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{{Infobox Novel|
{{title dab away}}
image= [[Image:IAmaDalek.jpg|250px]]|
{{real world}}
novel name= I am a Dalek|
{{Infobox Story SMW
series= [[BBC Tenth Doctor Adventures]]<br>[[Quick Reads]]|
|image       = IAmaDalek.jpg
number= 1 |
|series       = [[Quick Reads]]
doctor= [[Tenth Doctor]]|
|number       = 1
companions= [[Rose Tyler]]|
|doctor       = Tenth Doctor
enemy= [[Dalek|A Dalek]]|
|companions   = [[Rose Tyler|Rose]]
year= [[Earth]]|
|enemy       = [[Dalek (I Am a Dalek)|Dalek]]
writer= [[Gareth Roberts]]|
|setting      = [[Winchelham]] and [[Twyford]], [[2007]]
publisher= [[BBC Books]]|
|writer       = Gareth Roberts
release date= [[May]] [[2006]]|
|publisher   = BBC Books
format= Paperback, 105 pages|
|release date = 18 May 2006
isbn= ISBN 0-563-48648-1|
|format     = Paperback; 14 chapters, 105 pages
previous story= |
|isbn         = ISBN 0-563-48648-1
next story= [[Made of Steel]] |}}
|next         = Made of Steel (novel)
|cover = [[Henry Steadman]]
}}
'''''I Am a Dalek''''' by [[Gareth Roberts]] was the inaugural ''[[Doctor Who]]'' [[Quick Reads]] novella.


'''''I am a Dalek''''' by [[Gareth Roberts]] is the first ''Doctor Who''-related release in the [[BBC Books]] [[Quick Reads]] line of novellas. It uses the same cover format as the [[BBC Tenth Doctor Adventures]] line, except that it was published exclusively in paperback.
== Publisher's summary ==
Equipped with space suits, golf clubs, and a flag, the Doctor and Rose are planning to live it up, [[Apollo 11|Apollo]] mission-style, on [[the Moon]]. But [[the Doctor's TARDIS|the TARDIS]] has other plans, landing them instead in a village on the south coast of [[England]]; a picture-postcard sort of place where nothing much happens. Until now...


==Publisher’s Summary==
An archaeological dig has turned up a [[Rome|Roman]] mosaic, circa [[70]] [[AD]], depicting mythical scenes, grapes - and a [[Dalek]]. A few days later a young woman, rushing for work, is knocked over and killed by a car, then comes back to life. It's not long before all hell breaks loose, and the Doctor and Rose must use all their courage and cunning against an alien enemy - and a not-quite-human accomplice - who are intent on destroying humanity.
Equipped with space suits, golf clubs, and a flag, the Doctor and Rose are planning to live it up, Apollo mission-style, on [[the Moon]]. But the [[the Doctor's TARDIS|TARDIS]] has other plans, landing them instead in a village on the south coast of [[England]]; a picture-postcard sort of place where nothing much happens. Until now...


An archaeological dig has turned up a [[Roman]] mosaic, circa [[Early human history#1st century A.D.|AD 70]], depicting mythical scenes, grapes - and a [[Dalek]]. A few days later a young woman, rushing for work, is knocked over and killed by a bus, then comes back to life. It's not long before all hell breaks loose, and the Doctor and Rose must use all their courage and cunning against an alien enemy - and a not-quite-human accomplice - who are intent on destroying humanity.
== Plot ==
The Doctor and Rose are preparing to visit [[The Moon|the moon]]. The Doctor lowers [[The Doctor's TARDIS|the TARDIS]]’s [[gravity]] so he and Rose can practice walking in moon-like conditions. The Doctor then asks Rose to open the TARDIS door and leap out onto the moon’s surface. Rose takes a leap but crashes into a wooden [[table]], and when she looks around she finds they’ve landed inside a [[pub]] on [[Earth]]. The Doctor, concerned, examines the TARDIS to try and determine why they veered off-course. Rose then picks up a [[newspaper]] from the bar and sees a headline: ‘[[Roman Empire|ROMAN]] REMAINS FOUND AT [[Crediton Vale|CREDITON VALE]]’. She looks at the accompanying picture, which displays a man, a woman, and the unmistakeable figure of a [[Dalek]]. She rushes to the TARDIS to show the Doctor, but before she can get in the TARDIS dematerialises.


Featuring the Doctor and Rose as played by [[David Tennant]] and [[Billie Piper]] in the hit series from [[BBC Television]].
Kate Yates is lying in [[bed]], listening to the [[radio]], when she drifts off to [[sleep]]. Around 9:30am she wakes up, and realising she’s late for work leaves the house in a hurry. Meanwhile in the pub, Rose climbs out of her [[space suit]] and climbs out of a window when she hears someone moving upstairs. She sits on a bench by the [[village green]], waiting for the Doctor to return, when she sees Kate Yates running for [[The 354|a bus]]. Kate sees her bus pull away and stops in the middle of the road. Then, before she can move, a [[sports car]] speeds round a corner and runs her over. The car’s driver steps out, and Rose shouts for him to call an [[ambulance]]. Rose then sits with Kate, holding her hand, when suddenly Kate’s body is overtaken by a crackling green aura. A moment later the aura passes and Kate, whose hair has changed from red to blonde, calmly gets up and tells Rose that she’s fine.
==Story==


In the TARDIS, the Doctor sees unfamiliar markings appear on the console screen. He realises that the TARDIS is acting of its own accord, and asks it where it’s taking him. Suddenly the TARDIS stops, and the Doctor steps out into a dark underground facility. After some exploration he determines that he’s in an abandoned nuclear [[bunker]]. When the Doctor hears somebody listing to the radio nearby he sets out to find them.


In the TARDIS, the Doctor turns off the air and gravity inside the ship after he and Rose seal themselves in spacesuits to get ready to visit the Moon. However, when Rose jumps out of the TARDIS she falls down in a quite ordinary way; smashing into a wooden table. After looking around, she concludes that they had landed on Earth in a bar. She finds a newspaper and whilst checking the news discovers an article about the discovery of ancient Roman remains and a mosaic that depicted a disturbingly familiar pepper pot shape. Worried, she runs for the TARDIS but the door slams shut in her face and then leaves her standing alone as it dematerialises.
Frank is listening to the radio, overseeing the volunteers working at the [[Archaeology|archaeological]] dig site, when the Doctor taps him on the shoulder and asks to borrow his [[Mobile phone|phone]]. The Doctor then uses [[The Doctor's sonic screwdriver|his sonic screwdriver]] on the phone to boost its [[signal]] and calls Rose. He asks Frank where he is, and when Frank tells him the Doctor tells Rose that he’s at Crediton Vale, a disused nuclear bunker-turned archaeological dig site. He then hangs up and returns the phone to Frank, who gives him a tour of the dig site. When the Doctor asks if they’ve dug up anything unusual, Frank points him to a [[mosaic]] being uncovered by the dig site’s student volunteers. The Doctor jumps into the pit, where the volunteers have unearthed a strange metal object. The Doctor then calls to Frank, and tells everyone to get back, as he finds himself face-to-face with a Dalek. The Dalek appears to be lifeless. When the students ask what it is, the Doctor says it’s a [[bomb]] and tells them to evacuate. The students go, but Frank remains behind.


