Chapter Four: Family Vacation

            In a past regeneration, Neas once visited an amusement park unlike any found in the multiverse. It was called “Jurassic Park,” and it showcased living, breathing dinosaurs as its main attraction.

            Located on the island of Isla Nublar, Jurassic Park was intended to be the next Disneyland; unfortunately, a deadly incident that occurred in 1993 brought about its cancellation, and the park never came to its complete fruition.

            Ten years later, one company dared to resurrect John Hammond’s dream.

            As a result, “Jurassic World” was born.

            Now, in his teenaged twentieth regeneration self-named “Bradlee,” Neas returned to Isla Nublar in 2015. It was the spot he picked for a family vacation with his companions, Steven Universe and the Crystal Gems.

            “This place is unbelievable,” a starry-eyed Steven exclaimed with genuine awe. “Real, live dinosaurs!”

            “They’re fake, Steven,” the logical Pearl was quick to debunk. “Any simpleton can see they’re mere animatronics. There is no way anyone – no matter what dimension they’re in – can replicate living dinosaurs.”

            “But these people actually have,” Bradlee told Pearl. “The science behind it all is pretty intriguing. Scientists extracted the dinosaurs’ DNA from blood cells in prehistoric mosquitoes that were trapped and preserved in amber. Since the DNA was so old, it had to be repaired. So, they used that from other species to fill in the gaps.”

            “Whoa,” Steven uttered in wonder. “That’s amazing.”

            “Welllll…not really.”

            A trench-coated Englishman in a dark brown suit with blue pinstripes butted into their conversation, drawing the eyes of Bradlee and his companions towards him. He munched on a bag of popcorn while discrediting Bradlee’s facts:

            “The DNA found in the amber would degrade over several million years, or at least be intertwined with insect DNA. By all purposes, this place shouldn’t even exist.”

            As he discovered in the time of living in this regeneration, Bradlee absolutely hated to be proven wrong. He considered it a challenge to his Time Lord intellect, and this nosy stranger of tall, slim posture delivered one to him.

            It didn’t help much to hear Pearl agree with the man either.

            “Precisely my point,” she said. “This place shouldn’t exist.”

            “Yes…thanks for clearing that up, sir,” Bradlee sarcastically said.

            “Sure, no problem,” the man returned, failing to detect Bradlee’s cynicism as he walked off, continuing to munch on his popcorn.

            After a while, Bradlee just couldn’t shake off this feeling.

            Not about being shown up by the man, but about the man himself.

            “I’ll be right back,” he told his companions.

            “Where are ya goin’, Brad?” Amethyst asked.

            “Just checking up on something. It’s been quite some time since I’ve been in this dimension. I just wanna see what all has changed.” He reached into his jeans pocket to retrieve a wad of dollar bills and coins. “Here, grab some lunch from that Dave & Buster’s on Main Street.”

            There was still confusion on their faces over his sudden exit.

            He would just have to explain it in more detail later when he caught up with them.

            The tall, trench-coated man was already a good distance ahead, and Bradlee had to catch up with him.

            Things turned suspicious as he followed the man into server maintenance.

            Bradlee discovered him fiddling with the park’s mainframe.

            Gripped in his hands was a device awfully similar to a sonic screwdriver.

            “Stop what you’re doing, right now,” Bradlee forcibly directed, using his sonic screwdriver in a threatening manner.

            The trench-coated man turned and saw him with his alien tool.

            His large, dark brown eyes sparked with immense interest.

            “That’s a trans-temporal sonic screwdriver,” he identified Bradlee’s weapon of choice. “It’s extremely rare!”

            Bradlee’s face crinkled quizzically. “How do you know what this is?”

            “Because I’ve kept such a sonic screwdriver as a backup aboard my T.A.R.D.I.S. for the longest time,” the man told him.

            It was then Bradlee’s sense of realization kicked in.

            The identity of this stranger now apparent to him.

            “Doctor?”

            The man’s countenance flared at Bradlee’s utterance of his name – the name only a select few would know him as.

            Noting the reaction, Bradlee’s paranoia ceased – replaced by delight.

            “It is you,” he cheered. “You’re here! You’re really here!”

            “Yes…I am,” the guarded Doctor said. “And who are you?”

            “It’s me – Neas!”

            This surprising revelation momentarily caught the Doctor off guard.

            Whatever regeneration of him this was, it was obvious to Bradlee that it had to before the old Scotsman he met and fought with in the Multiverse War against Davros and his Dalek Empire.

