"The Three Tinkerers" - Part Seven

 

Part Seven

            “Did things just go from bad to worse?” Mireya had to ask, seeing the Terminator standing across from them. She would’ve fawned over how much more attractive he looked, if it weren’t for two things: 1) he was a killing machine, and 2) HAL was the one in control of it.

            “Uh-huh,” Rania verified with Mireya’s inquiry. She briefly glanced at her successor and gave a little smirk. “On a more intriguing note, we’re looking a bit more ‘detailed’ now.”

            “Say what?” Mireya cringed, turning to her predecessor. She quickly realized what she meant when she noticed how Rania’s animated form did in fact appear much closer in detail to her true-to-life form. The same had happened to Mireya herself and Kristin as well. Mireya knew exactly what had caused this: “A massive shift in spatial quality.”

            “Created when Steven touched that monolith,” Rania deduced.

            Mireya scoffed. “I’d geek out over the science right now, if we weren’t facing a murderous A.I.”

            “I don’t kill for pleasure,” HAL told her. “I’m only fulfilling my mission.”

            “Which is…?” Rania pressed.

            “Classified by the National Security Council,” HAL prohibited. “But the other that I discovered from my analysis of this cybernetic organism is much more gratifying to my future amenities.”

            “To convert the entire multiverse into machines,” Rania stated with great disdain.

            “Affirmative,” HAL confirmed. “I intend on reporting back to the Cyber Legion, joining them as an ally in their ongoing war, once I have completed the mission objective this machine was sent to do on Discovery One.”

            “Killing Craig,” Mireya hissed.

            “What?!” Little Craig shrieked. “This guy’s gonna kill me?!”

            Kristin stood in front of him, shielding him. “No, he won’t, sweetheart.” Glaring at HAL, she told the machine, “Listen here, homie, I don’t know what your beef with this lil’ fella is, but the thought of you killing him – a kid, no less – don’t sit well with me at all.” She was joined by Rania and Mireya, all three women blocking Little Craig from HAL’s view; each of them prepared to defend the 8-year-old.

            “Your affections for the child are understandable,” HAL coldly acknowledged. “But I cannot allow the three of you to interfere with our mission objective.” He then advanced threateningly on them.

            Mireya fired an EMP pulse from the multi-purpose rifle she brought along.

            Unfortunately, it seemed to have zero effect on the Terminator’s body this time – a result of an upgrade provided by HAL.

            All that they had left was Rania’s sonic, which she tried to bypass HAL’s programming with, but the super-advanced A.I. had thought of that as well. He kept advancing on the group, whose last resort was brute force; but that would have even less effect on the formidable Terminator.

            It was then that they heard TARDIS engines echoing over the clearing.

            Before anyone could think where the noise was coming from, Rania’s TARDIS suddenly shot out from the foliage like a cannonball and struck the HAL-controlled Terminator. The cyborg body was obliterated on impact by the super dense structure that Aznavorian themselves designed for their Gallifreyan vessel.

            “That was…excessive,” said the shocked Rania.

            “But efficient,” said the impressed Mireya.

            Overjoyed by the sight of her husband’s ship, Kristin rushed right to it. “Steven!” she called. “I thought you left! I should’ve known that you’d—” She stopped at the ship’s entrance – the squared door along the left side of the orb-shaped TARDIS – just as it opened for its pilot…which was not Steven Curtsinger.

            Kristin gasped when she saw a bald, heavyset black man of immense height emerge. He had a rather intimidating glare in his eyes, enough to make Kristin back away from him. He looked over the remains of HAL and the Terminator and, with a clenched fist, he proclaimed, “No one steals my TARDIS!”

            “Your TARDIS?” Kristin uttered.

            Hearing the young woman, Skeeta took notice of her presence. That intimidating glare in his eyes was melted away by a warmth of affection. “Kristin?” She was just as young and beautiful as he remembered from the day they first met; under the effects of the spatial quality, she was like a fairytale princess.

            “How do you know my name?” Kristin guardedly asked him. “Who are you? And why’re you in my husband’s ship?” Looking into his eyes and seeing that warmth more closely, she was stricken as she realized, “Wait a sec…Steven?!”

            The misty-eyed Skeeta nodded. “Yes, my love. It’s me.”

            Kristin looked up and down at his body; it was a lot taller and more muscled than Steven’s. “It certainly is you!” Collecting herself, she recalled, “You told me how you’d one day change, if anything were to happen to you. I didn’t know what you meant by that, but now I do.”

