Hexad: The Chamber (22 page)

It was all abstract though — he could never imagine the kind of money involved in staying in luxury and spending vast sums just to sleep somewhere for a few nights.

After eating a glorious breakfast, with Amanda gushing over her eggs like they too were made of gold, and Dale paying without batting an eyelid at the cost, knowing it wouldn't mean anything soon anyway, they left the hotel and took a short ride across the bridge to the mainland.

"We seem to make a habit of coming to beaches," said Amanda, looking at the bodies browning on the sand with obvious envy.

Dale couldn't see a single female that had an ounce of excess fat on her, the same was not to be said for the men however. "Because they're relaxing, and we definitely need to relax." Dale stared longingly at the water, wishing he had his swimming trunks with him. Now wasn't the time though — he was getting more and more jittery, wanting to get things over with, or at least try. It felt wrong now, after the rest that they so sorely needed, to not be back in the middle of the madness, trying to do something about it.

"We should go," said Amanda reluctantly, saying what he was thinking.

Dale squeezed her hand tight and said, "Yes, I suppose we should."

They turned around and headed back towards the towering hotel. All Dale could think of was that it looked like it could stand there forever, but nothing, absolutely nothing, lasted forever.

Not even time itself.

What's in the Bag?

11 Years Past

Dale and Amanda chatted as they walked through the entrance to the hotel, deciding to just sit quietly at one of the bars, have a drink while taking in the view for the last time. Then they would put an end to the things Cray had done. There were numerous ways they could deal with him, at least in theory, but every option came to nothing but a dead-end once they actually talked it through. They'd gone over countless scenarios in the days they'd kept their vigil over The Chamber, none of them ever leading anywhere but to frustration.

Could they go back and kill him as a young child? No, as what would there be in his place? It could be something much worse. Everything stemmed from the fact that Amanda had possessed a Hexad and jumped back into reality, causing ripples that built into a tidal wave of time-hopping that gathered momentum the more widespread it became.

No, it all came down to The Chamber and what it stood for, as well as what it actually produced. They had to think of things as if only their world existed, and the future it contained — as soon as you thought about the endless others then you would go mad with indecision, never knowing if any of it would mean anything at all.

The scene they were about to witness before they left their vigil because of utter exhaustion was where everything led to, and that time, that point far, far into the future, was where they had to be. It was the crux, the end game, the result of everything that had gone before, and it was there where they could change the past, eliminate Hexads once and for all, make it so they had never been, and never would be.

"So it's settled then? We'll go there, and once it's over we'll—"

"Excuse me sir," said an immaculately dressed security officer, hardly a hint of an accent. "If you wouldn't mind?"

Dale and Amanda had been pre-occupied and hadn't noticed the security as they entered the building, but as Dale turned and saw a large walk-through metal detector where the man had pointed he went cold inside. It was not going to go well if he walked through, not for Amanda either. He looked at Amanda; she shook her head.

They'll lock us up if we go through there. What will they make of the Hexads? Oh shit, I've still got the gun too.

There was no doubt that even if he could explain away the Hexads, which he couldn't, there was no explaining having a loaded weapon in such a place. How could they have been so stupid? To have not taken into account the possibility that something bad could happen to them? They should have just kept trying to stop Cray until they dropped down dead from exhaustion.

This was idiocy on a grand scale. Dale honestly hadn't given it a second thought though, not really considering anything would happen to them in a normal situation — it was only Cray that was of concern and he hadn't been able to find them since they took the gun from him and made their jumps, or hadn't bothered as Dale's actions had shown he was a match for anything Cray came up with to try to stop them.

"Oh, sorry, you know what? I just realized we're in the wrong hotel. Excuse us." Dale grabbed Amanda by the arm and began to leave. He felt a firm hand on his shoulder and was stopped.

"I'm sorry sir," said the man in elegant English, "but I'm afraid that won't be possible. Anyone entering the building must pass security, even if they wish to leave. You understand? We had a bomb threat yesterday, so we must be cautious."

"Yes, yes, I understand, but we haven't gone in yet, not really. And we are in the wrong building." Dale was sounding desperate and he knew it.

"Just the same, please step this way." The guard motioned with his head to the two men at the metal detector and they began to walk towards them.

Dale fumbled in his satchel, hand gripping tight. He pulled out the gun, knowing as he did so that he was playing an extremely dangerous game.

"Nobody move, get down, on the floor. Now!" Dale swung the gun back and forth from the guard to the two others; people in the lobby began screaming as they saw the weapon.

"Dale, what are you doing? Are you mad?" said a shocked Amanda, staring in astonishment as he turned to look at her.

"Saving us, saving everything." Dale turned back to the guard just as he was about to lunge for the gun. "Don't make me tell you again."

The man dropped to his knees, nodding for the other guards to do likewise.

"Flat on your face," said Dale, feeling out of control and dreading what would happen if one of them went for their own weapons.

One of the two guards spoke fast in Arabic and the guard closest to Dale shouted something at him angrily before the man eventually got down onto the ground.

Alarm bells rang out angrily from inside and outside the building and people began rushing from all directions towards the exit, most unaware that it was where Dale and Amanda were causing the problem in the first place.

Things were spinning out of control fast; Dale was finding it hard to keep up.

"What should I do now?" asked Dale, trying to keep an eye on the guards.

"How should I bloody know? This was your idea. Think of something."

"How about this?" came a voice from behind. Cray's voice. It was too late, Dale crumpled to the floor as Cray hit him hard over the head with a cosh.

"Dale!" shouted Amanda, before she was grabbed by the closest security guard and her shoulders began to scream in pain as her arms were pulled up behind her back forcefully.

