"Dale Against the Universe" - Part Four (The Conclusion)

 

Part Four

            It was rather tense in Dale’s hotel room with Al-Lee sitting there among us. As she recapped the story of how she escaped from the stasis pod, I kept glancing over at Neas to see how he was taking all of this. Let’s just say that whatever trust he had in Al-Lee was dashed after discovering she was a Terminator. He gripped his plasma rifle as it rested on his lap, covertly aimed at her.

            She told us of how she awoke in the stasis pod, confused as to why she was there in the first place. After she broke out of it, at the risk of stepping on glass shards (cutting the soles of her feet), she discovered the lab notes that I kept of her “situation,” detailing her Terminator biology and programming, which included her mission to terminate Neas.

            The guilt on her face as she reflected on discovering the truth of herself seemed genuine and even made me feel quite a bit of pity for her. Neas, on the other hand, refused to believe it, probably thinking it was part of her programming.

            “I didn’t want to hurt any of you, so I left,” Al-Lee told us. “I wandered the streets of this city, until I received a transmission from Skynet: ‘Aznavorian the Tinkerer’s location has been detected in the present dimension’. Except the visual that was transmitted to me was of this guy.” She pointed directly towards Dale.

            I balked at this palpable error. “Dale?! Seriously?!”

            “What’s wrong with that?” Dale asked me, seeming a little offended.

            “I think I’d remember ever being…well…you,” I tried to rationalize for him in a respectable way.

            “Maybe ‘Dale Sydney’ has been a human disguise all along?” Neas took this info with more serious consideration. “Do you carry any fob watches around, Dale?”

            “What’s a fob watch?” Dale asked, unintentionally debunking Neas’s theory.

            “Well, regardless, this mistake has put Dale’s life on the line,” I said. “There’s a Terminator that wants to kill him, as long as it believes Dale is the Tinkerer.”

            “From the way you’re talking, Pop, it sounds like you’ve got a plan.”

            Neas knew me so well. I did actually have a plan.

            Whether or not it was a good plan depended on our success.

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            Using a direct line to Skynet that was only achievable (and safe) through a burner phone, we arranged a meeting at the Los Angeles power plant. My plan was for Dale to pretend to be me while I was his “assistant” (a term that the Doctor once used to describe his companions). Meanwhile, Neas would wait along a distant ridge with Al-Lee and Craig, waiting for the moment to destroy the Terminator with the sniper function of his plasma rifle.

            “What if this doesn’t work?” Dale asked me as we waited. “It’s my butt that’s on the line here, not yours.”

            Much as I didn’t want to admit it, he was right.

            I was taking a huge gamble on the life of a man who did nothing other than take care of the woman I love, while I was off journeying across the multiverse with different faces and genders. “It’ll be alright, Dale,” I reassured him. “Just know that Neas is an expert marksman. All I have to do is give the signal, and this Terminator will be terminated.”

            It was almost dawn by the time that the Terminator arrived.

            But he didn’t come alone.

            As it turned out, this Terminator was being operated like a toy robot by a young boy who looked to be Craig’s age. He was dressed in pretend royal garbs, complete with a headband that had a daisy insignia (for a crown) and a heavy blue jacket with white ruffles as his robe.

            I actually knew this boy. Indeed, he came from Craig’s world. I remember meeting him one day, when Craig wanted me (in my “Noraline” incarnation at the time) to scare him. I was rather muscular as Noraline and a giant to any of the kids at the creek – save for the Elders (who were basically teenagers). And while I once succeeded in scaring this same little boy in front of me now, I doubt I could again as the meeker Rania, especially with a Terminator in our presence.

            “Xavier?” I said his name aloud. I heard Craig repeat it in the earpiece that I had tucked in my right ear. Of course, Craig was a lot more surprised than I was, asking questions that I relayed over to Xavier himself. “What’re you doing here, sweetie?”

            “I’m not here to talk to you, whoever you are!” Xavier proclaimed. “I’m here to talk to that guy!” He pointed to Dale. “The wrinkly old dude with the ponytail!”

            “HEY!” Dale objected to the description. I held back from laughing at his reaction. “You little brat! What kind of joke is this?!”

