Hexad: The Chamber (7 page)

No, that was nonsense, he was sure of it. There was somebody behind the whole damn thing, and as far as he was concerned he had a very good idea who it was: The Caretaker.

There was something off about the guy, something he was hiding, even if he did act like he was only there to make certain everything went smoothly.

Caretaker of what? Dale was fed up asking. But it couldn't mean...? No, that would just be stupid.

Dale figured he'd try again. After all, he didn't have anything to lose by asking, right?

They were sat outside what would have been a very swanky and expensive cafe, too pricey for them for sure, now little more than a dirt-covered hovel, the sign fallen, the tables and chairs in disarray, the door locked. It was weird, sitting there not able to people-watch, just him and Amanda, nothing more.

"Amanda?"

Amanda turned, looking at him seriously. "Why do I get a bad feeling about this?"

"Well, um, probably because you know what I'm going to ask."

"The Caretaker?"

Dale just nodded.

"Go on then, ask."

"Look, I won't ask you to go there, wherever that is, I can see it's too traumatic for you, but, well, could it be him? That's responsible, sort of, for all of this?"

"Dale, he came to us to solve the problem. Said it was us that started it all, that we had to save the world."

"Yes, yes, I know all that. But look, someone had to invent the bloody thing, right?"

"We've been through this, it's the—"

"I know, the paradox. I don't believe it. Somebody, somewhere, at some time, made Hexads and we got caught up in the middle of it, making it a self-fulfilling prophecy, but it had to have a beginning. Fragments."

"Not when it comes to this kind of madness it doesn't." Amanda pulled a Hexad from her bag, a 5 flashing in familiar bright blue on its dome.

"It has to, don't you see? It's technology and that means it has to have been made. I know what you said about Hector and his production plant, but he got the plans that I told Peter to send, and that means somebody designed it initially and then it all kind of unraveled. So, could it have been him?"

Amanda took a long time to answer, biting the corner of her lip in that cute way of hers while Dale tried not to rush her.

"Maybe," was the answer when it finally came.

"Okay, wait here then. I won't be a minute." Dale checked his watch, and before Amanda could reach out an arm to stop him he slammed his hand down on the top of a fresh Hexad and disappeared.

"Dale. No!"

Amanda was shouting at empty air. Dale hadn't even gone Whooooooooooooooooooosh.

Bad Idea

Past, Present and Future

Dale knew he'd made a serious mistake as soon as he hit the Hexad's dome. A really bad one. As with all jumps it had been an instantaneous transfer from one place and time to another — it never really felt like there was a delay or any sense of hurtling through the cracks in reality — you were just somewhere else, disorientated sure, maybe even freaking about falling to your death if you didn't think strongly about landing on terra firma, but there was no pause in the jump, you simply appeared somewhere else, and sometime else.

This felt different. This felt like everything you imagined it to be when you watched a movie about people spiraling through vortexes and being ripped apart molecule by molecule then put back together again, never really sure if you were the same person again or if somehow bits got mixed up, wires crossed, brain reconfigured just that little bit differently to how it was before.

Dale felt all that and more. He felt like he had been spinning out of control for eternity, winding his way around the universes, falling apart at the seams and stitched back together an infinite number of times until he wasn't even anything resembling himself any longer.

The most bizarre part of it all was that he was just in a beautiful garden full of brightly colored flowers of all shapes, sizes and hues, with birds singing loudly, bees buzzing as they bumbled from one source of nectar to the next and butterflies danced in the clear, heavily perfumed air.

Yet he knew it was wrong, understood that this was not a place he should be, for it was no where and no when. This was the home of The Caretaker.

He'd made a bad error of judgment. More: a terrible one.

Dale saw The Caretaker, Tellan, walking toward him angrily from out of a large bed of ruby-red ripe tomato plants over two meters tall, lined up like soldiers, the canes they were staked to as straight as the backs of the perfect sentry.

