Hannah shook her head for a moment. "Whoever it is, has been following me," she said. "I've seen someone watching me as I go home at night."
"You don't live in the warehouse?" Wyatt asked. He thought the Machina would require everyone involved to remain inside the massive Machina complex. "How do you get out?"
"There are buses that meet near the edge of this loading dock," Hannah said. "They take people back into central Utah where it is safer than living in the warehouse."
"Doesn't that feel odd?" Wyatt asked, then held up his hand. "I guess you probably don't feel the resonance like we do."
She shook her head and smiled. "I need to know who that person was. It seems like she has been watching me for the last few days."
"What did she look like?" Wyatt asked, expecting her to answer with a description of her older version that had become the woman in white.
"She wore a white jacket," Hannah said. "But she was small, almost boyish in appearance."
"And you've seen her before?" Wyatt asked. Wyatt felt a touch of anxiety at that comment. He had thought the person she had described was like the woman who drove the car in his nightmare. If she was small, she couldn't be the same woman in white that Hannah would become later. His mind ached at that thought and he glanced down at the floor to let it settle out.
"What is it?" Hannah asked. "What did I say?"
"I don't think it is what you said," Wyatt answered. "It's what you saw. It's like someone is trying to change what I've experienced."
"Are you here trying to change your past too?" Hannah asked, leaning back against the blue shelving at her side. "I wish I had one of those"—she pointed toward the white band of his wrist terminal—"to make my past better."
Wyatt bit his lip to stop himself from saying anything without thinking about it first. This was the woman he liked, and for whatever reason, when she was much older, she would be the woman who got involved in his group's troubles with Jarod Whiting. Saying too much to her now, could ruin it for his group.
"I can't give you one of these," Wyatt said. "It's not allowed for anyone that can't feel the resonance. The Machina designed them that way, so that only those who can feel the shifts in the timestream can use them."
"But it isn't a design in the wrist terminal," Hannah said. "What you said is more a design of the system of the Machina's control, and not an engineered device."
Wyatt nodded. "So, you think you're seeing a woman following you?"
"Yes." Hannah pushed herself off the shelving and stepped closer. "It seems she goes away anytime you are close."
"Or you stop noticing her because I'm here," Wyatt said with a smile that she returned more brightly. He glanced over his shoulder toward the direction they had come from, wondering how that woman in white would have acquired her wrist terminal.
"How many travelers have you encountered here?" Wyatt asked.
"I've got a better question," Hannah said. "I've heard from some of the higher time people that have come back here to work, that the Machina ends. If your mission with that person"—she looked at Wyatt and he knew she meant Jarod Whiting, but Wyatt couldn't say it before she continued—"you stopped should have stopped the ending of the Machina. Why didn't your actions stop it from ending?"
Wyatt shook his head. That question was a tough one. "That guy's name was Jarod Whiting," he said. "But I don't know how connected he was with the end of the Machina."
"When does it end?" Hannah asked, her face tightening with a small smile. "I've always heard it was the end of 2099. But I have heard of people traveling later than that."
Wyatt couldn't remember having been told a date. He thought back to his first few experiences with his group's supervisor, Lenny, but in all that time, he couldn't place a date. "Who told you it was the end of 2099?"
Hannah looked away for a moment. Something else had caught her eye. Wyatt found himself wondering what was really going on. Before he could ask a question, she stepped closer and held her finger to her lips in a silencing gesture.
At the same time, she squatted down and moved back along the blue shelving. Small gaps in the shelving separated long lengths and connected parallel aisles. It was into one of these that Hannah led him. She crouched low and watched over the metal layer of the shelving, between the few boxes in that area.
"I wish you weren't wearing the bright orange," she whispered over her shoulder with a slight laugh. "Gene is going to see you."
Wyatt nodded and watched the aisle over Hannah's head. He didn't see anyone approaching, but at the same time, he thought he could feel the resonance emanating from that location. Someone traveled through time.