Elsewhere, a girl named Kate Yates begins to wake up as the radio switches on, but falls asleep again and wakes up an hour and a half later. She gets out of bed and hurries to get ready for work, before setting off to catch the bus, whilst thinking about her various problems; such as how she had tried to live in a big city on her own but had come back to the village she once lived in with big debts to pay. Most of all she thinks about how much trouble she will be in with her boss Serena for being late.
Kate sits in the [[museum]] [[tea shop]] and calls her boss Serena to explain why she’s late for work. When Kate says she was “almost” run over by a car Serena is not sympathetic, and Kate, furious, abruptly ends the call. She then picks up a newspaper and turns to the [[puzzle]] page. She completes all of the hardest puzzles with ease. Suddenly Kate finds herself hyper-aware of everything in the room – the exact temperature of her [[coffee]], the chemical processes taking place inside the cup – and can see the [[atom]]s that make up the room. When Rose comes into the tea shop asking if she is okay, and why she isn’t dead, Kate tells her to go away. To her own surprise, Kate registers Rose’s [[kindness]] as weakness.


Rose climbs out of her spacesuit, wondering why the Doctor has gone away without her. She concludes that it must be connected to the Dalek she has seen in the mosaic and then goes to have a look around outside at the village. She sits on a bench looking at her TARDIS key waiting for it to glow; indicating that the ship is coming back for her.
The Doctor and Frank open the Dalek’s [[casing]], and the Doctor is relieved to see a mound of [[ash]] where the Dalek creature would have been. Frank begins to wonder how the Doctor knows so much about the past, and seems to know so much about [[Space|outer space]]. He asks the Doctor if he’s [[Insanity|mad]] and the Doctor, ignoring the question, tells Frank that the Dalek is a creature from outer space. Frank, thinking it’s a [[joke]], decides to play along.


Kate runs to catch the bus but while she is in the middle of the road a sport car zooms round the corner and smashes into her. As she falls to the ground; she knows that she is about to die.
Rose pleads with Kate to let her help. When Rose mentions the Doctor, Kate suddenly becomes very alert. Rose persuades her to come with her to Crediton Vale to meet the Doctor. They get on a [[bus]], and as they approach Kate finds that [[Memory|memories]] of [[planet]]s burning are flashing into her [[mind]], taking over her own memories. Uncontrollably, she begins to think the word ‘[[Extermination|exterminate]]’ over and over.


Rose hears the smack of metal on flesh and runs to see Kate dying on the ground, before trying to see if it was possible to rescue her. She holds her hand but stings her so she draws back. Kate's back arches and an aura spreads out from the wound of the crash and covers her entire body. It suddenly disappears leaving Kate perfectly all right, only with her hair having turned from red to blonde.
The Doctor removes the [[Gunstick|Dalek’s gun]] and hands it to Frank. He tells Frank that the gun is dangerous and shouldn’t fall into the wrong hands. He asks Frank to take it home, saying he’ll collect it later, and Frank gets into a [[lift]] to head up to the surface.


When the TARDIS materializes again after taking off without his intervention, the Doctor goes out to check where he has been brought and discovers that he was in a nuclear bunker. He hears the distant tones of a radio and decides to go and see who is listening to it.
Rose and Kate arrive at the building site under which Crediton Vale nuclear bunker was built. They see Frank with the student volunteers outside the [[bungalow]] which served as the bunker’s secret entrance. As they pass Frank, Kate feels a tingle of [[Static electricity|static]]. Rose and Kate get into the lift to descend into the bunker, and Kate fights hard to supress her murderous thoughts and urges. Eventually she decides that, when the time is right, she will exterminate Rose.


Frank Openshaw is checking the archaeological dig that uncovered the ancient Roman remains when someone asks him for access to the phone; a strange man in a pinstripe suit too old to be one of the students working on the excavation. Frank warns him that there is no signal deep underground but the man connects a strange tubular tool to the phone, dials and seems to get through. He hears the voice of a woman talking to man and after a brief conversation the man hangs up and starts watching the progressing dig, showing a great knowledge of Roman history. Frank manages to interrupt him to ask for his name and the man answers that he is just the Doctor. He asks him if by any chance they have dug up anything they didn't really understand and Frank points down a corridor where there is a mosaic. As he thinks about the strange situation he has entered into, one of the students calls him warning him that they had found something very weird.
Underground, Rose and the Doctor are reunited. Rose begins telling the Doctor about the mosaic, but stops suddenly when she sees the Dalek. The Doctor reassures her that the Dalek is dead. Kate wants to run to the empty Dalek casing, but recognises the Doctor as the dangerous man from her visions, and decides to play her cards close to her chest. To appear like a normal [[human]], she asks what the Dalek casing is. Rose then introduces Kate and the Doctor, ignoring her, proceeds to tell Rose he’s dismembering the casing so he can dispose of it in a [[black hole]]. He tells her it might be [[booby trap]]ped, and in particular mentions [[Computer virus|virus]] transmitters which could lock into the TARDIS and take over its operating systems. Rose tries again to tell the Doctor about Kate, but he insists that dismantling the Dalek casing must be more important. The Doctor continues his work, only stopping when he looks up and sees Kate, with her arm outstretched, sending tiny glowing filaments from her fingertips into the Dalek casing.


The Doctor goes along the corridor and when he sees the mosaic his heart skips a bit. He hears the students call to Frank he goes back, jumps down into the pit where they have been digging and warns the students to back off from the Dalek they had found. The students begin to get very excited but the Doctor tells them that it is a bomb and they must evacuate, and is supported in his claims by Frank supported by Frank.
The Doctor quickly tackles Kate to the ground, and asks Rose to tell him everything she knows about her. Rose explains how Kate healed herself after the car accident, and the Doctor, feeling static electricity coming from Kate’s hands, realises that a kind of Dalek energy is coursing through her. He theorises that the dying Dalek sent out [[Dalek factor|a genetic imprint of itself]] which had laid dormant in humans until it was activated in Kate. He then corrects himself, stating that he would have noticed if all humans had been imprinted with the ‘Dalek factor’, and suggests that the imprint failed and Kate’s transformation is the result of a dangerous fluke. He then tells Rose to get Kate as far away from the Dalek casing as she can, saying that the further she gets from the casing the less susceptible to the Dalek factor's influence she will be. As Rose carries Kate to the lift, the Doctor examines the circuitry inside the Dalek casing. He peers inside, looks down into the body of the casing, and sees a newly-formed [[Baby|infant]] Dalek creature writhing around. It reaches for the controls. The Doctor considers killing the creature, but hesitates for a second too long. The casing slams shut, and the Dalek’s once-dormant [[Dalek eyestalk|eyestalk]] begins to glow. The whole creature then begins twitching into life, relearning to speak and move, and then frees itself from the ground. The Doctor, out of options, runs to the lift and begins desperately jabbing the button. The lift arrives, and the Doctor jumps inside as the levitating Dalek approaches. When the lift begins to ascend the Dalek breaks into the shaft, follows it up, and then grabs the base of the lift with its sucker. The lift grinds to a halt, and the Dalek begins to pull it back down with the Doctor inside. The Doctor removes the lift’s ceiling panels with his sonic screwdriver and jumps up. As the Dalek pulls the floor of the lift away, the Doctor climbs out and begins to clamber up the lift’s metal cable.


