Dissonance (The Machina of Time Book 2)

by Daniel R. Burkhard

  "Why would Linda do that?" Lenny asked. "The Machina instructed me to use her."

  "It won't matter unless we stop her," Avery said.

  "But what about Jarod Whiting?" Lenny asked. "Isn't he behind some of this?" he unfolded his arms and leaned against the pallet. He stood only a few feet from Wyatt. After a moment, he shifted away from the damaged portion of the top corner of the pallet.

  "I'm sorry," Wyatt said. "But I'm sure, if we stop her, you can ask her why she is doing this."

  "How are we going to stop her," Avery asked.

  Wyatt took a deep breath and let it out as a sigh. When he spoke, he forced himself to speak slowly. "I need to get this notebook to Hannah," he said, glancing from Avery to Lenny. "Somehow, she is a key to this."

  Lenny shook his head and pushed off the pallet. "I will not allow you to involve her," he said. "Her cousin is tough enough to deal with."

  "Aldan is only trying to protect her," Wyatt said. "Besides, if we don't involve her, we could lose everything."

  "He's right," Avery said. "Hannah does help."

  Wyatt turned toward her. "How did you get your wrist terminal back?"

  "What do you mean?" Avery asked.

  "I saw Linda go after you," Wyatt said. "That was right before she showed me two wrist terminals and said they belonged to you and Jeremy."

  Avery smiled and held up her left wrist. "I've never lost mine," she said. "So that must mean that your plan works."

  "My plan?" Wyatt asked.

  "Sure," Lenny said. "I'm sure you are working to set things right."

  Wyatt looked at him in disbelief for a moment. When Lenny began to smile again, Wyatt felt even more unsettled.

  "Don't tell us your plan," Lenny said. "Especially if it involves going back and changing more of the past."

  "So, you and Jeremy were never lost?" Wyatt asked Avery. He shifted his gaze her direction and felt a slight relief that she was not also smiling.

  "I don't think I remember that with her," Avery said.

  "But you remember Linda?" Wyatt asked.

  "Of course," Avery said, holding up her hand. "And I remember Jeremy, Brooke, Aldan, and you. So, whatever you are working through gets better."

  That didn't help Wyatt. He watched them for a moment, his eyes shifting from Lenny to Avery and back. In an odd way, it made sense. If he thought about what she must have remembered in the same way he remembered the events on the street of the business park, it worked. He couldn't remember walking out there on the street any longer, but he knew he had been run over. Well. He thought he remembered being run over. What he did know was that he drove the sedan at Hannah's urging.

  It seemed that distance from the wrong memories dulled them a little. That thought brought him back to the older version of Aldan. That older version of Aldan had mentioned Linda was important. He wished he knew how.

  "If you still remember Linda," Wyatt started but struggled to finish his thought.

  "You can't destroy her," Lenny said, his smile fading as he turned to face Wyatt. "Whatever it was that made her do what she has done, you need to be careful."

  Wyatt snorted. "You're just saying that because the Machina said to trust her."

  "Possibly," Lenny said. "But I have not had any problems with her."

  Wyatt rubbed his eyes and looked over at the damage to the boxes in the pallet. The bullet had gone just over his head.

  Footsteps behind Avery forced her to turn around and face that direction. Her back blocked Wyatt's view, and it took him a few seconds to recognize her hand gestures.

  Behind her back, she motioned with her right hand as if sweeping him away. She seemed to want him to get out of sight. As he sidestepped closer to Lenny, Lenny looked at him once and shook his head.

  "That's Jarod," Lenny said.

  "He has a gun," Avery said, rounding on Wyatt and dragging him around the side of the pallet. "Get down."

  "The pallet won't help," Lenny said as he raced around behind her and Wyatt. They crouched behind the pallet as Jarod said something.

  "Was he the one that shot at you?" Lenny asked.

  Wyatt shrugged as Jarod said something else. It sounded like he intended the words for them, but he wasn't yet close enough to be heard.

  "He's looking for you," Avery said.

