Dissonance (The Machina of Time Book 2)

by Daniel R. Burkhard

  "Wake up," Lenny said. "It's time for us to help him. We must get things cleaned up and ready. Move. Move. Move." His voice carried through the doorway and Wyatt looked at his wrist terminal.

  In less than forty minutes, Wyatt's group would arrive. He couldn't understand how they would miss the fact that the room had been occupied.

  "Make your beds," Lenny said. "Get them ready. We haven't got much time. We can't afford to lose control of this again."

  Wyatt stepped back, moving along the wall toward the other doorway Lenny had come through. Along that hallway, in the opposite direction at the intersection stood the vault door that protected some of the Machina's servers.

  "Move it," Lenny said from inside the dormitory. "Set your wrist terminals like we have discussed and get moving."

  That explained how they would get away without Wyatt's group noticing. But it didn't explain why they were there. A morbid thought passed through Wyatt's mind as he realized there may be several versions of himself in each time he passed through. He wondered if that had something to do with his contract. He hadn't broken the rule regarding reading the contract, so he didn't know.

  Who was causing all the changes?

  "If you don't finish setting it up, things will fall apart more," Lenny said, his voice carrying through the door.

  His heart racing, Wyatt wondered if they were going to come through the doorway, but they didn't. He felt the resonance of all of them leaving at once. It dropped him to his knees, and he coughed several times. His brain felt like it was spinning in his head.

  Nothing made sense for several seconds. All he could do was focus on not vomiting. Several times his stomach lurched with the resonance effects, but he managed to keep it down.

  As it passed and his stomach settled, he dropped to his right side and glanced at his wrist terminal. The time seemed to pass quickly as he lay there. But that was just a trick of his mind. His wrist terminal showed it was nearing 2:00 am. His earlier version would be arriving soon, and he couldn't risk being found on the floor when he hadn't seen himself the last time.

  He moved out of the entrance area, hiding among the shelving. The last few words Lenny had directed at the others in the room stood out in his mind. He couldn't shake the feeling Lenny might be using that version of his group to stop the changes. Along with that thought came the thought that he might be partially the cause of the changes.

  The changes were killing his memories. His mind felt full, overfull. Just thinking about the changes to his visit to Hannah made his brain ache. After getting far enough away from the entrance and sitting on an open portion of the shelving, he waited.

  Resonance filled the area again, but not all at once. It ebbed and flowed, as his earlier group stepped through their portals. Someone vomited wetly, and Wyatt cringed.

  "Ugh," Jeremy said from the other side of the shelves. "Who did that?"

  Wyatt watched his earlier version look toward Jeremy as Avery rolled to her side, finished coughing and laughed slightly.

  "That was terrible," Avery said. "I can't believe you allowed the resonance to catch you like that." She pushed herself up to her feet.

  "What time is it?" the earlier version of Wyatt asked, directing his question to Brooke, but she wasn't the first to respond.

  "Where did you go?" Aldan asked, sliding his feet back under himself as he faced Wyatt. He looked over at Brooke and shook his head. "I knew you wouldn't come straight back here. That would have been too easy."

  Brooke glanced at the earlier version of Wyatt. That earlier version of Wyatt shook his head.

  "Where did you go?" Avery asked.

  "We took a detour," Brooke said. She smiled at Aldan and backed closer to Wyatt.

  "Where?" Jeremy said. "That has to be the reason the resonance was stronger this time."

  "I think it was more than that," the earlier version of Wyatt said as he looked at each of them. "I think a piece of our past got corrected."

  "Corrected?" Aldan said, rising to his feet. He placed his hands into his pockets. "Who would do that?"

  "Hannah," Brooke answered.

  Hearing her say it now, it was still a piece of the information Wyatt wished he could have stopped her from saying. Aldan's eyes narrowed at Wyatt.

  "You tried to get her out of this, didn't you?" Wyatt said, stepping away from the shelving with a glance over his shoulder. "You didn't want her to get involved in this, but I think it is too late."

  "How can that happen?" Jeremy asked. "If she never came here, how would she get involved?"