Meanwhile, Kate talks to Serena at the phone and gets angry because her boss doesn’t believe that she was almost run over. After entering a teashop she looks at a newspaper and glances at the puzzle page. She realizes that the games look very easy, despite the fact she has never been good at them. When she looks up she notices that the girl who had helped her on the road, Rose, has just entered the shop. She is annoyed when Rose goes to her and asks her questions she doesn’t want to answer so she asks her to leave, not interested in her company and curiosity.
On the surface, Rose and Kate hitch a lift from a [[lorry]] driver named Atif. Rose tells Atif that Kate isn’t feeling very well. As they drive further from Crediton Vale Kate gradually comes round, and asks Rose what just happened. Atif offers to drop Rose and Kate off in [[Hastings]] or [[Dover]], and Rose says Dover sounds good.


Frank watches the Doctor open the object he has described as a bomb and when he does sot they notice that there is an empty space within it. The Doctor looks relieved and when Frank manifests his puzzlement the Time Lord explains the nature and the origin of Daleks. However, the old man believes that the Doctor is joking.
The Doctor flees from the bungalow, and his heart sinks when he sees two [[police car]]s pulling up in front of him. A student volunteer recognises the Doctor as the man from the dig site, and a [[police officer]] asks the Doctor for his [[identification]]. The Doctor, knowing they are all in danger, pleads with everyone to run away. When the infant Dalek then emerges from the bungalow, the police officer approaches it with curiosity. When a student makes fun of the Dalek’s [[Suction cup|sucker]], believing the Dalek to be a [[robot]] made by the Doctor, the Dalek grabs his [[stomach]] and throws him aside violently. The students and police officers them begin running away, but the Dalek picks up a police car with its sucker and throws it over their heads, blocking their escape from the building site. The Dalek then chases the humans into a narrow alley between two half-built [[flat]]s. Once they’re herded in, it begins to knock the walls in the hopes of sending the [[girder]]s and [[scaffolding]] stacked on top crashing down on its victims. The Doctor then distracts the Dalek by calling its name. The Doctor calls the Dalek to him, asking it to scan his [[heart]]s. As it does so, the humans make their escape. The Dalek, its thinking capabilities still new and slow, gradually realises that the Doctor is a [[Time Lord]]. The Doctor then tells the Dalek that he’s a very specific Time Lord who the Daleks refer to as the [[Aliases of the Doctor|Oncoming Storm]]. The Dalek then states that the Doctor is an [[enemy]] of the Daleks. The Doctor then runs further into the building site, and the Dalek, flying, follows closely behind.


Rose doesn’t give up and asks Kate to go with her and meet the Doctor. Something in Kate's mind reacts to that name and she accepts, so they set off to catch the bus to find him. Strange thoughts start crossing Kate's mind, as if they were somebody else's memories, images of other worlds and the echo of the word Doctor, then a word starts running through her head endlessly: exterminate!
In the lorry, Kate begins crying. She can’t stop the Dalek part of her putting evil thoughts into her head. She begins talking as a Dalek, about how she looks forward to exterminating the human race and bringing purity to the universe. Atif, growing concerned, begins a detour to the nearest [[hospital]]. Kate then suddenly grabs the [[steering wheel]] and sends the lorry crashing into a grass verge next to a row of [[shop]]s. Kate sees that they have arrived in [[Twyford]], the largest human settlement near to Crediton Vale, and is excited to find that a [[market]] has caused the place to be crawling with humans. Kate elbows Rose in the stomach before escaping from the lorry. Rose then climbs out after her, telling Atif to escape while he can.


Slowly the Doctor removes the gun instrument from the Dalek and gives it to Frank. He comments that Frank doesn’t ask questions about travelling in time and changing history and the old man replies by admitting that if he could travel in time, there's one thing he'd like to change. It would be meeting his wife Sandra earlier in his life so as to spend more time with her, back when the both of them were attending Durham University. In the true course of event however, it would be ten years before they met. The Doctor asks Frank to bring the gun back home with him and promises that he'll come to pick it up in the evening, after dismantling the Dalek for safety.
The Doctor lures the slow-moving Dalek round a corner. When it turns the corner, the Doctor calls to it from the cab of the building site’s tallest [[crane]]. He throws a [[brick]] which hits the Dalek’s eyestalk, impairing its [[vision]]. He then pulls a lever, and the [[Wrecking ball|concrete ball]] attached to the crane swings across and whacks into the side of the Dalek, sending it flying over a nearby [[cliff]] and down towards the [[sea]]. The Doctor then carefully clambers down the cliff-face to find the injured Dalek twitching in the shallow water. He approaches and removes the Dalek’s casing with his sonic, intending to kill the creature with his bare hands. He knows he has to act fast, before the Dalek can repair itself, and presses his sonic into the Dalek’s life-support connection. He activates the screwdriver and the Dalek screams as sparks fly from its casing. The force of this pushes the Doctor back into the sea, where he is knocked unconscious.


Rose and Kate arrive at the digging site and eventually find the Doctor. Kate begins to wonder about her new sense of cunning when she realizes that the Doctor is dangerous and she needs to play a game with her new asset.
Kate pushes through Twyford’s market, disgusted by the humans and their [[dog]]s. She shouts “I will be unstoppable!”, drawing the attention of her boss Serena, who is visiting the market on her [[lunch]] break. Serena tells Kate that she’s fired. Kate then grabs Serena by the neck and begins to [[Strangulation|choke]] her. A crowd gathers, and Rose pushes to the front. She tries to reason with Kate, and when she mentions Kate’s mother Kate feels a twinge of [[conscience]] and lets Serena go.


Rose and the Doctor talk about the Dalek, how it must have arrived on Earth and how to get rid of it for good. Rose tries to talk to the Doctor about Kate but he is more interested in the Dalek. Kate has never heard the word ‘Dalek’ before yet it causes a strange satisfaction inside her. She gets closer to the Dalek and reaches into the mass of electronic connections inside. The Doctor turns and realizes that tiny glowing filaments are flowing from her fingertips and into the empty Dalek casing.
The Doctor comes round in the water, and finds his sonic screwdriver floating beside him. He looks to the cliffs, and the Dalek is nowhere in sight. Its casing had repelled him and stolen [[Electricity|electrical energy]] from the sonic screwdriver. The Doctor then fears that the Dalek is now charged up, with its mind fully formed, and on the loose. He then realises that the first thing the Dalek would want to do is retrieve its gunstick, and he sets out to get to Frank before the Dalek can.


He knocks Kate down and asks Rose to tell him everything she knows about her, and after she tells him about the accident and her apparent regeneration, he is convinced that Kate was the result of a Daleks attempt to imprint their factor in the human race that for some reason only now has emerged in true form, having been injected many years ago when it landed in Rome. He decides that it will be better for everyone if Rose took Kate somewhere else, away from the casing and when he goes to check the Dalek again, so as to resume his task of dismantling it, he realizes that a little Dalek creature has been born inside, and is reaching out to take hold of the various controls housed around it. The Dalek’s lights come into life and the Doctor realizes that it is time to run. He takes the lift but the Dalek follows him and starts dragging it back down.
Frank is on the [[train]] home, with the Dalek gunstick in a [[canvas bag]] on the seat beside him, when the train suddenly grinds to a halt. The Dalek pulls up the [[Train Carriage|carriage]] roof with its suction cup and descends into the aisle. It says it has detected the weapon and demands to know which human has it. Frank then takes the gunstick out of his bag and attempts to use it, but can’t find a way to fire it. The Dalek then demands that Frank attach the weapon to its casing. Frank hesitates, but when the Dalek injures another passenger he finally agrees. With its blaster reattached, the Dalek exterminates Frank before turning its weapon on the other passengers.


