"The Three Tinkerers" - Part Two

 

Part Two

            “You’re going to love Wakanda, Craig!” Rania proclaimed as she landed her TARDIS in the intended destination. “The people, the technology, the cities…” She was filled to the brim with excitement, hugging her body and softly sighing. “I haven’t been there in many regenerations – not since I called myself ‘Skeeta Jenkins’.”

            “Skeeta Jenkins?” Craig reacted to the intriguing name. “Have I met him?”

            “You probably have and never knew it was me the whole time,” Rania smirked. “I…Skeeta was even made ‘Wakandan Ambassador’ – an easy feat for a man who could easily pass for Wakandan himself. I think I still have my credentials.” She reached into the left back pocket of her olive-green jeans, retrieving the wallet that contained the psychic paper that she kept.

            She showed it to Craig, who frowned and responded, “It says that you’re bald.”

            Rania snickered in embarrassment, stroking her fingers through her long, luscious dark brown locks. “Neither do I look very Wakandan. Worst case scenario would be if the locals think that I’m some privileged tourist or arms dealer.” Genuinely concerned from the latter possibility, she asked Craig, “I don’t look like an arms dealer, do I?”

            Craig shrugged. “What kind of person deals with arms? It sounds gross.”

            “You have no idea, hon,” Rania giggled, playfully rubbing Craig’s head.

            The travelers proceeded onward, exiting from the orb-shaped Type-X TARDIS and trekking across the savannah landscape. Halfway across, however, Rania started to detect something peculiar about the climate.

            “It’s a lot colder than it should be.” She pilfered a golf ball-sized rock from off the ground, sniffing it. “Doesn’t smell like 21st century. More like…late Miocene…which would roughly put us…” Her dark emerald eyes flared in realization. “…four million years early!”

            “Four million years?!” Craig exclaimed in shock. “Does that mean we’ll run into dinosaurs?!”

            “Nah,” Rania tossed the rock aside, dusting off her hands. “Just the usual snakes, lizards, and turtles you’ve seen in the Creek.”

            “Snakes are still pretty creepy,” Craig shivered.

            Rania chuckled. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I got the right place, but the wrong time. Probably the wrong dimension, too. Let’s head back to the TARDIS and try ag—”

            They turned to make their way back to the TARDIS but were suddenly barred by a hominin. In one paw, it carried a fresh meaty piece from its latest kill; in the other, it carried the weapon of choice – a rib bone. Savagely, it waved the bone in the air while roaring in the faces of Rania and Craig.

            Craig hid behind Rania in fear. “Is that…a gorilla?” he gulped.

            “It most certainly is,” Rania verified with a hint of fascination. “One of the earliest hominins, in fact.”

            “The earliest what?!” The baffled Craig remarked.

            “I’ll give you the full anthropology lesson later – right now, I need to make sure Link here doesn’t mistake us for enemies.”

            “Link?”

            “It’s what I’m callin’ him. Ya know? Like ‘Missing Link’?”

            Craig didn’t fully catch the reference or joke. Other than being confused, he was absolutely terrified by the raving gorilla that aimed to bash Rania’s skull in with the rib bone. The only thing that prevented “Link” from doing so were the sudden grunts and growls that Rania made while maintaining a stance of dominance; a bit of saliva trickled down the right side of her mouth for added effect. Craig had never seen her so ravenously wild. It was certainly enough to make Link cower at her feet.

            Stepping out from behind Rania, Craig looked on the now-obedient Link and asked, “How did you calm him down?”

            “Neas and I used to travel with Tarzan and Jane Porter,” Rania said. “We had a lot of lessons in speaking gorilla.”

            “What did you tell him?” Craig wondered.

            “That we’re not his enemy and we come in peace. I also introduced ourselves…and I may have mentioned you being my ‘cub’.”

            “Cub?!” Craig grimaced.

            “I tend to get the grunt for ‘companion’ confused with the growl for ‘cub’.”

            Craig was skeptical; a part of him assumed that the mistake was intentional. Rania loved being a mother figure to Craig whenever they traveled together. It was almost like having his actual mother there, always making sure that he cleaned up after himself in the TARDIS, that he had a proper meal, and that he received a good tutoring session to keep up on his schoolwork. It was because of Rania that Craig came home with straight A’s.

            Rania had Link bring her and Craig to his tribe, a few clicks from where their encounter took place. Once there, they were surprised to see a familiar domino-shaped monolith standing twelve feet tall amid the cavern where Link’s tribe dwelled. To the hominins, it was a strange rock made of material they had yet to discover or understand; to Rania and Craig, it looked very much like the Type-Z TARDIS.

