Hexad: The Chamber (20 page)

Shit, this is really bad timing. Not now, not now.

Dale grabbed the Hexad that was rigged to his belt, there to be used at a moment's notice, and without asking he grabbed Amanda and pushed the dome to his chest.

They jumped.

Time to Recuperate

Present Day

"What the hell did you do that for?" shouted Amanda, absolutely furious with Dale for taking her away at such a momentous moment.

"If you look in the mirror then I'll tell you why. And look at me, really look." Dale grabbed her and then put his hands either side of her head, making her stare him in the eye, study his face. He knew he would seem a wreck, just like her. "Look at me. How do you think you compare? And how do you feel? Think about it. We need to stop, to rest."

Amanda did as he asked, her eyes taking a long time to search his face. She visibly sagged. It was as if she couldn't really focus without the binoculars, no longer used to just looking at things close up with her own eyes unimpaired.

Dale wondered just how bad he appeared — judging by her reaction he probably wasn't a pretty sight. He ran a hand through his hair, or tried to, and realized it was a mass of knots. How bad could he have got in only a few days? Clearly quite bad. It was the jumping, it had taken too much out of them. The body simply wasn't built to do such things, and Dale feared it had aged him in ways he was going to pay for later on, pay dearly for.

"Dale, you saw it, saw what was about to happen, we have to go back. I know how exhausting this is, I can feel it inside, I can see it in you and I'm sorry, but—"

"But nothing, we have to rest. You're forgetting one thing Amanda: we are in the now, in our time. We are back in the present and we have Hexads. We can jump back there whenever we want, but we need to rest first, we need to be ourselves again."

"Okay, you're right, I'm sorry. It's just..."

"I know honey, I know. Just relax." Dale could see the nervous energy bundled up; he felt the same. Amanda was like an exhausted animal that had been hunted until she was running on fast-dwindling reserves — she could do little in her current state and she seemed to be finally realizing it. Her posture was terrible: shoulders hunched, head at a slightly strange angle.

Dale had an idea and fiddled with the Hexad, a feeling so familiar he was past just hating it — he couldn't stand the damn things any longer, but what choice did he have? He took Amanda's hand as gently as he could and said, "Trust me," before they made yet another jump.

~~~

9 Hours Future

Steaming water erupted all around Amanda and Dale as they landed. Dale had the forethought to hold his breath, cursing himself for not at least warning Amanda. They surfaced simultaneously, both gasping for air, thankfully finding their feet in the relatively shallow water.

"A hot spring?" spluttered Amanda, once she realized she hadn't been jumped into anything more dangerous than a nice relaxing pool.

But there was a sparkle, Dale could see it. She was trying to be cross but couldn't, not really. How could you? Dale just smiled, then slowly, as they accepted the absurdity of their situation, they both began to laugh. It was a weird chuckle at first, as if they'd both forgotten that they had it inside of themselves to be happy, but it came, and it got louder and louder, the stress evaporating like the steam rising all around them.

Dale had taken a risk, he knew it, but he didn't have a choice, he had to get them away from the madness, the insanity that was building year after year, decade after decade. They needed space and they needed to feel normal, if for just a short while.

"You did this on purpose didn't you?" said Amanda, once she'd finished laughing. "You actually jumped us right into the middle of the water with all our clothes on."

"Well, I figured you wouldn't come if I asked, and I figured that if we had to bother with undressing then you'd find a way to argue and we'd be back going slowly mad. Okay?" Dale looked at Amanda, hair soaked from splashing into the incredibly warm water, clothes ballooning around her, looking as comical as he felt.

She nodded. "Better, much better. Thank you Dale."

"For you, anything. You know that. But look, we have to get it together. Up there, on that gantry, it suddenly hit me just what a mess we both are. We haven't slept, haven't eaten for days, just staring down at more and more craziness. We can't deal with this the way we are, we need to stop for a while, take care of ourselves."

"But Dale, how can we? You saw what was about to happen. The Chamber was... It was getting ready to jump, to time travel with all the people inside... If there are people inside. We need to stop it."

"And we will. But this is time travel Amanda, we can jump back there whenever we want. Cray isn't able to alter a timeline enough so that we won't have Hexads. He can't, or he will have never had them either, and he hasn't killed us as we are still here, so we're good. We can chill out and get our act together and then we are going to put an end to this. We need to be fighting fit, we need to be able to think clearly and act sensibly, and I do not feel like I can do that at the moment. I know damn well that you can't."

"You're right. So, where are we?"

"You can't guess?" Dale smiled, watching Amanda try to figure it out.

"Ha, got it. Iceland, right? At the hot springs we saw that program about."

"You got it baby, nailed it it one. We always said we wanted to go, and now here we are. Middle of the night, nobody around, the area locked down until the morning. It's all ours."

"Wow, amazing." Amanda squirmed about in the warm water, letting her arms play out to the sides, her clothes drifting about her like seaweed in the shallows near the shore.

Dale stood and moved out of the natural pool, saying, "I'll be back in a minute, just relax, enjoy it."

"Where are you going? You're not going to leave me, jump, are you?"

"No. If I had it my way I'd never jump again in my entire life, just stay here forever and never think about any of it again, but we don't have that luxury, although for now we do. You just wait, I'll be back in a few minutes. Trust me."

"Okay Dale, I trust you. More than anyone. You know that."

Dale nodded and made his way out of the pool of light that shone down on the steaming water, squelching as the water dripped onto the rock.

"I'll be back," said Dale, turning just before he was lost to the dark.

"Haha, very funny Dale. You sound as much like Arnie as I do."

Dale sloshed off into the dark.

