"Next Steps" - Part Nine

Part Nine

The TARDIS landed badly. Not catastrophically. Not even unusually badly by Zeeva’s standards. But badly enough that Finn immediately decided there were probably different categories of TARDIS landings. This one belonged firmly in the category of: Hold onto something!

The console room pitched sideways.

Finn’s foamy fingers clamped around the railing.

Bunsen collided with a chair.

Beaker collided with Bunsen. “MEEEEEEP!”

Zeeva remained at the console, fighting three controls at once. “Nearly there!”

Finn looked around as another tremor shook the room. “Nearly where?!”

“The intersection point!”

“That sounds bad!”

“It is!”

“At least you’re consistent!”

Zeeva shot him an exasperated look. “Not helping!”

“Sorry!”

Another alarm screamed.

Bunsen scrambled upright and checked his scanner. “Dimensional separation has fallen below twelve percent!”

Zeeva’s expression tightened. “How long?”

“Approximately sixteen minutes.”

Finn stared. “Until what?”

Nobody answered, but he already knew.

Until two universes tried to occupy the same space.

Until Earth-M and Earth-828-M collided.

Until billions of people on both worlds—

Finn stopped himself.

No. He wasn’t going to think about that—not yet.

The holographic display above the console ignited.

Two Earths appeared—one blue and one gold.

Earth-M. Earth-828-M.

They were so close now that their outer glows overlapped.

Finn stared at them. “They look like they’re touching.”

“They’re beginning to,” Bunsen said.

The projection enlarged.

Cities appeared. Then continents.

Then—New York.

Two versions of Manhattan occupied the same holographic space.

Earth-M’s city flickered against the retro-futuristic skyline of Earth-828-M. Buildings passed through one another. Streets overlapped. Vehicles appeared and disappeared.

Finn leaned closer. “People can see it?”

Bunsen nodded grimly. “By now, yes.”

Earth-M

Times Square vanished for three seconds. When it returned, half the people standing there screamed. For those three seconds, they had seen another Manhattan.

Not destroyed. Not alien.

Just—different.

Sleek elevated trains crossed the sky.

Retro-futuristic cars moved through intersections that shouldn’t exist.

A towering rocket-shaped building appeared where another skyscraper belonged.

Then everything snapped back.

Across New York, dimensional echoes spread.

A Muppet cab driver slammed on his brakes when an automobile from another universe passed directly through his taxi.

Pedestrians watched entire buildings become transparent.

Central Park flickered between two histories.

And high above Manhattan—the sky cracked.

Inside the TARDIS, Finn stared at the hologram. “My uncle’s down there.”

Zeeva looked at him.

Finn’s face had gone pale. “My apartment.”

She understood immediately.

“My school.”

Zeeva stepped away from the console. “Finn—”

“My friends.”

She reached him. “Hey.”

“If the worlds hit—”

“They won't.”

“You don't know that.”

“No.”

That stopped him.

Zeeva placed both hands gently on his shoulders. “I don’t.”

Finn swallowed.

“But I’m going to do everything I possibly can to make sure they don’t.”

Bunsen quietly added: “So am I.”

Beaker raised one gloved hand. “Mee.”

Finn looked at them.

Earth-M was his home. Earth-828-M was theirs.

Nobody in this room could afford to lose.

A new warning flashed: CONVERGENCE ACCELERATION DETECTED!

Bunsen hurried back toward the controls. “That’s impossible.”

Finn groaned. “Can we ban that word?”

“Perhaps later.”

Bunsen enlarged the signal.

A pulse traveled across the multiverse. Its origin marker appeared.

EARTH-616

Then another pulse.

Earth-M and Earth-828-M moved closer.

Zeeva’s eyes narrowed. “Again.”

Bunsen replayed it. The result was identical.

Finn watched. “So…Earth-616 is doing this.”

“No,” Zeeva said.

“But every time that light comes from it, our worlds get closer.”

“Yes.”

“That sounds like they’re doing it.”

Zeeva leaned over the hologram. “Think of two boats drifting toward a waterfall.” Finn listened. “They were already heading toward danger.”

“Right.”

“Then somebody upstream opens a dam.”

Finn’s expression changed. “The dam didn’t make the waterfall.”

“No.”

“It just makes the boats reach it faster.”

“Exactly.”

Bunsen stared at the data, and then his posture stiffened.

Zeeva noticed. “What?” He didn’t respond. “Bunsen.”

The scientist enlarged the Earth-616 readings, and a pattern appeared. It was not random energy, but coordinates—thousands of them, changing…moving. Reality signatures sliding across the multiverse as though—

Bunsen whispered: “Someone is repositioning universes.”

Silence.

Finn looked at Zeeva. “Can somebody do that?”

Zeeva didn’t answer immediately. “That depends on who ‘somebody’ is.”