The Doctor manages to open the service hatch on the lift’s ceiling and jumps out of the cabin then he starts climbing the steel cable outside. When he gets out of the lift shaft he discovers that several police cars are arriving. The cops ask him to identify himself despite the urgency he is in and in the elapsing time the Dalek reaches them and starts pulling the police cars around with its sucker arm; destroying them and causing total chaos. The Doctor yells at the Dalek in order to distract it and when he finally gets its attention he introduces himself. The Dalek recognizes its race's archenemy and when the Doctor runs away it follows him.
[[Police]] arrive at Twyford Market and attempt to arrest Kate. Before they can, Rose hears screams and shouts of ‘exterminate’ in the distance. She sees the Dalek flying across the town, firing in all directions, [[Massacre|massacring]] people on the [[Twyford High Street|high street]]. Everyone except her and Kate flee the market. The Dalek then recognises Kate, and descends to talk to her. It asks her who Rose is, and when it learns that Rose has an [[Emotion|emotional connection]] to the Doctor it decides to weaken the Doctor by killing her. It aims its gunstick at Rose, but when the TARDIS materialises between the Dalek and Rose its blast is deflected. The Doctor then steps out of the TARDIS to face the Dalek. He raises his hands, and dares the Dalek to exterminate him.


A lorry stops and picks up Rose and Kate as the young traveller tries to get the young woman as far away from the Dalek as possible. Once inside, Kate feels torn into two people; with the Dalek part trying to force her to hate all the humans. Despite Rose’s attempts to calm her down she feels a growing anger towards mankind, willing to exterminate her ex boyfriend who had spent all her money and left her in debt. Suddenly Kate grabs the wheel of the lorry and twists it violently, forcing the driver to jump on the breaks. Rose tries to stop her but Kate manages to jump out of the vehicle, leaving Rose to follow her.
The Doctor’s bluff works, and the Dalek does not exterminate him. The Doctor explains to Rose that the Dalek needs the [[information]] in his head because its own data stores are out of date. He then tells the Dalek to [[Suicide|destroy itself]] or be destroyed. In response, the Dalek proposes a deal: if the Doctor helps it escape to [[space-time coordinates]] of its choosing it will spare the [[Earth]] and its inhabitants. The Doctor, unwilling to risk the Earth, accepts the Dalek’s proposal.


The Doctor manages to reach a crane nearby in the scrap yard where the dig took place. He jumps into the cab and when the Dalek gets close enough he throws a brick on its eyestalk, blinding it. Taking advantage of the situation the Doctor activates the half-ton wrecking ball attached to the crane to hit the Dalek, throwing it into a nearby stretch of water. He then jumps out of the cab to go and finish his job of dismantling the creature but when he activates the sonic screwdriver an electrical discharge stuns him and the Dalek glides away.
The Doctor and Rose enter the TARDIS. Rose asks the Doctor how he’s planning to betray or trap the Dalek, and the Doctor tells Rose that he isn’t. He says that the Dalek is too intelligent to be tricked, and he intends to help it escape for real. Rose suggests they could destroy it using the [[Time Vortex|time vortex]], but the Doctor dismisses this as too dangerous. He then retrieves a [[Time Ring]] from a trunk, explaining to Rose that it works like a kind of personal TARDIS, and goes to deliver it to the Dalek. Outside, the Dalek scans the ring before the Doctor attaches it to its sucker arm. It then asks Kate to step forward and set the ring to the coordinates seven zero five nine galactic north by eight eight point five galactic west, with the time factor Earth date [[500000000|AD 500 million]]. It then tells Kate to join it on its journey, so when they arrive she can help it source materials to rebuild the Dalek race. Kate activates the ring, and as the Dalek prepares to leave it tells the Doctor and Rose that they will be exterminated. The Doctor is not phased by this apparent betrayal. As Kate continues to operate the ring’s controls Rose pleads with her to fight against the Dalek life force taking her over. She asks Kate to recall the number of the bus she missed, [[Toby (I Am a Dalek)|her ex]], and what she had for [[dinner]] the night before. Kate slowly begins to regain some humanity. The Dalek fires, but its shot is caught inside a [[Force field|forcefield]] Kate has created around herself and the Dalek. Rose then continues trying to pull Kate’s mind away from the Dalek’s influence. As Kate’s [[Free will|autonomy]] grows stronger, she sets the Time Ring to self destruct. The Dalek begins to rattle uncontrollably, and the Doctor tells Kate and Rose to get in the TARDIS so they can be safe from the coming [[warp implosion]]. They head inside and shut the door as the Dalek implodes, leaving nothing behind but a scorch mark on the ground.


Kate arrives at the market where she works and confronts her boss Serena. Kate tries to choke her with her bare hands but Rose arrives just in time to stop her, appealing to her human side. Meanwhile, the Doctor wakes up in the water, the Dalek now out of sight, and realizes it wants its gun back.
Inside the TARDIS, Kate has lost all of the Dalek’s memories and urges and seems confused about where she is. The Doctor thanks her for saving so many lives, and as a gesture of goodwill he wipes away her [[credit card]] [[debt]]. The TARDIS then drops Kate back in Winchelham. As she leaves, Kate is determined to return to [[London]] and make a second start on the life she wants.


Frank is going home on a train; thinking about the story he will tell his wife in regards to his day at the dig and the alien gun he has acquired, but is interrupted when the Dalek attacks the locomotive. When it finds Frank it forces him to reattach the gun threatening by another passenger with its sucker arm. When Frank has reattached the gun the Dalek decides to test it on him.
At [[Durham University]], in the [[summer]] of [[1970]], Frank Openshaw is walking to his next [[lecture]] when he sees Sandra, the girl he fancies, walking the opposite way. Rose then crashes into Frank on a [[bicycle]], knocking him over. Sandra rushes over to Frank, helping him up and smiling at him. Rose then returns to the TARDIS, where she and the Doctor watch Frank and Sandra walk away together. Rose asks the Doctor why he wanted her to run into Frank, and the Doctor tells her that he’s bending the rules for his [[Friendship|friend]].


Police officers arrive at the market to check what was happening with Kate. Rose tries to convince them that the girl just needs to go to a hospital very far away when the Dalek arrives, looking for Kate. The girl reaches it and this time her human side is too overwhelmed for any of Rose's words to reach out to her so she tells the Dalek that Rose is the Doctor's companion and it decides to exterminate her as an act against his nemesis. However, before it can carry out the act, the TARDIS materializes in the market and the Doctor appears from within, daring the Dalek to exterminate him.
== Characters ==
* [[Tenth Doctor]]
* [[Rose Tyler]]
* [[Kate Yates]]
* [[Frank Openshaw]]
* [[Serena (I Am a Dalek)|Serena]]
* [[Atif (I Am a Dalek)|Atif]]
* [[Sandra Openshaw]]
* [[Dalek (I Am a Dalek)|Dalek]]


