Hexad: The Chamber (3 page)

"I know, but I do. I was away from it all when it happened, when you and the new Amanda solved the problem, so for some reason I remember. And I've hunted for you for an age Dale, and you're the only one that is like my original Dale."

"Apart from the fact I smell different and aren't really him?"

"Exactly."

"And you can live with that? Live with the knowledge that I'm not really, truly your guy?"

"Yes, and do you know why?" asked Amanda, eyes moist yet Dale could tell she was refusing to cry. Dale shook his head. "Because apart from that one thing then you are him, you really are. And I love you Dale, I love you so very much."

"I love you too Amanda, but you aren't my Amanda, you said so yourself. Not that I get it if I'm not the one that did any of those things anyway. How can I not be with my Amanda if it wasn't me that did any of what you have been saying?"

"Ask her," said Amanda in shock, but seemingly resigned to what she appeared to know was happening.

"Dale? What's going on?" said a sleepy Amanda, coming out the door in her green silk dressing gown, staring blearily at Dale and Amanda sat at the table.

"Oh shit. This isn't good, is it?"

"No. In fact it's very bad."

"Don't come any closer, stay right there!" shouted Dale.

Amanda kept on walking, shock spreading across her face as she looked at Dale and then at... herself.

"Dale, what—"

Amanda vanished. She was gone, just disappeared from where she had been walking towards them. Dale turned back to Amanda. "You knew, didn't you?"

Amanda looked him in the eye, sad, but at the same time determined, resolute. "I'm sorry, I was so lonely. I had to be with you again. I'm sorry."

Dale put his hands to his temples, trying to stop the pounding that felt like his head was going to split in two.

He just wanted to mow the lawn and have a chilled out Saturday.

A Wakeup Call

3 Hours 19 Minutes Past

"Change it back, right now."

"I can't," said Amanda. "I'm sorry."

"Just get out your thing, your Hexad, and jump us back a little, before she woke up."

"It doesn't work like that Dale. If I do that then all that would happen is that we'd be sat next to that version of ourselves and then we'd probably all disappear, or one version of us anyway, and on and on it would go. She's gone, there's no changing it. It's for the best."

"For the best? For the best! Are you kidding me? I just watched her disappear and you're saying it's for the best?"

"Yes, because she wasn't your Amanda. You might be a Dale that never did time travel and have the things happen to him that my Dale did, but that's only because I came here and stopped you digging that hole, changing everything. But the rest is true. If I didn't come then everything that has happened would have happened to you and that wasn't your Amanda."

"But none of that did happen to me, or will, not now, will it? So how could I have woken up to be with a different version of you?"

"Because of the paradoxes. Some things just can't be put properly right."

"And now they are?" Dale was furious, yet at the same time it didn't seem real. How could it when he was sat across from the love of his life? Even if she did have crow's feet forming at the corners of her eyes. It was still his Amanda. It felt right; it was her. "So what are you saying? That wasn't her even though because of what a different me did it should have been?"

"No," sighed Amanda. "It wasn't her because you would have done it all if I didn't return, so you would have woken up next to a different Amanda once everything was set right, so you did. That's the best I can do. It's happened, all that I told you, it's simply that it wasn't exactly you that did it, or, well, not did it once everything got put right."

"Makes no sense at all. I need coffee; this can't be happening." Dale picked up the mugs and went into the kitchen to make coffee.

He opened the cupboard door. A simple, familiar act.

Dale blacked out, falling hard onto the tiles Amanda had said would be a good investment though he never understood how tiles could be seen as an investment. Bloody expensive, yes. An investment, no.

The two mugs Dale had placed on the counter top were still where they had been before he'd taken them out of the cupboard to make the coffee. It seemed that mugs didn't follow the same rules as people in terms of being able to be in the presence of each other, were Dale's thoughts before he hit the ground.