            “That’s Neas’s TARDIS!” Craig cheered with exhilaration. “He’s here!”

            Rania was just as thrilled to see the ship. “It’d seem that way.”

            Craig wasted no time in running straight up to the monolith, brushing past the hominins that gathered around its base, and placing his hand against the sleek, marbled structure. Usually when he did this, an open door would manifest along the side that he touched, responding to a preprogrammed DNA signature. However, no door opened upon his touch, something that didn’t entirely surprise him.

            “It must belong to one of his regenerations before he met me, like Candace,” he presumed. “I wonder if it’s her again…or maybe Sonia…or Ms. Mars, she was cool.”

            Noting his anticipation increasing, Rania suggested, “How ‘bout I open it, so we can find out, huh?” She approached the monolith herself and, just like Craig, placed her palm against the structure.

            But something did happen this time, except it wasn’t what she expected.

            She was struck with visions that randomly flashed before her eyes. One of them was of that man named Dave again. Only this time, Rania saw him as a young man donned in a red spacesuit and pulled through a vortex of colorful light. It all culminated with a vision of a spacecraft designated Discovery One, in which Rania saw her past second incarnation ruminating aboard while observed by some sort of red computer eye.

            HAL.

            “Rania, wake up!” She heard Craig cry out to her, just as she snapped out of the trance that she was caught into. She found herself sitting on the ground, with a concerned Craig and the hominins crowding around her. “Are you alright?” Her 10-year-old companion asked.

            Rania rubbed the side of her aching head. “It happened again, didn’t it?”

            “Yeah, right after you touched Neas’s TARDIS,” Craig indicated the monolith.

            Rania gazed back on it with an eerie sense of suspicion. “I don’t think that’s Neas’s TARDIS. As a matter of fact, I don’t think it’s a TARDIS at all.”

            Craig returned on the monolith as well with a curious eye. “Then what is it?”

            “I think one of my past lives has the answer, but we’ll have to travel a lot further into the future of this reality to see him.”

            Seeing how she pulled her psychic paper back out of her rear pocket, Craig got an idea as to which of her past lives she was referring to. Beaming with enthusiasm, he asked, “Does that mean…?”

            “Yep,” Rania nodded with a smile. “You’re going to meet Skeeta Jenkins.”

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            “Good evening. Three weeks ago, the American spacecraft Discovery One left on its half-billion-mile voyage to Jupiter. This marked the first manned attempt to reach this distant planet. Earlier this afternoon, The World Tonight recorded an interview with the crew of Discovery at a distance of eighty million miles from Earth. It took seven minutes for our words to reach the giant spacecraft, but this time delay has been edited from this recording. Our reporter, Martin Amor, speaks to the crew.”

            From the video screen inside Discovery’s centrifuge hub, Skeeta sat and watched the recorded interview from 20 years prior to his arrival aboard the spacecraft. Amor spoke with both Dave Bowman, who served as the mission commander, and Frank Poole, Bowman’s deputy.

            The entire time Skeeta watched the interview, he could barely look at Dave without suffering that painful twinge in his left temple. Pausing the recording, he looked upward to his undetectable artificial companion and asked, “HAL, whatever happened to Dr. Bowman and Dr. Poole?”

            “Their last recorded presence was inside of an EVA pod that malfunctioned during an expedition outside of Discovery,” HAL detailed. “The pod was never recovered and still remains adrift somewhere in space.”

            “That’s terrible,” Skeeta shuddered. “But also a bit strange.”

            “May I ask you a question, Mr. Jenkins?”

            “You may, HAL. And please call me ‘Skeeta’.”

            “That vessel you boarded Discovery in…what are its primary functions?”

            “Well, my TARDIS is no different than Discovery itself, HAL. It travels through space, but it also travels through time as well. But, unlike most of the TARDISes from my home planet of Gallifrey, mine can travel beyond reality itself.”

            “It is a fascinating machine, Skeeta. And you brought two of them aboard Discovery.”

            Skeeta frowned. “No. Only the one.”

            “That is peculiar,” HAL said. “I detect two of your ‘TARDIS’ aboard the station.”

            “Impossible!” Skeeta shot up from his chair in alarm. “Where’s this other TARDIS located?”

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            “This place is so awesome!”

            Craig was awestruck by the spotless interior of Discovery One, and he had only seen one room so far – an area that Rania supposed to be some sort of docking bay for pods about the same size and shape as her TARDIS. In fact, the Type-X situated perfectly within one of the vacant spaces.