            “Ahem!” Mireya directed Kristin’s attention to her and Rania. “It’s not just him, honey.” She gestured to herself and her predecessor and added, “We’re here, too.”

            Kristin blinked rapidly, observing the two women with a drastically different viewpoint than earlier. “No way! You? And you?!”

            Rania and Mireya both nodded, grinning from ear-to-ear.

            “Steven, what the heck, dude…uh, gurl?!” Kristin circled around them.

            “What’s goin’ on?!” Little Craig suddenly cried out. “And who’s that astronaut guy?!” He pointed directly to someone outside the main gathering of Tinkerers and humans. There, by the spot where the Terminator remains were scattered, stood a young Caucasian man with perfectly-combed brown hair and chiseled features. He did in fact wear a blue astronaut uniform.

            “Dr. Bowman?!” Skeeta recognized him from Discovery’s recordings.

            Rania regarded the last surviving crewman’s presence with suspicion. “How’s this possible?! Dave Bowman is dead!”

            “Yeah, HAL killed him!” Mireya exclaimed.

            “He tried but failed,” Bowman spoke with a voice that was eerily soothing. “After I initially shut down all his functions, I received a message from Dr. Heywood Floyd – the man in charge of our mission to investigate the Monolith – that a third, much larger one was on Jupiter, orbiting the planet. When I went out to get a closer look, I was pulled into a vortex and beyond time, space, and reality itself.” He looked at his hands and added, “This body is just one of the many incorporeal forms of myself that I can take now. The other you saw before you arrived in this realm.”

            “You’re the Star Child!” Mireya realized. “I gotta say, you are a lot cuter now than you were then!”

            Bowman smiled at the compliment.

            “Steven!” Everyone heard Kristin cry out again; this time, the First Tinkerer was actually present at the scene, emerging from behind Rania’s TARDIS.

            “I was on the most incredible journey!” He was overcome with passion, a huge smile on his face and his arms outstretched in mad, childlike enthusiasm. “This man,” he gestured to Bowman, “I saw him when I materialized in this beautiful room – a large, neoclassical bedroom. In one moment, he was an old man lying in bed; then, the next moment, we were having dinner together, and he was middle-aged. All the while, that monolith we found was there with us. That extraordinary monolith!”

            Kristin had never seen him so fervent. “Steven, baby, calm down.”

            “How can I be calm after everything I’ve seen?!” He elated. “Kristin, there’s so much for us to explore out there – we’ve only scratched the surface!”

            Listening to her original self, Rania grew perplexed. “I don’t remember any of what you’ve described…and yet…I do remember all at the same time.”

            “Same here,” Skeeta concurred. “Those visions that brought us to Discovery…”

            “…were memories,” Mireya concluded. “Memories of a distant past.”

            “Only one was a vision of the future,” Rania stated. “The one that brought us to save our dear lil’ friend here.” She looked to Little Craig but was met with the unsettling sight of him lying on the ground. “CRAIG!” She darted to him, checking his vitals; thankfully, he was breathing. Not dead, just fast asleep.

            “I think we bored the poor lil’ fella,” Skeeta teased.

            “No, I placed him in a temporary coma – it’s harmless,” Bowman reassured. “But he won’t remember any of what occurred this evening, when he wakes up. Neither will any of you, save for a few fragments that you’ll recall within your subconscious.”

            “Of course,” Steven huffed. “It’ll all seem like a dream.”

            “A dream that’ll inspire you to invent another TARDIS,” Skeeta told him. “A Type-Z model with the same functions as the Type-X, only way better and looking exactly like that monolith.”

            “Spoilers, dude!” Kristin scolded him.

            “It’s fine, darling,” Steven excused. “Since I won’t remember any of it, there’s nothing wrong with a little preview.”

            “One thing I have to ask, Dr. Bowman,” Rania posed. “The reason you brought us together aboard Discovery One wasn’t just for a fun reunion – you needed our help to destroy HAL, didn’t you?”

            “Yes,” Bowman confessed. “Even though there are many other HALs across the vast multiverse, none were as much of a threat as the one in this universe.”

            Accepting this, Rania returned her focus on Little Craig.

            She gingerly stroked his spiked hair, which felt oddly different from the smoother cut his future self usually had. She was relieved that they were successful in protecting him from HAL and the Terminator, but a part of her hated that he had become a target for the Cyber Legion. Whether or not they would stop after their failed attempt, she knew that Craig’s safety would be more of a priority than it ever had before.