He never did see the mugs disappear into thin air just before they hit the tiles and cracked into a million pieces, just like his mind.

~~~

Dale woke to find himself in bed, head pounding. Amanda had an arm over his back, clutching him like she never wanted to let him go, like she hadn't held him for years.

Dale shot upright, thoughts a mess, trying to shake off his sleep. Was this a dream? Had it been a dream? Must have been. It didn't feel like one though.

Amanda shifted at the sudden motion and sat up next to him. He turned, fearing the worst, happy to see her smiling back at him, hair disheveled like it always was first thing in the morning.

"Morning love."

"Morning Dale," said Amanda happily.

Dale stared at her face. Since when did she have crow's feet?

Dale thudded back on the pillow. Maybe if he just closed his eyes it would all go away and life would be uncomplicated once more.

It didn't work.

Strangely, and it proved that he really had lost his marbles, the first thing Dale thought was how could he be in bed if he'd traveled back in time. Surely he'd be lying on top of himself, or there would be one of those paradox things and the other him would have disappeared. No, that couldn't be right either, as if the other him disappeared then he wouldn't have gone on to have the kind of morning he'd had. Would he?

"You didn't, did you?"

Amanda looked at him, questioning what he meant, then realization dawned. "No, gosh, of course not. I love you Dale. It's early afternoon, we've gone to the pub."

"Um, okay. How? If the other you disappeared then surely I can't be at the pub with her."

"You're not, you're there with me, well, your Amanda, like you would have done if none of what I told you happened. Imagine if I never came here, you just woke up like normal, dug up the garden, began down the rabbit hole that I told you about — that's what's going on with them. We're intruders, of sorts."

"Christ Amanda, this is too much. This is totally messing with my head you know?"

"Well imagine how I feel. I saw a room full of countless versions of me all lobotomized, or whatever it was. Hung up like meat, being milked to power time travel devices. Not to mention being chased through time by a giant, searching for you through the ages and the universes, going to the future and seeing it empty, running around foreign lands, visiting Venice after it had been taken over by cats and—"

"Okay, I get the point. So, now what?"

"Now you give me the shagging of my life and then we get dressed."

"Um, okay."

~~~

Amanda had been intense in bed, yet Dale somehow felt like he was cheating. It had been exciting, wild, and... how could he explain it? Different. Like he was having an affair with his own lover. Was it that she was older now? No, that wasn't it. It was because it was Amanda yet it wasn't. That wasn't right either.

It was like coming home. It felt like the most normal thing in the world as it was the woman he loved, the only woman he had ever loved.

Amanda.

As he showered and toweled himself dry he tried to get his new life straight. He couldn't.

As far as he could make out then he wasn't the Dale that Amanda had gone through so much with only for that Dale to then get sent back to when it all began and have no memory of it. According to her that Dale was gone. He couldn't help wondering what he had looked like. Was he a clone or did he have a different eye color? Different hair. Was he fat? Bald even?

Maybe he'd ask Amanda. On second thoughts maybe he wouldn't.

He had another idea, and padded barefoot back into the bedroom, where Amanda was sat on the edge of the bed brushing her still damp hair.

Dale dropped his towel.

"Busy?"

