A Chronetic Memory (The Chronography Records Book 1) (18 page)

“I’d like to do what I can.”

“I know.” Kat took a sip of her iced tea. “But hey, what was that idea you were going to talk to us about?”

Dani brightened. She turned to include Marak in what she’d already told Kat. “I want you both to meet Jored.”

Marak looked puzzled. “How would we do that?”

Dani pulled the four items out of her pocket and set them on the table between them. She had meant to put them back into the supplies closet, but not any more. They were her only link with her old reality. “These objects have traveled with me since before I experienced the shift.”

“Have you figured out when the shift occurred now?” asked Kat.

“Not exactly. I know it had to be between Tuesday evening here, when I last saw Jored, and yesterday evening here, when I discovered he was missing.” Her voice caught a little, and she swallowed. “But beyond that, I’m thinking it was sometime yesterday afternoon. I did two scanning sessions, and when I stepped out of the observation box between the first and the second, I remember feeling dizzy, like the room was spinning around me. It took me a few seconds to get my balance.”

Marak leaned in. He had that look on his face that Dani had learned to recognize: the journalist on the scent of a story. “And everything else fits with that as a dividing point?”

“Yeah, as far as I can figure out. Things that happen at the institute don’t really seem to be affected, except for the time decay.”

“Dani,” Kat began slowly, “I know this has all been really strange and heart-wrenching for you, and we’re trying to talk about it matter-of-factly to make it easier for you to adjust. We know you, and we know that a rational discussion of the facts helps you deal with emotional upheavals. But I’d be keeping secrets I shouldn’t keep if I didn’t tell you that it’s a little weird for me too.”

“Because you feel like you don’t know me really?”

“Actually, not that at all. You seem the same. As far as I’m concerned, you are our own Dani, and we love you very much.”

“What, then?” But Dani thought she knew. They would want to keep their own reality, just like she wanted to keep hers.

“I am happy—we are happy—to help you try to figure out what happened. But if we meet Jored, and I’m still waiting for you to tell us how, I have to admit I’ll be experiencing some difficult emotions also.” She stopped, searching for words.

Marak took over the story. “Dani, I don’t know if you know this or not, but Kat got sick a little less than a year after we were married, and it did some damage to her body. We’ve tried to have kids, but the doctors have told us we can’t. We got the final word just last year.”

Kat nodded. “If we do this, I will see this little boy, and I know I will want to love him and hold him, but don’t you see? If that other reality could be restored somehow—and I realize that is what you are hoping for—it won’t be me. It will be another Kat, without nine years of my memories. I feel like I’d be ceasing to exist myself. It would be like agreeing to commit suicide. I don’t know if I’m that unselfish.”

Dani didn’t know what to say. Finally, she offered a wholly unsatisfying response, only because she couldn’t think of anything else to say. “I hadn’t thought of it that way. I won’t ask you to help. I don’t even know if it’s possible. I guess…I guess I just wanted someone else to mourn him with me. But that’s being selfish. I don’t need for you to grieve too. You’ve already done that.”

“How would we do it, if we did decide to meet him?” asked Marak. “Would we just be watching? He couldn’t see us, right?”

Dani picked up the objects again and passed them from one hand to another, one at a time. “I can use these to show you the last evening I spent with him. I checked them out; they still have the chronetic energies from the other reality. If I could get you in the lab, you could see it too.”

“How could we get in the lab?” asked Marak.

“You’d have to get permission, and a temporary visitor’s pass. I’m not sure how to go about that.”

“My uncle might be able to pull some strings,” said Kat, “but can we think about it? I really don’t know if I want to do this. And I don’t know how I feel about Marak doing it without me either.”

“I wouldn’t do it without you, babe. It’s both of us or neither of us.”

She smiled at him, gratefully.

Dani felt really bad for even bringing it up. It had seemed like such a good idea at the time, but she hadn’t had any idea of their struggles. She wondered if that was another change from her reality, or if her Kat and Marak had faced those struggles too.

OUTSIDE WALLACE HOME, Lower Queen Anne, Seattle, WA. 1930, Thursday, June 8, 2215.

Lexil wished he had come in a helicar so he could be waiting inside it instead of standing out here on the street. He was sure it looked suspicious, even a little creepy. He expected sirens any time. At least it was a nice evening. It would be so much worse with a steady dose of Seattle rain.

Maybe if he walked back and forth a half block it would look like he was a neighbor out for a stroll. Except this would be the fourth time he had gone for the same stroll. He sighed, and paced in a tight circle.

He called Doc again. “You’re sure the center of the disturbance is still in this house?”

“Yes. And it’s still sending out ripples. I’ll let you know if it moves.”

“And I’ll let you know if someone leaves.”

At first, he had considered walking right up and introducing himself to everybody in the house, but the Wallaces had an irisscan, and they might not even open the door. Besides, they had agreed before he left to influence events as little as possible. He needed to narrow down the source of the disturbance first.

Looking between houses on one of his neighborly strolls, he had caught a glimpse of three people on the back porch. He supposed the man was Marak Wallace. One of the women would be Kat, but he didn’t know which one.

It was most likely that the visitor (whoever she was) was the source of the disturbance, since it had traveled from First Hill to here just before he arrived. He wished he had been standing outside then, so he could have intercepted her. This visit could go on all evening.

He was just about to start off on another neighborhood stroll when he heard the door open. Voices with goodbye tones leaked through the opening. He couldn’t make out more than a few words, but those few were promising also. “… morning?” “… hug for me?” “… let you know …”

Now the door was opening wider. He looked around quickly for a shrub to hide behind. He didn’t want to be seen and make her go back inside. He needed her to separate herself from the two in the house so that Doc could let him know whether the disturbance was leaving with her or staying in the house. He stooped behind a hedge, hoping the neighbors wouldn’t happen to look in his direction any time soon.