  "But you aren't going to be here when he finds us," Lenny said. "You need to get out of here."

  "But won't he turn the gun on you?" Wyatt asked, looking at Avery more than Lenny. "He's had a gun on me before."

  "And we stopped him," Avery said, working her wrist terminal. "What happens next will be quick."

  "Which is why you need to leave now," Lenny said, motioning toward Wyatt's wrist terminal. "He's probably going to follow you, so move quickly between spaces."

  "We'll hold him here for as long as we can," Avery said. "But whatever it is that you plan to do, do it quickly."

  Wyatt wanted to say that his plan had been more simplified. He was simply going to head back to later that day and give Hannah his wrist terminal and the notebook.

  "I need to speak with Wyatt," Jarod said as his voice came closer.

  "No," Avery said. "We've already seen the way you shot at him."

  "My gun has not been fired," Jarod said. "That was another gun."

  Wyatt rolled his wrist terminal time around to 12:30 pm. and wondered if that was too late to meet with Hannah. Leaving the date and location code the same, he activated his portal.

  "No," Jarod said, his voice drawing closer. "You're ruining it."

  "Get through that," Lenny said, working with his wrist terminal. "Go fix what you can, and we'll deal with him."

  Wyatt looked toward his portal, which had opened in the next stacked pallet and glanced back toward the pallet behind which he hid. Jarod's head had just come into view, but he didn't have his gun raised. He carried it at his side.

  "Go. Now," Avery said, pushing him into his portal with enough force he fell through.

  CHAPTER thirty-eight

  WAREHOUSE ENTRANCE, R549PS

  SUNDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2039, 12:30 PM

  The concrete was cool and hard as he fell on his face. The resonance filled him, again making him relieved he hadn't eaten in hours. His head felt funny as his mind struggled to come to terms with the various memories. He remembered Linda and the gunshot. He remembered Lenny and Avery.

  Starting from those memories, as he crouched on his hands and knees, he cataloged all the memories he had back to driving the sedan in the business park.

  The trouble this time wasn't so much due to multiple memories, but due to the way Lenny and Avery had reacted about Linda. She was someone the Machina told Lenny to use, and that worried him the most.

  He scanned the aisle, with the empty shelving surrounding it. No one was in sight. In the back of his mind, he had expected to see Hannah, or even Brooke.

  But no one else was around.

  His wrist terminal showed only two minutes had passed since he arrived. He couldn't just run back to 10:00 am. It was time to be smart. Somehow this would all work out. No matter how much it felt like things were falling apart this time, he was going to put it back together.

  He needed Lenny's help, but he wasn't sure where to find a version of Lenny that would help.

  He wished he had taken his contract out of his footlocker and read it. The only persons from his group that admitted to reading it were Avery and possible Aldan. Avery was also the only woman from their group that still seemed involved.

  Brooke was gone. Jeremy was gone. Aldan seemed to be enjoying the seclusion of his tiny home in the middle of Utah. None of them, other than Avery and an older version of Hannah seemed to be trying to help.

  He shook his head and rose to his feet. If he followed a few of the aisles, he would have time to think, and could possibly find the red and white keycards for the Machina's server room. Besides, the walk would do him some good and give him time to think and plan.

  For the first few mi
nutes, he walked without really thinking. The exhaustion of traveling had begun to weigh heavily on him.

  After nearly twenty minutes of walking along the aisles, he arrived at the aisle leading toward dormitory entrance area. He had thought through all the clues he had been given so far and agreed with Brooke. More was going on than he felt he knew, but at least the constant resonance had died off.

  The only action he could think of was getting back to Hannah, around 10:00 am, on October 15, 2039. That had to be the time when he would give her the notebook and his wrist terminal, but it didn't make any sense. He had already been near that time and had been shot at.

  He had to figure out when to find Hannah and give her the notebook and the wrist terminal. Although he wasn't sure why he would give her his wrist terminal.

  Maybe he would find something useful in the dormitory.