The Doctor knows that the Dalek's knowledge is out of date and it wants an update from him so for the moment it won't kill him. Exploiting the Dalek's need for information the Doctor convinces it to tell him about its race's biological influence on humans and the Dalek explains the its race sent a capsule back to Earth in the past to spread the Dalek factor among humans to create back-up from raw matter but it was hit during the Time War so it could spread just a little bit of Dalek factor, which was triggered when the digging disturbed the Dalek who felt in the past.
== Worldbuilding ==
* Some birds that live where [[Kate Yates]] works are [[curlew]]s and [[kingfisher]]s.
* The Doctor plans to confuse future [[explorer]]s by planting a [[Women's Institute]] flag on [[the Moon]].
* The Doctor mentions [[Mary Poppins]].
* The Doctor sings the words to ''[[Jerusalem (hymn)|Jerusalem]]''.
* The Doctor paraphrases [[Neil Armstrong]].
* The Doctor examines a [[Tanzania]]n [[flag]].
* Rose compares the moon to [[Calais]], and the Doctor then compares Earth to [[Dover]].
* The Doctor owns a set of [[golf club]]s.
* The mosaic also displays a [[jug]] and a bunch of green [[grape]]s.
* Kate is a fan of the [[DJ|radio presenters]] [[Terry Wogan (N-Space)|Terry Wogan]] and [[Ken Bruce]].
* Terry Wogan talks about [[toothpaste]], [[TV]], and plays '[[Snowbird (song)|Snowbird]]' by [[Anne Murray]].
* Kate eats half a [[croissant]].
* Rose recalls a [[first aid]] [[training video]] she watched as part of her old job.
* The Doctor mentions [[Northampton]].
* Frank drinks [[coffee]] from a [[thermos flask]].
* The Doctor sees [[Nero]] on a [[Roman Empire|Roman]] [[coin]].
* The Doctor identifies a Roman [[turning spike]] and a [[pizza slice]].
* Kate eats a [[teacake]].
* Kate solves [[Sudoku|sudoku puzzles]] and a [[crossword]].
* The Doctor mentions [[sausage and chips]].
* The Doctor tells Frank to go home and watch [[Brainteaser]].
* The Doctor alludes to the assassination of [[John F. Kennedy]].
* The Doctor mentions the fall of [[Troy]].
* The Doctor says that Dalek casings are [[booby trap]]ped.
* A student mistakes the [[Suction cup|Dalek’s sucker]] for a sink [[plunger]].
* The Doctor sees a [[fish]].
* Serena has dealt with delays in [[mattress]] delivery all over [[Liverpool]] and the [[North East|North-East]], mentioning that people calling the call centre shouted with [[Scouse (Accent)|Scouse]] and [[Geordie (Accent)|Geordie]] accents.
* Frank sees [[Clothing|washing]] on a [[washing line]].
* The Doctor mentions [[burger]]s.
* Kate imagines [[custard]] pouring over [[bread and butter pudding]].
* Rose mentions ''[[The X Factor]]'', [[floor polish]], [[contact lens]]es, [[Delivery|home delivery]], [[Gas board|gas]] bills, [[mobile phone]]s, [[train]]s, [[internet]] [[argument]]s, [[Kylie Minogue|Kylie]], and a [[Boots (shop)|Boots]] advantage card when listing normal, human things.


The Dalek offers the Doctor a deal: it’ll spare the Earth in from biological mutation in exchange for a means of travel in space and time to find a new planet on which to give birth to a new Dalek race. Rose points out that the new Daleks would destroy other planets but despite her words, the Doctor accepts the deal.
== Notes ==
* By causing Frank and Sandra to meet at university in 1970, rather than ten years after they left, the Doctor changes the course of history. This also creates a [[Temporal paradox|paradox]] – if Frank and Sandra had met in 1970 then the Frank in this story's timeline would not have told the Doctor that they didn’t meet until much later, and so the Doctor would have no reason to go back in time and change these events in the first place.
* This short novel (or novella) was the first release under a subsidiary banner of BBC Books, [[Quick Reads]], an initiative to promote literacy. Quick Reads novellas are considerably shorter than the usual releases in the [[BBC Tenth Doctor Adventures]] line, roughly equivalent in word count to some of the shorter [[Target Books]] novelisations. ''I Am a Dalek'' was released exclusively in paperback format, the first New Series Adventure to not be published in hard cover.
* This novella was also released as an ebook available from the Amazon Kindle store.


The Doctor and Rose return to the TARDIS where the Doctor finds an old Time Ring, a sort of personal TARDIS, which the Dalek can use to find a new place to settle, still willing to go on with the deal despite Rose's objections.
== Continuity ==
* This is the [[Tenth Doctor]]'s first encounter with the Daleks. He would later encounter them in [[TV]]: ''[[Army of Ghosts (TV story)|Army of Ghosts]]''/''[[Doomsday (TV story)|Doomsday]]'', ''[[Daleks in Manhattan (TV story)|Daleks in Manhattan]]''/''[[Evolution of the Daleks (TV story)|Evolution of the Daleks]]'', ''[[The Stolen Earth (TV story)|The Stolen Earth]]''/''[[Journey's End (TV story)|Journey's End]]'', [[COMIC]]: ''[[Carnage Zoo (comic story)|Carnage Zoo]]''/''[[Flight and Fury (comic story)|Flight and Fury]]''/''[[The Living Ghosts (comic story)|The Living Ghosts]]''/''[[Extermination of the Daleks (comic story)|Extermination of the Daleks]]'', and [[PROSE]]: ''[[Prisoner of the Daleks]]''.
* This isn't the first time the Daleks attempted to use modified humans as puppets: The [[Fifth Doctor]] had already faced Dalek duplicates in [[TV]]: ''[[Resurrection of the Daleks (TV story)|Resurrection of the Daleks]]''; The [[Dalek Emperor]] had managed to produce pure-blood Daleks from human DNA in [[TV]]: ''[[The Parting of the Ways (TV story)|The Parting of the Ways]]''; [[Dalek Sec]] had turned himself into the first Dalek-human hybrid as an experiment to convert all humans to Daleks in [[TV]]: ''[[Daleks in Manhattan (TV story)|Daleks in Manhattan]]''; and the Eleventh Doctor was captured by a [[Dalek puppet]] and met [[Oswin Oswald]], an [[Clara Oswald splinter|echo]] of [[Clara Oswald]], who had suffered a complete Dalek-conversion in [[TV]]: ''[[Asylum of the Daleks (TV story)|Asylum of the Daleks]]''.
* The Dalek Factor plan is similar to the Dalek Emperor's plan in [[TV]]: ''[[The Evil of the Daleks (TV story)|The Evil of the Daleks]]''.
* Rose recalls destroying the Daleks after absorbing the Time Vortex. ([[TV]]: ''[[The Parting of the Ways (TV story)|The Parting of the Ways]]'')
* The Dalek recalls that the capsule containing the [[Dalek Factor]] fell to Earth as a result of the final battle of the [[Last Great Time War]]. ([[TV]]: ''[[The Day of the Doctor (TV story)|The Day of the Doctor]]'')
* The Doctor alludes to the Dalek conflict of the year [[4000]]. ([[TV]]: ''[[Mission to the Unknown (TV story)|Mission to the Unknown]]'', ''[[The Daleks' Master Plan (TV story)|The Daleks' Master Plan]]'')


After the Dalek is given the Time Ring he tells Kate to set the coordinates as the device was made to be operated by a humanoid figure. Rose begs Kate's human side not to do so but it is of no use; she operates the Time Ring. After the set-up is completed the Dalek states that he will exterminate the Doctor anyway but when it fires, a sphere of light forms around it: Kate has activated the Time Ring. She is torn between her human side and the Dalek factor but eventually her true self wins and she announces she has activated the Time Ring to self-destruct. The Doctor grabs Kate and Rose, pulls them into the TARDIS, and dematerialises whilst outside, the Dalek implodes.
== External links ==
* {{Penguin|1071596/doctor-who--i-am-a-dalek/}}
{{dwrefguide|whobbcqr1.htm|I Am a Dalek}}
* {{whoniverse|qr01|I Am a Dalek}}
* [http://mysite.science.uottawa.ca/rsmith43/cloister/iamadalek.htm The Cloister Library: '''I Am a Dalek''']
{{QR}}
{{Dalek prose stories}}
{{TitleSort}}


