Solipsism

Ten: Randomness Factor

Jack has traveled enough with me to know that I do and at the same time I do not have much control in directing the TARDIS. Some of my regenerations were better at driving than others, and right now I'd say I'm on the plus side of the piloting spectrum. I feel quite confident in my abilities but I've learned there is a randomness factor involved.

I set the coordinates displayed in the Time Lord Galactic Database for the Dyson sphere located in the Callisto system of the Pergamum galaxy. Jack already knows how to fly the TARDIS; he figured it out on his own long ago – clever man that he is – back when he installed the tribophysical waveform macro kinetic extrapolator, back when Rose Tyler was still my companion, and he was merely a hanger-on, a sycophant, a groupie. He's picked up a few more driving tricks since we've been traveling together, and now all I need to do is nod at him and he hits the switch to open the time vortex.

As soon as he does, I know something is wrong.

I glance at him and I can tell from the look on his face that he, too, realizes that something isn't right. It's not a sound, per se, that's the indicator, or the way something looks, or even a specific sensation, it's a gut feeling the old girl opts to share with me. I'm of two minds that she's evidently decided to share this same intimate knowledge with Jack, but I don't have time to obsess about it, or to be jealous. Or even make a snide remark. Pity…

"Jack!" I scream, mid-lurch, as I reach over and try to grab the handbrake. "Close the vortex and activate the dimensional stabilizer!"

The Captain moves faster and with more self-assurance than I could hope for. But he isn't fast enough. Nor am I with the handbrake. We're already much too late to take any effective action, and this I also know from the TARDIS telepathic circuits. To my dismay and distress, I discover what has happened is not an accident, it is intentional. Someone is taking us somewhere.

And I'd wager this somewhere of which I speak is not the Dyson sphere in the Callisto system of the Pergamum galaxy.

There's nothing we can do but hold on. I watch the ship's central column move up and down and mutter a few choice Gallifreyan expletives under my breath. Then I catch Jack looking at me and I shut my mouth. Teaching the Captain Gallifreyan is something I'd definitely had in mind, but starting with profanities probably isn't the best way to go about it. Or maybe considering Jack, it is…

"Do you know what's happening?" he asks, quite reasonably and despite the racket of the engines.

I shake my head, "I know nothing more than you. It would appear we're being hijacked." I shift closer to the display screen, but there's nothing useful rendering there, at least not yet. I look at Jack and try to smile, "I did promise you an adventure, but this isn't exactly what I had in mind."

He grins back at me and manages to give a little shrug, even though he's firmly anchored himself via his arms to the console in order to stop from being tossed about the control room like a leaf in a windstorm. "I'm not picky," he shouts over the din. "But it'd be nice to know what to expect when we finally get to where we're going!"

"Truer words have…" I begin to say, but then I'm interrupted from continuing my statement because I feel the TARDIS engines cutting back. I notice Jack is already activating the force shield; something I wouldn't have necessarily thought of, but his devious mind is clearly thinking along more sinister lines than mine.

The TARDIS finally stops and data are streaming across the system monitor. Jack is suddenly standing next to me and he remarks grimly, "I'll be happy as long as we're not at the beginning of the universe. Or at its end…"

I wish I could promise him we weren't.

But it's too soon to know. I can tell that the TARDIS has not landed on solid ground. Instead I think, and I believe I'm correct about this, she is suspended in space.

But where?

And when?