Another pulse crossed the hologram.

Three more universes elsewhere shifted.

Bunsen shook his head. “This is deliberate.”

Zeeva stared at Earth-616. “Whatever is happening there…someone has learned how to move worlds like pieces on a board.”

Finn imagined that. He didn’t like it. “Why?”

Zeeva’s eyes remained on the projection. “I suspect we’re going to find out.”

But not today. Today, they had two worlds to save.

Bunsen activated another archive.

Earth-828-M filled the display.

Finn saw its skyline more clearly than ever.

Sleek towers. Silver rockets. Vast scientific facilities.

A blue insignia appeared in one corner.

A familiar numeral: 4.

Finn pointed. “Hey, there’s your team!”

Bunsen smiled faintly. “Our research helped our world detect other realities in the first place.” A series of dimensional models appeared. “The Baxter Foundation documented theoretical methods of separating intersecting dimensional fields.”

Zeeva looked interested. “Theoretical?”

“Yes.”

“Tested?”

“No.”

“Wonderful.”

Finn looked between them. “Does it work?”

Bunsen smiled. “In mathematics.”

Zeeva sighed. “I hate mathematicians.”

Bunsen turned. “I am a mathematician.”

“I know.”

The model expanded.

Two intersecting spheres.

Bunsen pointed between them. “If we can create a counter-resonance at the exact point of overlap, it may repel the universes.”

“Like magnets?” Finn asked.

“An oversimplification.”

“Like magnets?”

Bunsen paused. “...Like magnets.”

Finn nodded proudly.

Zeeva hid a smile.

“The problem,” Bunsen continued, “is power.”

The model displayed an impossible energy requirement.

Zeeva’s eyebrows rose. “Oh.”

Finn immediately pointed at her. “No.”

She blinked.

“You’re doing it now!”

“Doing what?”

“The Bunsen thing.”

Bunsen looked pleased. “I have a thing?”

Zeeva ignored them. “My TARDIS can’t generate even that much dimensional force without ripping herself apart.”

Finn’s smile disappeared. “What about the First Fracture?”

That silenced the room.

Zeeva slowly looked at him.

Finn continued, “It had loads of energy.”

“Uncontrolled energy.”

“But energy.”

Bunsen’s head tilted.

Zeeva gave Finn the face.

The face that meant he was right, and she absolutely did not want him knowing it.

Finn’s eyes narrowed. “There it is.”

“There what is?”

“The face.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You’re doing it right now.”

Beaker nodded. “Mee.”

Zeeva looked at him. “Et tu, Beaker?”

Meanwhile, Bunsen began calculating. “If we connected the TARDIS to the First Fracture—”

“No.”

“Zeeva—”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because the last time we visited it, an enormous reality monster tried to eat us!”

Finn raised one finger. “We don’t actually know it wanted to eat us.”

Zeeva stared. “Not helping again.”

“Sorry.”

Bunsen continued, “The fracture could act as a pressure release.”

Zeeva understood.

Instead of forcing the universes apart with raw energy, they redirect the excess convergence energy somewhere it already naturally flowed—back to the place where reality first divided.

Finn watched her thinking.

“We send the collision into the crack.” Zeeva looked at him. “More or less.”

“And save both worlds?”

“Potentially.”

His eyes brightened. “Then let’s do it.”

“No.”

Finn’s face fell. “What?”

Zeeva turned away. “The fracture recognizes you.”

“So?”

“So, the moment we establish a connection, it’ll recognize you again.”

Finn grew quiet.

“That Echo might come back.”

“Might?”

Zeeva looked at him. “It will.”

The countdown appeared.

09:41

Finn stared at it.

Nine minutes.

Earth-M flickered. Earth-828-M flickered.

Bunsen looked at his home world. Beaker stood beside him, unusually silent.

Zeeva watched Finn. She knew exactly what he was going to say before he said it. “If we don’t do it, everybody dies anyway.”

Zeeva closed her eyes. There was no clever answer. No Time Lord trick.

Just a ten-year-old boy stating the truth.

“I hate it when you’re sensible.”

Finn shrugged. “I have my moments.”

She looked at him—really looked.

Tiny. Foamy. Ten years old.

And standing at the front of two ending universes, asking to help.

Scarlet would have hated this.

That thought appeared unexpectedly.

Her past fifth incarnation would already have been trying to shove Finn somewhere safe.

Zeeva understood the instinct now—painfully well.

She crouched. “Finn.”

“Yeah?”

“If anything happens—”

“I’m staying with you.”

“That wasn’t what I was going to say.”

“Yes, it was.”

Dang child.

She gently cupped his face in her hands. “I need you to listen.” His smile faded. “If I tell you to run, you run.” Finn nodded. “If I tell you to close the Diary, you close it.” Another nod. “If I tell you to get inside the TARDIS—”

“I get inside.”