With the destruction of the Dalek, Kate has returned to full human mentality, with her original red hair. She begins to become confused by the anomaly of the TARDIS interior as the Doctor asks her what he could do for her in return for her services to them. Rose asks her if she has her credit card with her so Kate asks if he could pay off her debts. The Doctor runs the sonic screwdriver along the magnetic strip of the card and announces that her debts are gone, but warns her that he has battered her credit rating forever so she shouldn't even try to apply for another one. Kate remembers that she has tried to kill her boss but the Doctor points out that it was a natural blonde who had attacked Serena, not a redhead, so it couldn't have been her.
[[it:I am a Dalek (romanzo)]]


When she arrives home, Kate ponders that with all her debts gone she could start a new life, before walking back into the every day world.
[[Category:QR novels]]
 
It is a sunny afternoon in summer of 1970 at Durham University. Frank Openshaw is on his way to his next history lecture when he sees a gorgeous third year but he knows he doesn’t stand a chance at wooing her. Suddenly a blonde girl crashes into him with a bicycle and whilst the girl is apologizes for the incident the third year rushes to help him and they start talking while the girl on the bike cycles away.
 
Rose reaches the TARDIS on her bike whilst the Doctor looks at Frank and his new friend Sandra walking away together, confirming that Rose has done well. After Rose asks why he asked her to do such a thing he states that he is bending the rules for a friend.
 
==Characters==
*[[Tenth Doctor]]
** Planning to confuse future explorers by planting a Women's Institute flag on the moon.
*[[Rose Tyler]]
** Planning to be the first woman to walk on the moon, but the TARDIS takes an expected detour.
*[[Kate Yates]]
**Hit by a car but resurrected, her latent [[Dalek Factor]] activated
**Hair changes from red to blonde, gains enhanced strength and intelligence
**Is possessed by a Dalek
**Convinced by Rose and the Doctor to turn on the Dalek, goes back to normal
*[[Frank Openshaw]]
**Befriends the Doctor
**Is Exterminated
**Though they cannot save his life, Rose and the Doctor meddle in history a bit so that Frank meets his wife Sandra years earlier than in the original timeline
*[[Serena (I am a Dalek)|Serena]]
**Annoying boss of Kate, nearly strangled by Dalek-hybrid Kate
*[[Sandra]]
**Wife of Frank Openshaw
 
==References==
''to be added''
 
==Notes==
*This short novel (or novella) was the first release under a subsidiary banner of BBC Books, [[Quick Reads]], an initiative to promote literacy. Quick Reads novellas are considerably shorter than the usual releases in the [[BBC Tenth Doctor Adventures]] line, roughly equivalent in word count to some of the shorter [[Target Books]] novelisations. ''I am a Dalek'' was released exclusively in paperback format, the first New Series Adventure to not be published in hard cover.
 
==Continuity==
''to be added''
 
==[[Tenth Doctor - Timeline|Timeline]]==
*This story occurs after [[NSA]]: ''[[The Resurrection Casket]]''
*This story occurs before [[DW]]: ''[[School Reunion]]''
 
==External links==
* {{dwrefguide|whobbcqr1.htm|I am a Dalek}}
* {{whoniverse|NS10.php|I am a Dalek}}
 
{{TDA}}
 
{{prose stub}}
[[Category:Dalek novels]]
[[Category:Dalek novels]]
[[Category:BBC Tenth Doctor Adventures]]
[[Category:2006 novels]]
[[Category:2006 novels]]
[[Category:Stories set in England]]
[[Category:Stories set in England]]
[[Category:Quick Reads]]
[[Category:Tenth Doctor novels]]
[[Category:Stories set in the 2000s]]
[[Category:Stories set in 1970]]
[[Category:Novels set in Mutter's Spiral]]

Latest revision as of 20:26, 3 November 2024

RealWorld.png

I Am a Dalek by Gareth Roberts was the inaugural Doctor Who Quick Reads novella.

Publisher's summary[[edit] | [edit source]]

Equipped with space suits, golf clubs, and a flag, the Doctor and Rose are planning to live it up, Apollo mission-style, on the Moon. But the TARDIS has other plans, landing them instead in a village on the south coast of England; a picture-postcard sort of place where nothing much happens. Until now...

An archaeological dig has turned up a Roman mosaic, circa 70 AD, depicting mythical scenes, grapes - and a Dalek. A few days later a young woman, rushing for work, is knocked over and killed by a car, then comes back to life. It's not long before all hell breaks loose, and the Doctor and Rose must use all their courage and cunning against an alien enemy - and a not-quite-human accomplice - who are intent on destroying humanity.

Plot[[edit] | [edit source]]

The Doctor and Rose are preparing to visit the moon. The Doctor lowers the TARDIS’s gravity so he and Rose can practice walking in moon-like conditions. The Doctor then asks Rose to open the TARDIS door and leap out onto the moon’s surface. Rose takes a leap but crashes into a wooden table, and when she looks around she finds they’ve landed inside a pub on Earth. The Doctor, concerned, examines the TARDIS to try and determine why they veered off-course. Rose then picks up a newspaper from the bar and sees a headline: ‘ROMAN REMAINS FOUND AT CREDITON VALE’. She looks at the accompanying picture, which displays a man, a woman, and the unmistakeable figure of a Dalek. She rushes to the TARDIS to show the Doctor, but before she can get in the TARDIS dematerialises.

Kate Yates is lying in bed, listening to the radio, when she drifts off to sleep. Around 9:30am she wakes up, and realising she’s late for work leaves the house in a hurry. Meanwhile in the pub, Rose climbs out of her space suit and climbs out of a window when she hears someone moving upstairs. She sits on a bench by the village green, waiting for the Doctor to return, when she sees Kate Yates running for a bus. Kate sees her bus pull away and stops in the middle of the road. Then, before she can move, a sports car speeds round a corner and runs her over. The car’s driver steps out, and Rose shouts for him to call an ambulance. Rose then sits with Kate, holding her hand, when suddenly Kate’s body is overtaken by a crackling green aura. A moment later the aura passes and Kate, whose hair has changed from red to blonde, calmly gets up and tells Rose that she’s fine.

In the TARDIS, the Doctor sees unfamiliar markings appear on the console screen. He realises that the TARDIS is acting of its own accord, and asks it where it’s taking him. Suddenly the TARDIS stops, and the Doctor steps out into a dark underground facility. After some exploration he determines that he’s in an abandoned nuclear bunker. When the Doctor hears somebody listing to the radio nearby he sets out to find them.

Frank is listening to the radio, overseeing the volunteers working at the archaeological dig site, when the Doctor taps him on the shoulder and asks to borrow his phone. The Doctor then uses his sonic screwdriver on the phone to boost its signal and calls Rose. He asks Frank where he is, and when Frank tells him the Doctor tells Rose that he’s at Crediton Vale, a disused nuclear bunker-turned archaeological dig site. He then hangs up and returns the phone to Frank, who gives him a tour of the dig site. When the Doctor asks if they’ve dug up anything unusual, Frank points him to a mosaic being uncovered by the dig site’s student volunteers. The Doctor jumps into the pit, where the volunteers have unearthed a strange metal object. The Doctor then calls to Frank, and tells everyone to get back, as he finds himself face-to-face with a Dalek. The Dalek appears to be lifeless. When the students ask what it is, the Doctor says it’s a bomb and tells them to evacuate. The students go, but Frank remains behind.

