Chapter Six: Chanley

            “Gizzzzzzzzmmmmmoooooooooo!!!”

            “Gizmo, where are you?”

            “Come out, come out, wherever you are!”

            A month into their travels aboard Neas’s Type-Z T.A.R.D.I.S., Al-Lee and Zoe grew to feel more at home. Al-Lee had fully recovered from the injuries she sustained in her torture on Gallifrey and also taken up wearing Earth-based attire.

            Things mellowed out quite well since their escape.

            Too well for Zoe and Al-Lee’s taste. Boredom began to sink in for the two girls.

            For that, they needed something to pass the time until Neas found a new destination; so they settled on a game of hide-and-seek with Gizmo. Turned out the little Mogwai was exceptionally good at hiding, even in an endless ship like the T.A.R.D.I.S.

            Several minutes passed before they found him in the kitchen, hiding in the cupboards. “Bright light, bright light,” he cried when Al-Lee opened the cupboard, prompting Zoe to recall one of Neas’s provisions regarding to caring for a Mogwai: do not expose it to any bright lights that can and will kill it.

            Right away, she dimmed the kitchen lights. “Sorry, lil’ fella,” she told Gizmo.

            Al-Lee took him out of the cupboard, cradling him in her warm, strapping arms. She was just as relieved as Zoe to see that he wasn’t wounded from the lights.

            “Glad he’s alright,” Zoe said. “Hate to see anything happen to such a tiny, sweet thing.” She stroked Gizmo’s small furry head with her left index finger, which nearly diminished it. “Man, this place – this T.A.R.D.I.S. – has been so much fun. It’s almost as impressive as the Doctor’s.” The smile on her face dropped into a frown, as she lamented, “Wonder if I’ll ever see him again.”

            “What did Neas say?” Al-Lee asked.

            Aggravated, Zoe rolled her eyes. “He said that I could when he figures out how to get me back in my own timeline.”

            “Still finding it hard to believe he’s your future self?”

            “Not any harder than finding out I’m gonna be a Time Lord like the Doctor! And the worst part is that Neas will hardly tell me anything else! It’s so unfair!” It then dawned on Zoe that she had another resident of Gallifrey right in her presence. “Wait. You’re part of my future, too! Maybe you can tell me more about what I’ll one day be!”

            Al-Lee hesitated. “I have heard many stories, growing up. But it’s not my place to tell you your own destiny. That responsibility belongs to Neas. I’m sorry.”

            “But he’s so guarded…and serious, too…I mean, like, all the time,” Zoe groaned. “And that really makes me worry about what happens in my future that turns me into such a grim kind of person like him.”

            “Zoe, his father – your father – was abducted on Gallifrey,” Al-Lee recalled. “Something like that takes away any moment of solace. He’s going to do whatever he can to bring her back. But first he has to figure out who it was that took her.”

            “It was me.”

            A voice near them spoke.

            They spun around towards the doorway to see a fancy-dressed brunette standing outside in the corridor. Neither Zoe nor Al-Lee had seen this woman around the T.A.R.D.I.S. before, which encouraged Zoe to ask, “Who are you?”

            “I’m Chanley…but Neas knows me better as his twin: Christopher. And I know where they’ve taken Aznavorian, our father.”

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            Zoe and Al-Lee brought Chanley to the console room where Neas and Jane were.

            Needless to say, Neas was not all too pleased once he heard who Chanley was and why she was aboard his T.A.R.D.I.S. (through means he couldn’t begin to make sense of). “The last time I saw you, or any version of you, you left me for dead inside a death arena,” he aggressively scolded her.

            “I know, and there’s no way to tell you how sorry I am,” Chanley said. “I was reckless and vengeful at the time. But I’ve changed since then. This is my third regeneration, and you have all the reason to hate me for what my first one has done to you and Daddy. But I need you to trust this version of me for the sake of our father.”

            “So you actually know where Lauren is?” Al-Lee inquired.

            Chanley sadly nodded. “By now, she’s not Lauren anymore – she’s regenerated.”

            Neas flared at this unsettling news; enraged, he threateningly advanced on Chanley. “What did you do to him?!” he roared.

            Chanley quivered in fear. The hate in his eyes boarded on murder.

            Jane saw it as well and stood in between them, holding Neas back.

            “Calm down,” she told him. “This isn’t the one you should be upset with. Let’s just hear her out.”

            Neas heeded Jane’s words and permitted Chanley to continue:

            “LeMarier’s given Daddy the Regen-8 formula. By now, she’s already experienced ‘Phase One’ – simulated regeneration. It’s not meant to be the real thing, but her body doesn’t know that…which is what leads her into ‘Phase Two’: molecular instability. At that phase, she has no other choice but to regenerate to stabilize her molecules, but it won’t last long.”

            Chanley’s info sounded credible, yet there was still the fact lingering in the recesses of Neas’s mind that this woman was an incarnation of his twisted twin. “How can I trust anything you say?” he asked. “You could be leading us into another one of your death traps.”

            Having anticipated his distrust, Chanley retrieved a small, round object from her jeans pocket. It was etched with instructional Gallifreyan hieroglyphics on its shiny gold casing. Neas knew it to be a Time Lord data orb, not unlike the one his previous incarnation carried around in her vacant eye socket.

            There was only one other Time Lord he knew of that carried around data orbs.

            When Chanley inserted it into the nearest console port, the T.A.R.D.I.S. picked up on it, and the view screen automatically flickered on.

            The face of a middle-aged woman with Egyptian features materialized onscreen.

            Behind her was the T.A.R.D.I.S. console room of Aznavorian the Tinkerer’s Type-X model.

            “Hey there, sweetheart,” Neas presumed her to be addressing him. “You don’t know this face yet, because you haven’t properly met it…but it’s me…your Pop. I go by ‘Rania’ in this regeneration. But that’s beside the point of this message I had Chanley deliver, in case you didn’t believe her. I’ve traveled with her, and I’ve witnessed the redemption close at hand between her previous regeneration and this one. This woman in front of you has the caring hearts I’ve always known your brother to have, and she will do anything to protect us. Let her help you, so that you both can help me.”

            The message ended on a freeze frame of Rania’s hopeful, smiling face.

            Her testimony of Chanley was all he needed to go on; if he couldn’t trust his own father, who else could he trust?

            “Alright,” he conceded. “Tell us exactly where Pop is.”

            “It’s a hidden island occupied by women known as Themyscira,” Chanley said.

            “Then that’s our next destination.”

            As he proceeded with operating the T.A.R.D.I.S. controls, Chanley was quick to forewarn him, “If we’re going there, we’re gonna need help… a lot of help.”