Dissonance (The Machina of Time Book 2)

by Daniel R. Burkhard

  Brooke's head snapped in his direction, but her eyes continued in the rotation until they stopped on the others near the front of the room. "You think Aldan would do that?"

  "Hannah seemed really worried the last time I saw her," Wyatt said. "She was different. She was worried someone had been watching her." Stopping, he looked back toward the sofas. Aldan sat alone with his back toward them on one sofa, while Jeremy and Avery sat on the other sofa. They were still talking. Seeing that, Wyatt continued. "I saw a different, thinner, woman in white there, watching us."

  "What was she doing?" Brooke said, her eyes flashing back to his. She watched him for a moment before turning her head and lowering her gaze back to her lap. She clasped her hands, meshing her fingers together for several seconds.

  Wyatt let out his breath he hadn't realized he was holding. Rubbing his left wrist where his wrist terminal had been, he tried to think through some reasons. Nothing seemed plausible. Why would that thinner woman be spying on Hannah? It must have something to do with his stolen wrist terminal. He wondered if that thinner woman was trying to get it back.

  "I thought we were done with that older version of Hannah," Brooke said. The disappointment came out strongly in her voice. "I mean, it had to be her that returned our contracts the last time."

  "And it was probably her that took them to begin with," Wyatt said. "I don't know why she would do that. It doesn't make any sense. But this time I saw a smaller, blonde woman in white." He sighed. "Something had to cause the older Hannah to work against us. But I don't know who that other smaller woman was."

  "Why would she help us and go against us, all dressed the same way?" Brooke asked. She seemed to deliberately avoid talking about the thinner woman in white.

  Wyatt shrugged. That older version of Hannah hadn't always worn the same clothing. They referred to her as the woman in white because when she caused the most damage during their last mission, she was wearing a thick white coat.

  "I'm very worried that my wrist terminal might cause problems for us." Wyatt rubbed his palms together as someone approached over his shoulder.

  "You don't look like you are getting as involved with each other as they are," Aldan said, stepping around to look down at them. His dark eyes seemed to capture the way Wyatt forced his left wrist under his right palm.

  "Are they getting a little carried away?" Brooke asked, smiling up at Aldan. "Like I said earlier, we were just out for a walk and to talk."

  Aldan nodded and rubbed the stubble on his beard. Wyatt tried to remember if it had looked that way in the morning. It was nearly two o'clock in the afternoon, and Aldan's beard was usually not that far along.

  "Have you been hiding in your haven?" Wyatt asked.

  Aldan's eyebrows shot up for a moment, and he shook his head as he lowered them. "It wasn't me that caused that sensation of resonance they talked about," he said. "I'm pretty sure it was you."

  Wyatt felt his chest tighten as his breath caught. Those words were dangerous.

  "How is my cousin?" Aldan asked, quietly as he lowered himself down to Wyatt's bed and faced them. "I assume that was you that caused the resonance."

  "She seems to be about the same as the last time I went back there," Wyatt said after determining he was caught.

  "Did you cause some change that makes the resonance continue?" Aldan asked.

  "We were wondering if that was you," Brooke said. "We didn't cause it." She shifted her seated position a little, sliding away from Wyatt. He couldn't tell if that was due to Aldan's proximity or not.

  Aldan was an odd member of their group. Wyatt, Jeremy, Avery, and Brooke had all welcomed him in after discovering his first group had left him behind. Aldan was older than the rest of them. While they were in their early twenties, he was closer to twenty-six or twenty-seven. It was actually their supervisor, Lenny, who had placed Aldan with them, so they didn't have much choice.

  "I haven't gone to my haven," Aldan said, his voice remaining quiet. "I think that resonance feeling signals something, but I don't know what it would be."

  Wyatt glanced toward Brooke, and she looked down at her hands for only a moment before looking back at Aldan. Aldan smiled and his eyebrows narrowed.

  "What are you hiding?" Aldan asked. He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees like he was preparing to interrogate a child.

  "We're not hiding anything," Brooke said and Aldan laughed.

  As he finished laughing, Aldan glanced past them toward the front of their dormitory area. Wyatt turned and looked also, Jeremy and Avery still sat talking on the sofa.

