Hexad: The Ward (3 page)

"What do you mean? He did it months ago, don't you remember?" Amanda shook her head. "He sold out to some big company, jacked up the prices, attracted a different crowd. He even does food now," said Dale in disgust. "But the beer is actually good, even though I'd never tell Steve that."

"Dale, something really is wrong here. I don't think I should be here, this is somewhere else. I think you need to tell me what Tellan said to you. But first, do you remember what we talked about last night? The time travel stuff?"

"I remember. When I got up I thought about it for a second, then you started screaming and I ran into the kitchen, and, well, Tellan said a load of stuff. I'm as confused as you are if I'm honest."

"Okay, what did he say?" Amanda took another sip. The beer was calming her nerves a little but it was far from enough to make her relax. She got the distinct impression that if she truly wanted to feel better then Steve would have to place a new order with the brewery.

~~~

"No. Way. He didn't tell you all that? Really?" Amanda stared at him wide-eyed, but he was sincere, insofar as relaying what Tellan had told him. Whether he believed a word of it was a different matter entirely.

"That's just mental. Seriously?" Dale nodded his head then finished his pint.

"I know, it's nuts, right? But look, something is seriously out of whack here. When I first saw you and him I thought he was going to attack you and I didn't know what to do, so I just grabbed him and chucked him out, locked the door and ran in to check on you. After I put you to bed, and I probably shouldn't have in case you had a serious head injury, I went back into the kitchen and there he was, staring at the kettle, the door open. It's like he can..."

"What?"

"You know, jump. Like he's a time traveler or something."

"Shut up! Don't be a muppet."

"Look, you're right, something is going on. What he told me, what I just told you, he seemed genuine. And he knew, about us discussing burying proof under the apple tree. That's why I didn't chuck him out again. He told me he knew all about it and that was why he was there."

"How could he know? He must have been listening last night, spying." It was the only explanation, wasn't it? Unless... Unless it was true. No, it couldn't be, could it?

"He knew, Amanda, okay? He knew what we'd said. He was there to stop us digging up proof. He said that under no circumstance were we to dig it up, whatever 'it' is. He also said that when I did the you-know-what, that jump from the inside-out world he told me about, jumping into a version of me in a different universe or parallel one, however it works, he said that I solved the problem, eradicated the time travel problem, broke the chain of events, stopped the other me from ever digging up the proof and that set everything back to normal somehow. I just woke up and everything was as if it had never happened."

"Except it didn't, did it?"

"Um, no. According to him at least."

"So, what went wrong?"

"Well, he said not to worry about it, that everything seemed all right everywhere and that basically this is the us that had those adventures. Although it got a bit confusing, as he said that for parts of it there were different versions of you, and me too. Ugh, it's too messed up."

"So you're telling me that we did all those crazy things, or one of us with different versions of each other anyway, and now everything is fine and we have to live with the fact that we aren't exactly the same people who did those things?"

"Something like that, yeah."

"No, this is stupid. You don't smell right, Dale. I'm sorry, but there it is. You look, sound and talk like Dale, but you aren't him, not really."

"I know, but does it matter? Where do you draw the line? What if I smelled right but I still wasn't the exact same Dale? What if I was one from an almost parallel universe where the only difference was that I got up first instead of you and dug up whatever is in the garden and somehow ended up jumping to this you here and I smelled right but I wasn't really the exact Dale you knew?"

"Oh my god, you didn't, did you? Is that what's happened?" Amanda began to panic, really panic.

"No. No, no, no. It was just an example. All I'm saying is that if it seems like me, and it is me, then is there a difference? We love each other, right? And this is me and you are you."

"I love you too, Dale." Amanda couldn't help it, she began to cry. Was Dale right? She did love him, and it was him, just not quite. "There must be more. He must have said something else, as if everything was put right, not that I believe a word of any of this, then why aren't we in exactly the right place? With the right versions of us?"

"Ah, well, yes, that's where the saving the world bit comes in. Although it isn't our fault this time, not really." Dale thought for a moment. "At least according to Tellan, anyway," he added hurriedly.

"Go on." Amanda felt like it was going to be a long morning, a very long one.

"Well, he kind of said that we should leave, get away, go this morning before things get out of hand. Apparently, we have a habit of ending up in rather incredible stories that are a bit bonkers, and he said he'd taken some time to track us down. This us, the ones that set things right."

"But did I? Or was it you and another version of me? Um, not that I believe any of this nonsense."

"It was me and you, a you so close to you that it doesn't matter. Look, this is awful, I know it's you but it's killing me you thinking I'm not Dale."

"I'm sorry, I really am. I'm just freaked out and scared. This is a lot to take in and impossible to believe."

"Yeah, tell me about it. Anyway, he said to leave, to get away and what we have to do will present itself soon enough. He said things are right, all to do with this time travel business, which we apparently cause problems with by having our chat last night and then going digging. But if we go away, then, so he says, everything will be okay and he'll keep an eye on things to ensure that reality is, um, as it's supposed to be."