            That was evident from the huge, relieved smile, which manifested on the face of his mentor and greatest friend.

            “The Gladiator of Gallifrey,” he beamed. “You survive the war!”

            “Indeed, I have.”

            The Doctor was quick to change his expression back to skepticism, as he surmised, “Wait. Hang on. You’re the reason I’ve inexplicably found myself in an alternate universe – one that happens to have many Spielberg-esque properties! It’s been happening to me a lot lately, running the T.A.R.D.I.S. ragged and exhausting most of its energy.”

            His circumstance prompted Bradlee to recall the same happening to the Doctor’s future Scottish incarnation.

            With this knowledge, he insisted to his old friend, “You can piggyback your T.A.R.D.I.S. on my Type-Z. It has plenty of energy for yours to feed onto and send you back along the time vortex.”

            The Doctor was impressed from the calculated notion. “You’ve learned quite a few tricks since I last saw you.”

            Bradlee snickered. “You have no idea.”

            “Hey! What’re you two doing down here?!”

            A park security guard.

            Bradlee knew they should’ve paid better mind to their surroundings in their moment of jubilation. Craftily, he used his sonic screwdriver to malfunction one of the servers, offering himself and the Doctor the distraction they needed for escape.

            It was an act the Doctor seemed less than enthused over.

            “That might do more harm than good,” he warily noted.

            “Don’t worry,” Bradlee assured. “This park is predestined to go down in flames, just like the last one.”

            The two Time Lords ran.

            They appeared to be in the clear when they made a detour out of the building and into a jungle clearing. The Doctor used his sonic to lock the door shut behind him, keeping the guard busy for a little longer. “There,” he declared. “We should be home free now. My T.A.R.D.I.S. is somewhere on the property. We just need to—”

            Vicious snarling erupted behind the pair, disturbing the Doctor’s train of thought.

            He and Bradlee turned to see rapid movement in the shrubbery before a pack of four velociraptors emerged in the clearing and swarmed the Time Lords.

            Bradlee’s body numbed, staring into the reptilian eyes of one teal-colored raptor.

            “We were safer inside with the guard,” he fearfully muttered.

            Just when the raptors verged on pouncing upon the two Gallifreyans, another man stepped in between them and the carnivores.

            With unique hand signals and verbal commands, he tamed the pack of raptors.

            Right back in their cages they went, much to the relief of Bradlee and the Doctor.

            “Now that was amazing,” a highly impressed Doctor complimented the raptor-tamer. “You, sir, have my utmost tha—!”

            BAM!

            As he went to shake the tamer’s hand, the Doctor was knocked out cold.

            Bradlee saw the culprit to be a member of the InGen Security Division, using the butt of his taser rifle to render the Doctor unconscious. He himself was placed under arrest soon thereafter, handcuffed along with the Doctor.

            What a vacation this is turning out to be!

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            On the Main Street section of the park, Steven and the Gems just finished the lunch Bradlee treated them to at Dave & Buster’s when they started to wonder what became of their host.

            “Maybe he’s studyin’ more on the dinosaurs to ice down his bruised ego,” Amethyst teased. “That skinny guy in the trench coat totally kicked his butt with all that science-y talk.”

            “What do you think, Steven?” Garnet asked; she always respected whatever opinions he had on a situation like this.

            Steven considered for a moment. “Well…he did say he’d be right back. So why don’t we give him a little more time?”

            “What else is there to do in this ‘Dave & Buster’s’?” Pearl queried.

            “They have plenty of games,” Steven said. “I’ll go get us some tokens.”

            Jumping away from their booth, he merrily rushed to the nearest token dispenser.

            “Here. Have some on me.”

            Before Steven could feed a dollar into the dispenser, he was given a cupful of tokens by a nice lady dressed in plum-colored garb. By its Victorian style, which seemed out of place for a tourist, she reminded Steven very much of Mary Poppins.

            “Thank you, Miss,” he told her.

            “My pleasure,” she spoke in a Scottish brogue. “And it’s ‘Missy,’ if you please.”

Chapter Three: Gallifreyan Justice

            The golden Seal of Rassilon embedded into the crimson armor of the Gallifreyan soldiers became indecipherable in Al-Lee’s blurred, blood-drenched vision. Her capture in the Citadel resulted in a punishment of torture at the hands of a female soldier whose name she learned to be “Tetrana.” She was nearly equaled to Al-Lee’s five-foot-nine height, possibly slightly taller. Her armor was designed to suit her busty, burly frame and to intimidate anyone who dared challenge her.

