The Daleks were worried. Something had appeared on their scanners that they did not understand, and though their usual approach would have been to destroy it, something told them that would end badly. The Dalek ruler therefore dispatched their most observant soldier to examine it. When I say observant, I mean it. He had an enormous eyeball instead of an eye stalk. He also giggled more than any Dalek should. While other workers on the ship he was on pushed him into the transporter to beam him onto the planet below, two baby Daleks appeared on the transport pad. They looked like enormous metal pills. A lima bean walked up to them, admired how cute they were, and ate them whole. Finally, the giggling Dalek beamed down.The moment he landed, his GPS and his link to the Dalek neural web cut off. He had to glide to a nearby town and threatened a man into leading him to the anomaly.
Back on the ship, the lima bean had regurgitated the two baby Daleks into a tub and abandoned them. As soon as the coast was clear, the pills popped open, and out came Rory Williams and myself. We snuck off through the ship and eventually managed to find the Doctor (Tom Baker), get to the planet's surface, and set off after the large eyed Dalek.
The seer, meanwhile, was having trouble with his guide.
"So what do you do to entertain yourselves when you aren't conquering places?" The all too chipper man asked.
"WE TAKE PLEASURE IN OUR OWN PERFECTION!" The seer giggled.
"Oh," the man thought for a moment, "So you masturbate."
"WE DO NOT ENGAGE IN SUCH WEEK ACTIVITIES! OUR TENDRILS ARE ALWAYS FULLY ENGAGED IN THE ARMOR PORTS!"
"Sounds like masturbation."
"YOU WILL DESIST USING THAT WORD! AND WHY ARE YOU NOT TAKING THE SHORTER PATH THROUGH THE MOUNTAINS?!"
"Pff, all you can do is kill me. The stuff in the mountains is way worse than that, so deal with it."
Eventually, the Doctor, Rory, and I arrived at the source of the anomaly, along with the guide and an extremely aggravated Dalek. The anomaly consisted of a hut atop a lumpy hill. Inside, photos of the Doctor, Gallifreyan writing, and other assorted odds and ends.
"Well, mister non-Dalek man," the Doctor addressed the guide, "What's all this then?"
"It's you. The essence of you as far as we could figure out. We have your image, your language, your hobbies, loves fears. We even modeled the hill to reflect your curvature."
"My curvature? I wasn't aware I had the curvature of a hill. I don't eat that many jelly babies."
"I think it's like your average curvature?" Rory suggested.
"Yeah," I backed him up, "Your body is really just one straight line, so it's curvature 0, but your hair. That has to be curvature 2000, so I guess it all evens out to..."
"100?" Rory guessed.
"Sounds right." The Doctor continued to talk with the guide and the Dalek while Rory and I poked around. When we stumbled across some D&D dice, I started to geek out. "DOCTOR! Can I have one of your dice? Please? The Doctor's D&D dice are too wonderfully geeky for words!"
"Yes yes, fine." I pocketed a shiny d12, squealing with delight. "What I want to know is why do all this?"
"THIS IS A BAD PLACE!" screamed the Dalek, it's eye twitching around violently.
"That's the point," explained the guide, "You're like a drug to the Daleks, they can't stay away, but you're horrible for their health. We decided to set up a honey pot far away from us so that if they ever came here, they'd be lured in and killed without ever bothering us."
"But that's preposterous," the Doctor objected, "A room can't kill without programming, a life form, something."
"This...is a cruel thing," wispered the seer, "No Dalek should feel this. What am I feeling? What..." it never finished it's thought. It simply shut down.
"You see? It works like a charm," chirped the guide.
We all returned to the city and met with the senate to discuss their Doctor Mock-up. During the meeting, lots of politics flew around that I didn't understand and didn't particularly want to. What I did catch was that Rory had grown tense. A senator noticed as well and offered him his wrist teleporter.
"Take it," he insisted, "You don't need to be here, and I do."
Reluctantly, Rory accepted it. The moment he powered it up, Amy Pond appeared where he'd been standing. He appeared on the other side of the room, and the eye stalk and laser of a Dalek sprouted out of Amy. I did not see that coming.
"Woah, Daleks!" Amy exclaimed. From her point of view, three of them were leveling their lasers at her. Her laser fired off in their direction automatically. In reality, the three Daleks were Rory, the Doctor, and the Guide.
"Amy! Don't trust what you're seeing! The programming just makes you think that you're facing enemies. It's changing your perceptions to make you accept that. Fight it!"
When she realized what was happening to her, Amy broke down crying. Moments later, she recovered. She had become full on Dalek. There was nothing we could do. She beamed back up to the ship, and we returned to the TARDIS.
"You know, Doctor," I growled, "I know now why they had dice in that room. It's because you don't really know what's going to happen, do you? You just gamble with the lives around you and promise it'll turn out all right. Well, it doesn't always." I gave Rory a much needed hug before stepping out of the TARDIS and into my home.
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