"Escape From the Daleks of New York" - Part Five

 

Part Five

            What the heck happened?

            That was the question that kept replaying over and over again in Cara’s head like a broken record. The plan set in place by her, the Super, Snake, Brain, Maggie, and Cabbie was flawless – the Duke would come to Brain’s place and she would seduce him long enough for the Super’s team to jump in and attack.

            So why was she now in the Duke’s hideout at the dilapidated Grand Central Terminal, still masquerading as the Duke’s personal prize? She had to scratch her nose so badly, but she couldn’t risk ruining her makeup. This wasn’t exactly her best of disguises.

            There was a gathering held in the Duke’s arena – formerly the Main Concourse – with a makeshift wrestling ring situated at the center of the room. Cara was escorted to the north balcony where she received quite a surprise.

            “Darwin?!” she blurted.

            Sure enough, there her fish-boy companion was, comfortably sitting on a golden throne with velvet cushions. He was fitted with a dictator costume and looked oddly complacent to Cara. When she blurted out his name, he glanced at her inquiringly and said, “I’m sorry, miss. Do I know you?” Even his usual politeness contrasted with the raucous atmosphere.

            Understanding his confusion from her makeup-heavy disguise, she told him, “Darwin, it’s me – Cara.”

            “Cara?!” he reacted in shock. “What happened to you?”

            “What happened to me? What happened to you?!” she rebounded. “I thought you were in the TARDIS with Gumball and Anais.”

            “We were until Anais convinced us to go out and help you.”

            “Why would I need help?” She only considered the irony of that question after the fact. “Never mind. Don’t answer that.” With a deep sigh, she added, “Well, no point in worrying about our own problems. From what I heard the Duke say, Snake’s gonna have to fight for his life.”

            “We’re gonna watch snakes fight?”

            Darwin’s dubious inquiry made Cara chuckle. “No, sweetheart. Snake’s a man I met while I’ve been looking into this world. You’re gonna be surprised when you see him. He looks a lot like someone you’ve seen before.” She then sidelined the topic for a moment to focus on Darwin’s attire. “Darwin, may I ask why you’re dressed like Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator?”

            “It was the Duke’s idea,” Darwin told her. “When his guys brought me here, he wanted me to be their new mascot.”

            Cara was disgusted to hear this. “Don’t you find that a bit demeaning?”

            “Not at all,” Darwin stated. “I’m just glad to bring smiles to the faces of bloodthirsty, savage criminals.”

            Cara shook her head. “Bless your sweet, naïve little heart,” she muttered.

            The crowd of “bloodthirsty, savage criminals” (as Darwin referred them) became even more savage and thirsty when Snake was brought out and forced into the ring. He still carried the limp from the leg that he was shot in, certainly in no condition to fight the big, bald brute that the Duke pitted him against – a man called “Slag.”

            “That’s Snake?” Darwin observed. “He looks just like Mr. MacReady…if Mr. MacReady had an eyepatch!”

            “Told ya,” Cara said with a smirk.

            Snake put up a good fight against Slag, in spite of his wounded leg. There were weapons strung up along the ring ropes for both combatants to use against each other. However, their contest didn’t last for very long, when Slag was suddenly zapped to death by a deadly energy ray. His smoldering body thudded to the mat, much to the surprise of Snake and everyone else in the arena, especially the Duke. The entire room fell silent.

            “Who did that?!” he stormed.

            “I DID!” All eyes looked towards the entrance where a small platoon of Daleks strolled from. They were led by one Dalek that was red instead of the bronze color scheme associated with most Daleks.

            Cara recognized it as the Supreme Dalek.

            She noticed Darwin quivering on his special throne. “We’ll be alright, sweetie,” she calmly whispered to him.

            Of course, Darwin wasn’t the only one shaking in his boots.

            Cara noticed the Duke’s right eye nervously twitching in the presence of the Supreme Dalek.

            “WHERE IS THE PRESIDENT?” the Supreme Dalek asked, its screeching voice carrying throughout the dead-silent arena.

            The Duke barely held it together as he responded, “H-He’s right over there.”

            He pointed towards a specific corner of the room where Harker was chained up against the wall, his face drenched in sweat and fear. His terrified gaze locked on the Supreme Dalek, whose eyestalk focused on the President. It fixated its scope particularly on the briefcase that the President was still handcuffed to, examining its contents through x-ray vision.

            When the Supreme Dalek saw that there was nothing in the briefcase, it immediately fired its gunstick on Harker, who emitted a bloodcurdling scream before his chained body drooped dead on the wall.

            Redirecting its eyestalk back on the Duke, the Supreme Dalek ordered, “YOU AND YOUR MEN WILL ACCOMPANY US TO THE DALEK STRONGHOLD AT THE LOCATION FORMERLY DESIGNATED AS ‘MADISON SQUARE GARDEN’!”

