Chapter Ten: The Meteor Man

            Waiting for Jefferson Reed to wake out of his coma was as tedious as it was unnecessary in Gen’s eyes. She stood out in the hallway and watched Alexis sit at his bedside with persevering anticipation for several hours. All of this because of romantic feelings she built for the high school music teacher, while under the influence of the chameleon arch. It was a risky procedure for a Time Lord, mainly for situations like this.

            The monotony of it all eventually wore on Gen, prompting her to go to the nearest vending machine reserved for soft drinks. Not having the proper change for purchase, she furtively used her sonic screwdriver to hack into the machine and force it to dispose a can of Dr. Pepper, her favorite drink.

            A sense of peace in the form of a carbonated beverage flowed down her.

            Aw, man! That definitely hit the spot!

            Her peace was soon disrupted just as she heard a child crying from a short distance. She turned to see a doctor wheel up a little African American boy in a wheelchair. The boy appeared to be only six years old with a small afro and light brown skin. His condition was notable from the missing right leg he wept over.

            The doctor, a scruffy Caucasian male in his early forties, abandoned any attempt to ease the child’s grief; instead, he just parked the boy a couple of feet from where Gen stood and went for the soda machine.

            Gen tried not to stare at the boy; the last thing she wanted was to get involved.

            She wasn’t supposed to have been at that hospital anyway.

            She and the others were supposed to be halfway across the multiverse, protecting Alexis and getting away from Everett.

            The boy’s wailing got louder across the hall.

            Other medical personnel crossed by, paying him no mind any more than Gen bothered to; quite an unsettling sight for her to witness in a hospital of all places.

            “This kid, I tell ya,” she heard the boy’s doctor mumble.

            “Was it an accident?” she asked, deciding there and then to get involved.

            “Worst: diabetes,” the doctor flaccidly diagnosed.

            Gen’s hearts sank. “Poor little fella.”

            “Really? Him?” the doctor scoffed, his patronizing tone not at all amusing to Gen. “How ‘bout ‘Poor us’? Every single day, having these people waltz right in and begging for our help.”

            Gen glared over his words, particularly his usage of the phrase “these people.”

            “And what exactly are you implying?” she questioned his rant.

            “What am I implying? I’ll tell ya. Kid comes in, complaining about pain in his leg, and it turns out his folks have let him on a diet of candy and soul food. I tell ya, if it isn’t the bullets that are killing these people, it’s the chitlins and hog maws!”

            Gen gingerly bit her tongue; never had she heard such a disgustingly bigoted perspective.

            It boiled her blood the entire time this doctor was around her.

            She wanted to punch the man or rip his head clear off his shoulders.

            Both scenarios played out in her head, with the latter only resulting in her immediate arrest for manslaughter, prolonging their time in that dimension and giving Everett a greater chance at killing them.

            This was one quarrel she couldn’t resolve with violence.

            Then again, a perfect opportunity in sensible retaliation presented itself when she noticed the narrow-minded doctor struggling to get a soda out of the vending machine.

            Just as she did before, she manipulated the machine with her sonic screwdriver.

            Only this time, she magnified the speed in which the soda can was dislodged, shooting out like a bullet and striking the doctor in his groin. With his pride and his manhood bruised, he stumbled away.

            Gen watched him, quietly snickering.

            “Are you an angel?” she heard the boy in the wheelchair ask her.

            She turned to him, seeing that he had ceased in his weeping long enough to notice her; his little face washed no longer by tears but with awe and wonder of the beautiful, angelic blonde in blue jeans and a leather jacket.

            A touched smile formed on her face as she went to him, kneeling beside his wheelchair to be at eye level with him.

            “I guess you can say that I am,” she told him. “What’s your name, sweetie?”

            “Colin,” he answered. His eyes went back to his amputated leg, once again lamenting over it. “I’m not gonna be able to play football no more.”

            Gen pitied his situation more than before.

            Unable to leave the child in his unfortunate dilemma, she did something that went entirely against her code as a wanderer among the infinite dimensions. Out of her right jacket pocket, she took a small red capsule. To the common observer, it could be perceived as a pill or a piece of candy. Gen dropped it into her can of Dr. Pepper, letting it dissolve into the carbonated liquid.

            She offered the drink to Colin, but he was reluctant to accept it.

            “I’m not allowed to have sugar,” he said.

            “It’s okay. It’s sugar-free.”

            “There ain’t no such thing.”

            “There is such a thing. Try it.”

            He finally did after some hesitation, surprised by the unique taste that was indeed “sugar-free.” “It tastes good,” he delighted. “Thank you.”

            “Feeling much better now?”