He called Doc on his connexion and whispered, “The visitor is getting ready to leave. Tell me if the disturbance moves, so I don’t miss another chance to make contact.”

The two waited in tense silence on opposite ends of the connexion, Doc monitoring his sensor reports, Lexil stooping awkwardly just out of visual contact with the door. Finally, finally, the visitor stepped onto the slidewalk.

In the fading evening light, Lexil could see that she had blond hair, swept casually behind her shoulders. A light jacket covered her sundress, and she moved purposefully as she shifted her position on the slidewalk. She was deep in thought. She had the expression of someone trying to solve a puzzle, a slight frown while she bit her lower lip, flickering glances skyward. Suddenly, she smiled, and her face lit up.

Lexil inhaled sharply. He wasn’t sure if it was the intelligence he saw in her expression, or the purposeful way she walked, or the genuineness of her smile, but he suddenly found himself hoping his next move would be in her direction rather than toward the house.

“Doc, is it the visitor or the Wallaces?” he whispered. “She’s about fifteen meters in front of the house, almost to the street.”

“Definitely the visitor,” Doc answered. “There’s a smaller disturbance in the house, but the main source is on the move. Go find out what you can. But remember, you’re an observer, not a participant!”

“I’ll try to remember that,” Lexil whispered. But as he hung up, he was already trying to forget. He considered the best way to introduce himself as he waited for her to reach the street. She’d be most open to the simple truth, he decided.

She turned away from him to make her way to the tube station. He followed, quickening his pace. She glanced behind her, curious.

“Hey,” he said. “You look like a person who could use some answers.”

“I do?” Good. She wasn’t running. She was waiting for him to catch up.

“You do. And I think I might be the only person who can help you find them.”

She stopped abruptly. “And who might you be? How would you know anything about my questions?”

“Lexil Myles.” He held out his hand, hoping she would respond.

She took it. “Danarin Adams.”

He liked her handshake. Firm, confident, totally competent. Or maybe that was his imagination.

“You haven’t answered me yet,” she prompted, waiting patiently. “How would you know anything about my questions?”

“Let me try to describe them. You can let me know how I do.”

She nodded.

“You’ve recently—let’s say 1:30 yesterday afternoon?—experienced a kind of time disturbance. Something huge has changed in your world. You might be the only one who knows it has happened. Besides me,” he added as an afterthought. And Doc, he thought silently.

Her astonishment made her even more attractive. Whoa there, he chided himself. This is field work, not a social event.

“Tell me.” It wasn’t so much an invitation as a command. “Tell me what you know.”

“Is there someplace we can talk? I’m not from the neighborhood,” he apologized.

“There are benches in the tube station,” she said. “We can sit there, if we need to. But start now.”

So he did.

OUTSIDE WALLACE HOME, Lower Queen Anne, Seattle, WA. 1945, Thursday, June 8, 2215.

Dani was happy for the hugs as she left Kat and Marak’s house. She felt a little less alone. She was resigned, though, to walking this road by herself now. Tomorrow, at work, she would take one last look at the little boy she used to call “bud,” put the objects back with the others like them, and adapt to living in this new reality. It hurt more than she could say, but she had to trust that time would help her heal. Whether it did or not, she realized now that there wasn’t going to be any going back. This was it.

No, the problem to solve now was the blackmail issue. She thought about places in the institute where she might find Dr. Brant alone, and came to the conclusion that there were none. She would have to leave her a note in a place where she could read it without being observed, and arrange to meet her later somewhere. Leaving a note was risky, she realized. It could be kept and given to someone else, or it could be found by someone else before Dr. Brant ever saw it. Perhaps she shouldn’t sign her name, just in case. She could be “wellwisher” or maybe come up with a code name like “bud.”

She smiled at a sudden clear memory of the day she had first started calling Jored by his nickname. Most people thought it was short for “buddy,” but she and Jored knew the truth. They had been looking at the flowering shrubs that were starting to produce the beginnings of new leaves and flowers, with Jored up on a chair so he could see the ones up high. He had swatted at an branch that had tickled the top of his head, and she had said, “Don’t hit that; you’ll knock off the bud!” But as she said it, she had turned and knocked him off the chair. He had landed on his feet, giggling, asking her if he was the “bud” and whether she should be careful too, so as not to knock off the “bud,” and the name had stuck.

Still smiling, she considered whether she really wanted to let those objects get mixed in with the others in the supply room. Maybe not. If she was going to walk this road alone, she might as well have a place to find a little comfort.

Dani had just turned right at the street to walk toward the tube station when she heard the footsteps, walking almost fast enough to be a jog. She turned, curiously.

“Hey,” said a strange voice in the fading light. “You look like a person who could use some answers.”

Well, he was right about that. But she wondered how he would know. “I do?” She waited for him to catch up. He slowed as he neared her and flashed a very appealing smile. And big brown puppy dog eyes. She always fell for the eyes first. Stop that, Dani, she told herself firmly.

“You do. And I think I might be the only person who can help you find them.”

That was pretty arrogant. “And who might you be? How would you know anything about my questions?” She might have snapped at him a little. She wasn’t sure.

“Lexil Myles.” He held out his hand, oblivious to her irritation.

She couldn’t resist checking out his handshake. You could tell a lot about someone by the way he shook hands. “Danarin Adams.”

He had a great handshake. Firm, but not the kind that tried to take control of everything. She decided she’d give him another chance.