“And if I tell you to leave me behind—”

“No.”

Zeeva stopped.

Finn stared directly into her eyes.

“No.”

“Finn.”

“You said we’re doing this together.”

“This isn’t a game, honey.”

“I know.” His voice was quiet. That hurt more. “I already lost my dad.”

Zeeva’s expression softened.

Finn swallowed. “I’m not leaving you.”

For once...the Eighth Tinkerer had absolutely nothing to say.

Finn hugged her.

Zeeva closed her eyes and then held him. “Alright,” she whispered. She kissed the top of his blue hair. “But let’s try very hard not to make that decision necessary.”

Finn nodded against her. “Deal.”

— — — — — — —

07:03

Zeeva sprang upright. “Positions!”

The console room erupted into motion.

Bunsen projected the Baxter calculations.

Beaker rushed between controls.

Finn climbed onto the small platform beside Zeeva.

She pointed at him. “Do not touch anything blue.”

Finn looked around—half the controls were blue. “Seriously?”

“Especially that.”

“What does it do?”

“No idea.”

Finn slowly moved his hand away. “Fair.”

Zeeva pulled three switches, and the TARDIS engines roared.

The holographic chamber surrounding the console transformed into a complete dimensional visualization.

Earth-M appeared on one side; Earth-828-M on the other.

The TARDIS floated symbolically between them.

Beyond both…the First Fracture.

Finn stared.

The ancient ring waited in darkness. Its central crack pulsed.

“It knows we’re here,” he whispered.

Zeeva lifted her sonic screwdriver. “Of course, it does.”

Bunsen shouted, “Convergence in five minutes!”

Zeeva activated the connection.

A beam of blue temporal energy shot from the TARDIS representation toward the First Fracture.

The ring awakened. Every symbol illuminated.

Finn’s Diary began glowing. “No.” He held it shut.

Zeeva glanced at him, nodding in approval.

The fracture widened.

Then the two universes began slowing.

Bunsen’s jaw dropped. “It’s working!”

Finn grinned. “It is?!”

“Yes!”

Beaker danced. “MEE MEE MEE!”

Zeeva stared at the readings. “Don’t celebrate yet.”

Finn looked at her. “Why?”

She pointed.

The energy flowing into the First Fracture was changing. Blackness traveled backward along the connection—toward them.

Bunsen’s smile vanished. “Oh.”

Zeeva and Finn both shouted: “BUNSEN!”

“Sorry!”

The console shook violently. Finn grabbed the railing.

A voice filled the TARDIS—not through speakers…through reality. “ANCHOR.”

Finn went pale.

Zeeva raised her sonic. “Stay behind me.”

The hologram of the First Fracture expanded.

The Fracture Echo emerged—the complete one. Its white eyes found Finn immediately. “YOU RETURN.”

Finn stood his ground. “No.”

The Echo stopped.

Finn swallowed. “Not yet.”

Something changed in the creature’s face. Recognition.

Zeeva noticed.

03:18

Bunsen shouted, “We’re losing the counter-resonance!”

Zeeva looked back.

Earth-M and Earth-828-M were moving together again.

Finn looked at the Echo…then at the universes…then at the Diary.

He understood. “It needs me.”

Zeeva immediately turned. “No.”

“The fracture responds to me.”

“No.”

“You said the timelines converge on something I do!”

“Finn.”

“What if this is it?”

“No!”

Her voice cracked across the console room.

Finn froze.

Zeeva stared at him. Not the Tinkerer. Not the Time Lord.

A terrified woman who had suddenly found herself with a child she couldn’t bear to lose. “I am not feeding you to a prophecy.”

Finn’s expression softened. “I don’t think that’s what it wants.”

“How could you possibly know?”

“Because it keeps calling me ‘Anchor’.” He looked toward the Echo. “Not sacrifice.”

Zeeva said nothing.

“Anchor.”

Finn stepped forward.

The Diary glowed harder.

Zeeva grabbed his shoulder, prompting him to look up and tell her, “Trust me.”

Two words.

The exact two words Zeeva least wanted to hear from a ten-year-old approaching a cosmic fracture.

She closed her eyes briefly…then released him. “One step.”

Finn nodded. “One.”

He stepped toward the holographic field.

The Echo raised its hand. Finn raised his.

Five tiny foamy fingers spread toward five impossible ones.

They did not touch. But reality did.

Finn saw everything.

Earth-M.

Earth-828-M.

Earth-616.

Millions of universes.

The First Fracture.

Past.

Future.

Possibility.

Then—himself. Older. Standing exactly where he’d seen himself before.

But the older Finn wasn’t alone.

Zeeva stood beside him.

Older? No.

Different.

Another incarnation?

Finn couldn’t tell.

Then the vision disappeared, and the Echo spoke.

Not aloud. Inside him.