            He happily nodded his head.

            “Good. You take care, lil’ fella.” She blessed him with a kiss to his forehead, leaving his side.

            In her departure, she bumped into Willie Jones, who had been standing near and observing the scene between Gen and Colin the entire time. “I knew it,” he smugly relished. “I knew I was right.”

            Gen raised a perplexed eyebrow. “Right about what?”

            “I been tellin’ my son how you got that blackness in ya, which is how you get to be one after your regenerosity.”

            “You mean ‘regeneration’?”

            “Whatever it’s called, you got it in ya. ‘Cause what you did there for that little boy was just the somethin’ a black man would do.”

            Gen giggled. Willie had been reveling on this topic ever since they saw the footage of Gen’s past and future incarnations, including Gen’s African American male successor, on the data orb.

            “Mister Jones, I didn’t help that child because of his skin color,” Gen clarified. “I did it because it was the right thing to do.” She then added with a hint of disdain, “…that and his doctor was a total jerk!”

            “Well, in spite of all that, I’m gonna get you a head start on your future in blackhood.”

            Gen cringed; she didn’t like the sound of what he was implying.

            But her attitude livened a little when she saw him hold up a plate of barbecue ribs that he could have only gotten from the conservatory downstairs. They looked as sweet and succulent as they smelled. Her stomach growled, something that it hadn’t done often, considering how rarely she felt the need to eat.

            The growling didn’t go unnoticed by Willie.

            “Think I just awakened the brotha in you,” he said. “And that’s not all I got.”

            In his other hand was a Walkman that belonged to Alexis. He borrowed it from her for the sole purpose of putting it on Gen and having her listen to the soulful tune of Al Green’s “Love and Happiness.” Her hips swayed to the rhythm while she took a bite of Willie’s barbecue ribs, her taste buds sparking from the sensation.

            The whole thing was unusual albeit entertaining to Gen, who gave Willie his props on awakening her “inner brotha,” even though that wasn’t exactly how regeneration worked.

            Their entertainment was soon interrupted by Alexis.

            Gen saw her frantically shouting something that she couldn’t necessarily hear over the music. She took off the earphones to hear her breathlessly shouting, “He’s awake! Jeff’s awake!”

            This was the news Gen waited to hear. Now that Alexis had her assurance of her boyfriend’s complete recovery, they could leave this dimension before Everett caught up on their trail. Unfortunately, Jeff’s rapid recovery became something of a subject of interest for the medical team behind his treatment, as well as the rest of the hospital staff.

            Everyone gathered in his room, crowding around his bed.

            Gen was wedged in between an overweight janitor and a beefed-up security guard who had just as much interest in Jeff’s recuperation.

            “Remove the bandages,” Jeff’s doctor ordered the nurse.

            Alexis started to feel worried all over again. “What’s going on? He’s awake now. Isn’t that a good thing?”

            “That is exactly the thing we’re concerned about,” Jeff’s doctor told her.

            The bandages on Jeff’s head were removed first.

            A collection of gasps erupted all around him. He looked to Alexis, whose hand covered her gaping mouth with a look of astonishment that troubled Jeff. “W-What’s wrong? Do I look different?”

            “Jeff…I…I don’t know what…,” Alexis stammered.

            Every second of this worried him more.

            “M-Mirror,” he said. “Somebody get me a mirror.”

            Daphne loaned him her compact mirror, and he got a good look at what everyone made such a huge fuss about. He was baffled to see only his usual-looking self in his reflection. “This is how I always look,” he noted to the gathering of spectators.

            “Yeah, but you were covered in burns the other night,” Alexis said. “That’s what the doctors told us.”

            “This can only be presumed to be a case of the Stromberg Theory,” Jeff’s doctor rationalized. “Where badly burned tissue has an adverse reaction causing the tissue to heal…”

            “Wrong!” Jeff blurted all of the sudden. “The Stromberg theory states that minor burns can heal under stress, not third degree burns.”

            His spew of medical knowledge caught them off guard, specifically Alexis, who felt as if she was looking at a whole new man. “When did you have the time to study medicine?” he asked him.

            “I didn’t,” Jeff said. “Look in that book.” He pointed towards a medical book that another doctor was holding, one that had touched his hand only a few seconds ago. “Page Two-Ninety-Four, third paragraph, middle of the page.”

            The doctor checked the exact spot as directed, and her eyes widened with amazement. “He’s right,” she confirmed.

            “You should really read Chapter Fourteen,” Jeff suggested. “In that chapter, it talks about the…the…uh…What was I talking about?” It was an odd transition. One second, Jeff was a medical genius, and the next, he was back to his old self again.

