"Next Steps" - Part Six
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Part Six
The laughter faded.
Zeeva didn’t move. Her sonic screwdriver remained aimed toward the darkness beyond the console room, its sapphire tip casting a narrow glow along the empty corridor.
Finn stayed close behind her.
Bunsen and Beaker stood several feet away, watching the instruments.
Nobody spoke.
Then—THUMP!
Finn jumped.
Zeeva immediately reached one arm behind herself, gently keeping him from moving any farther forward. “Stay with me,” she whispered.
“You don’t have to tell me twice,” Finn whispered back.
From somewhere inside the TARDIS, the voice came again. “You can’t keep him forever.”
Zeeva’s jaw tightened. “Don’t need forever.” She slowly swept the sonic screwdriver through the air. “Just longer than you.”
The device chirped.
Zeeva frowned.
Nothing.
No life signs.
No spatial displacement.
No dimensional breach.
Nothing that should’ve explained how another intelligence was speaking from inside her ship.
Bunsen suddenly leaned toward one of the monitors. “Curious.”
Zeeva glanced back. “Please tell me that’s the useful sort of curious.”
“I’m detecting no foreign presence whatsoever.”
Finn blinked. “Then who’s talking?”
“Excellent question, Mr. Whizz.”
“Mee mee,” Beaker nervously agreed.
Zeeva lowered the sonic slightly. She looked around the console room…then at Finn…then at the book clutched beneath his arm. Her eyes narrowed. “Finn…”
He looked down at The Impossible Diary.
Its black cover was glowing faintly around the edges.
“Oh,” he uttered.
Zeeva turned toward Bunsen. “Scan the book.”
Bunsen raised his device. A beam swept across the Diary.
The scanner squealed violently.
Bunsen recoiled. “Oh!”
“Another bad one?”
“A spectacularly bad one.”
Finn stared at the book. “What is it?”
Zeeva slowly approached. “The TARDIS hasn’t been breached like I thought.”
Finn looked relieved. “For a second, I thought that was bad.”
“It is.”
His relief vanished.
Zeeva knelt in front of him. “Whatever’s speaking to us isn’t physically here.”
“Then how—?”
“The Diary.” She looked at the glowing cover. “It’s using the Diary like a telephone.”
Finn immediately held it away from himself. “You gave me a monster telephone?!”
Zeeva frowned. “Not intentionally!”
Bunsen lifted a finger.
“Technically, I believe it would be more accurate to describe it as a ‘trans-dimensional receiver’.”
Finn stared at him. “Like I said, ‘monster telephone’.”
Bunsen considered this. “That is considerably easier to say, I suppose.”
“Mee.”
Zeeva carefully took hold of the Diary. The instant her fingers touched the cover—it flew open. Pages whipped past so rapidly that they became a blur.
Finn stumbled backward.
Zeeva caught him with one arm.
The pages stopped.
A golden glow filled the console room.
Then an image rose from the book.
Finn froze.
It was Central Park.
Their bench.
His bench.
And sitting there...was his father.
Finn stopped breathing. “Dad?”
Zeeva’s expression immediately changed. “Finn, don’t.”
The image looked toward him and smiled.
Finn took a step forward.
“Finn.”
The voice sounded warm now. Normal. Familiar.
No distortion.
No echo.
Just...
Dad.
Finn’s eyes filled with tears. “Dad?”
The figure stood from the bench. “I’ve missed you, buddy.”
Finn’s lower lip trembled. “I missed you, too.”
Zeeva watched the projection. Her suspicion hardened into anger. “Finn, that’s not your father.”
The figure ignored her. “Come here, Finn.”
Finn moved.
Zeeva gently caught his shoulder. “Sweetheart.”
Finn looked up at her. “It’s him.”
“No.”
“You don’t know that!”
Zeeva didn’t argue. She only said, “I know something is trying very hard to make you believe it.”
The projection changed.
Finn suddenly saw memories around him.
Walking through Central Park.
Reading comics together.
Laughing.
Saturday afternoons.
Sunday mornings.
Everything Finn had lost.