Cray stood there, smiling like he didn't have a care in the world. "You know, you should be more careful where you go Amanda. When you make it into the papers it does make it really rather easy to find you." He held up a newspaper for Amanda to see, the headline reading 'DUBAI — BRITS ARRESTED: Attempted armed robbery in famous Dubai Hotel.' Even as Amanda stared at the picture it began to morph, Cray suddenly appearing in the background behind the image of her standing right where she was now, with Dale unconscious on the floor. Just as Cray lowered the paper to his side she heard a click and turned to see a tourist snapping a picture.

The next thing she knew she too was on the ground, hands cuffed behind her back while all around the chatter grew louder and louder, mostly drowned out by the alarm bells and the approaching police sirens that were roaring across the bridge to arrest the British armed robbers.

Dale groaned from the floor, unable to move with the security officer's knee wedged in the small of his back as he cuffed him angrily and thanked Cray for helping to disarm the dangerous criminal that dared to disrupt the peace of such a magnificent hotel.

Cray said it was nothing, that he was glad to help, and he would wait while the police arrived in case he could be of any further assistance and to give a statement. Did they know he was an English detective inspector? He dealt with this kind of thing all the time back home.

They chatted until the manager arrived, who quickly took charge of the situation before rushing to greet the police that were heading towards the foyer.

"Dale, how are we going to get out of this one?"

Dale just moaned.

The police were ushered into the building and things went from bad to worse.

Locked Up

11 Years Past

Dale came around in the back of a van with a lot of very angry men staring at him, but that was nothing compared to the look Amanda was giving him. "What?" said Dale sorrowfully.

Amanda just stared at him like he was a complete idiot, but what choice had he had? If they'd gone through the detector then they would have been in serious trouble so he thought it best to at least try something. It just hadn't worked out quite as he'd planned. That was the understatement of the year though, and he'd definitely made a bad situation a lot worse than it could have been.

"You don't know yet as you were unconscious, but guess who whacked you over the head?" said Amanda, sitting across from him, dwarfed on either side by two very large and very intimidating policemen. They had guns too. Big ones.

"What do you mean? Who?"

"Cray."

"What!? How?"

"Because your little stunt made it into the papers, so in the future he obviously found out about it, probably by checking records automatically, and all of a sudden we would have popped up as two idiots where one of them was waving a gun about in the most well known hotel in the world. That's how."

"No more talking," said one of their escorts.

Damn, Cray's here. That's not a good sign at all. Nice going Dale, how are you going to get out of this one?

As they headed toward what Dale assumed would be some kind of decrepit police station where they'd be beaten and locked in disgusting cells for daring to disturb the peace of the mega-rich, Dale tried to think of a way out. There had to be a solution, a way that he could jump back from the future and allow him and Amanda to get away. What could he do? What could he send back to allow them to get out of the plastic handcuffs that were cutting viciously into his wrists? And what about the satchel full of Hexads and Amanda's bag too?

This was a nightmare and it wasn't as easy as just making a Hexad appear then jumping clear — he had to get all the Hexads they'd brought with them or the future would be dramatically changed and time travel would be known about now rather than in the future as it was supposed to be.

This is what you get for messing with time, it leads to way too much confusion. Ugh, I actually waved a gun around at people. What was I thinking? There was no way I could have shot anyone. I don't think so anyway.

"Dale," whispered Amanda, disturbing him from his thoughts.

"What?" said Dale, palms sweating as the fear of incarceration built, for once not just a nervous reaction to authority but a very real probability.

"I have an idea. Wait until we're at the police station and together."

"No talking," came the reminder from the man next to Amanda.

Dale nodded at her, mouthing 'Sorry,' but she looked less than impressed.

~~~

They drove through crowded streets, past a seemingly endless number of massive hotels, sparkling in the bright sunlight. Soon enough they arrived at a very modern, and very clean looking building that was definitely not how Dale pictured an Arabic police station, surprising himself that he maybe had such prejudices anyway. They were escorted less than gently up the steps before being very quickly processed.

There was no sign of their bags, or Cray for that matter, but if he was in this time then there was no doubt he would be after them now he knew exactly where they were, and where they would in all likelihood remain for many years to come unless Amanda really did have a very good plan in mind.

~~~

"Those plastic cuffs really hurt," said Dale, rubbing at his wrists, the deep red lines testament to the effectiveness of such simple restraining devices.

"We were lucky we didn't get shot on the spot," said Amanda without sympathy, rubbing at her own wrists.

"Look, I'm sorry. I panicked."

"Panicked? You went bloody mad is what you did. What were you thinking?"

"I wasn't."

"No, you weren't."

"I just had a vision of them getting the Hexads and then everything we've been working for would have been totally pointless. I didn't know what to do."

"We could have tried just running, you could have kicked the guy in the shins and we could have made a dash and jumped."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Look, it's done, and you said it was Cray, so he's going to be getting those Hexads really soon, you can count on it. Now he knows where they are then he's going to be jumping and nabbing them, and then that will leave us stranded here, in jail."

"I know, but the only saving grace is that he obviously doesn't know about what happens in the future yet, this is the him that has been chasing us about, not a future version, so at least we have that going for us."

"But not a lot else," muttered Dale.

They'd been put into a room alone, a plain-walled, bare room with just a table and a few chairs, nothing else. Dale knew they were being listened to, or at least expected they were, but the situation called for them to talk and none of it seemed to matter when you had the worry of countless universes on your shoulders.

"Okay, this idea of yours, you going to do it? Is it safe to tell me, with them listening?"

"Oh!" Amanda put a hand to her mouth, clearly not thinking about eavesdroppers at all.