            “Why? What’s goin’ down?” the Duke asked.

            “THE FACILITY HAS BEEN COMPROMISED! THEY ARE AFTER OUR MACHINE! PER OUR AGREEMENT, YOU WILL ASSIST US OR ELSE YOU WILL PERISH WITH THE REST OF YOUR WORLD!”

            Wasting no time, the Duke and his army piled out of the arena and the hideout altogether, along with the Supreme Dalek and its platoon. Amid the confusion, Cara and Darwin rushed down to join up with Snake, who rolled out of the ring. They were the only ones that remained in the arena before Maggie and Brain met up with them.

            “Did I hear that right?” Brain said as he entered. “Is the Super really gonna blow up that machine?”

            “What?!” Cara reacted to this sudden news. “That wasn’t the plan!”

            “No, it wasn’t,” Snake hissed. “Neither was knockin’ me out cold and leavin’ me to be captured by the Duke.”

            “What is this?!” They heard Maggie ask, as she looked on Darwin in revulsion.

            Not appreciating her look, Cara knelt beside Darwin and hugged him close to her. “This is my friend, and his name is Darwin,” she told Maggie.

            Snake was just as deterred by the fish-boy’s presence. “Is there somethin’ you wanna tell us?” he asked Cara in his aggressive way. “‘Cause I’m all outta patience with people who’re keepin’ things from me.”

            Cara understood his frustration, after what she heard the Super did to him.

            “Just like the Daleks, Darwin and I aren’t from your world,” she explained. “We come from another dimension ourselves.”

            “You’re aliens, too?!” Brain worriedly remarked.

            “Kinda,” Darwin said. “But we’re the friendly ones.”

            “Look, you can trust us or not,” Cara stipulated, “but there’s a machine over there in the Garden that’s primed and ready to erase your whole reality at any time, regardless of whether or not the Super’s plan works!”

            On that, she retrieved her sonic screwdriver from out of her leather jacket and pointed it in one direction. Snake, Maggie, and Brain witnessed in total disbelief as a tall, black rectangular solid that resembled a giant domino materialized from the once-empty space. Cara and Darwin went right to it, and Cara placed her palm against one section of the solid’s front. A door suddenly formed and opened, allowing them to walk into a much bigger space within the flat solid.

            Not even the intelligent Harold Helman could offer an explanation for how such a complexed construct worked; neither could he determine if it was intrigue or stupidity that drew him inside it. Maggie hesitated to follow him, as did Snake, who wasn’t sure what to think anymore. He only trusted his instincts.

-----------------------------

            Cara brought her TARDIS within the Daleks’ stronghold in the derelict Madison Square Garden before the Duke or the Supreme Dalek got there themselves. As soon as she, Darwin, Snake, Brain, and Maggie scrambled out of the ship, they received an eyeful of the Daleks’ void machine. The Daleks gutted much of the inside of the Garden to house their technological monstrosity, which the Super and his team were positioned in front of, accompanied by Darwin’s siblings.

            “Gumball! Anais!” he cheered.

            As happy as Cara was for him to be reunited with his brother and sister, she had hoped for the element of surprise against the treacherous Super. His attention was drawn to them the instant Darwin called out to Gumball and Anais.

            “Darwin!” Gumball and Anais happily returned their once-missing brother’s greeting. The siblings rushed towards each other and engaged in a warm group hug.

            “Why are you dressed like you’re ruling your own country?” Gumball noted.

            “And who’s the painted lady you’re with?” Anais pointed to Cara.

            “It’s me, guys,” she told them.

            “Cara?!” Gumball raised a perplexed eyebrow. “Here we were, worried that you may’ve been in danger, and you’re playing dress-up again?!”

            “Can we please focus instead on the giant killing machine the old guy in the suit is about to blow up?!” Cara insisted.

            “You can’t stop me now, Gladiator,” the Super said. “What I’m about to do, I do for the good of the entire multiverse.” He turned back to the machine, his attention on the slot where he was about to insert the President’s keycard.

            And then…

            BOINK!

            The Super dropped right to the floor just after Snake clocked him across the back of his head with the butt of an assault rifle he carried with him. Obviously, it was righteous payback for the Super’s betrayal.

            But something bizarre resulted in the attack.

            The Super’s head had become deformed and polygonal.

            “What…?” Snake murmured, feeling just as repulsed as everyone else in seeing the unsettling change in the Super.

            “Dang, Snake,” Cara said. “How hard did you hit him?!”

            Nightwing examined the damage more closely and came upon an even more disturbing discovery: “His skin isn’t human.” He tugged on it until it completely ripped off like a Halloween mask, exposing a different head – one of a disfigured and broken character that Gumball and Darwin recognized.