~~~

"Surprise," shouted Dale, as he walked toward the steaming pool.

"Bloody hell Dale, you nearly gave me a heart attack." Amanda splashed about manically like she was anything but defenseless in the pool, but smiled once she saw it was safe.

"Oh, sorry, didn't mean to startle you. Look, I found some food. The restaurant was locked down tight but I did get into some sort of kiosk. They have weird food here though," said Dale, eyeing the tins and snacks rather dubiously.

"I could eat anything, I'm ravenous." Amanda followed the movement of Dale's armful of food greedily. "You okay?"

"It's freezing out here, kind of forgot why it's called Iceland."

"Well I'm lovely and warm, jump back in. Get your clothes off though, it'll make you feel better."

Dale didn't like the idea of stripping down naked, fearing it would be so much colder, but the wet clothes were sticking to him like he was shrouded in ice and already he could see crystals forming on them. "You think I should? It will be horrible to have to put them back on."

"Well, I have something that might make you change your mind."

"What? Oh."

Amanda dropped her hands into the water then flung a pair of pink panties at him. She stood, water cascading down her slender body, breasts glistening with steam and water droplets, her blond hair tumbling down her shoulders like liquid gold.

"Oh, wow. Definitely."

"Some things never change," laughed Amanda, as Dale dropped the food and danced about awkwardly, hopping from one foot to the other trying to pull his soaked jeans off.

"You not too tired?"

"Never too tired for an elicit rendezvous in a hot spring in Iceland, big boy."

"Well, good. Let's call it a little bit of jump therapy shall we?" Dale lowered himself into the pool and waded over to Amanda before wrapping his arms around her. He brushed the hair away from her neck and kissed the salty, warm skin. "Ah, that's better."

"Mm."