"Do you hear their voices?" Hannah asked.
"No," Wyatt answered. "What are they saying?"
"It's that odd older man who thinks he is in charge," Hannah said.
"Lenny?" Wyatt asked.
"Yes," Hannah said. "The one that was involved with you and your group in the future, that first time we met."
Wyatt smiled and shrugged. "He is our supervisor," he said. "I think he has every right to be here."
"But why would he be here?" Hannah said. "I've seen him around this time a bit lately, and it seems he looks older or younger each time. Is he messing with himself?"
Wyatt laughed at that and turned away from Hannah. His eyes traced the narrow passage between the shelves that connected the aisles. Two aisles over, he saw a woman in white. She saw him.
That woman wore a thin white jacket instead of the thick coat the older version of Hannah had worn. This smaller woman was not the woman Hannah would grow to become. She was too small.
Why was she standing there?
Her eyes seemed to stare directly into his. There was no question she saw him. But he couldn't understand why she was there or what she wanted. She simply watched with a straight face.
"What is it?" Hannah asked from his right side and the diminutive woman in white jumped out of the small passageway, disappearing into the aisle two rows over.
"Someone was watching us," Wyatt answered, without saying it was the woman in white.
"See what I mean," Hannah said. "Was it that woman in a white jacket?"
"I didn't get a good look," Wyatt lied. "But it was definitely someone standing over there."
Stepping around in front of him, Hannah grabbed his left wrist, and held his wrist terminal. "You have to get me one of these," she said. "I need to be able to protect myself."
"Ask your cousin for one," Wyatt said. "I can't share this one with you."
She gripped his arm tighter with both hands and stared into his eyes. "I haven't seen Aldan in a while." She looked closely at his wrist terminal and Wyatt realized he had recently set it for his return trip.
"Is that where you are from?" Hannah asked. "I bet 2090 is an enjoyable time. I bet the Machina has done wonderful things by that time."
Wyatt wished he hadn't set his wrist terminal already for his return. Hannah now saw his location code, time, date, and year. That was dangerous, even for a woman he liked. "I can't tell you where that is."
"I've seen that location code a few times when Aldan would come and visit me." She released his arm and stepped closer. "I'm not going to use it against you. I just think that with all that I've seen, things are getting dangerous."
Wyatt wanted to help her. She was the closest thing to a girlfriend he had ever had. But now he worried she was somehow trying to use him. How else would she somehow end up being the woman in white?
"Please find one of those for me," Hannah said, gripping his left wrist a little tighter. "I've been seeing that same woman and others watching me too much lately. My cousin hasn't been here to visit me for a few weeks, and the last time I saw him, he looked older than I have ever seen him. It's scary."
"Do you remember the date of his last visit?" Wyatt asked,
She didn't let go of him, standing close enough he could have enfolded her in an embrace. A part of him wanted to, but he stopped himself.
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"Why do you think they would be watching you so closely?" Wyatt asked. "Do you think it is something your cousin is involved in?"
Hannah shook her head. "I don't think so." She released his arm and stepped away from him for a moment.
The whole experience had grown weird for Wyatt. He had come back here to see how Hannah was doing, but the same bubbly, light-hearted woman he had met with his other times was not the one in front of him.
"Did something change?" Wyatt asked, glancing at the settings on his wrist terminal.
"Yeah," Hannah answered. "Ever since I met you, people have been watching me. It's not just that woman dressed in white, but there are others." She sighed. "Even when I leave here, they follow me."
"Is that what this is all about?" he asked. "Is that why you have invited me to come here anytime you are working?" Things had changed, and that worried him. The last time he had seen her, during her yesterday, she had been happier.
"Sorry," Hannah said and slumped down onto the lower level of the shelf behind her. "I've been struggling with this lately."
Wyatt crossed the aisle to sit beside her as another wave of dizziness passed over him. He hid it by sitting beside her. She let him sit close and he wrapped his right arm around her shoulders. "The last time I came back here, you were happier. What changed?"