            Alongside her more timid comrade, Marcis, she subjected Al-Lee to physical abuse for an hour and a half. Her arms suspended inside the dark chamber, Al-Lee had no other choice but to be Tetrana’s punching bag – battering, bruising, and blooding the defenseless woman.

            Eventually, Tetrana grew exhausted.

            “You want to get a few shots in?” She asked Marcis.

            The entire time he watched on shamefully, not so much as obliging to his fellow soldier’s invitation. “Why are we doing this to her? The General never sanctioned this!”

            “It was her dirt-people that brought the deaths of several lives in the Time War,” Tetrana spoke with a vindictive tongue. “They could’ve helped us defeat the Daleks, but they instead hid like cowards!”

            “We…did…fight back…,” Al-Lee huffed, spitting blood between breaths. “We lost lives…too…My son…My little boy…My brave husband…he fought for us…and I fought with him…We were the only ones who did fight back…but the Daleks overpowered us.”

            Her defending remarks earned her another series of excruciating lefts and rights from Tetrana. “Your husband and son can burn for all I care,” the Gallifreyan soldier cursed. “The Time Lords lost much more than you people!”

            The relentlessness continued with more intensity and ferocity than before.

            Marcis couldn’t bear to observe it any longer; he turned his head in disgust.

            In doing so, he discovered there to have been another observer of the horrendous scene: the young girl they found with the outsider – the one identified to be the teenage counterpart of the Gladiator’s original incarnation.

            Her eyes flooded with tears of repugnance, and her mouth gaped open.

            “What’re you doing to her?!” She screamed.

            Tetrana stopped for a mere second to look back at the young woman, who supposedly got lost finding her way around the Citadel, and then returned to her onslaught on Al-Lee.

            Marcis wanted desperately to speak up that moment; explain to the young girl that it was all a misunderstanding.

            She ran off before he could have the chance, undoubtedly going to call for help.

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            “This situation only proves it’s more crucial now than ever to find the Doctor and enlist in his help!”

            “Oh, suuuuure! Make it that much easier to lure him into a trap!”

            With Jane at his side, Neas bickered back and forth with the General for what felt like hours since the discovery of Zoe Curtsinger in the Citadel. The presence of the teenaged version of his original incarnation, “Candace,” out of his personal timeline quickly turned into the topic of interest.

            But the General still found a way of twisting it back to their first debate.

            “You are extremely pigheaded in this male regeneration, Gladiator,” the General barked. “Your ego makes you unable to accept what’s happening!”

            “Can I suggest something?” Jane stepped in.

            “What is this human even doing here?!” The General roared louder over Neas’s tattooed companion. “Guards! Remove this woman from the council room immediately!”

            “My friend has just as much right to be here as I do,” Neas preserved.

            “Funny,” the General said. “The last time we entrusted a Time Lord’s welcome of an Earth inhabitant, I ended up being shot by the Doctor!”

            Ugh, this again, Neas thought in exasperation.

            Rapid approaching footsteps reverberating through the outside hall drew attention towards the doorway, just as Zoe manifested, out of breath and tears streaming from her eyes. “They’re torturing my friend,” she cried.

            “Whoa, whoa, slow down,” Jane instructed her. “Who’s torturing who?”

            “Two people – a man and a woman,” Zoe informed. “They’re beating the life out of her, and she can’t fight back!”

            Enraged, Neas ordered his past self, “Show us!”

            Zoe did as he requested, leading him, Jane, the General, and a small group of soldiers to the torture chamber where they caught the soldiers in question right in the act. It was unfortunate for the General to have recognized the one that was caught literally red-handed, the prisoner’s blood caked all over her fists.

            “Lieutenant Tetrana,” she thundered. “What in the name of Rassilon do you think you’re doing?!”

            While the General disciplined her lieutenant, Neas rushed to the aid of the outsider, whose name he learned earlier to be “Al-Lee.” She wheezed with every breath she took, a clear sign that her nose had been broken. Thankfully, she still had all her teeth, even if some were a little loose in her mouth.

            The sight of this bloodied, battered, and defenseless woman made him want to rip off Tetrana’s arms and legs and beat the General with them. “Is this the new idea for Gallifreyan justice?” he sneered to her.