"Shit, shit, shit. This is bad."

Dale fiddled nervously with the Hexad and mouthed a silent
whoosh
before pressing the dome and vanishing.

~~~

47 Years Future

"Ugh."

"You okay?" asked Amanda, staring at Dale suspiciously.

"Yeah, I think so. You were right, that place is weird. Well, weird and not weird, if you know what I mean?"

"I know exactly what you mean. It's like you are somewhere and nowhere, right? It just doesn't feel... normal."

"I bottled it, sorry. I jumped straight back from there, but he saw me, and he didn't look happy. I'm amazed I got there actually, I set everything on the Hexad to zero and just thought about him really hard, and the ground, of course."

"Um, Dale, you actually didn't look like you went anywhere, all that happened was that one second you were you, the next you were, well, older."

"Haha, I bet. I feel like it scared me into old age."

"I think it did. Sorry, look, you shouldn't have done that. It's his place. It's not for us. When I was there I felt wrong the entire time, like I was going against everything that was normal. But look..."

Dale opened the compact that Amanda held up for him, staring at his face like he was looking at it for the first time. He looked different. She was right, he did look older. There were the beginnings of faint lines around the corners of his eyes, nothing noticeable unless you really looked, and his stubble had grown a little. What was more worrying, as he really did like his dark shoulder length curly locks, was that he was now streaked gray at the temples.

"Damn. I got old."

"Not as old as me," said Amanda, eyes crinkling slightly as she smiled.

"Well, I won't be doing that again." Dale sank back into the chair, trying to calm himself, his heart racing like he'd been running hard.

"Damn, that looks weird." Dale studied himself from each side — the gray seemed to just be beginning. He wasn't looking too bad, not really.

"It's kind of distinguished. I like it." Amanda studied him some more as he handed back the compact.

"Really? Well, that's something. Nothing like that happened to you while you were there then?"

"No, but I had an invitation, it was different. You didn't."

"Yeah, well, I had to do something. It's all tied up with him, I just know it is."

"I guess you can just ask him," said Amanda, looking extremely worried.

Dale turned in the direction she was looking and watched as a rather angry looking Tellan walked towards them down the empty road.

He doesn't look happy, not one bit.

"How did you get there?" asked Tellan without preamble. "That's my private home, you aren't supposed to be there. It's my home."

"I'm sorry, I really am," said Dale, hands up in supplication. "But I wanted to talk to you, and as you weren't here I figured I would come to you."

"Well don't. I come to you when I need to, you never, ever come to me. Understood?"

"Yes sir!" barked Dale, saluting smartly.

"Don't try to be clever, it really doesn't suit you Dale."

"Well why don't you tell us what's really going on then? All this nonsense about us causing the end of the world, it happening over again, but just here, and everywhere else is fine, that's all nonsense, I know it is. Amanda coming back, coming back because you let her, it's just started the whole thing again from scratch, except it will happen in a different way, that's all. What's really going on? And more to the point, what have you done so that somebody, somewhere, has been draining out the life force of countless Amandas so they can power these damn Hexads?"

Tellan sank into a chair and placed his hat carefully on the table. "I think we better have a little chat."

"I think we better," said Dale.

"Tellan, what's going on? Is he right? Is this your fault really?" Amanda looked like her faith in the man was broken — their time together had obviously impressed her a great deal, now it looked like all the memories were exposed as nothing but lies.

~~~

Tellan, a.k.a. The Caretaker, told them a long, convoluted tale, yet at the same time he gave so little away that Dale was sure he must have been a politician in another life. He told of time, and of non-time, and he told of a man: Detective Inspector Cray. Dale interrupted him at that point, as he'd been told little of the man by Amanda, but Tellan told him that he would learn a lot more, that he'd meet him soon enough. It seemed that Tellan had encountered the man in various incarnations, some good, some bad, some neither, just complicated, and in some of those worlds he invented the Hexad, a machine that he sometimes used the right way, other times the wrong way, usually keeping it secret and never telling a soul. That was fine, that was allowed, it worked in the world, all of them actually.