  "I know how it feels to hide something," Aldan said. "Remember, I'm the one who hid my haven from my first group." He spread his hands wide before pushing himself up straighter. "Do you know how I found my haven?"

  "You already said it was in an area that had no cameras," Wyatt said, his mind rattled with the thought that Aldan may have noticed his missing wrist terminal.

  "I found it with a little more effort than that," Aldan said. "I had to find an area where the cameras didn't see and that took a while."

  "How many years have you lost?" Brooke asked. She drew her hands back along her thighs toward her hips as she straightened up.

  Aldan shook his head. "I don't see it as losing time. It's more like gaining something back." As he finished, he smiled and glanced toward the front room quickly. When his eyes shifted back toward them, they lingered on Wyatt. "In much the same way you go back and visit my cousin, I had to find a way out of this."

  "But I only visit her in brief moments," Wyatt said.

  "Think about it," Aldan said, smiling broadly. "Do you leave and come back around the same time? If you spend a half hour back there and come back only five minutes later, you've aged."

  "But you spend more time in your haven," Brooke said.

  "Sure," Aldan said. "I don't like spending all my time here. It seems each week of our job here lasts decades."

  "That's just because you like to spend years away," Jeremy said as he moved toward the bathroom. "Don't get caught up in his fantasies about a haven. He may have found one, but none of the rest of us have."

  "Have you even looked?" Aldan asked.

  Wyatt laughed along with them quietly, wondering at the now ever-present resonance. That dizzying feeling was not leaving.

  Aldan rose from Wyatt's bed and stared down at Jeremy while he waited for Jeremy to answer a question Wyatt had missed. Beside him, Brooke rose to her feet and bent over to straighten the covers of her bed. That prompted Wyatt to get up also. As Brooke finished straightening the area on her bed where he had sat, she walked away. Aldan blocked Wyatt's way with his hands out as Jeremy moved into the bathroom and Brooke moved toward the sofas at the front of their dormitory.

  "How is my cousin?" Aldan asked.

  Wyatt shrugged, unsure what he should say. If he expressed his worries about Hannah, that might anger Aldan. The older man could be a little unpredictable that way.

  "You were just back there visiting her, weren't you?" Aldan asked when Wyatt's silence dragged on too long.

  Wyatt nodded then spoke slowly. "She seemed nervous," he said.

  "About what?" Aldan asked. His smile had completely faded now, and he folded his arms.

  "I'm not sure." Wyatt shook his head. "She wouldn't tell me." That seemed the safest answer to the question. As he watched Aldan, he saw Aldan's eyes tighten. The older man didn't believe him.

  "You make sure she stays safe," Aldan said and turned away.

  Slowly, Wyatt let out his breath. He hadn't realized he was holding it. Aldan didn't seem to notice and walked back toward the kitchen area.

  After several seconds, Wyatt sat down on his bed, making an even larger mess of the covers than Aldan had. The dizziness was getting to him, and that worried him. He couldn't shake the feeling that Hannah had caused some big changes. As he lay back on his bed, he wondered if his wrist terminal was how she had been able to interact with them during their hunt for Jarod. Eve
rything was getting complex, and they hadn't even started another mission yet. He wished he knew what that thinner blonde was after.

  Laying back with his eyes closed, he eventually dozed through his thoughts.

  CHAPTER five

  DORMITORY, NEAR R333PS,

  TUESDAY, APRIL 4, 2090, 8:00 AM

  "The resonance isn't going away," Brooke said.

  Wyatt watched her from the sofa opposite where she and Avery sat together. Jeremy snored in the right rear corner of the room, and Aldan walked toward the bathroom.

  He sure was taking a lot of trips to the bathroom. With the resonance sensation always there, it was harder to determine if Aldan actually went anywhere. At least this time, he heard the shower water start.

  "Something has to be happening," Avery said. "Lenny hasn't been around for a couple days, and he is usually the first one to check on us."