His father smiled. “We can have all of it back.”
Finn stared. “We can?”
“Of course.”
The man’s hand extended from the golden projection. “Come with me.”
Zeeva stepped between them. “No!”
The father’s smile disappeared. His eyes turned toward Zeeva. “You cannot give him what I can.”
Zeeva’s voice became dangerously quiet. “I’m not trying to replace anybody.”
“You’ve known him for less than a day.”
“And you’ve known him for none.”
Finn looked between them.
The figure smiled again. “You don’t need her, Finn.” The projection of Central Park brightened. “Come home.”
Finn’s eyes watered.
His father sat on their bench again. “We’ll read comics every Friday.”
Finn sniffled. “Yeah.”
“Then we’ll have ice cream together on Saturday.”
Finn stopped.
Zeeva noticed.
The projection continued smiling. “Just like we always did.”
Finn stared at him. Something changed in the boy’s expression.
Not fear. Recognition.
“...No.”
The figure tilted its head. “What?”
Finn wiped his eyes. “We didn’t get ice cream on Saturdays.”
Silence.
“Finn—”
“Saturday was arcade day.”
The figure stared.
Finn’s small, foamy hands curled into fists. “Ice cream was Sunday.”
The beautiful illusion began flickering.
Zeeva’s eyes lit with realization.
Finn stepped forward. “You’re not my dad.”
The projection distorted. “Finn.”
“My dad would’ve remembered.”
The voice deepened. “FINN!”
He flinched but didn’t retreat. “You don’t get to sound like him.”
The image shattered.
Darkness swallowed the console room.
The Diary ripped itself from Zeeva’s hand, hovering above the floor.
Pages tore through themselves without tearing, images appearing faster and faster—
Finn older.
Finn younger.
Finn standing among stars.
Finn disappearing.
Earth-M burning.
Universes colliding.
Zeeva dying.
Finn screamed. “STOP!”
The Diary slammed open to one final page.
Black letters crawled across the paper.
YOU ARE THE POINT UPON WHICH WORLDS TURN.
A second sentence appeared.
YOU WILL COME WILLINGLY.
Then a third.
OR THEY WILL BREAK AROUND YOU.
Zeeva raised the sonic screwdriver. “No!” She activated it.
Blue light struck the Diary. The book shuddered but remained open.
Bunsen hurried to the console. “The signal is resisting!”
“Then stop admiring it and help me!” Zeeva yelled.
“Right!” Bunsen began adjusting the dimensional controls.
Beaker raced to another station. “Mee mee mee!”
“Yes, Beaker! Reverse the polarity!”
Beaker grabbed a lever and paused, looking at Bunsen. “Mee?”
“The blue one!”
Beaker looked at six identical blue levers. “MEEEEEP!”
“The second blue one!”
Beaker yanked one.
The TARDIS groaned.
Zeeva shouted over the rising noise. “Wrong blue one!”
Beaker quickly pushed it back and then grabbed another.
The holographic multiverse erupted above the console.
Hundreds of realities appeared around them.
Earth-M.
Earth-828-M.
Earth-616.
And countless others.
Bright lines converged—all of them—on Finn.
“Zeeva!” Bunsen shouted.
“I see it!”
“I don’t believe you do!”
The hologram shifted. Two neighboring universes began overlapping. Their boundaries pressed against one another like colliding bubbles.
Zeeva stared. “No…”
Bunsen’s scanner screamed. “Dimensional barriers are compressing!”
Finn looked terrified. “What does that mean?!”
Zeeva didn’t answer immediately.
The unknown voice did. “ASK THE TINKERER WHAT HAPPENS WHEN TWO UNIVERSES TRY TO OCCUPY THE SAME SPACE.”
Zeeva’s face went pale.
Bunsen whispered, “An incursion…”
Finn looked at Zeeva. “What’s an incursion?”
“Something we’re going to prevent,” she said.
“But what is it?”
Zeeva looked him directly in the eyes. “The end of two worlds.”
The Diary’s pages began glowing brighter.
Zeeva resumed the sonic pulse. “It’s anchored to Finn!”