But when there were many? Well, all bets were off, and things got complicated, very complicated indeed. Reality got skewed, Tellan's own reality warped and twisted and he found it hard to keep everything straight, in order, how it was meant to be.

So he stopped him, time after time after time, until the man was no more, gone, eradicated or left to live peacefully if his intentions were good, but often they were not. A single twist in one's life and a good man could turn out bad, especially when there was the possibility of absolute power — everyone knew that was the way to absolute corruption.

"What's that got to do with us though?" said Amanda, asking what Dale was thinking.

"Why, isn't that obvious? Each version of him involves a version of you two. It stands to reason doesn't it?"

Dale and Amanda exchanged glances.

Shit, of course.

"Because of Amanda, right?"

Tellan merely nodded, raising an eyebrow as if teaching a child that refused to learn.

"Me? Oh, the... the fluid?"

"Exactly. But not to worry my dear, it's nearly all taken care of. This is it, the last obstacle to freeing the world of Hexads. You just need to stop him one more time, in this world, and there will be no more such headaches for me."

Dale stood angrily. "For you! What the hell about us? What about Amanda and this loon that ends up causing people to hang her up by hooks and drain the life out of her? What about that, eh?"

Tellan had reverted to his usual calm self now, seemingly happy to have unburdened himself. "That was an anomaly, I can assure you. In most timelines they synthesize it, that was rather unfortunate."

"You could say that again," mumbled Amanda.

"So was it Amanda coming back that caused all this to spark up again or not?" asked Dale, getting more and more frustrated.

"It was. Is."

"So, um, no offense or anything Amanda, and I wouldn't have it any other way, but why the hell did you let her come back when you knew it would result in this happening again?"

Tellan fidgeted rather awkwardly, the first time Dale had seen the man anything less than composed. Even when angry he still somehow kept his cool — it was more like being disapproved of by your father than someone losing the plot. "I like her."

"Oh."

"Do you? Do you really?" asked Amanda brightly.

"Of course my dear." Tellan took her hand and held it affectionately.

"Hey, no funny business."

"I am a little old for 'funny business,'" said Tellan. "Now, if you will excuse me, I have tomatoes to pick."

"Wait, you can't just leave us. You have to tell us how to set things right," protested Dale.

"I'm afraid I can't," said Tellan, adjusting his hat.

"Why not Tellan?"

Is she fluttering her eyelids at him? She is!

"Because I have no idea what you are supposed to do. This is a new one on me, so I'm afraid you're on your own. Toodle-oo. Oh, one more thing..." He turned to Dale and said, "No more unexpected visits, or a little bit of gray will be the least of your worries."

Dale got the feeling he really didn't want to know what he meant, and had no intention of finding out either.

He was gone.

"Well, guess the holiday is over then," said Amanda, smiling weakly.

"Guess so."

"Can we please go home?"

"Can we? What about the other us?"

"Dale, weren't you listening? That was their time, remember? In our real home, this world, just in the present, then this is us now, us here. There is no other us going about doing things, as we are here."

"Oh yeah, right, forgot. I was thinking we would bump into ourselves. Well, not you, not since you... you know?"

"Come on, let's go home."

They jumped.

Home Sweet Home

Present Day (For Amanda)

Dale was immensely relieved to at least have some semblance of an idea as to where he was in the world. Jumping into different timelines where there were different versions of himself was just plain scary. He didn't want to have to worry about meeting himself — who knew which one would vanish?

No, being home, with Amanda, made him feel better. It was her, wasn't it? Well, that was all he wanted. Never mind the fact that pretty soon the world would be empty once more — not that he'd experienced it personally before as he'd set it all strait, which was confusing as hell — but for now maybe he could just relax and pretend things were normal.