            “It’s not a joke!” Xavier bellowed. “I’m here ‘cause of the Twilight Phantom!”

            I suddenly began to take this situation seriously again – more so than before – when I heard that name come out of Xavier’s mouth. “Why would the Twilight Phantom use a sweet lil’ boy like you for such a twisted purpose?”

            “Sweet?!” Both Dale and Craig (in my earpiece) cried out in objection.

            “This little monster made an attempt on my life with that thing!” Dale indicated the stationary Terminator standing between us and Xavier.

            “He’s just a child being manipulated by a real monster!” I argued. Of course, Dale scoffed at my vindication of Xavier’s actions (right as they were). I simply ignored him and did what Neas claimed I did best: being a parent. “Xavier, honey?” I softly addressed him. “You don’t have to do anything the Phantom tells you to do.”

            I saw a little hesitation come over him. “I…I…Yes, I do!” He declared. “The Phantom promised I would become king – a real king! King of the Multiverse!”

            “The Phantom just wants that for themselves, sweetheart,” I tried to convince him. I then offered my hand out to him and said, “Just come with us. You don’t have to be a servant to that monster anymore.”

            I seemed to have gotten through to him. His face fell in realization of what I was saying. The poor lil’ fella looked so sad, knowing the truth. It just made me hate the Twilight Phantom – an entity that Neas and I have dealt with for quite some time now, saving the entire Infinite D.C. from countless threats that they’ve caused – even more.

            All seemed to have gone well until I heard some commotion come over my earpiece. I heard Neas grunting and Craig crying out for him to “Look out!”

            “Neas? Craig?” I responded to the noise. “What’s going on?!”

            “Craig?!” Xavier negatively reacted. “He’s here?! Then that means the Gladiator is here, too! You tricked me! This was all just a trap, wasn’t it?!”

            I tried to reconvince him that it wasn’t, but it was too late.

            In his rage, Xavier operated his Terminator to charge for Dale, brushing past me – his actual target. This worked to my advantage. With Xavier and his Terminator ignoring me, I was able to jump onto the Terminator from behind and rip off its helmet, exposing its metal skull. Surprisingly, there was no flesh coating – rubber or living tissue – meaning this was not an infiltration unit. That was obvious with it being controlled remotely by Xavier.

            With a knife that I had concealed within my sleeve, I pried open the CPU port on the Terminator’s skull and tore the chip itself out. This effectively shut down the machine before it could’ve terminated Dale.

            “NO!” Xavier screamed. Frightened, he escaped through an interdimensional portal, activated by his remote control, before I could’ve tried to reason with him again.

            That commotion I heard over my earpiece had stopped, which concerned me. “Neas! Craig!” I called with my eyes looking towards that distant ridge they were on. “What happened? Are you alright? What about Al-Lee? Is she okay?”

            “Neas and I are okay…but Al-Lee…she’s been terminated.” There was great relief and sadness in Craig’s voice.

            I got a little more information when Dale and I regrouped with the boys.

            We assumed Al-Lee’s Terminator programming had gone dormant, which was only temporary. It resurfaced in the midst of our mission, forcing Neas to destroy her with the plasma rifle. He aimed for her head, destroying it and her CPU chip entirely.

            After casting the remains of both Terminators from this harrowing ordeal into the sun, we returned to Earth. Dale decided to recuperate with some burgers and fries at his favorite L.A. diner. He treated me and Craig to some as well; Neas, however, opted to remain in his TARDIS, still unsettled about Al-Lee.

            “Is your kid gonna be alright?” Dale was considerate enough to ask.

            “I don’t know,” I shrugged. “Al-Lee was his best friend…apart from this lil’ dude.” I playfully rubbed Craig’s head to emphasize my point.

            Although Craig enjoyed the gesture, he couldn’t help but to wonder, “What about Xavier? He’s working with the Twilight Phantom – Neas’s greatest nemesis!” He was a little overdramatic in his cataloguing but was nonetheless accurate. “I don’t think I can go back to the creek, knowing that.”