Bunsen shouted, “The signal appears to require a reciprocal connection!”
“In English!”
“It can reach him because some part of him is responding!”
Finn’s eyes widened. “I’m not doing anything!”
Zeeva looked at the Diary and then at Finn—an idea sparking. “Maybe you don’t have to.” She lowered the sonic. “Finn, close the book.”
He stared at her. “What?!”
“It wants you.” The Diary floated between them. “So, tell it ‘no’.”
Finn looked at the book.
The pages showed his father again, waiting on the bench and smiling.
Finn’s eyes filled. He looked at Zeeva. “What if it’s really him?”
Her expression softened as she approached. “I can’t make that choice for you, sweetie.” The ship trembled. “But you already know the answer.”
Finn stared at his father’s image.
For several painful seconds...he didn’t move.
Then he remembered.
Friday—comics.
Saturday—arcade.
Sunday—ice cream.
Finn stepped forward.
The voice softened. “Come home, son.”
Finn reached toward the Diary.
For just a second, he wanted to believe.
Then—
He grabbed both covers. Five foamy fingers on each little hand squeezed tightly. “My dad’s gone.” The projection flickered. Finn began forcing the Diary shut. “And I miss him.” The pages fought him. “But he wouldn’t want me hurting everybody just to get him back!”
The voice roared. “YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE!”
Finn gritted his teeth. “Neither do you!”
He slammed the Diary shut.
BOOM!
Every light in the TARDIS went out.
Silence.
Then...one amber light returned.
Then another.
Then another.
The console slowly awakened.
The holographic universes disappeared.
The Diary dropped harmlessly into Finn’s arms.
He stared at it.
No glow.
No voice.
Nothing.
Zeeva looked at him.
Finn looked back. “Did I…?”
“You did.”
“I stopped it?”
A smile slowly spread across her face. “You did.”
Finn looked stunned but proud…just a little. “I fought an alien.”
Zeeva raised an eyebrow. “Let’s not get carried away.”
“I totally fought an alien.”
“We haven’t established that it’s an alien.”
“Supervillain?”
“Nope.”
“Inter-dimensional ghost?”
“Finn.”
“Cosmic demon?”
She sighed with a giggle. “You’re one exhausting lil’ dude.”
Finn grinned.
For the first time since the rooftop...he looked like himself again.
Suddenly, Bunsen interrupted them. “Zeeva.”
Something in his voice erased her smile.
He was staring at the scanner.
“What?” she asked him.
“When Finn severed the connection…” Bunsen enlarged a final fragment of data. “...we received the return signal.”
Zeeva hurried over. “You traced it?”
“Partially.”
Finn joined them.
A single point appeared in the holographic void.
No planet.
No universe.
Just coordinates floating between realities.
Zeeva studied them. “That’s not possible.”
Finn smiled nervously. “I’m starting to think you people use that phrase way too much.”
Bunsen adjusted his glasses. “These coordinates don’t exist inside any known universe.”
Zeeva’s fingers tightened around the edge of the console. “They’re between them.”
“Precisely.”
Another piece of data appeared—a temporal reading.
Zeeva stared at it and then froze.
Bunsen noticed. “You recognize it.”
“No.”
But Finn had already learned something about Zeeva: she was a terrible liar when she was scared.
“You do,” he called her out on it.
Zeeva remained silent.
Finn approached her. “What is it?”
Slowly...she reached for her sonic screwdriver, her expression becoming distant…older. “The coordinates aren’t pointing to where the fractures are coming from.”
Bunsen frowned.
“Then what are they pointing to?”
Zeeva looked at Finn. “The first one.”
Finn’s smile vanished. “The first what?”
“The first fracture.”
A holographic line appeared across the darkness.
One tiny crack. Ancient. Waiting.
Zeeva whispered, “The place where all of this began.”
Finn looked at the controls—then at Zeeva. “So…” He swallowed. “...what do we do?”
The Eighth Tinkerer stared at the impossible coordinates.
For several seconds, she said nothing.
Then she reached for the TARDIS controls. “What Tinkerers do.”
Finn waited.
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