"Right, that's it, come on." Amanda got up, grabbed her bag and took Dale's hand. She ignored his strange scent, focused instead on the fact that his hand felt warm, comforting and completely familiar, and dragged him out of his chair.

"Wait, let me get my satchel." Dale lunged for his battered leather satchel and Amanda dragged him across the polished wooden floor. Music began to play. "Is that bloody Genesis? I thought Steve hated music in pubs. Didn't he say that this was a pub not a disco when we asked him to get a jukebox?"

"Yeah, a lot has changed in here lately, maybe it's best you don't remember. Where are we going?"

"Where do you think, Dale? We're going home and we will dig up the garden until we sort out this nonsense."

"Um, okay. See ya, Steve," shouted Dale, as Amanda pulled him through the front door out into the sunshine.

"Bye, Dale. Bye, Amanda," said Steve, waving cheerily.

"Steve being happy is enough to make me believe in time travel," grunted Amanda.

"Yeah, me too. He's weird now. I preferred him when he was grumpy and the beer was crap."

They went home.

Unfinished Business

Present Day

"Okay, spill it, mister." This may not have been her Dale, if such a thing was possible, but she could still tell when he was being evasive, and it was hard not to smile as he was practically itching to tell her anyway — Dale was about as good at keeping secrets as she was at not eating chocolate.

"What?" asked Dale, trying to put on his innocent face, looking more guilty than ever. He started fussing about in one of the drawers, mumbling about it needing a good tidy and why did they have so many keys and what were they all for?

Amanda stood there, hands on hips, giving him her special "look," the one Dale could never stand for long.

"Jeez, all right, no need to bore a hole in the back of my head."

"So, what did he really say?"

"Tellan, you mean? The Caretaker?" Amanda just stared at him. "Okay, he said all the stuff I already told you, about us saving the world, twice, and a load of other things about time travel, universes and parallel worlds and all that. It got a bit jumbled to be honest, I'm not really sure what the difference is between—"

"Dale! You're rambling."

"Oops, sorry. Okay, he said, um, that we have to write a book, and we also have to make a jump. One, mind you. And that in," Dale checked his watch, "about fifteen minutes one of the time travel machines, or devices, whatever they are, will appear on the table and we can use it to ensure that what we did in the past..." Dale thought for a moment, brow creased in confusion. "No, that's not right. Um, in the future, in a different reality, although he also said it wasn't me as I jumped into another version of me and—"

"Dale!" shouted Amanda, totally exasperated.

"Sorry. He said we have to use the Hexad to finish what we started and we have to have a conversation with ourselves. Plus, we have to pretend that we have already experienced it, but with this us being the ones talked to by another us, and he said we have to write a book and jump it into that chamber I told you about, and that we are absolutely not to do anything else."

"Oh, is that all?"

"Hey, don't shoot the messenger. That's what he said, and I know it sounds insane. I didn't believe it either, but, well, you know, what if?"

"What if time travel is real and we saved the world? Twice." Amanda wondered if she could sound any more sarcastic if she tried. Probably. A sudden urge overcame her and she moved close to Dale and sniffed. "Still wrong."

"See? Something is going on. Tellan said that this is a different universe, timeline, whatever, to the one I was in before. No, I'm in the right one, you're in mine."

"So, how do I get back to my true Dale?"

"You don't. I told you what he said. That me saved you, and everything else, by jumping into a version of me, stopping it all. So you jumped to the closest version of me there was, is, and that's me." Dale smiled widely, as if it meant problem solved.

"Dale, you aren't him, this is nuts. I can't cope with this. I'm sorry, I know this must be unsettling for you, but even if I do believe all this, then it means you aren't the man I've been with all these years." Dale looked crestfallen, Amanda couldn't even begin to imagine what this must be like for him. Was she being too cruel? "I'm sorry."

"Hello?" came a voice from out in the hallway.

Amanda stared in horror at Dale; he looked just as petrified. "Is that you?" she asked.

"Oh, shit," said Dale, panicking like she'd never seen him panic before.

The door to the kitchen opened and Dale, hair looking as though he'd been dragged through a hedge backward, still naked and rubbing his eyes like he'd just got up, padded into the kitchen and said, "What time is it? Any coffee?"

"Shit, shit, shit," shouted the Dale Amanda had been talking to. "Get back, don't come in here, stay away."

The just-entered Dale finally looked into the room, moving his hand away from where he'd been scratching at his belly, the other trying to tame his hair, and stared at first Amanda, then the other Dale, confusion turning to incomprehension, to astonishment, to abject terror. "What the hell...? A twin? Huh? What is all..."

Amanda screamed as the naked Dale walked forward and the Dale that was dressed turned translucent.

"Dale," whispered Amanda.

He was gone.

"Um, I think we better have a little chat, Dale," said Amanda, holding on to the counter top so she didn't black out for the second time that day. "Dale? DALE!"

Dale had clearly decided to take her place — he was out cold on the tiles that were a great investment and she still couldn't understand why Dale refused to admit quality was always worth spending the extra on.

Amanda wondered if there was any wine left from the night before. Unless that was the problem?