  "Do you think something changed him and he no longer supervises us?" Wyatt asked, expressing a nagging concern that had been growing in the back of his mind. He wished he had never gone back to visit Hannah. He would still have his wrist terminal. That thought made him hide his left wrist under the end of his baggy orange shirt. Avery and Brooke were dressed the same, but Aldan never wore the orange shirts. As the older man had moved toward the bathroom, he had worn a dark blue, long sleeved, shirt.

  "Something is changing," Avery said. "But I don't know if it was something we did."

  Brooke glanced toward Wyatt and shook her head lightly as if to keep him from speaking.

  "What is it?" Avery asked. "What did you do?"

  "Nothing," Wyatt answered.

  "What do you think we would do?" Brooke asked, shifting to her right on the sofa and turning to face Avery. "We just got back from a rough bunch of missions, and I don't want to go through that again." She placed her hands together in her lap and smiled at Avery.

  Avery frowned and looked toward Wyatt. "I saw the way you looked at each other just now." She leaned over closer to Brooke and said something too quiet for Wyatt to hear.

  "What did you say?" Wyatt asked, feeling his face growing hot as both women laughed lightly in his direction.

  "Do you really want to know?" Avery asked.

  "Don't tell him," Brooke said. "And no, that wasn't what happened."

  "What did you say?" Wyatt asked, shifting forward on the sofa. He leaned toward them. "Tell me."

  "Not going to happen," Avery said. "Some things are better left between women."

  "Don't worry about it," Brooke said, waving toward Wyatt. "It was just a funny comment."

  Wyatt shook his head, not wanting to let it go. He watched the way Avery smiled at him while shaking her head. Brooke glanced toward Avery then down at her hands.

  Jeremy still snored in the background, and the resonance still made Wyatt dizzy. It had been that way for a day.

  "I don't think that resonance is going to end," Brooke said. "It just continues. But at least it isn't tearing our minds apart."

  "Can you remember everything we have done?" Wyatt asked. "I mean, every time we traveled backward or forward?"

  "Of course, I remember it," Avery said. "Our first trip was back to stop a young version of Jarod."

  While that seemed correct to Wyatt, his mind told him more had happened first.

  "Wasn't there another trip back to collect letters or something from the warehouse?" Brooke asked.

  Wyatt thought he could remember that also. that memory and the memory of the first trip Avery had mentioned seemed to dig painfully into his mind.

  At that same moment, a wave a nausea filled Wyatt and he leaned back on the sofa until it passed. Someone had traveled nearby, and he thought it would have been Aldan.

  "Something is wrong," Avery said. "Do you think that resonance we feel is because someone is changing our past."

  "How would someone change our past?" Jeremy asked as he walked past them and opened the refrigerator. He retrieved a water bottle whose label had been removed and drank it as he watched them.

  Jeremy allowed the twenty ounces to flow from the bottle into his mouth without a breath. He let out a sigh as he finished the bottle and placed it in the recycling bin under the counter.

  Wyatt sat quietly, leaning forward again as the harsher aspects of the resonance passed. The remaining dizziness that had been with him since he got back from 2039 continued.

  "Don't all speak at once," Jeremy said. "I can feel the resonance. I've seen the way you are hiding your wrist"—he pointed toward Wyatt—"and I'm sure you know more about it than you have already said."

  "It's that warehouse supervisor, isn't it?" Avery asked.

  "Her name is Hannah," Brooke said. "Hannah is the warehouse supervisor, and she is also Aldan's cousin."

  "Did you give your wrist terminal to her?" Jeremy asked. He kept his voice quiet as he moved around the kitchen counter and crossed to stand near Wyatt between the sofas.

  "No," Wyatt said. "She seemed quite disturbed when I visited her, but everything was okay."

  "But you don't have your wrist terminal?" Jeremy asked again. "How would you let her take it?"

  Wyatt shook his head and rubbed his left wrist where the wrist terminal had been. "I didn't intend to give it to her."

  "Hide that hand," Avery said, nodding. "We don't know how long before Aldan comes back, and I don't want to anger him."

  "He doesn't have his wrist terminal, and you are worried about Aldan?" Jeremy said, turning toward Avery.

  "Calm down," Brooke said. "Remember Hannah is his cousin. We don't want him to know." She glanced toward Avery. "We'll find it, or another wrist terminal he can use."