            Before any more thought could’ve been given to it, an emergency alarm wailed throughout the hospital. All of the personnel piled out of Jeff’s room, leaving him with Alexis and her new friends.

            “Like, I wonder what the panic’s all about,” Shaggy said.

            Jeff jolted in his bed, looking afraid. “There’s a man attacking the hospital!”

            “How do you know that?” Alexis asked him.

            “Because I can see him right there,” Jeff pointed to the wall across from his bed, yet the wall was all the others could see there.

            His strange behavior in the last couple of minutes disturbed Alexis. “Are you feeling alright, Jeff?”

            Gen groaned at Alexis’s naivety of her boyfriend’s real condition.

            “He’s got superpowers,” she spelled it out for her. “And that includes x-ray vision, apparently.”

            Jeff’s focus on the wall intensified. “That man’s coming this way!”

            “It’s got to be Everett,” Gen figured.

            “That big, scary bald white man?” Willie recalled. “I thought you took his butt out back at the university.”

            “The Regen-8 he’s hocked up on helped him to regenerate, but not in the typical Time Lord way” Gen analyzed. “You guys get yourselves and Jeff out of here and back to the T.A.R.D.I.S. I’ll keep Everett busy.”

            She was on her way out of the room before Craig blocked her path.

            “Ain’t no way I’m lettin’ you deal with that dude alone,” he boldly denied.

            “He’s dangerous, Craig,” Gen objected. “Fighting him in this state is like Superman fighting Doomsday.”

            Craig shrugged. “Don’t got no kryptonite, but I do got these.” He held up his fists. “If my Pops taught me one thing, this is all the protection I need. You win some, you lose some, but you live to fight another day. And I sure ain’t gonna let a brotha go out without some backup.”

            That last bit of logic certainly did come from his father. Though it was the one thing that was still under scrutiny from Gen, the rest of it was profound and showed just how great of a father Willie was to Craig.

            Gen ultimately conceded to his volunteering, and they both rushed out of Jeff’s room to engage in a confrontation with Everett in the hallway. She was shocked to find Colin still sitting where she left him earlier, right in Everett’s route of destruction.

            “Alright, new plan,” she told Craig. “Get that little boy to safety!”

            Craig did as she requested, hurrying over to Colin.

            He nearly would’ve gotten his head taken off when Everett swung at him, if he had not ducked.

            Gen distracted him with some lefts and rights to his face and abdomen.

            Her bō staff would have been handy about now.

            In the meantime, Craig managed to wheel Colin into the furthest vacant hospital room, safe from the fight down the hall. “Alright, just stay put right ‘ere, lil’ man,” Craig instructed him.

            “Are you gonna go help my angel?”

            “Your what?”

            “My angel. She gave me back my leg.”

            Craig saw the boy motion to his right leg, not understanding the whole story as to how Gen, his “angel,” gave it back to him. He knew he was confined to a wheelchair for some kind of disorder, but Craig hadn’t the time to guess which one. Gen was fighting Everett alone in the corridor and losing, her throat caught in Everett’s massive grip.

            Stepping back in the fight, Craig grabbed a bedpan along the way and hurled it at Everett’s head. It did nothing to physically impair the man, but Craig only needed to get his attention off Gen. She was freed from his grasp, struggling on her knees to breathe again, as Everett advanced on Craig.

            Just a white Deebo…that’s all he is.

            That was what he told himself before unleashing on Everett, slugging the man’s face from the left and right up to the point that he tired himself out. After the first few punches, he felt like the black dude from the eighth Friday the 13th movie before Jason decapitated him with a single punch.

            The result was nearly the same for Craig as Everett punched him in retaliation; thankfully, his head was still intact.

            Down he went, like a sack of potatoes, skidding across the floor on his back and spitting blood. If he could describe the true, raw feeling of being punched by a super-powered freak, he’d compare it to being hit by a freight train.

            From his downed position, he saw Everett (or three of him in his dazed state of mind) stand over him.

            Craig braced himself for the end, praying that it would be quick and painless.

            “Hey, buddy!” he heard Jeff of all people call out from behind Everett, who turned around and got sucker-punched by the music teacher. His body was sent flying across the air and crashing out through another window.

            Sitting upright, Craig saw Jeff standing victoriously in the middle of the hallway, his hospital gown billowing like a cape. Alexis added to his heroic comic book-style pose, clinging to her boyfriend’s side. “Jeff, that was so brave of you,” she told him.

            “Not brave…stupid!” Gen scolded, gathering herself up. “I told ya’ll to get yourselves to safety!”