  Both blue doors were closed, and he felt the dizzying effects of the resonance as he stepped across the blue line in the aisle near the doorway. It made him stop for a moment. Checking his wrist terminal, he saw that the date had shifted from October 15, 2039, to April 11, 2090.

  That was the same amount of shift he had seen during his first visit to the dormitory. On that first day, he had entered the warehouse on October 1, 2039, and crossing the blue line near the dormitory had pushed him and the others into March 28, 2090.

  Maybe he could use that. His wrist terminal showed it was 1:00 pm. So even though the year had shifted as he crossed that line, the hour hadn't.

  The warehouse was strange.

  His mind ached with that information, but he realized more had changed. As he crossed that blue line, he suddenly heard voices inside the dormitory. That was what he was after. He stepped closer to the door without opening it or touching it.

  "—trust him?" Brooke's question came through the door, and he almost opened it to see her.

  "We can't trust him anymore," Avery said.

  "Why do you say that? "Jeremy said. "Why can't we trust him. He is the one that brought us here." His voice was loud and carried through the doorway almost as good as Aldan, who spoke next.

  "I know how you feel," Aldan said. "But I've seen what he has already done to fix this. He has worked hard when the rest of us just went with the changes."

  Wyatt wondered if they were talking about him or talking about Lenny. It seemed likely they were speaking about either of them. He really wanted to open the door.

  To prevent that, he stepped back from the door and scanned the aisle behind him. As he finished his scan, he noticed the other blue door stood slightly ajar.

  "Hello," Wyatt said quietly. "Is there someone there."

  "Don't trust him." This time it was clearly Jeremy that spoke from the inside of the dormitory. "He has only caused trouble."

  The other door shifted slightly as Wyatt watched and he knew someone was behind it. The door swung shut slowly, as it someone were trying to make as little sound as possible. He approached it with one step, then backed away. What would knowing who stood behind that door do for him?

  He had already seen the headache that came from interacting with a previous version of himself. What if the person behind that door were another version of himself, waiting for something else to happen?

  Letting out a sigh, he backed toward the dormitory door again.

  "I have to trust him," Brooke said. "I've been places with him. He has our interests at heart."

  Not knowing who they were talking about really bothered Wyatt. Their words made him second guess what he had really thought about his interactions with them. The more he heard, the more he realized they were talking about him. His was the only voice missing from their conversation.

  He shook his head, the person behind the other door forgotten as he looked at his wrist terminal. The amount of time that had passed as he crossed the blue line would help him. He could use that. All he had to do was travel to the dormitory entrance earlier that morning and he could walk back to find Hannah right about the time when he had left.

  It took only a moment to set his wrist terminal for R333PS, April 11, 9:00 am. He took a moment to prepare himself before he activated it. In that moment he heard the creak of a door hinge from behind.

  He faced the doors. Both were closed.

  It sounded like the doorway to the dormitory, but they were close enough together, with their hinge sides between the doors, it was impossible to tell.

  Someone had noticed him. He had no idea who it could be, but someone had seen him. Maybe it was Lenny behind the other door. Maybe it was Linda. He stepped toward it and reached for the handle as it turned slowly.

  Rather than grip it tightly, he pulled his hand back. He had no real way of hiding as the door began to swing inward.

  Not wanting to be caught between the two blue doors, he stepped back into the dormitory entrance area until his back touched the shelving.

  The door opened slowly. It felt like time had stopped for a moment. His mind seemed to decide it would be a version of himself, but it wasn't.

  "You?" Brooke asked. She looked like she wore the same dark clothing she had worn the last time he had seen her on the dirt road. In fact, dust coated her pants.

  "Are you okay?" Wyatt asked.

  "Did you come looking for me," Brooke asked, stepping through the door and scanning the aisles nervously. "We have to be careful Jarod is around here."

  Wyatt reached out to her, ready to give her a hug, but she stepped beyond him and continued to scan the aisles and the shelving.

  "How long have you been here?" Wyatt asked.

  "I've been trying to find you," Brooke answered and seemed to hear the voices inside their dormitory for the first time. Her face twisted with concern as she turned back toward the dormitory. "Are they talking about Lenny?"