YOU ARE NOT THE ANCHOR BECAUSE YOU HOLD WORLDS STILL.

Finn gasped.

YOU ARE THE ANCHOR BECAUSE YOU CHOOSE WHICH WAY THEY MOVE.

Finn opened his eyes. “Zeeva!”

She rushed beside him. “What?”

“I know!”

“Know what?”

“The universes aren’t supposed to be pushed apart!”

Bunsen shouted from the console. “They’re thirty seconds from collision!”

Finn pointed toward the First Fracture. “They need somewhere else to go!”

Zeeva understood.

Not repel them. Redirect them. Use the First Fracture as a junction. A roundabout instead of a wall.

“Oh, you clever lil’ dude!”

“Can we do it?!”

Zeeva spun toward Bunsen. “Change the Baxter equations!”

“To what?”

“Don’t reverse the convergence!”

Bunsen stared. “Are you insane?!”

“Often!” She pointed toward the First Fracture. “Rotate it!”

Bunsen froze. Then understood. “Oh!”

Finn sighed. “Fine. That one was deserved.”

00:18

Bunsen recalculated.

Beaker adjusted the stabilizers.

Zeeva flew around the console.

Finn kept his hand toward the Echo. The creature mirrored him.

00:12

“Coordinates!” Zeeva shouted.

“Coming!”

00:08

“Bunsen!”

“I’M MATHEMATICALLY PANICKING!”

00:05

Beaker slammed a control. “MEEP!”

The hologram rotated.

Earth-M approached Earth-828-M.

Finn closed his eyes. “Please.”

00:03

Zeeva pulled the lever.

00:02

The First Fracture opened completely.

00:01

The universes touched.

White. Nothing else.

No sound. No TARDIS. No Zeeva. No Finn.

Just white.

Then—two glowing spheres emerged.

Earth-M.

Earth-828-M.

They approached and touched.

And, instead of colliding, they curved.

One passed above. One below.

Like dancers turning around one another.

Their dimensional paths separated.

Inside the TARDIS, everything exploded back into existence.

Finn landed on his backside.

Zeeva crashed against the console.

Bunsen disappeared beneath it again.

Beaker spun around three times before collapsing into a chair.

Silence.

Finn slowly raised his head. “Are we dead?”

Zeeva groaned. “No.”

“Are you sure?”

“No.”

Bunsen’s hand emerged. “I can confirm we are not dead.”

Finn smiled. “Cool.”

The hologram returned.

Earth-M. Stable.

Earth-828-M. Stable.

Separating.

Bunsen stared. “We did it.”

Beaker slowly stood. “Mee?”

“We did it!”

“MEEEEEE!”

Finn jumped up. “Yes!”

Zeeva laughed.

Finn ran into her, and she caught him. He hugged her hard as he cheered, “We saved them!”

Zeeva hugged him tighter. “Yes.”

“Both of them!”

“Yes.”

“I helped!”

Zeeva closed her eyes. “You did.”

Finn pulled back. “Does that mean I’m officially a superhero?”

Zeeva considered. “No.”

Finn’s face fell. “Aw.”

She smiled. “But you’re getting dangerously close.”

He beamed.

Then Bunsen stopped celebrating. “Zeeva.”

She knew that tone now. “What?”

“The First Fracture.”

The hologram enlarged.

It hadn’t closed.

It was wider. Much wider.

The ancient ring trembled. The Fracture Echo stood before it, but it wasn’t looking at Finn anymore—it was looking behind itself…into the fracture.

Zeeva’s smile vanished.

Something enormous moved within the darkness.

Not an Echo.

The thing the Echoes had been pieces of.

Finn stepped closer to Zeeva. “What is that?”

She slowly raised her sonic screwdriver. “I think...”

The darkness opened two vast white eyes.

Every Fracture Echo across the holographic multiverse stopped moving simultaneously.

Then they turned toward the First Fracture.

Like children hearing a parent’s voice.

Zeeva finished, “...we just woke it up.”

The Impossible Diary flew open. Finn didn’t touch it. A final page wrote itself. Black letters burned across the paper.

THE ANCHOR HAS CHOSEN.

Another line appeared.

THE DOOR IS OPEN.

Then—one final sentence.

THE ARCHITECT COMES.

Finn looked up at Zeeva.

“The Architect?”

Zeeva stared at the colossal shadow beyond the fracture.

For perhaps the first time in eight incarnations...Aznavorian the Tinkerer looked as though she wished she didn’t know the answer.

Her hand slowly found Finn’s. She held it tightly.

“Chapter Ten,” Finn whispered nervously.

Zeeva looked down at him. “What?”

Finn managed a tiny smile. “Feels like a ‘Chapter Ten’ problem.”

Despite everything, Zeeva laughed. Just once.

Then the TARDIS alarms began screaming.

And the First Fracture opened wide.