            “These kinds of acts were abolished when the Time War ended and Rassilon was banished from the planet,” the General appealed.

            “Then you need to a tighter grip on your soldiers, starting with this one,” Neas bellowed, gesturing directly to Tetrana.

            As Jane stood and watched this discomforting tableau, old painful memories surged across her mind, not unlike the times when her previous life as Remi Kruger randomly flashed. These memories were more recent. They were of her torture at the hands of the C.I.A.

            The days she spent repeatedly water-boarded, electrocuted, and beaten more ruthlessly than Al-Lee at a black site in Oregon – every single day for three straight months.

            Her recollection of it all made her snap right there and then.

            Moving at agility and speed quicker than even a Time Lord’s sense of reaction, she attacked Tetrana, Marcis, and the other Time Lord soldiers that put up resistance.

            “Restrain her!” The General commanded in panic.

            With the other Time Lords distracted, Neas seized the advantage he had in getting himself, Al-Lee, Zoe, and Jane off Gallifrey. In the confusion, he set Al-Lee free and darted out of the room with the three women, straight back to his T.A.R.D.I.S.

            Regrettably, the General was one step ahead.

            She cornered them at the Type-Z model, holding them at gunpoint.

            It did nothing to deter Neas’s resolve. “I’m going to find my father and return Zoe to her proper place in time, one way or another,” he declared.

            “And if it involves going to the Doctor for help, what will you do then?”

            “That’s up to me to determine.”

            Without hesitation or pause, he entered his T.A.R.D.I.S. with Al-Lee, Zoe, and Jane. The General boldly refused to fire her gun, instead permitting the Gladiator and his companions to depart Gallifrey and set off on their new quest.

Chapter Two: The Professor

Washington, D.C. – 1996

            It was the first day of school for Alexis Redding and her boyfriend of four months, Jefferson “Jeff” Reed. For Alexis, it was in Georgetown University, where she worked as a college professor. For Jeff, it was at the high school where he worked as a music teacher.

            Alexis thought herself blessed to be in a relationship with such a wonderful guy like Jeff, particularly with this day being her first in teaching African American History. “What if it’s to a whole class of African American kids?” she nervously pondered aloud.

            “There are many white professors that teach A.A. History, Alex.”

            She loved the way he abbreviated her first name like that. No one, to the best of her knowledge, ever called her “Alex” ‘til she met Jeff.

            “You’ll be just fine,” he assured her, sealing it with a kiss.

            After breakfast, Jeff and Alexis left their apartment for work.

            Alexis took the bus to Georgetown; on the way, she switched on her Walkman and listened to her favorite morning tune: Michael Jackson’s “Human Nature.” Her arrival on campus was carefully observed from afar, unbeknownst to her, by a young blonde in a black leather jacket and a brown Great Dane.

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            The A.A. History class started with a number of students much smaller than Alexis anticipated.

            Among them were Craig Jones and his father, Willie (who was merely there to ensure his son gets an education and a job), Fred Jones (no relation to either Craig or Willie), Daphne Blake, Norville “Shaggy” Rogers, Velma Dinkley, and a hooded student sitting in the far corner of the classroom.

            “Is this everybody?” Alexis asked.

            Taking role, she saw one name on the roster that hadn’t answered: Gen Curtsinger.

            Why does that last name sound so familiar to me?

            Gen did arrive to class, albeit a few minutes late.

            She seemed like a bit of a rebellious Gen-Xer to Alexis – mid-twenties blonde in a black leather jacket.

            As weird as it was for Alexis to admit, she was relieved that – out of the seven students in her class – only one of them was African American; though she mentally countered this by noting how it was probably not something to be relieved about.

            “Alright,” she began. “Now that we’re all here, let’s introduce ourselves. My name is Professor Alexis Redding.” She wrote it on the blackboard for them to see, dusting the chalk off her hands afterward. “I’ve taught here in Georgetown for a year now, but this is my first year in teaching African American History.”

            “How can a white woman teach about the history of black people?!” Craig spoke out of turn, much to the displeasure of his father.

            “Shut yo butt up, boy,” Willie scolded. “You should be focused on gettin’ your ‘A’ before I whip your ‘B’.”

            Craig never felt more embarrassed; it didn’t help much to hear a few other students snickering at the scene he and mostly his father made. “Man, do you really need to be in here with me?” he begrudgingly asked him.

