Hexad: The Chamber (4 page)

Dale nervously pushed down on the top of the Hexad.

~~~

2817 Years Future

Less than a split-second later Dale was staring at a wall of Hexads in a room he would imagine was furnished by a man with an awful lot of spare cash lying around — he'd never seen anything so opulent in his life.

"Bloody hell. Are they all Hexads? The time machines?"

"They are, but they're not really time machines as such, more like devices that allow you to travel through time."

"So, exactly like a time machine then," stated Dale. He really couldn't see the difference.

"No. Yes, sort of. It doesn't matter."

"Where are we? And when are we?"

"It's a little hard to explain but we are in the future, but not our future. Things have got rather confusing after you, or a you almost the same as you, put an end to all the trouble and set things back to being right. Me and you are from different timelines and it used to be it was very hard to jump from one universe to another, now things are mostly right it seems that it's not so hard any longer. You used to have to have a special Hexad, now that there aren't many people jumping, only me really and a few others, then it's simple to jump between the gaps so to speak."

"And...?"

"Sorry, just trying to explain," pouted Amanda. "And it means that we are in the future but also in an alternate timeline where things happened differently to how they did in the worlds we both came from."

"And...?"

"And it means that there's a problem."

"Amanda, will you please just tell me what the hell is going on here? In case you haven't noticed this is all somewhat of a shock to me. You may be used to all this," Dale signaled with his head at the dark wood-paneled wall where row after row of shiny Hexads stood like miniature sentries watching over the end of the world, "but I certainly am not. So what is all this really about? What's happening and what are we supposed to do about it?"

"Maybe I can answer that."

Dale spun around to find an elderly gentleman wearing a rather stylish brown hat standing next to a small drinks table, lifting the stopper from a decanter and pouring himself what looked like whiskey.

I could do with one of them right now, but hell, it's probably a bit early. Or is it?

"Dale, this is The Caretaker," said Amanda respectfully.

"Pleased to meet you Dale, although I must say this is far from the first time we have met."

Dale tried to remember ever meeting the man before, then it clicked. "Ah, you mean other versions of me?"

"Well, I wouldn't put it quite like that, no. After all, that would mean you are nothing but another version of them. No, you are your own man, just as the countless other Dales are too. But no matter," the Caretaker dismissed the notion with an elegant wave of the hand, the effect ruined somewhat as his drink sloshed in the angled glass, "we have more pressing matters to concern ourselves with I'm afraid."

"You know, I think my head is seriously just about to explode. Can we please take this from the beginning, and slowly? I need to understand what is going on and what the hell I have to do with any of it. And also why Amanda is not really the Amanda I have known so long, but apparently she is, but isn't."

"Help yourself," said The Caretaker.

Dale looked down at his hand, then at The Caretaker's, and realized he had taken the drink from the old gentleman and was pouring it down his throat, the familiar burn settling his nerves a little, but nowhere near enough. "Oh, sorry. It's been a rather odd day so far."

"I can imagine. Now, let's all take a seat and I'll see if I can explain all of this so it makes some kind of sense."

Fat chance of that. This is like a nightmare, but one that feels nice in parts, like the bits in the bedroom.

Dale sat down in a comfortable, entirely too opulent chair. Amanda and The Caretaker joined him, taking seats that looked just as comfortable, all arranged around a large, low table.

It took a while.

~~~

At the end of a rather long, and seriously messed up explanation as far as Dale was concerned, he felt that he at least had some kind of a grasp on the situation.

Sort of.

As Amanda and the strange man named The Caretaker, who told Dale to call him Tellan, went off to talk and give Dale some time to reflect on what they had told him, Dale went over and over the story in his mind, trying to make some kind of sense of it all, trying to understand what it was that was now expected of him.

He also tried to come to terms with the guilt he felt for the loss of Amanda, the one he woke up with. Even though she didn't really feel like the one he loved he still felt a terrible weight of responsibility, or maybe it was just guilt? But it wasn't quite tangible — how could it be when there she was, looking a little older, sure, but Amanda, his Amanda, was definitely in the room so it was hard to truly feel as guilty and dirty as he knew he should.

Again he tried to put the story into order, to get up to speed on exactly why he was in the situation he found himself in, thousands of years into the future by all accounts.

What a mess.

They told him that because of some impossible-to-get-your-head-around quirk of time travel, it was actually him and Amanda that had started the whole thing off by telling themselves that there were devices known as Hexads. It set in motion a chain of events that led to themselves sending a Hexad, then crazy stuff happened and they found out how they were powered. It sounded nightmarish and Dale could certainly understand why the rest of the story was so mad after such a discovery.

Then they waited ten years, and this new Amanda, his real Amanda, but not quite, was taken out of action while he and another one, the one that disappeared earlier, although it wasn't quite her, not really, along with some detective, went about destroying countless versions of her to put the universes back in alignment — or something like that. The reasoning seemed dubious to him, killing all those almost identical women so that Hexads could never be put into production, but it also made sense in a convoluted kind of way.

They were killed so Hexads were never in the world, which set everything back to normal, meaning they were then still alive in their own universes.

Simple.

If only it was.

Dale was still finding it very hard to accept the fact that as this Amanda had basically got rid of the one that wasn't quite right from earlier, then Dale too had sort of jumped back to his correct universe where right now he and his Amanda were going about having the crazy adventure she'd told him about, even though what they had done to stop everything going wrong had succeeded — almost.

Was that right? No, it couldn't be, so what was he, the other him, doing?

Don't think about it Dale, you'll be a gibbering wreck if you do.

The only issue was what now? If it had worked then what was he doing in this strange place? Had it all been for nothing?