Kate sits in the museum tea shop and calls her boss Serena to explain why she’s late for work. When Kate says she was “almost” run over by a car Serena is not sympathetic, and Kate, furious, abruptly ends the call. She then picks up a newspaper and turns to the puzzle page. She completes all of the hardest puzzles with ease. Suddenly Kate finds herself hyper-aware of everything in the room – the exact temperature of her coffee, the chemical processes taking place inside the cup – and can see the atoms that make up the room. When Rose comes into the tea shop asking if she is okay, and why she isn’t dead, Kate tells her to go away. To her own surprise, Kate registers Rose’s kindness as weakness.

The Doctor and Frank open the Dalek’s casing, and the Doctor is relieved to see a mound of ash where the Dalek creature would have been. Frank begins to wonder how the Doctor knows so much about the past, and seems to know so much about outer space. He asks the Doctor if he’s mad and the Doctor, ignoring the question, tells Frank that the Dalek is a creature from outer space. Frank, thinking it’s a joke, decides to play along.

Rose pleads with Kate to let her help. When Rose mentions the Doctor, Kate suddenly becomes very alert. Rose persuades her to come with her to Crediton Vale to meet the Doctor. They get on a bus, and as they approach Kate finds that memories of planets burning are flashing into her mind, taking over her own memories. Uncontrollably, she begins to think the word ‘exterminate’ over and over.

The Doctor removes the Dalek’s gun and hands it to Frank. He tells Frank that the gun is dangerous and shouldn’t fall into the wrong hands. He asks Frank to take it home, saying he’ll collect it later, and Frank gets into a lift to head up to the surface.

Rose and Kate arrive at the building site under which Crediton Vale nuclear bunker was built. They see Frank with the student volunteers outside the bungalow which served as the bunker’s secret entrance. As they pass Frank, Kate feels a tingle of static. Rose and Kate get into the lift to descend into the bunker, and Kate fights hard to supress her murderous thoughts and urges. Eventually she decides that, when the time is right, she will exterminate Rose.

Underground, Rose and the Doctor are reunited. Rose begins telling the Doctor about the mosaic, but stops suddenly when she sees the Dalek. The Doctor reassures her that the Dalek is dead. Kate wants to run to the empty Dalek casing, but recognises the Doctor as the dangerous man from her visions, and decides to play her cards close to her chest. To appear like a normal human, she asks what the Dalek casing is. Rose then introduces Kate and the Doctor, ignoring her, proceeds to tell Rose he’s dismembering the casing so he can dispose of it in a black hole. He tells her it might be booby trapped, and in particular mentions virus transmitters which could lock into the TARDIS and take over its operating systems. Rose tries again to tell the Doctor about Kate, but he insists that dismantling the Dalek casing must be more important. The Doctor continues his work, only stopping when he looks up and sees Kate, with her arm outstretched, sending tiny glowing filaments from her fingertips into the Dalek casing.

The Doctor quickly tackles Kate to the ground, and asks Rose to tell him everything she knows about her. Rose explains how Kate healed herself after the car accident, and the Doctor, feeling static electricity coming from Kate’s hands, realises that a kind of Dalek energy is coursing through her. He theorises that the dying Dalek sent out a genetic imprint of itself which had laid dormant in humans until it was activated in Kate. He then corrects himself, stating that he would have noticed if all humans had been imprinted with the ‘Dalek factor’, and suggests that the imprint failed and Kate’s transformation is the result of a dangerous fluke. He then tells Rose to get Kate as far away from the Dalek casing as she can, saying that the further she gets from the casing the less susceptible to the Dalek factor's influence she will be. As Rose carries Kate to the lift, the Doctor examines the circuitry inside the Dalek casing. He peers inside, looks down into the body of the casing, and sees a newly-formed infant Dalek creature writhing around. It reaches for the controls. The Doctor considers killing the creature, but hesitates for a second too long. The casing slams shut, and the Dalek’s once-dormant eyestalk begins to glow. The whole creature then begins twitching into life, relearning to speak and move, and then frees itself from the ground. The Doctor, out of options, runs to the lift and begins desperately jabbing the button. The lift arrives, and the Doctor jumps inside as the levitating Dalek approaches. When the lift begins to ascend the Dalek breaks into the shaft, follows it up, and then grabs the base of the lift with its sucker. The lift grinds to a halt, and the Dalek begins to pull it back down with the Doctor inside. The Doctor removes the lift’s ceiling panels with his sonic screwdriver and jumps up. As the Dalek pulls the floor of the lift away, the Doctor climbs out and begins to clamber up the lift’s metal cable.

On the surface, Rose and Kate hitch a lift from a lorry driver named Atif. Rose tells Atif that Kate isn’t feeling very well. As they drive further from Crediton Vale Kate gradually comes round, and asks Rose what just happened. Atif offers to drop Rose and Kate off in Hastings or Dover, and Rose says Dover sounds good.

The Doctor flees from the bungalow, and his heart sinks when he sees two police cars pulling up in front of him. A student volunteer recognises the Doctor as the man from the dig site, and a police officer asks the Doctor for his identification. The Doctor, knowing they are all in danger, pleads with everyone to run away. When the infant Dalek then emerges from the bungalow, the police officer approaches it with curiosity. When a student makes fun of the Dalek’s sucker, believing the Dalek to be a robot made by the Doctor, the Dalek grabs his stomach and throws him aside violently. The students and police officers them begin running away, but the Dalek picks up a police car with its sucker and throws it over their heads, blocking their escape from the building site. The Dalek then chases the humans into a narrow alley between two half-built flats. Once they’re herded in, it begins to knock the walls in the hopes of sending the girders and scaffolding stacked on top crashing down on its victims. The Doctor then distracts the Dalek by calling its name. The Doctor calls the Dalek to him, asking it to scan his hearts. As it does so, the humans make their escape. The Dalek, its thinking capabilities still new and slow, gradually realises that the Doctor is a Time Lord. The Doctor then tells the Dalek that he’s a very specific Time Lord who the Daleks refer to as the Oncoming Storm. The Dalek then states that the Doctor is an enemy of the Daleks. The Doctor then runs further into the building site, and the Dalek, flying, follows closely behind.

In the lorry, Kate begins crying. She can’t stop the Dalek part of her putting evil thoughts into her head. She begins talking as a Dalek, about how she looks forward to exterminating the human race and bringing purity to the universe. Atif, growing concerned, begins a detour to the nearest hospital. Kate then suddenly grabs the steering wheel and sends the lorry crashing into a grass verge next to a row of shops. Kate sees that they have arrived in Twyford, the largest human settlement near to Crediton Vale, and is excited to find that a market has caused the place to be crawling with humans. Kate elbows Rose in the stomach before escaping from the lorry. Rose then climbs out after her, telling Atif to escape while he can.

The Doctor lures the slow-moving Dalek round a corner. When it turns the corner, the Doctor calls to it from the cab of the building site’s tallest crane. He throws a brick which hits the Dalek’s eyestalk, impairing its vision. He then pulls a lever, and the concrete ball attached to the crane swings across and whacks into the side of the Dalek, sending it flying over a nearby cliff and down towards the sea. The Doctor then carefully clambers down the cliff-face to find the injured Dalek twitching in the shallow water. He approaches and removes the Dalek’s casing with his sonic, intending to kill the creature with his bare hands. He knows he has to act fast, before the Dalek can repair itself, and presses his sonic into the Dalek’s life-support connection. He activates the screwdriver and the Dalek screams as sparks fly from its casing. The force of this pushes the Doctor back into the sea, where he is knocked unconscious.