"I don't know," Hannah said. "I think I've felt this way for some time. From what I remember, this started in that other time my cousin placed me in. When it got too bad, he moved me here. Some odd things always seem to happen around me."
That wasn't right. Wyatt's mind struggled to make sense of what he had heard. In his last visit with her, her cousin had helped her to hide as a worker in the warehouse. Aldan had claimed she was safer in the warehouse than with the remnants of her family.
"They've been following you since then?" Wyatt asked as someone coughed from a nearby aisle.
Hannah tensed under his arm and leaned forward as if looking under the shelving toward the next aisle. She shrugged out of his arms and rose to her feet. "You need to go back, now."
"What?" Wyatt asked and saw the old man's figure approaching.
"It's Gene," Hannah said. "Don't let him see you."
Wyatt rose, shock filling his mind as he tried to make sense of what she was telling him. He knew Gene, and Gene had never been someone to fear.
"Go on," Hannah said. "Get out of here before he sees you."
Shaking his head, he felt his anxiety building. She motioned for him to move, and he activated his wrist terminal's portal. He stepped through with one last look over his shoulder toward the old man, Gene. Something was different about him.
The portal closed around him as someone grabbed his arm.
CHAPTER four
DORMITORY ENTRANCE, R333PS,
MONDAY, APRIL 3, 2090, 1:30 PM
The mildew odor was the first thing that hit Wyatt as he stumbled to his knees beside Brooke's waiting form. The portal closed behind him, and the resonance made him retch a few times. Nothing came up, but his stomach hurt at the end of it.
"What did you do?" Brooke asked, crouching beside him, and holding her head. "The resonance is terrible this time." She spat a little bit of bile onto the concrete floor.
Sad as it was, Wyatt almost welcomed that smell over the mildew.
"Did you change the past?" Brooke asked, as the resonance continued. "The last time it felt like this, that is what happened." She reached out with her hand to steady herself as she rose back to her feet.
Wyatt braced his hands on his knees as Brooke used him to stand, then pushed himself upward. He noticed an odd location code on her wrist terminal but didn't get a look at it before Brooke clasped her left wrist with her right.
As he reached his feet, he realized something was missing. "I think she took my wrist terminal," he said, terror filling him. Hannah's fingernails left small scratches in the skin of his wrist.
"Well," Brooke said, holding her wrist and looking down at him. "I guess now we know how she might have gotten one." She rubbed the top of her wrist terminal before releasing her hand.
"Now she knows how to get here," Wyatt said. He shook his head and shrugged. "She has this location code."
Brooke nodded and glanced around. "But I don't see her here yet," she said. "We need to find you a replacement wrist terminal."
"Lenny would never allow that," Wyatt felt despair creeping into his mind as he looked away from Brooke. He had no idea how the others in their group would take it. Losing a wrist terminal was the end of his working for the Machina.
"We won't get him involved," Brooke said. "Come on, I have an idea." She stepped toward their dormitory door and looked at him over her shoulder. "Don't just stand there. Come along with what we do now."
Wyatt watched her smile for a moment, trying to determine what she meant. In the back of his mind, he felt a slight dizziness that could only be the resonance. Their past was changing, and he had caused it. Who knew what Hannah would do with the wrist terminal?
Brooke's hands grabbed each of his, and she stepped close. The pleasant lavender scent of her hair competed with the mildew of the warehouse as Wyatt breathed through his nose.
"You're going to be okay," Brooke said. "We'll get your wrist terminal back and no one will ever know. Trust me."
"But that is how she must have gotten it," Wyatt said, thinking of Hannah's older version that had messed with their earlier attempts at catching Jarod. Hannah's older version had been there each time, and she had been dressed in a thick white coat.
"Come on," Brooke said. "Just go along with what happens next." She released his hands and turned toward their dormitory door. Her confidence worried Wyatt. That and the strange location code on her wrist terminal.