He knew Amanda was the woman he loved, even if it wasn't quite her, and found that it really didn't matter — at the end of the day it was her, she felt right. But she'd said that she had to get rid of the other her to set the remaining problem straight, but that wasn't true — she'd simply wanted to be with him, so took the other's place.

If it had solved the problem then he didn't see how he would even know about any of it anyway. No Hexads then nada. He would have just woken up and dealt with his hangover and would be mowing the lawn about now or maybe having an afternoon pint.

Dale decided one very important thing: it was all bollocks.

He got up from his chair, feeling sleepy from the whiskey and the information overload. He grabbed the edge of the wingback as he stood, the sudden movement sending his head spinning. It cleared in a few seconds and he walked across the impossibly opulent room to Amanda and The Caretaker. They turned as he approached, halting their conversation.

"Why don't you tell me what's really going on? All these stories, it's nonsense. You aren't telling it to me straight, none of it." Dale waited, Amanda and Tellan exchanging subtle, yet clearly futile glances. "TELL ME!"

"You aren't going to like it," said Amanda, grabbing his hand and squeezing tight.

"Why doesn't that surprise me one bit?"

Bit Pointless Then

2817 Years Future

Dale felt sick. Sick, scared, and way out of his depth. It was fine for Amanda and Tellan, they knew what the hell was going on — kind of, anyway. He was sure that Tellan wasn't even telling Amanda the whole truth, and it was clear by the way Amanda was acting that she was feeling the same.

"So it was all a waste of time then? Everything we did?" Amanda began to interrupt. "Okay, not me and you, a slightly different me and this you, but basically me if you hadn't come and ruined my morning." Amanda just nodded. Dale could see tears beginning in the corners of her eyes. "Hey, hey, it's okay." Dale hugged her; it felt so good.

"No Dale, it's not okay. It's awful. The things that we did, the things that happened to me while you and another Amanda tried to save everyone, it was too awful."

"What did happen? You haven't said."

"And I never will, but that's over now, and it's better than being dead. But I'm sorry, I really am."

Dale knew she loved him, he could feel it like a physical link between them. So what if they weren't exactly the couple they were? They loved each other. Even if the other Amanda, and countless others... Dale couldn't think about it any longer, there were even more wacky things to deal with.

Tellan coughed politely. "If I may?"

Amanda and Dale nodded. Amanda was clearly as eager as Dale to hear it explained again, and she must have heard it a good few times before from Tellan too.

"I understand the complexities of time travel," said Tellan, "I understand them only too well. I think it best for the pair of you to really think of it as being you that went through everything that has been talked about so far—"

"But—"

"Yes, yes, I know," said Tellan, interrupting Amanda just as she had him. "I know it was a slightly different Dale, but the fact remains that if you hadn't gone to him then the life he lived, the things he did, would have been almost exactly as it happened to you Amanda. And the same thing would have happened, he would have woken up back in his own present, the other you beside him, and then you would have started it all over again, changed it all, by going back and disrupting the whole process."

"But I had to," protested Amanda. "There were no other Dales left. Not ones that were like mine. Like him." Amanda pointed at Dale. Not accusingly, but it still felt like she was blaming him.

"Hey, hang on, you could have come back to when I was your age."

"I couldn't, because then everything that happened would have happened, and we wouldn't have changed a thing."

"But we, you, haven't anyway, have you?"

"No," said a dejected Amanda.

"That's not true. Haven't you been listening to anything that I've been saying?" said Tellan. "It worked, it really did. In most timelines, or universes, the same thing really, what was accomplished was entirely successful. The plans for the Hexad were obtained, thanks to Dale's friend Peter, and then the old man tried to replicate them, but failed, as he couldn't get hold of the Amandas he wanted. So everything returned to normal. Timelines reset, Hexads never existed, lives were lived without time travel, the universes were happy and everything clicked back into place."

"Just not here," said Amanda.

"Just not here," agreed Tellan.

"Here in the future you mean, or in the past?"

"All of it. It makes no difference. Past, present or future, all of it is wrong. The last parallel universe where things didn't reset as they should have, and that's because of you Amanda."

"I know. I'm sorry, but I had to go somewhere. I could remember it all, after everything that happened, and I could somehow feel that things were put right. I still remembered, so I hunted for Dale, and this is my Dale, wrong but right. The man I love."

"I understand," said Tellan, Dale taking the opportunity to grip tightly onto Amanda's hand. He could feel her fingers twitching nervously even as she clutched him tighter. "But this leaves us with a slight problem. Namely, you are here, and you have Hexads, and look at this place. If you don't put it right then the whole mess of everything will pour through the cracks and humanity will disappear once more as the universes simply will not put up with such convoluted realities."

"Don't blame them," muttered Dale. "My head can't take this either. It's too much, I don't see how time travel can possibly work."

"And that's what space/time thinks too. There must be order in the chaos, and people coming and going all over the place, warping endless realities, will simply not be allowed. So we must put an end to it once and for all, and this is the only remaining universe where we have a problem."

"Because of me," said Amanda.

"Yes," said Tellan. "Your existence is certainly necessary, that's a given now after what has happened, but you must correct everything or it will spread and we will forever be stuck in a loop of repetition and emptiness. And apart from all that it means my life will always be interrupted by you two, and much as I do think fondly of you I do have other things to do. I am The Caretaker after all."

"About that," said Dale. "What exactly does that mean: The Caretaker?" Dale shifted uncomfortably as they both stared at him like he was an idiot. "What?"

"He's The Caretaker," prompted Amanda.

"And...?" said Dale.

"I'm
The
Caretaker," said Tellan, putting his hat on, adjusting it carefully, clearly getting ready to leave.

"Um, okay. Of what?"

"Well, what do you think?"

"Dale thought about it. "Hey, you don't mean—"