Part One
Neas just defeated Davros and his Dalek armada with an
infinite number of his past and future regenerations that busted across space
and time. It was a victory he only partially remembered, due to the crossovers
within his own timeline. Nonetheless, it was the victory he remembered.
So why couldn’t he catch one measly gremlin?
It was just him and Lauren – the second regeneration of
his father, Steven Curtsinger (a.k.a. “The Tinkerer”) – in the T.A.R.D.I.S.,
hunting Stripe through the endless Gallifreyan ship.
“He could be anywhere,”
Lauren said, holding their Mogwai companion, Gizmo, close to her bosom. “It’s
already taken us hours to find him.”
“We just have to focus on the dimmest, darkest areas,”
Neas advised, tightening his grip on the large fly net he carried. “That’s
where we’ll find him.”
Lauren did notice how much dimmer it seemed the further
they went.
Perhaps he’s onto
something, she thought.
The atmosphere was so still and tense that they nearly
jumped out of their skins at the sudden moment the cloister bell sounded.
“Is that because of Stripe?” Lauren asked.
Neas listened closely to the bell’s register. “No. That’s
gotta be something outside the
T.A.R.D.I.S.”
They both rushed back to the console room, which took
mere minutes with the shortcuts Neas led them through. As soon as they arrived,
he checked into the console computer.
“Something’s disrupted our navigation system,” he
notified. “We’ll have to make an emergency landing.”
With the pull of a lever, he brought his T.A.R.D.I.S. out
of the dimensional corridor. It materialized on a snowy mountain range. Seeing
it from the console room view-screen, Lauren knew it best to bundle up, taking
a turquoise hoodie out of the wardrobe room and keeping Gizmo nestled in one of
the front pockets.
“According to the computer, we’re on Earth of 2025,” Neas
said while stepping outside with Lauren. “And, by the looks, we’re somewhere in
Alaska.”
Neas kept his gaze towards the mountains, whereas
Lauren’s eyes darted about the range. Her body suddenly turned rigid at one
display horrifying enough to make her gasp.
Neas turned her direction and immediately saw what she
did…
… the wreckage of
a gigantic humanoid mecha…
…and the remains of a long-deceased colossal monster.
“Um…whoa,” Neas fearfully muttered. “We’d better get out
of here.”
“I agree with ya,” Lauren conceded.
They rushed back inside the Type-Z and dematerialized
from the Alaskan range.
No less than a second later, it rematerialized – not in
another dimension or another time, but in the same one, within the same radius.
“We’re still here!” Lauren alarmingly exclaimed.
“We’ve been grounded,” Neas said. “The T.A.R.D.I.S. can
only materialize in the boundaries of this realm. All we can do is teleport
from one spot to another.”
Lauren frowned. “Some force inside of this world is
interfering with the interdimensional energy we need to get out.”
“Well, the only way to find out is to investigate.”
“Which means we’ll have to go back out in all that cold
and crazy.”
Lauren was already shivering before she and Neas stepped
back out into their new surroundings. Not far from them was a massive manmade
wall, currently under construction.
“How much you wanna bet they’re building that to keep those giant monsters out?”
Neas wagered.
Lauren scoffed. “From what we saw back on that range, it
needs to be bigger.”
A line of construction workers passed by, giving the two
Time Lords the idea of blending in, donning the available jackets, goggles, and
helmets. They followed the men inside the site.
“This place is a dump,” Neas disgustedly observed.
“You expected better from a construction environment?” Lauren said.
The Time Lords noticed the workers gathered by a
suspended television set, watching the news report of an epic battle that took
place in Sydney, Australia between another giant monster and robot – not unlike
the two found in the range.
The behemoth was described in the report as a “Kaiju,”
which – if Neas’s Japanese was correct – translated as “Strange Beast.”
This one was placed in its own category: number four.
“It’s like something out a monster movie – only more real,” Lauren said of the recorded
footage on the report.
It tore through the wall bordering Sydney, once believed
to be unbreakable, in less than an hour, much to the anger of the Alaskan
workers. “Why we even building this thing,” one furiously asked.
The giant robot, a two-pilot mechanical marvel called a
“Jaeger,” was the only thing capable enough to take the Kaiju down with an
assortment of missiles and titanium muscle.
“Man, would I love to meet the fella that built those
things,” Lauren awed.
The familiar sound of a chopper landing turned heads to
the outside.
Sure enough, one landed just near the entrance to the
site.
A man of African descent in a long black coat
disembarked, flanked by armed soldiers. He carried a wave of authority that did
not go unnoticed by Lauren. “That guy looks stricter than I ever did in my last
body,” she said.