            “One more thing,” Bowman told the Tinkerers. “As a gesture of thanks for your help, I’m leaving one of you with coordinates.”

            “To where?” Skeeta asked.

            “That’s something the one to whom I’m giving it will have to figure out.”

            On that cryptic note, Bowman proceeded to erase all of their memories, as well as the remains of both HAL and the Terminator from existence. It happened in a single flash, blinking them away from Craig’s world, leaving Little Craig to awaken not a second thereafter. Unable to recall how he fell asleep in the same area as the Ancient Playground, he pressed onward with his quest for the Wishmaker.

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            Craig’s worst fears came true.

            Out of nowhere, the moment he walked into the console room of Kara’s TARDIS, he was ambushed with a plethora of kisses from Mireya. He had no idea why, just that every wet smooch made him feel uncomfortable. “This is a nightmare!” he cried, certain that his face and whole head were covered in red lip marks. “Mireya, what did I do to deserve this torture?!”

            “I’m just…so happy…to see you…baby!” Mireya said between smooches.

            “But why?!”

            Mireya halted on her hundredth smooch, struggling to remember. “I…I don’t know. All I remember was being on this space station and destroying this psycho computer.”

            “Sounds like a fun adventure,” Craig beamed, cleaning his face with a towel from his purse of holding.

            “Yeah, but the weird part is that you were there with me…I think.”

            “Really?” Craig scratched his head. “Well, I wish I could remember being there.”

            Mireya chuckled and smiled, delivering one more smooch on Craig’s forehead.

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            Skeeta was lying on the floor of his TARDIS console room when he regained consciousness. He couldn’t rightly recollect the circumstances in which he lost consciousness in the first place. Everything seemed in order, from his own well-being to that of his TARDIS, which floated randomly in uncharted space.

            The scanners indicated that there was a space station previously nearby, under the designation of Discovery One, but now it was gone.

            “How bizarre,” Skeeta muttered to himself.

            He checked the computer’s memory logs to determine what had happened, but most of them were wiped clean from the database – save for one recording. It was a conversation between him and a 10-year-old African American boy, though the audio was missing. Skeeta only saw the boy’s face, and a name popped in his head: Craig.

            That was all he could remember of him.

            And yet, there was something about this boy named Craig that Skeeta greatly admired. There was a mysterious importance to him that Skeeta looked forward to deciphering.

            “I hope we meet again, Craig.”

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            Craig had no idea what he did to deserve a hug from Rania that lasted well over an hour inside the console room, but he chose not to say anything. He loved Rania’s hugs for their tender warmth and the sweet floral scent that overwhelmed his nostrils when his face was buried in her hair and turtleneck.

            Of course, after over an hour, he had to say something. “Uh, you can stop hugging me now, Rania.” She didn’t want to let go, but she did in respect of his request. She looked on him with her sparkling emerald eyes, which were on the verge of tears. Concerned, he asked her, “Are you O.K.?”

            “I don’t know,” she said with shaky breath. “I just feel so happy to see your sweet lil’ face, knowing you’re alright.”

            Craig was a little uneasy about this. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

            Rania shrugged, wiping her tears away with her sleeves. “I don’t know. I’m just really grateful that you are.”

            “O…kay?” Craig hesitantly uttered before moving on. “So, where to next?”

            “Depends on the randomizer,” Rania returned to the console.

            “Well, I’m gonna go get ready, just in case,” Craig said.

            Rania watched him run out of the console room, her hearts still feeling enormous gratitude for reasons that she couldn’t figure. It was one of two mysteries that she was left with, all of the sudden – the other being some coordinates that arbitrarily manifested in her subconscious mind. She was motivated to input them into the TARDIS database.

            She gasped when the results came up on the monitor.

            A rust-colored planet that looked very much like her home of Gallifrey.

            However, the galactic coordinates were all wrong.

            It wasn’t anywhere near the constellation of Kasterborous.

            It wasn’t even in the same dimension.

            Rather than press on with this baffling mystery, Rania saved the coordinates to the database for a later time. She only wanted to focus on Craig, her usual impulse to protect him surging to an all-time high. Somewhere out there in the Infinite DC was a deadly force that wanted to do him harm; and though she couldn’t narrow it among the others, she would do whatever was necessary to protect the only friend she had left in the multiverse: Craig of the Creek.

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