  "So, you think you can just go and ask Lenny to give you one," Jeremy's voice remained quiet.

  Wyatt watched the three of them as they spoke and marveled at the way they argued so silently and full of such intensity.

  "We haven't thought that far ahead yet," Brooke said, casting Wyatt a sidelong glance. "I'm sure he has more."

  "Do you think that is how she becomes the woman in white?" Avery asked.

  "I'm sure if it," Wyatt said, keeping his voice calm. He hoped to stem any further conversation about it as he heard the water turning off. "I think Aldan is done in the shower. Do you want him to overhear?"

  Avery shook her head. "He has already suffered with his first group trying to destroy things. I don't think we want to let him know about this yet."

  "Did you guys feel that?" Brooke asked, spreading her arms out to her sides.

  "That's probably just Aldan coming back," Jeremy said, looking toward the bathroom door.

  The door remained closed.

  "No," Brooke said. "It didn't come from that direction."

  "Are you talking about the stronger feeling we felt just before Jeremy entered the kitchen?" Wyatt asked.

  "I wasn't traveling," Jeremy said. "But I think I felt it also."

  Avery laughed and patted the sofa beside her. "Come have a seat," she told Jeremy then turned her attention back on Brooke. "I don't think I felt what you are talking about. All I feel is the constant dizziness." She looked toward Wyatt. "I felt that earlier stronger one you were talking about."

  "Something must be happening out there," Wyatt said, motioning toward the warehouse outside. He slid forward on the sofa and turned toward the dormitory door. The noises outside seemed to resolve into a conversation that was almost loud enough to hear.

  "That's Lenny speaking," Avery said, looking at Wyatt. "You need to cover your wrist."

  She was right. Wyatt stood from the sofa and headed for his footlocker. When he opened the lid, he didn't see any long-sleeved shirts. He closed the lid and turned toward the back wall of the dormitory between the bathroom door and the corner. That wall and the same wall on the other side of the bathroom contained hidden panels that opened to reveal clothing appropriate to the various times they might visit outside the warehouse.

  He stepped closer to those, as the bathroom door opened. Wyatt didn't b
other looking at Aldan until he had opened the first panel. It hinged open, blocking Aldan's view of him. he stuffed his left hand into the clothing to hide it.

  "Do we have a mission?" Aldan asked. "What did I miss?"

  "We may soon," Wyatt said, trying to settle his mind. He worked through a few of the darker shirts with his left hand until he came across one that was a long-sleeved light gray. He pulled that free of the hangar and changed his shirt.

  "Tired of the orange?" Aldan asked. "I grew tired of it a long time ago."

  Before Wyatt could ready a response, Aldan walked away. The front door of the dormitory opened as Wyatt pulled his orange shirt over his head and replaced it with the gray one.

  "We've got another mission," Lenny Janson said as he entered. He pushed the door closed behind himself as Wyatt turned to face him.

  The others stood or sat on the two sofas and Lenny watched them for a moment before his head shifted and his eyes met Wyatt's. "Are you getting ready for this?"

  "Sure," Wyatt asked. "What should we wear?"

  "Definitely not the orange many of you currently wear," Lenny said.

  "Are we going outside the warehouse?" Avery asked.

  Lenny shook his head. "Not this time." Wyatt thought he saw Lenny glance toward Brooke as he answered.

  "But we can't wear our orange?" Jeremy asked. "What kind of mission is it this time?"

  "Before I tell you," Lenny started, "go back and grab some darker clothing."

  Wyatt finished pulling the light gray shirt over his body as Lenny directed them to dress in dark colors. He grabbed a pair of black jeans from the rack of clothing in the hidden closet and stepped away as the others approached.

  The next few seconds he stepped toward his bed, turning his back on the hidden closets. Jeremy and Aldan joined him a moment later, turning their backs on Brooke and Avery as all of them changed. Aldan only changed his shirt to a navy-blue shirt.

  Avery and Brooke laughed lightly as they changed clothing behind Wyatt. He forced himself not to glance over his shoulder, but Jeremy seemed to have even more of a struggle. As Jeremy turned his head to look over his shoulder, Aldan rested his right hand on his shoulder.