            “It’s O.K., Craig,” Alexis said. “Your question is justifiable. But you’ll be surprised just how much I can teach you. For instance, did you know that the Tuskegee Airmen who fought in World War II underwent 1,578 combat missions? 1,267 for the Twelfth Air Force and 311for the Fifteenth Air Force.”

            Willie giggled with gratification. “Whew! Mac-a-roni! I’m gettin’ my money’s worth with this white woman!”

            Alexis wasn’t sure how she got on showing off to her new pupils, but she redirected the discussion back on topic by pointing to one of her flashier students, starting with the one wearing the ascot: “Wanna introduce yourself, Mister…?”

            “Fred Jones,” he stood up and said. “My gang and I enrolled together.”

            “Your ‘gang’?” Alexis questioned, not too big on the term.

            “I mean, my friends,” Fred elaborated, gesturing to the other three flashy students. “Daphne, Velma, and Shaggy. We’ve been friends for years. And as important as it is for us to get our education, we’re also in process of investigating an even more important mystery.”

            Alexis was a little intrigued by that last part. “Well…I certainly hope you solve it. Thanks for sharing, Mister Jones. Glad to have you and your friends here with us.”

            “See there?” Willie whispered to his son. “Even in college, white folks got way too much time on their hands.”

            “Miss Curtsinger?” Alexis centered on Gen. “Mind telling us a bit about yourself to the class?”

            Gen stood and gave a very brief, cryptic response: “I’m here for a friend.”

            “You mean that you’re filling in for someone?” Alexis presumed.

            “I guess you can say that,” Gen said before sitting back down in her desk.

            “O…kay?” Alexis reacted to the short, awkward exchange, opting not to dwell so much on Gen’s secrecy. Instead, she moved on to the last student: the hooded gentleman in the corner of the room. “Looks like we saved the best for last. Tell us a bit about yourself, sir.”

            “Skip me,” he requested in a gruff voice.

            “Aw, c’mon,” Alexis urged. “Just a lil’ something – doesn’t have to be big.”

            At her insistence, the man stood and removed his hood, exposing his shaven scalp and rugged beard. “My name’s Everett,” he frigidly said. “And I’m here to kill ya, Professor.”

            Before Alexis could have a moment to reflect on what the man just told her, she watched him pull out an odd-looking handgun from his hoodie and fire what she hardly believed to be a laser that nearly killed her. She ducked, leaving the laser to strike the blackboard behind her, scorching it so much that her name was no longer there.

            The next moments passed like a blur to her.

            First, Gen sprang to her defense, attacking the assassin with a bō staff that Alexis didn’t even see her walk in with.

            While the two fought like ninjas, Fred and his friends guided Alexis, as well as Craig and Willie, out of the room and building altogether. As soon as they were outside, they heard a crash, turning in time to see Everett thrown out the fifth story window, his body smacking onto the concrete with a sickening thud.

            There was no possible way he could have survived.

            Gen rushed out soon thereafter, lightly bruised but otherwise unscathed.

            “What is going on?!” a reasonably shaken Alexis exclaimed. “Who are you?”

            “I’m you from the past,” Gen told her, acting more enigmatic than before.

            Chattering from where Everett landed to his death brought Alexis’s attention to a crowd of concerned people gathered around there. “You killed that man,” she reproached Gen, her savior.

            “He would’ve killed you, if I hadn’t,” Gen deflected. “Now let’s get out of here. We need to get back to my T.A.R.D.I.S.”

            “Your what?!” Alexis cringed.

            “Now hold on one minute,” a heavily reluctant Willie interjected. “I got my boy into this school to get his education and a J-O-B! And we ain’t goin’ anywhere with you crazy white folks ‘til he does!”

            “Pops,” Craig griped. “We just got our butts nearly blown off!”

            “I don’t give-a…!”

            Willie ceased his protesting, once he felt Gen’s bō staff rested on his shoulder, with its owner issuing a threat that sent chills down his spine: “Come with us or I’ll shatter every bone in your body with this thing.”

            It didn’t take long for Willie to rethink his choice.

            “Well, let’s go,” he conceded. “I ain’t gonna argue with a crazy white lady.”

            And so, Gen led the class away from the scene.

            Had they remained there for a while longer, they would have witnessed the impossible recovery of Everett.

            It began with a golden glow of energy that shrouded his broken, inert body.

            In seconds, the man was healed to the point of consciousness, getting back on his feet and walking off, much to the surprise of the crowd around him.

            Of course, it was no more off-putting than the eerie glow in his eyes.