Shopping Five Dimensions

Shopping Five Dimensions

The prison is grey and bland. The best prisons know to be dull. I study energies burning in the walls, stand, wait. A man comes in with guards. He wears the kind of uniform that demands attention, tries to command respect for him.

“Do you know who we are?” He demands.

“No. Charlie says you’re fictional, but fictional is a twisty concept around Jay.”

I recognize the power burning inside them. Thee are forces no one harnesses, because even insanity has its limits. Greed, in my experience, does not. I say nothing.

“We are Time Lords.” He says that like it should mean something to me. People like that are seldom stable.

“Maybe you might want to talk to a Time King, someone actually in charge?”

“I am in charge here.”

I snort. “You don’t know what’s going on. That’s what being in charge is. You have questions. Ask them.”

“What happened to The Master?” he demands.

“You’re in charge but let someone below you call themselves The Master?” I raise an eyebrow. “It would help if I knew who that was.”

A window opens in the wall. The person in the cell beside me is crying and shaking, a screening gibbering wreck.

“What has done this?” And the fear is for his people as much as him: I begin to like this leader a little more. “The Master looked into the untempered schism and survived.”

“Ah. I assume that’s an aspect of Winter?” No reaction. “You perhaps know him as Arth'ba'Toch?”

Only the leader reacts. “You should not know that name!”

“I am the wandering magician. I know too much that I shouldn’t know. I collect secrets because one must have at least one vice.”

“We can imprison –.”

“I have been in prisons before. And whatever you can do is nothing next to what the fae did.” I don’t let him know more, but he pulls back at something in my tone. “As for your, ah, Master: he met Jay. I believe he said he walked in infinity and could see the universe turn or something like that.”

“You mock us, ‘magician’?”

“I merely state facts. Jay said, 'Me too!’ And then showed him the reality behind your poetic nonsense. Jay always means what he says. He assumes everyone else does too.”

The Time Lords look at each other. The guards look paler than the leader does.

“Whatever weapon you’re thinking of, it isn’t going to work. You walk in time? Everyone does that. Jay leap frogs, gallivants and plays tag with Time. And you know nothing about him. I find that curious, that I do.”

“Gallifrey is sealed off from Creation!”

I sigh, step forward and walk out of the cell. The walls were a disguise, the real prison a stasis field of sorts. Two of the guards try and kill me, but this place offers wards I use easily. They vanish. Hard. “Wandering. Magician. No place is closed to me, but this wasn’t me. Jay – ah – got cross at NOT making a friend and things went sideways.”

“Got cross,” the leader repeats, having gestured the other guards to stand down.

“The living machine didn’t open when he knocked and tried to escape, not wanting to be friends.”

“He hijacked a TARDIS, forced entry and – the record gets muddled.”

“He hugged the heart of it. I believe he thought it needed a hug.”

The leader stares. “... we are now far beyond the bounds of the possible,” he whispers weakly.

“Jay likes making friends.” I shrug. “Stop trying to send him through time and we’ll be on our way.”

“On your way. To where?”

“We were buying a couch. Jay wants one bigger on the inside, so it can hold a lot of people hiding from Charlie. And also hold Jay. And enough snacks for a Jay.”

“This – all this because you were looking for a couch?” The leader screams the last word incredulously.

“Yes. So letting us leave – preferably with a couch – would be safest.”

“A TARDIS decommissioned and turned into a couch.”

“I don’t care what it is. All I do care about is that you really don’t want this causing ripples. Jayseltosche is far more dangerous when he’s older.” That wins no reaction. I reach out with the magic. Touch. Learn. Explore. “You know of the Guardians of Time? Jay is what they guard against, though telling him that would be unwise.”

The leader’s face drains of colour, his stature diminishing.”You know too much that you should not know.”

I shrug. “The magic asked; your world told me. I don’t know when you’re really from, or why you went into the past to convince yourselves you weren’t from – when you are from, and I don’t much care. All I care about is that we get home safely.”

He stares at me. “I – go. We will think on this.”

I nod and whistle. Jay appears a moment later. He looks eleven, and ordinary, and his grin bursts with pride and joy. “Honcho, Honcho, Honcho! Charlie and I are having a lot of adventures!”

“I’ve noticed the explosions,” I say dryly. “But we need to get back home now.”

“Oh. Really?”

“They offered us a couch.”

“Yay!” I snag his arm before he can hug them a thank you, make a door back home. It’s easy without anyone trying to interfere.

Jay waves goodbye. “It’s okay! I bet you’ll be a good doctor too when you’re jaysome,” he says we vanish back into the world.

I have no idea who he was talking to. Charlie stares at the blue couch in the middle of the hotel room and says she’s getting several drinks. Jay makes a couch fort, because Jay. I get some water, head out of the hotel and wonder what Time is going to make of this adventure...