            “Rob?!” the boys identified him.

            “Who is ‘Rob’?” Kori questioned, extremely confused.

            “I’m assuming it’s the guy we’ve been following into the depths of Hell this whole time,” Gar told her.

            Rob stood up to his full height, still recovering from the blow to his head. His dodecahedral head floated slightly above his body, which periodically displayed distorted static and glitched in and out, while his midriff inconsistently switched between pink and static. “Would you guys have even taken me seriously like this when I came to you?” he insinuated to the Titans. “Disguising myself as an old man is the only way I can get around the multiverse! I mean, look at me! I’m an abomination in any universe!”

            “But why are you doing all of this, Rob?” Gumball asked. “We could stop the Daleks together.”

            “With you? My worst enemy?!” Rob scoffed. “You don’t even get what’s happening here, Gumball! I’m stopping the Daleks from doing to this world what they’ll eventually do to others, including ours!”

            In his ranting, Rob sharply turned once again back to the machine and inserted the keycard. At first, it didn’t appear as if it served its functional purpose. And then, the entire machine glowed in the same blue bioluminescence as the keycard before discharging a massive wave of energy that threw everyone into various directions.

            All parties blacked out thereafter.

            It wasn’t until a moment later when they all regained consciousness at the exact time the Duke and the Supreme Dalek arrived with their armies, opening fire on them.

            Brain was caught in a Dalek death ray. Maggie watched in horror as his skeletal structure was briefly exposed prior to collapsing to the floor, his dead body smoking. Mortified and enraged, she took aim with her handgun and fired on the Duke. She managed only to hit his shoulder before he returned fire, spraying her with a hail of bullets from his rifle that shredded her torso. She died instantaneously.

            As the chaos intensified, Rob drew the portal gun he possessed and fired it in one unoccupied area, creating another gelatinous green portal. With his Titans team nearby, he beckoned to them, “Let’s get out of here! Our job is done!”

            “You expect us to trust you after all your lies?!” Grayson retorted.

            Suddenly, the entire foundation of the Garden quaked. The Daleks’ machine began to crumble, its entire configuration imploding right in front of everyone. The Void – a dimensional plane made entirely of static, like out of a television set – opened from within the crumbling machine. With it came a powerful vacuum that slowly increased in force, claiming the lives of the Duke, the Supreme Dalek, and many of their underlings.

            In a last ditch attempt, Rob pleaded to the Titans, “C’mon! What other choice do you guys have?!”

            There was none that the Titans could find in that moment.

            They escaped with Rob through his portal.

            The only ones left were Cara, Snake, and the Watterson siblings.

            Cara’s TARDIS was just an arm’s reach from them. It was the only thing that didn’t budge from the vacuum that sucked up everything in the building and even reality itself. Cara, Snake, and the Wattersons were about to become its next victims, their bodies elevating as they all held on for dear life.

            “Everybody lock grips!” Cara instructed Snake and the Wattersons.

            They formed a chain-link that started with Snake and ended with Gumball.

            Gripping a seat that was only seconds from unlatching off its bolts, Snake executed one mighty tug that propelled him and the four people he was linked with into Cara’s TARDIS. Gravity shifted around them as they tumbled across the floor of the console room. Cara quickly went to the controls, shutting the door and dematerializing them out of the doomed realm.

            “Let’s…never do that…again!” Anais breathlessly demanded.

            “Deal!” Cara agreed, just as breathless. “Is everybody alright?”

            “I’m gonna need a change of underwear, but otherwise I’m good,” Gumball verified.

            Seeing that the Watterson children were all safe and accounted for, Cara gazed over at Snake, who was once again glancing at the device on his left wrist – this time with burning anxiety plastered all over his face.

            “O.K., I know I’m not supposed to ask, but what is that thing counting down to?” she asked him.

            “My death,” Snake answered in shaky breath. “I was forced into having micro-explosives injected into my carotid arteries that are about to go off in six seconds!”

            “You mean you’re about to explode?!” Gumball cried.

            Now comprehending his dire situation, Cara acted fast. She pointed her sonic screwdriver at Snake. It whirred in the last few seconds remaining on Snake’s wrist clock. When the countdown reached zero, Plissken expected his head to have popped like a grape…but nothing happened.

            His life had been saved by Cara’s magic alien tool.

            He couldn’t fully grasp the specifics of how she did it, and he didn’t care.

            Finally having a moment of peace after such a grueling journey, Cara welcomed her newest companion: “Well, looks like you’re stuck with us, Snake.”

            Snake glared at his four strange new acquaintances.

            “Call me Plissken,” he hissed.