Hexad: The Ward (27 page)

No, wait, there was more.

Amanda struggled up out of the fog, clinging to thoughts that swept across her mind like a warm breeze on a summer's day where nothing mattered and the sun beat down on her skin and the bees buzzed happily at the edges of perception. She'd been out, she'd got away. Dale had rescued her and they'd gone to Thailand for a week, slept and ate and made love on the beach, then gone home and...

"That damn Peter, he didn't use a coaster," Amanda whispered though gritted teeth.

Dale smiled at her, wiped his eyes and said, "Hi, honey, how about we get you out of here. Again."

With a nod, Amanda reached out a hand; Dale took it as the straitjacket fell to the floor.

They jumped.

~~~

Present Day

Amanda woke with a splitting headache but at least she could think. She eased herself up a little on the bed and smiled weakly at the familiar surroundings of the bedroom. Suddenly panicked, she pulled the covers back and sighed with relief when she saw her arms — they weren't strapped into the straitjacket, so that was something.

What happened? Why had she ended up back in The Ward? How had Dale got her out, and just what the hell had been going on in that strange room with all those Amandas watching the giant screen?

Maybe it's best I don't know. I don't know how much more of this I can take.

What could she remember? What were her last memories?

She'd collapsed, hadn't she? Fallen as they tried to get away from the place they discovered behind the secret door, and the next thing she knew was that Dale was in a cell and rescuing her. So somehow she had been recaptured and locked up, but how, by who, and how had Dale managed to get away then return for her?

So many questions she had no energy to think about it. She was home, but was she safe? When was the last time she had been? Months and months ago, that's when, before she'd ever heard of a Hexad and before Tellan, The Caretaker, had come into her life and made a mockery of everything she believed in.

Amanda closed her eyes. She slept.

~~~

"Ugh, eh, what? Hey, what the hell is going on?"

"No time, get up, now." Dale snatched back the covers, grabbed her by the hand and yanked her to her feet. She felt a pain shoot across her shoulder and down to her pinkie finger at the sudden force.

"Dale, what the—"

There was a loud crash from out in the hallway and then a
meow
, followed by the deep voice of a man she really didn't want to meet. "Laffer no like cat."

"What's going on, Dale?"