            “It’ll be alright, hon,” I told him. “Neas and I will stay in your dimension for as long as we have to. Remember, my TARDIS is already there, so you’ve got double the protection.” This seemed to have suppressed his fears, as he went right back to enjoying his burger afterwards.

            “You really are a good dad,” I heard Dale tell me. “Or, uh, a good mom or…ya know what I mean.”

            “I do.” I chuckled at his confusion. “And you’re a good man, Dale Sydney. Good enough for Kristin.”

            “Are you sure you don’t wanna tell her?” He must’ve sensed my grief to ask that, though I didn’t do much of a good job at hiding it. “You said it yourself that she already knows about how you change. I’m sure she—”

            “No,” I somberly declined. “She deserves a happy, normal life. And you can give her that, Dale.” He nodded appreciatively on my approval.

            Suddenly, his phone rang. Kristin had called him through Face-Time.

            “She still does Face-Time calls,” I giggled along with Dale, who knew himself how it was a habit of Kristin’s.

            Dale answered the call. While I couldn’t see Kristin’s face, I could hear her bothered voice over the phone. “Honey, are you alright? Are you still at the hotel?”

            “Nah, I’m at a diner, having a burger for breakfast,” Dale cooly answered.

            “WHAT?!” Kristin shrieked. “You should be hiding! That maniac is—”

            “Taken care of, thanks to Rania and Thomas,” Dale interjected. “You don’t have to worry anymore. I’ll be coming back home soon.”

            “Oh,” Kristin accepted, albeit flabbergasted.

            “Hey, by the way, babe,” Dale continued, “what more can ya tell me about Steven?”

            He surprised me with this question, smiling and winking at me as he asked it.

            “Steven?” Kristin said, sounding just as surprised. “Well, I don’t wanna make you jealous, hon…but Steven was magnificent. He had this special warmth that made you feel safe, even in a tense situation. He was always kind – more so around children – yet was fierce when he needed to be. He wouldn’t dare let anyone he cared about be hurt in any way, nor would he ever give up on them. I wish I could tell you more, but there are some memories that I’d rather keep private – moments that I still dream about to this day.”

            My face was drenched in tears by the end of her beautiful illustration of me.

            It even managed to choke Dale up a bit. “Thanks, babe,” he told Kristin. “I know wherever he is right now, he’s honored to have known such an amazing woman like yourself.”

            “Aww! You’re too sweet!” Kristin said. “Now get your butt back here, so I can kick it for eating a burger while keeping me worried sick about you!” Dale and I laughed at her threat, after he ended the phone call.

            “Thanks, Dale,” I said once our laughter subsided. “I needed to hear that.”

            “I know ya did. And I promise that I’ll never tell her that you’re still out there…in the multiverse.”

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            After bidding Dale farewell, Craig and I returned to Neas and the TARDIS. Neas was still standing with his head down over the control console, which was exactly how Craig and I left him. I asked if he was alright, and he responded with a cold and faint “I’m fine, Pop.” He didn’t even look at me or Craig, which only made the both of us more disquieted.

            No eye contact or further words were exchanged as Neas piloted us back through the Infinite D.C., returning us to Craig’s world. The TARDIS materialized in a spot within the creek that was very familiar to me. It was not that far from Poison Ivy Grove, which was normally avoided by any kid in the creek, due to the area being completely covered by poison ivy.

            Then I remembered: this area was where my Type-X TARDIS had been parked since my “Noraline” regeneration. I specifically chose Poison Ivy Grove for its hazardous conditions, since it kept those from discovering my ship.

            I walked out of Neas’s Type-Z TARDIS with Craig, thinking that Neas was right behind us.

            Unfortunately, I was mistaken.

            The moment we were out, the door closed and the Type-Z dematerialized out of the dimension, much to our shock.

            “Where’s he going?!” Craig asked me. “Is he coming back?!”

            I didn’t want to tell Craig, but I’d suspected Neas would do something like this from how reserved he’d become since the demise of Al-Lee. The Cyber War had taken enough from him, but Al-Lee was the final straw.

            Now, the Gladiator of Gallifrey has exiled himself from everyone he loves…

            …his lil’ brother, Craig of the Creek…

            …and his own father, Aznavorian the Tinkerer.