Hexad: The Chamber (2 page)

Dale sipped his coffee, burning his lips without the cooling effect of the milk. "Bugger. Hot."

"Dale? Hold my hand?"

"Sure honey." Dale went to put his mug down.

"No, keep hold of it, you'll need it."

"Um, okay." Dale reached out to the offered hand and felt the soft, familiar skin of Amanda. She fiddled with the object she had in the other, having put her own drink down on the grass.

"Hold tight."

The world collapsed around him as Dale's reality became nothing more than a cosmic joke, then it was all over.

Dale was aware of the morning chorus of the birds, eager to start their day and check whether or not Dale had remembered to fill the feeders hanging from the apple tree he and Amanda were stood under.

Morning chorus? That would make it about five in the morning. It was eight thirty when he'd got up.

A Confusing Morning

3 Hours 19 Minutes Past

Dale slurped his still-hot coffee, numb to the heat as it slid down his throat, thinking burned lips were better than the weird after-effects the night before were clearly having on his brain — he definitely needed to give up drinking. That, or have a few more right now, just to eradicate the woozy feeling in his head.

"We need to talk," said Amanda, releasing his hand, putting the strange device back in her pocket.

"I think you may be right. What just happened?"

"I took you away from digging up proof. It's a slippery road that I don't want repeated yet again."

"Proof?"

"Of time travel."

Dale gulped his coffee. One of them had to have their wits about them and Amanda was clearly still hammered from the night before. Or was she?

Dale tried to relax, to let the caffeine work its magic. It was going on for nine, now it was first thing in the morning. He hadn't, had he?

"Did we just, you know, time travel?"

"We did. Mad, eh? Now look, we have a lot to talk about. You ready?"

Dale slumped onto the lawn, the grass much damper than it had been, his jeans thoroughly soaked through now — he didn't even notice. "As ready as I'll ever be. Be gentle, I'm having a bad day."

"You think you're having a bad day? Wait until you hear about mine."

Amanda was right, she was having a much harder time of it than him.

~~~

As soon as they'd jumped Dale knew that Amanda was different, it just didn't quite register as it wasn't something that was possible. But now that he could see her properly — as earlier she had purposely placed herself in front of the sun so all he saw really was her silhouette without getting a proper look at her features, it was obvious that she was older, older than the woman he'd woken up to that morning, or would wake up to in a few hours.

The whole concept was already messing with his mind. Was he really in bed asleep right now? Well, not him obviously, he was here. But how? How could that make any sense? He couldn't be thinking these thoughts but still be in bed asleep at the same time, could he? That would mean there were two of him. If he went in right now and woke himself up then would it be like he had a perfect clone?

"I know what you're thinking. It won't work."

"What do you mean?" asked Dale, shifting uneasily now he realized his bum was soaking wet from the early morning dew.

"If you go into the bedroom and try to wake yourself up then you won't be able to. Something will happen to stop you, and even if you did succeed, what do you think it would do to you: waking up to find yourself peering down at you? You'd have a fit, probably have a heart attack right then and there, then there would only be this you left alive and you'd have a dead you to try to get rid of. That or the paradox would be too great and both of you would simply blink out of existence like you were never born. I wouldn't want to find out either way. You know, whole universes have been destroyed then reborn because of this stuff, because of what we did, what we will do."

Amanda waved away the seemingly meaningless difference. "In any case, we have a problem. But Dale, I missed you so much, it's been horrible, so horrible I can't explain. I don't know whether to be angry with you and slap you so hard, or kiss you."

"Um, kiss me?" prompted Dale. He got up and stared into eyes that had seen much more than the woman he went to bed with the night before. Much more. He pulled her to him, kissed her lips softly, then hugged her tight again. "I think you better tell me what's going on."

~~~

"No way. You're telling me that you were taken and I just left you there, wherever there is? I wouldn't do that, no chance."

"I didn't think you would either, but you did. I don't blame you though, not really. The Caretaker explained it all; you didn't really have a choice."

"Caretaker?" said Dale, confused. Although it wasn't like anything was making any kind of logical sense anyway.

"Long story," said Amanda. "I'll tell you later. First I need to get you up to speed on what's been going on since I last saw you."

"Okay. Um, a question. Just how old are you? You look different. Sorry, not being rude, but you are older, right?"

"Ten years older," said Amanda, nodding her head. "We waited for ten years for Hexads, these devices." Amanda pulled the device from her pocket, waved it about then put it back again as if she didn't trust herself, or Dale, with it. "We waited, then we dug up a hoard of them from the garden, then all hell broke loose. Again."

Dale led Amanda down the garden to the seating area and slumped into a weathered Adirondack chair. "Tell me all about it, don't hold anything back."

Amanda looked around guardedly, then said, "Well, if you're sure?"