~~~

Five minutes later, Amanda had managed to drag Dale into the living room and prop him up against the sofa. She tried not to think about what had happened in the kitchen, tried not to think about the crazy morning, Tellan, any of it. It was incredible how hard it was to pull a person — the dead-weight made her feel like her arms would pull out of their sockets.

As she propped him up she suddenly panicked, her heart missing a beat before it thumped at double-time and she felt sweat bead on her forehead.

"What if this isn't him either? Am I just going mad? This can't be happening, it can't." Amanda wondered if the bump to her head had brought on all the crazy hallucinations of the morning, and it was that fall that had resulted in her reality being warped, rather than anything weird happening before she'd done it. She put a hand to her head. Yes, that was real at least.

Amanda stared down at Dale, then leaned forward and tentatively sniffed. "Smells like him." She sniffed deeper; it was definitely him. At least one thing was right in the world.

With a sigh, and a deep wish to go back to bed and wake when the nuttiness was over, Amanda slumped down onto the sofa next to Dale on the floor and sat, not knowing what to do, what to think.

Could what the other Dale had said be true? Was all this part of the unfinished business Tellan had told him about? What a mess.

"Ugh, what happened?" asked Dale from the floor, rubbing the back of his head and looking at her in confusion. He must have remembered, as moments later shock registered. "Did I... Um, was that? Ugh, I'm sure I just met myself in the kitchen. What the hell?"

Amanda suddenly remembered something. "What's the time, Dale?" she said hurriedly.

"Eh? What?"

"The time?"

Dale looked at her, then at his watch, clearly utterly bewildered. "It's almost quarter past eleven. Man, I slept late. If I'm awake, that is."

Amanda grabbed his arm and pulled. "Come on, we have to get into the kitchen."

"What? Why? What the hell happened, Amanda?"