  Avery stood directly behind Wyatt's earlier version, blocking part of Wyatt's view of himself.

  "I think there is a lot more going on than we have been told," Brooke said. "I got to watch Wyatt's earlier version go back to meet with Hannah in the warehouse, but I don't think that was the same version he used to visit there."

  "What did you say?" Aldan asked.

  Wyatt listened to their conversation, amazed that nothing had changed from what he remembered.

  "She said that version of Hannah was different than the version I met with," Wyatt's earlier version said. "She was right. That version seemed to know exactly how it happened, but she was not the same frightened Hannah I saw."

  "Let's not talk about it out here," Avery said. "I'm worried there may be more people watching us here." She looked almost directly at Wyatt where he sat on the shelving. He felt certain her eyes met his for a moment.

  Wyatt's earlier version noticed her look and asked. "Did you see someone over there?"

  "Let's get inside," Jeremy said, grabbing Avery's arm and leading her around Wyatt.

  Brooke placed her left hand on the earlier version of Wyatt's right shoulder and leaned in close. She said something quiet. This time Wyatt couldn't hear it, and he had trouble remembering what she said.

  The others entered the dormitory as Aldan held the door open.

  "I don't know what you did," Aldan said as the younger Wyatt entered. His voice was low and menacing. "But if you put my cousin back in danger and anything happens, I'll come after you."

  Wyatt's earlier version raised his hands up in front of himself as he neared the door. "I didn't do it." He entered the dormitory and Aldan stood at the door for a few seconds longer.

  Wyatt watched through the gaps in the shelving, trying to see what Aldan might do. He worried Aldan would notice him and confront him.

  His heart raced as he waited for the inevitable.

  But Aldan entered the dormitory and Wyatt was left on his own again. As his pulse settled and recovered from the stress, he felt exhaustion wash over him. The walk through the freezing air of central Utah was more than enough to tire him out.

  He shifted on the shelf and tried to decide how many hours he had until Brooke had taken the wrist terminal.

  The muffled voices of his group carried through the dormitory doorway, but they were not clear enough to understand. Besides, he didn't want to relive some of that. He glanced toward the other doorway and wondered what it would take to get in to see the Machina again. Without the red and white cards his group had used before their first attempt at stopping Jarod, getting in would be impossible.

  He needed a better idea.

  While he sat there and the conversations in the dormitory continued, another thought hit him. Brooke had said that someone else had gone into the dormitory. Sitting out here, he would be able to see if anyone entered. He would also be able to watch anyone that left. It would prove whether she had lied or told the truth.

  His wrist terminal showed it was nearing 2:30 am. Sometime in the next two and half hours the events of Brooke's disappearance would take place. He would just pass the time, watching and waiting.

  Near 4:40 am., Wyatt noticed he had nearly dropped off to sleep. Passing the time in the quiet of the warehouse made it impossible not to doze. The exhaustion he felt made it worse.

  For several seconds, he tried to determine what woke him. His mind filled with memories of the
sound of a door closing, but he couldn't be sure if that was just his mind or something that really happened. As he pushed himself up straighter, he noticed the dizziness.

  Someone had traveled. The resonance must have woken him.

  He pushed himself to his feet and scanned the dormitory door. It stood slightly open. So, he had heard the door. Had Brooke been telling the truth?

  He shook his head and stretched his arms over his head before stepping closer to the door. Before he neared it, he heard the snoring from within. Aldan and Jeremy were the loudest, but he heard Avery's breathing also.

  When he stepped closer to the door and pushed it open slightly farther, he scanned the darkness inside in the area where his bed sat. His earlier version also snored, but not quite as loud as Aldan. The bed between his earlier version and Avery's was empty.

  Brooke must have been in the process of taking Aldan's wrist terminal. It was 4:43 am. He wondered if he could stop her from taking it.

  He felt sweat running down his back as he pushed the door open a little more and stepped into the room. Peeking around the door, he thought he saw Brooke moving near Aldan's bed. If it wasn't her, it was a figure similar in size. The darkness made it tougher to determine anything beyond size.