"Let's just say things have got a little out of control. It's Laffer, the one we met at The Ward, the adult one, not the one that came with Hector here. Ugh, no time, you ready?" Dale stared at the bedroom door in a panic and with shaking hands he adjusted a Hexad. Without waiting for an answer, he grabbed Amanda around the wrist and slammed the Hexad into his chest as the door crashed open and Laffer ducked to enter the room.

~~~

31 Years Future

Something buzzed loudly but Amanda wasn't sure if it was in her head or it was a genuine noise. All she knew was that it was loud. She decided maybe it would help to open her eyes, so she did, only to be confronted with a huge machine trundling toward them, tires as big as a house with a weird cab up front and a huge skip on the back.

"Move, come on." Dale dragged her away from the approaching vehicle, picked up speed and directed her to a series of prefabs where they ducked down around the side and he pushed her up against the wall.

"Dale, what the hell are you doing? What's happening?"

"Sorry, just wait a minute. I'm not sure if it's safe."

Amanda didn't think she had ever seen him looking quite as scared as this. She glanced back the way they had come, watched the giant dump truck move past and looked at the barren landscape she found herself in. Everything was black. It was some kind of quarry where piles of rocks were loaded onto similar machines to the one she'd just seen, before being carted away down winding makeshift roads she could make out across a decimated valley — there wasn't a tree or anything green in sight.

"Okay, we should be fine for a while. I don't think he'll be coming for us yet, it usually takes him a while."

"Dale, will you please tell me what's happening?"

"Brief recap. You fainted, remember?" Amanda nodded. "Okay, then I got you out of there, got you home, but then Laffer, my guess the one from when you were in The Ward before, he just turned up and nabbed you again. I didn't know what to do so I kind of, well, I'm not sure, but as he'd just jumped I concentrated hard and did a jump of my own, without setting any dials, just focusing on him and you. They had you, put you back in that cell, and I was about to get you but, well, let's say it's been a long day and I've done more jumps than I ever want to in my entire life and that damn giant is really starting to piss me off.

"Anyway, I managed to lose him for a bit, jumped back in time a little to earlier in the day and got you, brought you home to a different time to try to shake him off, and, er, you know the rest."

"How do we stop this, Dale? It's just going around and around in circles. We have to do something. Where are we?"

"It's where they produce the Hexads, or will at any rate. They're clearing the area, ready to build."

"Dale, how do you know this?"

"You don't want to know. This has just been mental, we keep making things worse. Laffer has been following me, so I followed him. You should see this place once it's up and running." Dale's face darkened; he was lost for a moment. Amanda knew she didn't want to ask. "Anyway, I jumped back to see when it began here, and then Laffer caught me and we've been going around and around. Nowhere is safe, Amanda, I don't know what to do." Dale wept; tears fell; he hugged her tight. "I've seen some terrible things. Why are they doing this to you?"

"I don't know, Dale, I wish I did. But it's not just me, it's you too, isn't it?"

"You didn't see. You thought The Ward was bad, you should see this place. The Factory they called it, will call it. Ugh. He won't stop, Hector keeps sending Laffer, they'll get you again, they'll get me, everything's so jumbled, so messed up. That billionaire, he knows how it works, funded the whole thing. Hector is working with him, they are in it together, then they do it, everyone buys the damn machines and then... Goddamn! Tellan was right, we messed up."

"That's it, that's it." Everything became clear to Amanda, it all made sense, or, it made no sense, but she knew what they had to do.

"What is it? Have you come up with something?" There was hope in Dale's eyes as he wiped them. What had been happening while she was asleep or captured again? How bad could things have got?

"Tellan, The Caretaker, we need to go pay him a visit."

"Of course, he'll know what to do."

"No, Dale, more than that. This is his fault. We're not to blame, he is."

"What? He came to warn us, so we'd make things right."

"Yes, but how many times has he done that before? How many versions of us, and how many different universes does he turn up in and go through the same thing time after time? No, it has to be him. Everything else makes sense on at least some level, but he makes no sense at all. Come on." Amanda took the Hexad from an exhausted looking Dale and stared at it. She looked at Dale.

"Sorry, it's the only one I have on me."

Amanda stared at the flashing 1. This was the last jump. Was she mad for doing this or was it the only way? Fate or bad luck? Either way it felt right, as if everything had led to this point: risking it all. "Shall we?"

Dale smiled and nodded his head. "I trust you. I love you."

"I love you too, Dale." Amanda set the dials to default, and let her mind soar into the ether. She focused on the strange man known as The Caretaker and felt the connection, the link across time and space, felt her mind sharpen and will the jump to be made, to connect with the person she now knew was at the heart of the whole damn mess.

She opened her eyes and said, "One more time?"

Dale stared at her, nonplussed, then got it. "Okay, here we go. Whooooooooooooooooooosh."

They pressed down on the flashing 1. A 0 screamed red.

They vanished.

Out of Time

Time Unknown