One of the workers stepped out into the snowy, freezing
atmosphere to meet up with the man. Together, they walked elsewhere within the
construction site to have a private conversation.
At least, it would
have been, if two undercover Time Lords hadn’t decided to eavesdrop. From what
they could hear, the worker’s name was “Raleigh” and the authoritative black Englishman
was “Marshal Stacker Pentecost.” The initial purpose of his visit was to invite
Raleigh back into the “Jaeger Program.” Unfortunately, to Pentecost’s dismay
and fury, Raleigh refused for reasons unknown to Pentecost or the two
eavesdropping Time Lords.
He then returned to his work, leaving the disappointed
Pentecost standing alone.
Until Neas stepped forward.
“He may not be
interested, but we are,” Neas told
Pentecost.
Lauren’s crystal blue eyes widened in panic. What is he doing?!
The marshal looked to him, scowling. “And who might you
be?”
“A couple of people willing to take part in your Jaeger
Program,” Neas said. “I heard you say something to that guy back there about
the end of the world? Well, I certainly wouldn’t want to just stand by and
watch it happen.”
Pentecost maintained his questioning scowl on Neas. “Are
you familiar with Jaegers, Mister…?”
“Neas,” he remarked. “And, yes, we are.”
Lauren palmed her face in frustration. Whatever
intentions Neas had – whatever plan this was, she wished he would’ve run it by
her before opening his mouth.
Pentecost looked at them in long and hard silence, and
then he approvingly nodded. “Very well. Follow me, and I’ll have you both
transported to Hong Kong in the chopper waiting outside.”
“Actually,” Neas quickly said, “we have our own way of
getting there.”
Again, Pentecost nodded but in a more strict demeanor.
“Don’t keep me waiting.”
As the marshal left the premises, so had the two Time
Lords, who argued back and forth on the way out while shedding their worker
disguises.
Unbeknownst to them, however, Raleigh had done a bit of
eavesdropping himself, hiding out of sight behind a girder once he heard Neas
address Pentecost. He followed him and Lauren out of the site and to a tall,
rectangular black solid he had never seen around the property.
“We can’t just jump into other world problems, Neas,”
Lauren scolded her son. “What were you thinking telling that man we’d be
interested in his program? We know nothing
about these ‘Jaegers’ as they call them!”
“Pop, you wanna find out why we can’t leave this
dimension or not?”
Hearing them bicker from a distance, Raleigh watched as
they walked into the rectangular
solid through a set of doors that materialized once Neas placed the palm of his
hand against the marbled structure.
Raleigh knew it was impossible for any space to exist
inside the flat construct, but somehow there was a much larger area housed
inside.
Curiously, he stepped in before the doors could close.
It had been years since Raleigh been inside the cockpit
of a Jaeger. What he saw inside the solid was far more alien in design to one.
“Whoa.”
He failed to keep himself quiet in his awe, alerting his
presence to the Time Lords.
“Oh, now this is just wonderful,”
Lauren groaned in witty exasperation.
“Yes, it is,” said a surprisingly welcoming Neas, who
went straight to Raleigh and shook his hand. “So glad you’re here. You’re just
the guy who can help us on Jaeger technology.”
Raleigh gestured around him. “You’re not telling me this is some kind of new Jaeger, are you?”
“It’s called a T.A.R.D.I.S.,” an aggravated Lauren told
him.
“What’s a T.A.R.D.I.S.?” Raleigh puzzlingly questioned.
“Something you shouldn’t be in,” Lauren snapped. “And yet
here you are!”
“We need him, Pop,” Neas said. “He’s the only one who can
get us further into Pentecost’s program.”
“Wait, no,” Raleigh refused. “I meant what I said to him.
I’m not going back in.”
“Don’t sweat about it,” Neas assured. “You’ll work in the
shadows – stay hidden right here in the T.A.R.D.I.S. while keeping in touch
with us through radio communication.”
Lauren disapprovingly shook her
head. “This is the most horrible idea.”
-------------------
The small crew of an equally small fishing boat just
netted their greatest catch, ready to be brought back to shore.
Then came an unexpected disturbance in the waves.
They crashed all around the boat, knocking some of the
crew off their feet.
A few questioned the circumstance, feeling no wind or
seeing any storm of any kind to unsettle the waters.
That was when they saw it.
A three hundred-and-fifty-four-foot amphibious reptile
with an erect standing posture, scaly skin, an anthropomorphic torso with
muscular arms, spikes on its back and tail, and a furrowed brow.
It emerged from the sea, unleashing a deafening
disyllabic roar that terrorized the unsuspected fishermen.
They were thankful it had paid no mind to them as it
headed for Hong Kong.
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