A nerdy shut-in's dream comes true

Steve McKenzie was a nerd. Always a bit of a social outcast, as an adult he went to work, came home, and indulged in his nerdy loves. Video games, Star Wars, and his greatest love, Doctor Who. He wished he could whisk away from his dreary and lonely existence to travel through time and space. Instead he just stayed in and masturbated to his crushes from various sci-fi shows.

On the way home from work, Steve was sweating a little. At 32, he was already out of shape, a paunch hanging off his 5'10'' frame, glasses perched on his nose as he peered through them with hazel eyes. Messy brown hair tousled on his head, and sweat stains were in the pits of his nerdy t-shirt. He paused for a quick break, when he noticed something.

A blue police box, just like on Doctor Who, squeezed in the alleyway between the newsagent and the takeaway. Huh. Well, an aficionado like he wouldn't pass up the opportunity to have a nosey, and walked over to it. Weirdly, the door was left ajar. Had someone bought a replica? The Scottish sci-fi aficionado pushed the door open further, and gasped.

It was... the room spanned out in a great dome, the dome dotted with white roundels. A second level overhung the gunmetal grey interior, surrounding a circular console, a tube reaching from it to the ceiling. It was so much bigger on the inside!

"A... a real fucking TARDIS?" Steve heard the door slam shut behind him as he wandered into the centre of the cavernous space. His hand traced the edge of the console as he walked around it; oddly, it felt like coral rather than the metal it resembled, feeling grown rather than made, and old, so very very old. He rounded to reach a screen, the only thing lit in the dimmed out space. It gave off a steady orange glow in the gloom, showing circular rune-like language that Steve recognized from the TV show as Gallifreyan. But it wasn't a real language, you couldn't learn it like you could Klingon.

Beneath the screen was a pad with an indentation on it, shaped like a hand. If this really was an alien artifact, he shouldn't... but of course he was going to! Steve reached out, placing his hand in the indentation, and as if by magic, the room brightened up, that orange glow emanating from unseen light sources to give the room a warm glow.

The screen flashed, the Gallifreyan sigils swirling and circling into some new patterns. What did it mean? Steve didn't have time to ponder the question for long, suddenly finding a glowing orange light shoot out of the console and into his mouth. Recoiling, he rubbed at his mouth, coughing. Orange sparks dusted forth from his mouth as he did. "Holy fuck!" he coughed, as he felt a warmth boiling in his blood and brain, his vision swirling. Blinking a couple of times he realised... he could read what was on the screen! Had that been... had that been the translation filter?

Pushing his glasses up his nose, Steve leaned in to read what the screen said.