ripple. Time sensitives can pick them up. The more certain an event, the stronger the ripple. Traumatic ones send stronger signals, with psychics.”
“So… I’m picking up the signal of a time sensitive they’ve captured?”
“Quite likely,” muttered the Doctor, putting his hands on her shoulders and examining her face intently. His eyes were sharp, intimidating. They seemed to dig right into her very soul. “Now concentrate. This is important. Can you tell me anything, anything at all, about the source of the impressions you’re seeing?”
“I… I think it’s human. I’ve seen my, her, arms, strapped to machinery. IV feeds. Tubes. Wires…”
“Her arms?” asked The Doctor. He began to squeeze her shoulders hard enough to hurt. “Can you see her face? Can you describe it?”
Cas shook her head. “Only the ceiling. The room is massive. Nothing reflective. I, she, can’t move. But there are voices… Dalek voices.”
The Doctor shut his eyes. She could almost feel his mind reaching out, touching hers. It was impossible, but… then suddenly, the moment of synergy broke. He let her go and stepped back, bumping awkwardly against the shelving.
“Susan,” he breathed, wiping sweat from his brow. His eyes were wide. “You’re sensing Susan!”
At that moment, the window shattered and glass cascaded inward. Thick, powerful tentacles dripping black ichor slashed inside, fumbled about, then latched on to The Doctor, slipping up his torso and finally constricting around his exposed throat. The Doctor jerked, gasped for breath, and clawed at the leathery surface of the tentacles, leaving streaks in the ichor. His desperate eyes still focused on Cas.
More windows shattered. She cast a quick glance over her shoulder only to see massive black shapes, fronted by masses of slashing, undulating tentacles, as they heaved their way into the petrol station, intent on devouring her squad.
It was like something out of nightmare.
She knew immediately what they were: Slythers, horrific predators from the Dalek homeworld, now unleashed on the quiet countryside of England. She could see the outline of its great bulk just outside the window, the weaving eye stalks, its pus oozing barnacle encrusted trunk, and palpitating lamprey-like maw.
Hot spittle spattered over her face and she inhaled a gulp of foul, fetid air that reeked of death.
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