The Dalek (2)

"Exterminate. Exterminate." The Dalek said, resonating metallic menace. Words that have foreshadowed countless deaths, unimaginable destruction.

The little girl, hiding behind the sofa, was the intended victim. 

"Too late," the girl said. "I saw you first, bang, bang."

"You have exterminated me," lied the Dalek in metallic monotone. "Ow." The Dalek swiveled around the room as if it had been hit, and the little girl laughed.

"Everything there is to know in the entire universe," is how the Dalek had described its own level knowledge, when the girl had asked the Dalek if it would be able to help with her homework.

"It's a biology project about slugs," she had said, "Do you know much about slugs?"

"I know everything about everything," the Dalek had said. The Dalek, of course, had never encountered a slug, had never heard the word uttered before, Daleks generally being busy conquering universes to bother about slugs and other little creatures. But the Daleks are a hive race, each linked to the shared Dalek brain, a super computer the like of which the universe has never seen, and connected, also, to every computer on Earth, and most other planets. There is nothing a Dalek doesn't know in a nanosecond. That Facebook post you wrote seven years ago saying that the Daleks were just silly dustbins on wheels, oh they've seen that. Do not expect mercy come the next invasion. 

The girl was Dave's daughter, Susie, Dave being the company man who saw to the Dalek's needs and ensured the total secrecy. He'd had to bring Susie to the Dalek's bungalow to work with him on one occasion, when she was young, and he had been unable to find a babysitter. She had been sat in the corner of the room doing her homework when she had an idea. Daleks were clever. She would ask the Dalek to help with her homework.

It was the start of an education. Secret at first, stolen minutes spent with the Dalek learning about history, geography, maths, everything. Her father eventually found out when her school grades started going through the roof, rising from permanent average to the best pupil the school had ever had in just a few months. And with those results, how could he complain. How could he stop the lessons.

The Dalek too, changed. It's spoken vocabulary widened to include every word in the school curriculum, it read out loud stories, lesson plans, extracts from textbooks, until it realised how poor the school curriculum was and devised its own. The best curriculum in the universe.

There was time for play, too, as the girl eventually left school, having proven her own teachers wrong too many times to be acceptable. She left many of her friendships behind her, and spent more and more time with the Dalek, who became her playmate as well as her teacher. Daleks offered the ultimate piggy-back, flights through the night sky, protected by a force-field so she literally couldn't fall off even if she tried. 

Susan grew up to be the smartest teenager in the world, in the universe, for real - we know that all teenagers think they're the smartest in the universe. In fact you could say she was no longer entirely human, her association with the Dalek had given her indirect access to the Dalek hive-mind for over a decade, she had Dalek knowledge, Dalek awareness, Dalek savvy.

When she left 'school' at eighteen she was ready to take over the world.