  Wyatt shook his head.

  She frowned at him. She held out a long sleeve cream colored shirt. "Put this on. It's dry."

  Wyatt reached for the shirt and almost pulled it on over his sweaty shirt. At the last minute, he gripped the cream-colored shirt between his legs, removed his dirty shirt, and put on the cream shirt. Before finishing all the buttons, he dropped his old shirt and kicked it under the shelving.

  It felt good to have a dry shirt to wear, but it seemed odd that Brooke would give it to him. In the back of his mind, he thought he had seen that shirt before, but Brooke's next question made him lose track of that concern.

  "Do you think they are talking about you?" Brooke asked.

  Wyatt backed against the shelving again and looked at her. "It's hard to explain," he started. He wasn't sure he could explain to her that whatever was going on in there seemed to be happening because of something he did. "Aldan was right," Wyatt said, not sure which Aldan he meant. "Everyone close to me has been affected by these changes."

  "But I'm right here," Brooke said.

  "And I don't know why," Wyatt said, motioning toward her dusty jeans. "The last time I saw you, you and an older Aldan were taken by Jarod. Where is he?"

  Brooke looked back toward the door for a few seconds. Wyatt wanted to demand some answers out of her. He wanted to know exactly where she had gone.

  "They're talking about trust in there," Wyatt said eventually. The conversation in the dormitory had died down to the point it was difficult to hear what was being said. "I thought I could trust you, but now I don't know."

  "Trust me or not," Brooke said. "We can sort this out."

  "What happened when Jarod's men tossed you through that portal?" Wyatt asked. "If you want me to trust you, show me I should."

  Brooke looked back at him for a moment. Her eyes didn't quite meet his. "This is all because of your actions," she said. "Every change you have seen is because of you. I'm sure that's what they"—she motioned over her right shoulder toward the dormitory door—"are talking about. "

  "How did I mess it up?" Wyatt asked.

  "I think it was because you got Hannah involved," Brooke responded.

  Wyatt felt
that settle in his mind like a hammer blow. It made some sense. He had been the only one in the group to form a relationship outside of their time. He shook his head, thinking about Aldan and the haven he had found. That thought brought back the realization that he had helped place a camera on that dirt road. Could he have been the reason Aldan would lose his haven? Could that older version of Aldan have simply been sharing the home with his younger versions?

  "How do I fix this?" Wyatt asked, his mind playing back much of what he had seen. "Do I need to stop Linda and Jarod, or do I need to stop myself?"

  Brooke shrugged. "With the way this time travel works, I'm not sure," she said, forcing a smile that stopped at her mouth. Her eyes narrowed as she watched him. "Tell me what you think you should do?"

  He looked at her, watching the way the smile slowly fell away from her face. He found he didn't trust her as much as he thought. That was probably his own mind playing tricks on him. He needed to get Brooke talking and get it to happen quickly.

  "Did you say Jarod was after you?" Wyatt asked.

  Brooke's eyes darted around the aisleway. "Have you seen him?"

  "Not here," Wyatt said. "But he was carrying a gun and coming after me back on October 15, 2039. Any idea why he would be there?"

  Brooke shook her head and folded her arms. Her smile partially returned. "He wants the same thing the rest of us want," she said. "He wants to bring stability back to the world. But his world falls into a paradox soon."

  "Stability?" Wyatt asked.

  "Yes," Brooke said. "Time travel gets away from the Machina, and when it does, the world begins to fall apart. Too many changes may cause strange loops to form. He's been stuck in a few."

  "That seems to be Linda's concern also," Wyatt said, letting out a sigh. "That's what I'm trying to fix."

  "How are you going to fix it?" Brooke asked, her smile broadening. She almost laughed. "Don't you see that you are the cause of the changes we have seen."

  "Who is this we you speak of?" Wyatt asked, glancing toward the dormitory door.

  Brooke let out a sigh and looked over her shoulder. "What is your plan to fix this?" she asked.

  "I have something to give Hannah that will assist her with finding us," Wyatt said.