Kate pushes through Twyford’s market, disgusted by the humans and their dogs. She shouts “I will be unstoppable!”, drawing the attention of her boss Serena, who is visiting the market on her lunch break. Serena tells Kate that she’s fired. Kate then grabs Serena by the neck and begins to choke her. A crowd gathers, and Rose pushes to the front. She tries to reason with Kate, and when she mentions Kate’s mother Kate feels a twinge of conscience and lets Serena go.

The Doctor comes round in the water, and finds his sonic screwdriver floating beside him. He looks to the cliffs, and the Dalek is nowhere in sight. Its casing had repelled him and stolen electrical energy from the sonic screwdriver. The Doctor then fears that the Dalek is now charged up, with its mind fully formed, and on the loose. He then realises that the first thing the Dalek would want to do is retrieve its gunstick, and he sets out to get to Frank before the Dalek can.

Frank is on the train home, with the Dalek gunstick in a canvas bag on the seat beside him, when the train suddenly grinds to a halt. The Dalek pulls up the carriage roof with its suction cup and descends into the aisle. It says it has detected the weapon and demands to know which human has it. Frank then takes the gunstick out of his bag and attempts to use it, but can’t find a way to fire it. The Dalek then demands that Frank attach the weapon to its casing. Frank hesitates, but when the Dalek injures another passenger he finally agrees. With its blaster reattached, the Dalek exterminates Frank before turning its weapon on the other passengers.

Police arrive at Twyford Market and attempt to arrest Kate. Before they can, Rose hears screams and shouts of ‘exterminate’ in the distance. She sees the Dalek flying across the town, firing in all directions, massacring people on the high street. Everyone except her and Kate flee the market. The Dalek then recognises Kate, and descends to talk to her. It asks her who Rose is, and when it learns that Rose has an emotional connection to the Doctor it decides to weaken the Doctor by killing her. It aims its gunstick at Rose, but when the TARDIS materialises between the Dalek and Rose its blast is deflected. The Doctor then steps out of the TARDIS to face the Dalek. He raises his hands, and dares the Dalek to exterminate him.

The Doctor’s bluff works, and the Dalek does not exterminate him. The Doctor explains to Rose that the Dalek needs the information in his head because its own data stores are out of date. He then tells the Dalek to destroy itself or be destroyed. In response, the Dalek proposes a deal: if the Doctor helps it escape to space-time coordinates of its choosing it will spare the Earth and its inhabitants. The Doctor, unwilling to risk the Earth, accepts the Dalek’s proposal.

The Doctor and Rose enter the TARDIS. Rose asks the Doctor how he’s planning to betray or trap the Dalek, and the Doctor tells Rose that he isn’t. He says that the Dalek is too intelligent to be tricked, and he intends to help it escape for real. Rose suggests they could destroy it using the time vortex, but the Doctor dismisses this as too dangerous. He then retrieves a Time Ring from a trunk, explaining to Rose that it works like a kind of personal TARDIS, and goes to deliver it to the Dalek. Outside, the Dalek scans the ring before the Doctor attaches it to its sucker arm. It then asks Kate to step forward and set the ring to the coordinates seven zero five nine galactic north by eight eight point five galactic west, with the time factor Earth date AD 500 million. It then tells Kate to join it on its journey, so when they arrive she can help it source materials to rebuild the Dalek race. Kate activates the ring, and as the Dalek prepares to leave it tells the Doctor and Rose that they will be exterminated. The Doctor is not phased by this apparent betrayal. As Kate continues to operate the ring’s controls Rose pleads with her to fight against the Dalek life force taking her over. She asks Kate to recall the number of the bus she missed, her ex, and what she had for dinner the night before. Kate slowly begins to regain some humanity. The Dalek fires, but its shot is caught inside a forcefield Kate has created around herself and the Dalek. Rose then continues trying to pull Kate’s mind away from the Dalek’s influence. As Kate’s autonomy grows stronger, she sets the Time Ring to self destruct. The Dalek begins to rattle uncontrollably, and the Doctor tells Kate and Rose to get in the TARDIS so they can be safe from the coming warp implosion. They head inside and shut the door as the Dalek implodes, leaving nothing behind but a scorch mark on the ground.

Inside the TARDIS, Kate has lost all of the Dalek’s memories and urges and seems confused about where she is. The Doctor thanks her for saving so many lives, and as a gesture of goodwill he wipes away her credit card debt. The TARDIS then drops Kate back in Winchelham. As she leaves, Kate is determined to return to London and make a second start on the life she wants.

At Durham University, in the summer of 1970, Frank Openshaw is walking to his next lecture when he sees Sandra, the girl he fancies, walking the opposite way. Rose then crashes into Frank on a bicycle, knocking him over. Sandra rushes over to Frank, helping him up and smiling at him. Rose then returns to the TARDIS, where she and the Doctor watch Frank and Sandra walk away together. Rose asks the Doctor why he wanted her to run into Frank, and the Doctor tells her that he’s bending the rules for his friend.

Characters[[edit] | [edit source]]

Worldbuilding[[edit] | [edit source]]

Notes[[edit] | [edit source]]

  • By causing Frank and Sandra to meet at university in 1970, rather than ten years after they left, the Doctor changes the course of history. This also creates a paradox – if Frank and Sandra had met in 1970 then the Frank in this story's timeline would not have told the Doctor that they didn’t meet until much later, and so the Doctor would have no reason to go back in time and change these events in the first place.
  • This short novel (or novella) was the first release under a subsidiary banner of BBC Books, Quick Reads, an initiative to promote literacy. Quick Reads novellas are considerably shorter than the usual releases in the BBC Tenth Doctor Adventures line, roughly equivalent in word count to some of the shorter Target Books novelisations. I Am a Dalek was released exclusively in paperback format, the first New Series Adventure to not be published in hard cover.
  • This novella was also released as an ebook available from the Amazon Kindle store.

Continuity[[edit] | [edit source]]

External links[[edit] | [edit source]]

v • e
Quick Reads
Tenth Doctor, Rose
Tenth Doctor, Martha
Tenth Doctor alone
Eleventh Doctor, Amy & Rory
Eleventh Doctor alone
v • e
Dalek prose stories
For the purposes of this list, a "Dalek prose story" is one in which one living, authentic Dalek plays a part within the confines of the story, outside of flashbacks to previous stories and cliffhangers that lead into the following story.
Dalek annuals
The Dalek Book
The Dalek World
The Dalek
Outer Space Book
Terry Nation's Dalek
Annual 1976
Terry Nation's Dalek
Annual 1977
Terry Nation's Dalek
Annual 1978
Doctor Who Magazine
Doctor Who
Poster Magazine
Virgin New Adventures
BBC Eighth
Doctor Adventures
Telos Doctor Who
novellas
Quick Reads
Doctor Who Files
Short Trips
BBC New
Series Adventures
Puffin eshort
NSA anthologies
The Brilliant Book 2011
Dr. Men
Now We Are Six Hundred
Dalek: The Astounding
Untold History of the
Greatest Enemies
of the Universe
Time Lord Victorious
Others
Because of the ubiquity of this race, no attempt will be made here to list every appearance in every medium. Instead, we focus on prose appearances here, and invite you to explore a complete list of appearances elsewhere.
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