  Wyatt stepped toward the kitchen counter, keeping the edge of the kitchen area between him and Aldan's sleeping form. The figure leaned down over Aldan's body but glanced back his way.

  She noticed him or the open door. He wasn't sure which. Her figure straightened up and she brushed hair out of her eyes before stepping toward him. Wyatt's breath caught and he glanced toward the door, judging the distance. He would never make it through the door before she got to him.

  Brooke moved swiftly. "What are you doing here?" she asked. Her voice carried a silent intensity that shocked him. This was not the same Brooke that would wake him in a moment. "Did I wake you?"

  Wyatt shook his head, wondering if he should play along. He backed from the edge of the counter, still hearing Avery and his earlier version breathing behind him.

  Brooke stepped around the counter and folded her arms. "You're not my Wyatt." She smiled coyly.

  "No," Wyatt said, figuring that was the easier way to deal with the situation. "Why are you taking Aldan's wrist terminal?"

  Brooke shook her head and glanced over her shoulder toward Aldan. Her voice and Wyatt's had been quiet, and so far, none of the others had stopped the rhythmic breathing of sleep. "How do you know that?"

  "It makes a mess of things," Wyatt said. "You wake me in a few minutes"—he scanned his wrist terminal and saw it was 4:51 am.—"and lead me on a wild goose chase with that."

  Brooke's smile faded and she unfolded her arms. "So, I do get it," she said, turning sideways and leaning against the counter.

  "That's not the point," Wyatt said. "I've seen too many changes. I don't want to see this one again."

  "Wait a minute," Brooke said, rubbing her hands together before pointing her right forefinger into his chest. "You're here because you have seen a lot of changes and want to change how I handle this?"

  "It's the only way to make this better," Wyatt said, but even as he spoke, he knew how stupid it sounded.

  "Think about it," Brooke said, turning away. "I've got something to collect before I cause another change I'm not prepared for."

  "Prepared for?" Wyatt asked, but she stepped away from him without a response. His mind seemed to raise a warning that she was a different version of Brooke. She couldn't be the same one that he left the loading docks with. But he shook that thought away. They had traveled together to get to the dormitory entrance. Again, that thought was pushed away as he remembered the resonance that woke him.

  Could he trust anyone?

  That thought made him question again whether the Brooke who stood in front of him was the same version he had thought he traveled with to the dormitory entrance.

  He was in over his head. The resonance of the timestream changes were too much for his tired mind to fit together. It felt like trying to put a jigsaw puzzle together, but with pieces whose edges constantly shifted. But it was even worse than that. If it were a puzzle, some of the pieces would have crumbled at his touch.

  Maybe he was the one causing all the changes. Maybe his actions of visiting Hannah had set things in motion that he couldn't control. He remembered the way the older Hannah had insisted her actions were all because of him. Had he told her to do certain things?

  While he struggled to come to terms with his reality, Brooke moved back toward Aldan's snoring figure. She unwrapped his left wrist from the blanket and sheet. Before taking his wrist terminal, she looked back over her shoulder at Wyatt.

  Wyatt saw her motion but was unable to see the expression on her face before she turned back and unhooked the band of Aldan's wrist terminal.

  Aldan didn't react. His breathing didn't change.

  "That was easier than I thought," Brooke said as she stepped back close to Wyatt. Her smile returned in the dim kitchen nightlight.

  "Why do you want that?" Wyatt asked when he really wanted to ask her about the resonance that woke him.

  "I don't think I can tell you yet," Brooke said. "There is too much at stake. But the Machina isn't the only thing controlling time travel."

  "What?" Wyatt asked as Brooke scanned her wrist terminal.

  "Sorry," Brooke said. "For this to play out right, you have to let it happen the way it did for you. You need to hide." She stepped past him and walked around the kitchen but turned toward the dormitory door.

  CHAPTER twenty-six

  DORMITORY, NEAR R333PS

  WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5, 2090, 5:10 AM

  Brooke's words bothered Wyatt, but he had no way of arguing with Brooke as she raced out of the dormitory. She stopped near the door, handed the wrist terminal to another woman and walked away. The other woman's figure entered the dormitory and Wyatt's heart skipped a beat.