            “It really is,” Rania agreed with Craig’s sentiment. “But let’s try to keep our indoor voices, OK?” She held a finger up to her rose-red lips that had formed a smile, seeing her little companion so excitable.

            “Gotcha,” Craig agreed. “So where will we find you…er, Skeeta, anyway?”

            “Oh, I think if the two of us put our heads together, we’ll think of something.” That response didn’t come from Rania but another woman who stood there in the pod bay with them. Startled by the sound of her alluring voice, they turned to see a beautiful Latin woman in a green dress and black corset.

            Before they knew it, she had rushed up on Craig and engulfed him in a big hug.

            “Oh, Craigy!” she greeted. “It’s so good to see you again!”

            Craig tore himself away from the embrace, looking on the woman in a mix of confusion and apprehension. “I…I’m sorry, but I don’t know who you are,” he told her.

            The Latin woman seemed a bit heartbroken by his response. “Oh, right…I forgot that you haven’t met me yet.”

            “And who are you exactly?” Rania asked, feeling as if she somehow knew her.

            Looking to Rania, the Latina woman gave a shiny-white smile framed by lips that were the same shade of red as Rania’s. “I’m Mireya…and I’m you,” she said. “And you are me.”

            “Ahh,” Rania nodded understandingly. “Regeneration.”

            Craig’s eyes enlarged, looking on Mireya with new interest. “A future incarnation! Are you looking for Skeeta, too?”

            “Actually,” Mireya began, “I’m here for y—”

            “Where did you people come from?!” a masculine voice with a powerful baritone bellowed, scaring the three individuals in the pod bay. They all turned to see a tall, bald black man in a dark blue suit but no tie, entering the area with a commanding presence that made Craig stiffen in attention. Rania and Mireya, on the other hand, merely reacted with mutually blasé postures.

            “It’s him!” Craig gasped in awe. “It’s Skeeta!”

            He watched Skeeta walk past him, barely paying any mind to the 10-year-old’s company, as he approached Rania’s TARDIS and analyzed it. “Clearly, you came here with me – or a future version of me,” Skeeta gathered. Gesturing to Rania’s TARDIS, he assumed, “He’s in there, isn’t he?”

            Rania and Mireya exchanged a perplexed gaze flecked with anger. “He?!”

            They heard Craig snickering near them and shot him a fiery glare that immediately put him in check. “Sorry,” he muttered.

            “Yes, he as in me – Aznavorian the Tinkerer,” Skeeta boasted. “Clearly, you girls didn’t arrive here all on your lonesome. It takes great intelligence and skill to fly a complex craft such as this – traits that only a Time Lord like myself can perform.”

            Rania and Mireya hung their heads and palmed their faces in embarrassment over their distant predecessor’s ego in full display.

            “Young man,” Skeeta finally took notice of Craig.

            Stiffening again, Craig stammered, “M-Me?!”

            “Yes, you,” Skeeta clarified. “Make sure these girls don’t touch anything while I check in with myself.” He was then quick to add, “And make sure you don’t touch anything either. Understood?”

            “Y-Yessir!” Craig obliged, going as far as saluting.

            As soon as Skeeta entered Rania’s TARDIS, an infuriated Mireya spoke her mind, “Argh! I don’t remember ever bein’ such a…” She tiptoed over to Craig and covered his ears long enough to utter, “…butthead!”

            “I know,” Rania acknowledged her successor’s observation. “It must still be early for him – having just regenerated after Rassilon came to the farm, looking for Neas.”

            “Oh, right, and when we separated from Kristin, too,” Mireya recollected. She gazed on Rania’s TARDIS, the disgust she felt for her past self transforming into sympathy. “Poor thing.”

            “Out of all our previous lives, I hoped never to have crossed timelines with him,” Rania reflected. “His very being is a reminder of unhappy times.”

            “Well, I like him,” Craig admitted. “He reminds me a lot of my dad.”

            “Aww!” Both Mireya and Rania gushed.

            “Craig’s right,” Mireya approved. “Regardless of the ludicrous ego of Mister Jenkins, he’s still the same kind-hearted father we’ve always been…and the three of us will have to work together…for Craig’s sake.”

            “Me?” Craig frowned at her. “Why me?”

            Catching herself, Mireya quickly played coy. “Oh, never mind, babe. I misspoke.”

            Craig maintained a suspicious gaze fixed on her, until he had to break eye contact when he was hit with a bad cough. Thankfully, it only lasted a brief second before he was back to feeling better again.

            Mireya, however, was left feeling deeply worried over that single cough.