            “You guys were in trouble,” Jeff said. “If I got superpowers, like you said, why not put them to use?”

            “Let’s just get outta here and talk about the extent of your new abilities later,” Gen asserted. Together, along with Willie and the Mystery Inc. kids, they escaped from the hospital, losing themselves in the crowd of evacuating staff and patients. In the confusion, they collided with another group of characters that was as colorful as theirs.

            One of them was a tall African American gentleman in a black hoodie and necktie that Craig and Willie recognized. “It’s him,” the latter said. “The brotha that Gen regurgitates into!”

            “Regenerates,” Gen corrected him.

            “Told ya it wouldn’t be so hard finding them,” Neas told his crew, which consisted of a couple of tough-looking, dark-haired women, his twentieth regeneration, a curly-haired boy and a trio of female warriors, a reformed regeneration of their twin sibling, a tall, slender man in a trench coat, and lastly…

            “Wait!” Gen bellowed. “Is that…?”

            She gestured to the familiar teenaged blonde with them, fretful of her presence.

            “Yes, it’s her,” Neas knew the question before it was even asked. “We’ll go into more detail about it, once we’re in the infinite—AGH!” Suddenly, he keeled over in pain, clutching the left side of his head.

            Gen, Bradlee, and the Doctor immediately went to his aid, keeping him balanced.

            “What’s wrong?” the Doctor asked him.

            The headache was strong but brief, subsiding in a matter of seconds.

            “I’m fine,” he reassured them. “Let’s just get back to our T.A.R.D.I.S.es and out of this dimension.”

---------------

            Three Type-Z T.A.R.D.I.S.es and one out-of-date Type 40, Mark 3 model piggybacked over each other across the infinite dimensional corridor. On the outside, they appeared to have floated separately; but, on the inside, there were three distinct console rooms interconnected: Neas and Gen’s, Bradlee’s, and the Doctor’s. It was physics gone wild, making sense to no one but the four Time Lord operators.

            Just three of them were assembled in the Doctor’s console room with the companions they’ve made on their journey so far, formulating a workable plan that will save Aznavorian the Tinkerer.

            Neas remained in solitude within his console room, at his own request.

            A request that Chanley disobeyed when she went to check on her twin sibling.

            The lights in his console room were dimmed to low levels – lower than how he had them whenever Gizmo was around. Only the light from the control console provided much, if any, illumination.

            “You O.K.?” she asked as she entered.

            He didn’t answer. She saw him hunched over at the controls, his hood placed over his head, probably still nursing that headache. She knew her voice was the last one he needed to hear under such a condition. She had yet to earn his trust, despite all that she had done to bring him, his other selves, and their friends together.

            “Not a day goes by that I haven’t regretted hurting you,” she said. “Funny how I often wish I could go back and change it all, even with my own T.A.R.D.I.S. out there somewhere.”

            He was so quiet. Not since their paths crossed had he been so quiet.

            Her concern for him deepened, so she went against his initial wishes and invaded his personal space. “Neas, are you alright?” she placed her hand on his left shoulder.

            With lightning-fast reflexes, he snatched her wrist.

            The pressure he applied in his grip was excruciating.

            He finally turned and faced her.

            A horrified gasp let out past her lips as she looked into his eyes. The light that she beforehand assumed to be from the control console was in actuality his eyes, irradiating a golden glow not unlike that of regenerative energy. Chanley knew this effect all too well; it was a symptom of the Regen-8 formula, which was now coursing through his veins.

            “Oh, Neas,” she grieved. “They got you.”

            He gave her a backhanded slap across the face that knocked her out. Her body thudded facedown to the floor while he returned his attention to the control console. His first act was detaching his T.A.R.D.I.S. from the other three tethered to it, leaving them careening out of control in the dimensional corridor. For a split second, he heard panicked screams out of the Doctor’s console room before there was total silence.

            There was just him and the unconscious Chanley now left.

            He brought them out of the dimensional corridor, materializing at a location that he designated under his hypnotic frame of mind. He then opened the doors to allow a trio of individuals inside his T.A.R.D.I.S.: Missy, Chris, and Everett.

            Missy strode into the Type-Z, captivated by its technological advancements.

            “Certainly roomier than the Doctor’s old shack,” she observed, until her eyes settled on the inert Chanley. “Well, look who it is. The traitor. The wrench in our machine. What are we gonna do with her? We can’t kill her, obviously, since that’d defeat the purpose in you being here.” She waved her finger at Everett. “Oh, I’m sure we’ll think of something, now that there’s four of us now.”

            She devilishly eyed her newest prize standing over Chanley: Neas, the Gladiator of Gallifrey.