Amanda turned and stared at him, eyes widening as her gaze traveled lower across his body. "No, but I can be."

~~~

What is wrong with me? This feels so good, but so—

Dale's reveries were interrupted by Amanda saying something. "What's that?"

"I said we have to go, we'll be home soon."

"Huh? Oh, right, the other us that is me and a different you. Of course, how silly of me."

"No need to get sarcastic," pouted Amanda, face still flushed from their bedroom antics — the third time.

"Yeah, well, I'm having kind of a hard time here."

"I know, I can see," said Amanda, pulling back the bedsheets. "No time for that though. Come on, get dressed."

Dale did as he was told, feeling terrible about himself, but really rather good at the same time. He stared at Amanda — she really did look radiant. Could this be real? And how come he was fine with her having not long ago made another version of her drop out of existence?

Because she was still with him, that was why. It meant that nothing else seemed real, not when she was here and it felt so right. It still made no sense to him that for her he wasn't the right Dale but for him she was the right one, but then, if you thought about time travel even for a moment all it did was leave you confused, confounded, and you'd do anything to take your mind off it — even give your girlfriend, that wasn't really your girlfriend, the best rogering, or three, that you'd had in your entire life.

Dale got dressed.

Time to Run

3 Hours 19 Minutes Past

Dale stared in horror at the festering lump on the kitchen table — a steaming mass of flesh that he was sure had a human eye embedded in the misshapen flesh, covered in veins thick and bloated.

Amanda was already heading out of the door.

"Ignore it, we'll clean it up later."

"We? What? Oh, you mean the other we, right?"

"Yes. Come on, we have to go, and we have to go now."

"What's the rush? What's so urgent?"

"Dale, why do you think I'm here?" said Amanda, turning and staring at him quizzically.

"Well, you know, for me I guess."

"Yes, for you. But you know me, am I really that selfish?"

"Shellfish? Yes please."

"Haha, very funny. Seriously, we have to go."

Damn, she always liked that joke.
"Okay, what's going on?"

"We have to save the world, of course."

"Oh. Right." Dale grabbed his satchel, or went to. It wasn't there. "Hey, where's my bag?" Amanda just stared at him like he was an idiot. "I took it when we went out?" Amanda nodded. "Bloody hell this is confusing."

"You haven't seen anything yet, not a thing."

Dale thought Amanda said that a little too ominously, being dramatic as usual. "Okay, let's go. Where to?"

"You'll see."

They wandered out into the garden and Amanda stood with her face to the sun, then turned to admire the views over their well-stocked garden. Both of them loved spending time out of doors, buying new plants and experimenting with various color schemes and plant groupings in different areas of their quite large garden.

"You okay?"

Amanda turned and smiled. "Fine, I just missed it is all. It's good to be home."

"Hey," said Dale, putting an arm around her shoulder, "you sound like you aren't going to see it again."

"Maybe I won't." Amanda sighed, pulled the Hexad out of her pocket and began to turn dials that ran around its circumference.

"Wait!" said Dale, realization dawning.

Amanda looked at him impatiently. "What?"

"This isn't making sense. You said that you had to get rid of the other Amanda to set things right. Well, she's gone, so if that worked then there are no more chances of Hexads, or any of this stuff having ever happened, so how come you aren't surprised by any of this? You should be either really freaked, or, um, maybe not even knowing any of what you said happened actually happened. In fact it shouldn't have happened."

"Dale, it isn't that simple. She had to go, so it's just you and me out of the countless versions of us that were ever involved with this."

"But I'm not," protested Dale.

"Of course you are. Right this very minute you are off being involved in this. Are you forgetting that we aren't in the present? We jumped back almost three and a half hours. The you in the present for him is involved, playing out what happened countless times before."

"So we can't do anything? We have to let that happen before we do anything at all?"

Amanda sighed. "Dale, it simply doesn't work like that. Besides, we won't be in this version of the universe anyway, so it doesn't matter."

"So why did the other Amanda have to go? No, wait, ugh, I can't think straight. You said another version of me and her were at the pub. So is she gone or not?"

"She's gone, gone from this universe, but it's a big place out there. Look, there are other Amandas, just not ones that ended up in that horrible room. It's infinite, but not. Please, trust me, I still don't understand this stuff very well, all you do is go around in circles until you want to pull your brains out through your ears and lie down in a dark room and cry."

"Okay, let's go." Dale knew he couldn't even begin to get his mind around what was happening, so resigned himself to just going with it for now until he could try to think it over quietly, calmly.

Dale noticed a flashing 3 on the top of the device and was about to ask about it when Amanda grabbed his hand and said, "Ready?"

"Where we going?"

"Just wait." Amanda held out the Hexad and said, "Press the dome, so it pushes down."