The Tinkerer Chronicles: Dale Against the Universe

Part Three

Dale's disappeared?! To where?! And why did he leave poor Kristin all alone?!

My mind jumped to several conclusions upon hearing this, painting Mr. Sydney in quite the negative light. Neas tried to reassure me that there was a reasonable explanation, but I wasn't hearing it. I was too focused on getting back into the mansion and finding out what happened.

We arrived to find the whole place ransacked and Kristin practically wrought with dread from the night's scare. She had already called the police before we showed up, so we sat together in the living room and waited with her. I gave her a glass of water and a Xanax to help calm her nerves. "My husband – my last one, that is – always knew when to give me these," she said before taking the sedative.

"Sounds like a wise man." I tried not to smile too much, giving praise to myself. I probably should have taken a Xanax myself, being as pissed as I was at Dale. "I can't believe he'd just leave you here with the intruder!"

She looked at me dubiously. "Who? Dale? He didn't leave me here. I was the one who told him to leave."

"Why?" I frowned.

"Because, for some strange reason, the intruder was after him."

This news boggled my mind and also the minds of Neas and Craig. Why would the intruder be after Dale? Were they some overzealous "Captain Knutz" fan? Did Dale owe some shady talent agent money or something?

Once the police arrived at the scene of the crime, one of the officers asked Kristin for a description of the intruder. She said that the individual looked to be a male biker of six feet in height (perhaps taller) and muscular build, wearing a black helmet that obscured his face. Unfortunately, this description didn't do much to help the police, as there were several bikers fitting that description in the Los Angeles area.

Neas and I had our own theory of it being Al-Lee, with the incident lining up seamlessly with her escape from the TARDIS. Of course, Kristin's description didn't match Al-Lee's. Nevertheless, we feared a Terminator like her being out somewhere, roaming in our home dimension.

"Hon—I mean, Mrs. Sydney," I addressed Kristin, catching myself from calling her "honey," a term of endearment from a previous life. "When you told Dale to leave, was there anyplace specifically you told him to go?"

"Just this low-rent motel about ten miles from here," she told me. "We agreed to go there, if anything like what happened tonight were to occur. We also have a secret knock that goes like this..." She demonstrated by knocking a specific melody along the coffee table. My ears recognized it to be the basic "Shave and a Haircut" knock.

Flawed as it might've been, it was good to know they had a system in place in case of emergencies. We used to have something like that back in our Georgia farm. In the event of a twister (which were common out in the countryside), we would hide in the cellar – which was, in actuality, the console room of my Type-X TARDIS, made out to resemble a cellar.

Knowing Kristin would be safe with the authorities, I left the mansion with Neas and Craig to go to this motel where Dale fled to. I used the secret knock Kristin demonstrated to me, and Dale opened up. He was battered and distressed in his tattered silk blue pajamas and the black fedora that he somehow found the time to put on during his escape.

"Are you alright, Mr. Sydney?" I asked him with a tone that would've sounded contemptuous to anyone else.

Dale gave an uncertain nod. "Did Kristin send you kids? I gotta tell ya...I ain't exactly feelin' right at the moment." He invited us in, locking the door immediately afterwards. "This guy – whoever he was – roughed me up pretty good. It took everything in me just to fend him off. He damn-near killed me."