The unpainted, gray concrete bricks of the wall were broken by two blue doors that sat at ninety degrees to each other. Their doorknobs were positioned on opposite sides, away from the corner. The right door faced the end of the aisle where they stood. The left door sat perpendicular to it. That was the only real wall in a sizable portion of the warehouse, and it was a corner. The shelving to either side of the aisle made it hard to see far along the wall.
Brooke opened the door and stepped into their dormitory room with one last smile at him over her shoulder. This time, instead of just a smile, it looked a lot more playful. He stepped along with her.
"What were you two doing?" Avery asked from the brown sofa on the right. Jeremy had his left arm around her back, his left hand resting on her left hip.
"We went for a walk," Brooke said, smiling back at Avery.
"Just a walk?" Jeremy asked. "Are you sure you weren't just looking for a private place?"
"It was just a walk," Wyatt said, stepping past Brooke and around the sofa on the left. As he did, Aldan stepped out of the bathroom again.
"I bet you needed a private place to get to know each other better," Avery said, with a smile as she leaned into Jeremy's side on the sofa. "At any rate, you gave us some time alone."
"Don't forget about me," Aldan said. "I had to hide in the bathroom to give you guys some privacy."
"I doubt you hid in the bathroom," Avery said. "We felt the resonance pretty strongly. You traveled."
"That wasn't me," Aldan said, with a smile spreading on his face.
Wyatt felt relief at the way Avery and Jeremy seemed to suspect the resonance came from Aldan's actions. They could have just as easily noticed he had traveled while out with Brooke. That thought made him stuff his left hand deep into his pocket to hide the fact he was missing his wrist terminal.
Brooke seemed to notice, and with an almost shy smile, she wrapped her arms around his left and pulled him toward his bed. "We're going to head back there for a moment," she said as she pulled Wyatt along.
"I guess she wasn't quite finished with you yet," Jeremy said.
"Take your time," Aldan said. "I haven't seen Lenny."
Wyatt allowed her to move him, forcing a smile to his lips. Ha
ving Brooke that close was pleasant, but now everyone would suspect they were an item. He watched Brooke as she smiled up at him a couple times. The last time she pulled him to sit beside her on her bed.
They faced the wall at the rear of the dormitory. The other three seemed to congregate on the two large sofas, and their conversation quieted and dulled.
"How will I get another wrist terminal?" Wyatt asked. He felt naked without it. He felt trapped in this dormitory.
"We'll figure that out," Brooke said, releasing his arm. She placed her hands into her lap and looked down at them. Her wrist terminal, with its white band, seemed to call out to Wyatt. In the back of his mind, he wondered how much trouble he would get in if he took hers while she slept.
"The resonance hasn't quite stopped, has it?" Brooke asked, breaking him from his thoughts.
"What?" Wyatt asked and as he sat for a moment, he felt it. in the background of his thoughts, he felt the dizziness and the slight nausea. "Are you sure that isn't something else?"
She glared at him and smiled. "I think Hannah started to do things with that as soon as she got it from you."
"Do you think she can change our past?" Wyatt asked, thinking back to all the times he had seen the older Hannah dressed in the thick white coat. "How do you think she discovers all the location codes? I wouldn't do it through trial and error. Get something wrong you might step through a portal into a dangerous situation."
"It's not like you would miss Earth," Brooke said. "Those location codes seem to be tied to the location, following them around somehow as the world rotates and moves around the sun."
Wyatt nodded at that. She was right, based on his experiences. He glanced toward his footlocker. He had a paper notebook with a black binding inside it with some of the location codes he had already determined. It had been his attempt to find a haven like Aldan had. The trick was finding a place and time without cameras. That would prevent the Machina from seeing the actions.
"Do you think she found a haven, like Aldan?" Wyatt whispered, leaning closer to Brooke.
She sighed and nodded.
"Do you think Aldan would be there with her?" Wyatt asked.
Dissonance (The Machina of Time Book 2) Page 3