"Oh, shit." Amanda couldn't help it, she wasn't one to swear, but now was precisely the time to start. She wasn't ready for this, not by a long shot. She'd been locked up, drugged for months, escaped, abused, chased, captured, seen rooms full of herself in one bizarre situation after another, woke up to find the man she loved wasn't really him, watched herself disappear multiple times, been drugged and locked up again, jumped through time and met the person who caused her downfall, actually started the whole mess in the first place, seen inverse worlds and written books to herself so she could save a different her and Dale from doing who knew what, and none of it even came close to the situation she now found herself and Dale in.

"Um, yeah, you could say that." Dale groped for her hand and squeezed it tight. He lifted the Hexad, still clutched in Amanda's hand and stared at the angry 0.

It didn't matter. Amanda got the feeling it was the least of their worries — they'd found Tellan, a.k.a. The Caretaker. He was walking down a mossy path between rows of ripening tomatoes until he saw them and stopped dead in his tracks. He seemed to consider them for a moment, a faint smile changing to anger and back again, then adjusted his wide-brimmed hat, set his face to neutral and walked toward them.

"Dale," whispered Amanda, clutching his hand as tight as she could, "I think we made a very bad mistake. This place isn't right, it feels off somehow." Amanda watched as Tellan came closer. What was it about the place that made her feel so weird?

"You're telling me, it's not possible." Dale lifted his head and stared at the sky. Except it wasn't the sky.

Amanda looked too, and the universe came crashing down on her in all its infinite and terrible majesty.

"Which ones are you? No, don't tell me," said Tellan with a sigh. He fiddled with his hat again, already sat at a perfect, jaunty angle on his head.

Amanda and Dale were mesmerized by the impossible land they found themselves in, unable to draw their attention away and back to Tellan — he may as well have been talking to himself. Amanda felt something weird happening inside herself, like she was being read somehow, almost as if her genetic makeup was exposed, recorded and imprinted into the fabric of the strange place. Her mind ebbed and flowed, clarity coming then wafting away like a breeze, butterflies dancing on the air before vanishing into a dream world.

They were at the end of the world, or the beginning. At the point of all creation or the point of annihilation. Amanda wasn't sure there was a difference — each gave birth to something new, something spectacular, something wonderful.

"Ahem, hello? Can you hear me?"

Amanda knew Tellan was talking but found herself unable to do what regular people did. She was part of something bigger now, a part of it all, the end or the beginning, the things that made her Amanda finding a place in the vast cosmos, everything rearranging to accommodate this slight, insignificant blip in the order of things. But there was no order, this was chaos on a universal scale, infinite and terrible, beautiful too — this was reality stripped bare, the backbone of existence, where everything and nothing collided and things got done, or undone, and in such a place nothing mattered but the enduring reality of the universe.

Tellan clicked his fingers.

Amanda and Dale shifted their gaze from an average height, blank ceiling, and looked to Tellan for an answer. One minute they were confronted with the entire cosmos, packed tight with multiple planet earths, overlapping and receding into infinity, knowing that each was another universe, each containing billions of people. Some were the distant past, others the far future, some were cracked, burning or freezing, a few a pure blue. Many were black, pinpoints of nothingness squeezed into a cramped, yet endless space that made Amanda feel like they were ready to crush her, rip her apart to constituent atoms with not a care for her insignificant life.

"That's where you're wrong, Amanda. You are the most important thing there is, and I'm sorry. I'm sorry for all of you, and you too, Dale."

"What? What do you mean?" Amanda managed to ask, coming back to herself now she was in what appeared to be a rather nondescript room, an office of sorts she supposed, although with a distinct lack of books or even a computer. It was more like a place to contemplate, to think through problems, the room dominated by a large, red rug. A huge fireplace with meaty logs crackled and pumped out heat.

"He means it's all his fault, don't you, Tellan?" said Dale as he rubbed at his head like he could take away what they'd just seen.

It was hard to shake the feeling of vulnerability, as if her thoughts were there for Tellan to see. But they were clear, the fog of the drugs gone — Amanda wasn't even sure any of it had happened now. Had she been taken again and then freed by Dale? Was it a matter of hours, days, or was she still there and it was all just her insanity? No, this was real, or as real as something so alien could possibly be. Dale was real, so was Tellan — what did she expect? He was The Caretaker.

"Please, sit down." Tellan indicated the chairs set back a little way from the fire, then walked over to what was clearly his usual spot — a high wingback in leather so dark it was hard to tell if it was deepest red, worn brown, or just so old it didn't matter. He eased himself into the leather with a squeak; Dale and Amanda shrugged at each other and took a seat.

Amanda studied Tellan closely. How was it she felt like she knew this man so well when they had met for little more than several minutes on a few occasions? She felt relaxed in his company, if not the actual weird place they were in, as if she had known him all her life. She supposed someone like him would have that effect on you.