Dale just nodded. What choice did he have?

~~~

"We did what!?"

"Told you it was kind of crazy. Who would have believed it, right? Us, responsible for breaking time, the death of universes, then we, well you and the other Amanda, fixed it. Almost. You killed all the other Amandas that were housed in that terrible room, and then it was all fixed, everything went back to normal. Like none of it ever happened."

"Except not quite, right? Otherwise you wouldn't be here, you wouldn't have ever existed."

"Exactly. You and the other me made one huge mistake."

Dale didn't like the way this was headed. "And what's that?"

"You didn't kill me. Now there are two of us, when there should only be one. I shouldn't be here, or her, as it means there is a continuity of what went on in the past. Well, the future to be more precise, but it doesn't matter."

"So, um, why are you here? Sorry, that sounded like I'm not glad you are, but all of this is a bit hard to take. It sounds made up."

"I know, but I am here, you have the proof this is real. I am here to kill Amanda, the other one, then we will be all right. I think."

"You think! What, we just go in there and stick a knife in her?"

"No Dale, not we. You."

It Gets Worse

3 Hours 19 Minutes Past

"That sounds like the craziest piece of logic I've ever heard. There is simply no way I'm doing it. None." Dale folded his arms across his chest, resolute.

Amanda burst into tears. "Dale I've missed you awfully; it's been so lonely, and terrible. The things that happened, it was too much, too much to take. And besides, you've done it before, hundreds of times."

"So you said, but I don't believe it. There is simply no way that I would go around killing anyone, let alone you, or versions of you. Certainly not over and over again."

"Well that's what happened."

"But you didn't see it, did you? This is just what this Caretaker told you has happened, will happen. Whatever." Dale waved it all away, it was the stuff of nonsense, gibberish spouted by people locked in asylums for their own good.

"Yes, and I believe him. Look, I've lived through all that happened, I was a part of so much: finding the Hexads, us digging up that damn note under the tree, being chased by Laffer, all the stuff I've told you, it's all true."

"Okay, okay, so you say. Even if I believe every word you've said it doesn't mean I can do it. How can you ask this of me?"

"Because it's all still going on. The mess. We didn't solve a thing, not really."

"Because The Caretaker told you?"

"Not really, no, although he did. But it's because I'm still here, still have a Hexad, know where I can get lots more. It's all going to repeat itself over and over. There's another reason too..."

"Come on then, tell me." Dale could sense that Amanda was holding things back and there was a lot more to this incredible story than she had told him so far.

"Because, well, because you aren't my Dale. I'm sorry."

Dale got the now all-too-familiar icy feeling creeping up his spine, making him think of the room Amanda had described, feeling like he too was on a hook, spinal fluid draining away along with his sanity. Resigned, he said, "Okay, spill it."

"I've searched and searched, but you aren't my Dale, not the one I have lived with for so long. I'd know you anywhere."

"The scent?"

Amanda nodded. "The scent. It's off somehow, this isn't you."

"I don't understand. After all you've told me, how can I not be me? Of course I am."

"Well, yes, of course you're you," said Amanda, like she was speaking to a child. "Just not the you that I lived with. You're a different one. You aren't the one that had all the adventures with me, you are a Dale that woke up one morning after getting very drunk and thought he was with a different version of the Amanda that he thought he knew."

"I am, aren't I?"

"Yes, and no."

"Bloody hell Amanda, this is doing my head in. What are you talking about?"

"I didn't want to do this, tell you this, but that is your Amanda in your bed, you just had a weird dream when you woke up, you were just confused, everything would have been all right. A few hours later and you would have forgotten all about it."

Dale was having a really hard time trying to get things straight in his mind. "I don't understand. You said—"

"I know what I said. I lied."

"You lied. Why? You wanted me to kill her! Kill you."

"I know, I know, I had no choice Dale. Honestly."

"Tell me."

"I'm lonely Dale, so lonely. I've searched and I've searched, jumped into countless alternate universes, and we aren't together in any of them, not any more. When you, you and the other Amanda, when you killed all those versions of me, then that was it, you repaired the damage, set the universes right, but it meant that I wasn't a part of your life then in any of them. You killed me in most of them before we ever met, or before we had a proper future together anyway. And in the few where we managed to have a life then it ended badly, or I was killed, by you, or by the other Amanda. Or the detective."

Dale felt his palms beginning to sweat. "What detective?"

"It doesn't matter for now. But I'm sorry, I need you."

"Just tell me one thing, is she my Amanda, the one in bed?"

"No Dale, she isn't."

"So that part was true, that she is the one that came to help sort things out?" Amanda just nodded. "But you are my real Amanda aren't you? You have to be, you smell right."

"Not quite Dale, but it's so close that it may as well be us, the us that were always together."

"But we're not?"

"No. Yes and no. Look, this us here, we lived, or would have lived, lives so similar to the ones we do that it makes no difference, not really. In all the places I've been, not just in time but in parallel universes, you are the only one where we stay together, where we have a future."

"And how do you know this? No, don't tell me, because you've jumped to check, haven't you?"

"Yes, I have. If you let me stay then it will work, if we do what we're supposed to do. I need you Dale, you're my only hope."

"But I'm not your Dale. How can you be happy with that?"

"I can get over a little change in your scent Dale, that's the only difference. There aren't any Dales that remember what happened because of the Hexads, all that changed when the last Amanda was killed that was in the room, but it doesn't mean there aren't still countless other versions out there. But none of them are your true Amanda, and do you want to know why?"

"No, not really." Dale watched as Amanda began to cry. It was just getting worse by the minute but he had to know. "Okay, get it over with."

"Because, Dale, you are dead."

"What do you mean I'm dead?"

"I mean that the Dale that had all the adventures with me until we got split up, he died. The Universe set things right when you finished in that room, and then you vanished. Poof, gone."

"But I'm here, right here," protested Dale.

"You are, but you aren't him. All those things that happened, they didn't happen to you, they happened to him. Then when things were reset you were gone. I went to find you, but you'd never existed. It all became too impossible after the mess we made of things because of the Hexads. When we repaired it all then the timeline you had been a part of was still too convoluted, so you simply popped out of existence. You were never born."

"If that's the case," said Dale, head dizzy, the caffeine nowhere near enough to keep him straight, "then I have no part in this. It wasn't me that did any of it."

"Like that matters. The version of you that did it all wouldn't remember even if he had ever existed. As soon as reality was set straight then it stands to reason that you would be back in your own present, having no idea any of it had ever happened. You're all I have left Dale, I want you back."

"But I never existed, so how could you want me back? You shouldn't be able to remember me at all if I never existed." Dale thought his reasoning made sense, as much as was possible with such a bizarre conversation.