  The woman who entered was another version of Brooke, but she didn't look as confident. He watched, hidden in the kitchen area as that version of Brooke led roused his earlier version and led him out of the dormitory.

  He shook his head, trying to make sense of what Brooke had told him and what he had just seen. The Machina controlled time travel. At least, the Machina controlled the time travel through the wrist terminals. But he had seen Jarod using a different device, one that almost looked homemade. He shook his head at that. That device couldn't be homemade because that was the same device Wyatt had seen three other versions of Jarod use.

  Time travel was exhausting.

  The snoring on Aldan's side of the room stopped, replaced by the sound of his bed creaking as he rolled over or, worse yet, rose to his feet. That set Wyatt's pulse pounding, and he made his way toward his bed. At least he could pretend he was sleeping.

  Avery rolled over as he moved past her bed, and his breath stopped. He couldn't determine whether her eyes were open. It slowed his approach to his bed but didn't stop him.

  A few more hours of sleep would help. He needed to get his mind straight again.

  It felt awkward to climb into his bed that was still warm from his earlier version that had left. He left his shoes near the edge and pulled the covers over himself.

  "Where is Brooke?" Avery asked from where she stood looking down at Wyatt. Her voice had roused him from his sleep again and he pulled his left hand out from under the covers to scan the time. His wrist terminal showed it was 6:57 am.

  "Where did you get that?" Aldan asked. "Is that mine." Before Wyatt could react, Aldan grabbed his wrist.

  "It's not yours," Wyatt said. At least, he didn't think the wrist terminal Hannah had left for him could belong to Aldan. As far as he was concerned, it was the same one Hannah had stolen from him.

  Aldan tossed Wyatt's wrist back toward him and shook his head angrily. "Do you know where Brooke went?"

  Wyatt shook his head and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. Jeremy stood at the foot of the bed, Aldan to his left and Avery t
o his right. Getting away from any of them would be tough, even if he were awake.

  "There are some really strange things happening here," Jeremy said, pointing toward Wyatt's shoes as Avery activated the light panel above Wyatt's bed. "How did you get that much dirt on your shoes?"

  Wyatt felt his muscles tighten as he sat up and slid his back toward the wall. Aldan stepped around the foot of the bed to get a better look.

  "I'm sure he has a decent explanation for it," Avery said. "I'm sure it will all make some kind of sense."

  "Nothing makes sense," Wyatt said, trying to decide if he should lie. Rather than an outright lie, he settled for a partial truth. "Brooke wanted me to come with her, but I came right back."

  "Where did you go?" Aldan asked, rubbing his wrist where a tan line had formed around his now missing wrist terminal.

  "I'm not sure," Wyatt lied. "We used her wrist terminal to get there."

  Shaking his head, Aldan turned and faced the bathroom.

  "What is it?" Jeremy said. "You act like you know more about this than the rest of us."

  "It's obvious," Avery said. "If you were to take Aldan's wrist terminal, what would you do with it?" She folded her arms and shifted her stance to look at Jeremy.

  "She must have used my wrist terminal to find out where I've gone," Aldan said. "That was stupid of her. That's going to ruin that haven forever. She has to be the one that planted the camera there."

  "Why?" Wyatt asked, drawing Aldan's attention suddenly.

  "Those locations are specific to my life," Aldan said. "No one is supposed to visit them. No one should know they exist."

  Wyatt felt a shudder of guilt and looked away. He had to force himself to breathe to prevent sharing more information that would damage what little trust was left.

  "What more do you know?" Avery asked.

  Wyatt started to shake his head, but when she stepped closer and unfolded her arms, fear gripped him. He had to say something, but he didn't want to talk about Brooke, yet.

  "How many strange things have you seen?" Wyatt asked then continued before she could respond. "I've seen a few different versions of Hannah, helping, and hindering whatever I have been doing. I've even seen you." He finished by looking at Avery.