They forgot about the snacks; they forgot about everything apart from each other. For a while it was just them, the sounds of the water gurgling and the togetherness they had come so close to losing.

~~~

"Go on then, show me what you got," said Amanda, eyes sparkling like they hadn't for days, her body energized like the clock had been turned back.

"What, already? I'm not as young as I used to be you know?" said Dale, looking slightly nervous about her demands.

"No, silly," said Amanda, punching him on the arm. "The snacks. I'm starving."

"Oh, right. Yeah." Dale held onto Amanda's hand and they moved to the discarded pile of food and clothes and hauled themselves up onto the side, keeping their legs dangling in the water.

"Oh my god, oh my god, it's freezing out here. I'm getting back in." Amanda dropped down, ducking until just her head was out of the water.

"Guess I'll be serving the snacks then." Dale picked up some of the packs he'd pilfered and tried to make sense of the contents by reading labels — it didn't help. "Here." Dale passed Amanda a brightly colored packet and she studied it before shrugging her shoulders and ripping it open.

"Uh, this stinks." Amanda poked her nose back into the packet and took a cautionary sniff once more. "Definitely fishy." She pulled out a brittle piece of something dark and gave it a little lick. "Tastes okay though." Then the hunger must have kicked in and Dale watched her grab a handful and stuff it into her mouth.

Dale sank back into the water gratefully and took the packet off Amanda. "Harðfiskur. Hey, that rings a bell. I think it's dried fish, they love it here apparently. You can get it like chips, or jerky, or brittle like this stuff. Yum, not bad at all." Dale tore open packs that seemed to contain more conventional snacks as well as opening a number of bottles that had a drink that tasted somewhere between milk and cheese. The feast began.

By the time they were finished the food was mostly gone, although some things were simply too strange to do little more than tentatively sample, and both were feeling the full effects of the come-down from the last few days of constant vigilance.

"Happy?" asked Amanda.

"Happy," said Dale, nodding. "We needed this, right?"

"Definitely. I can't believe how nice this is after what we've been through. But we have to go back, don't we?"

Dale knew that they did, although he would have given almost anything to stay right where they were indefinitely. But he wouldn't give up their future, the future of everyone, just to stay happy himself. "Let's go and find some clothes, something warm, and then let's get some rest. Tomorrow is another day and we are finally going to put an end to the madness, once and for all."

"Dale, would you mind if I stayed here while you got the clothes? It's freezing out there."

"No problem. I won't be long, I have just the thing."

Dale jumped out of the pool naked and rummaged in his satchel. "See you in a minute, save me a spot. Whooooooooooooooooooosh."

Dale was gone.

Lone Adventurer

Present Day

Dale had jumped back home, not out of any overwhelming desire to see the place again, but because it was simply practical to go home to get clothes.

As soon as he landed in the kitchen he felt really strange, like everything since Amanda had appeared and warned him about digging in the garden had been nothing but a dream. He actually checked his hand just to make sure he really had just jumped from a hot spring in Iceland, half expecting to be holding a glass of water — or maybe a half-consumed bottle of whiskey — rather then the Hexad it was gripping tightly.

Waking from a dream and stumbling about drunk or going to get some water after a heavy night would make more sense than what he'd been through, and he really doubted he would have been surprised either way. Yet he also felt relief, knowing that at least he wasn't losing his mind, just his clothes and the lives of billions, but still, it was comforting in its own way.

Shivering, and shaking his wet hair, Dale padded across the cool kitchen tiles, leaving a puddle that would have annoyed the hell out of Amanda had she been there to see it. The room was quiet, only the humming of the refrigerator and the dim blue light cast by the temperature controller stopped it being totally dark and silent. He ignored the scary mess on the table, and the mess it had made on the floor that made his own watery mess pale into insignificance.

As he opened the door out into the hallway Dale had the strangest idea: what if he just went and got Amanda now and they ditched all the Hexads, jumped with a final copy, came back home and just forgot about the whole thing? Would everything then just slot back into place as if none of it had ever happened? He sighed, knowing the answer, just grasping at anything to finally put an end to the craziness that was escalating with each passing minute.

It felt surreal, knowing what was going to happen in the future: The Chamber, the paradoxes that caused the countless Amandas to wind up in such a place, the lives they led. He knew there was more, a lot more, the way that time became so twisted it didn't even make sense to itself, so universes just shut themselves off, eliminated the problem by eradicating humanity before it had a chance to warp reality so much that nobody would ever have been born in the first place.