by Simon Rose
He still felt a little disoriented when there was a knock on the office door.
“Yes,” he said.
The door opened and a young woman stepped inside. She immediately seemed very familiar, but Hammond couldn’t place her name.
“Your appointment’s here, Doctor Hammond,” she said. “Shall I show him in?”
He didn’t initially respond, distracted by a fleeting thought of a large park, which had many tall, mature trees and a lake. He knew exactly where they were.
“What? An appointment?” he said, recovering a little. “No, I’m sorry. I can’t do this right now.”
He stood up from the chair, hurriedly slipping the car keys and the dispenser into his pocket.
“No, please cancel everything for the rest of the day.”
“But, Doctor Hammond . . .”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I have to go.”
The young woman simply stared at him, open-mouthed, as he stepped past her in the doorway. He strode toward the exit, completely oblivious to the man seated in the waiting area, and hurried out toward his car.
IN CASTLEGATE PARK, Max was still struggling to understand some elements of the concept of multiple realities and different worlds.
“You said earlier that all the universes are as real as each other,” he said, and then paused before continuing. “Does that include ones where Kane exists?”
“Yes,” Julia replied. “As far as I know, he can’t move between realities, but if we end up in one where he exists he might recall his other lives and us, like he did before.”
“Is he here, in this reality?”
Julia shook her head.
“No, he died as a child in this world and the one where we just were, so we’re in no danger from him here.”
“And Hammond?”
“He’s still a threat due to his ability to move into different realities with the help of the serum,” Julia replied. “But he doesn’t know which universe we’re hiding in.”
“So, he’ll never find us?”
“Exactly.”
At that moment, a jogger approached them as she ran along the lakeshore path. As the woman passed in front of the bench, there was a strange shimmering effect in the air, almost like a heat haze. The woman vanished for a second then reappeared, before continuing on her way.
“Did you see that?” said Max.
“Yes,” Julia replied, frowning. “That shouldn’t be happening.”
Max then glanced over at the main entrance to the park and gasped. He saw himself walking through the main gates, presumably heading to meet Carrington.
“Julia, look!”
She saw the same thing and grabbed his hand.
“Something’s gone wrong. We have to go.”
“Go where?”
“Another world, anywhere but here.”
“But you said we couldn’t risk moving between worlds because of the damage it may cause or let Hammond have more power.”
“We can’t worry about that now,” she snapped.
She closed her eyes and concentrated while gripping Max’s hand tightly, but nothing happened.
“Did it work?” said Max. “Are we somewhere else now? I didn’t feel anything this time.”
In front of them, the air shimmered again, and the children in the playground briefly vanished then were visible again.
“Come on,” Julia said, as she stood up. “We need to get out of sight. I need time to think.”
They ran but just before they reached the safety of the woods, their entire surroundings shimmered. Hammond stepped out of the trees, blocking their path.
“I thought you said he didn’t know us here,” said Max.
“He shouldn’t,” Julia replied.
“No, I shouldn’t,” said Hammond, grinning, as he took the mobile dispenser from his pocket. “But using your brain fluid allowed me to track you down. Now, you’re both coming with me.”
He reached out and grabbed Max, who lost his grip on Julia’s hand.
“Max!” she screamed, but it was too late.
Chapter Fifteen
Deadly Diagnosis
MAX WAS BACK in the interview room at Hammond’s clinic, sitting on a chair at the plain wooden table. The camera on the wall was still intact and Mark was standing by one of the room’s exit doors. Julia wasn’t present but Max’s dad was sitting across the table from him. Bethany was seated beside him but looked slightly different to how Max remembered her. Her hair wasn’t in the same style and Max noticed that her glasses were a different colour than what he recalled and were hanging on a thick necklace. There was a clipboard on the table in front of her, but Max couldn’t make out what was written on the attached paper. Bethany was smiling at Max but his dad looked very concerned and upset.
“What’s going on?” Max asked. “Where’s Mom?”
His dad averted his eyes and sighed heavily.
“Max, we’ve been over this I don’t know how many times. Your mom’s dead. She’s been dead since you were a baby, after the accident at the train station.”
“No,” Max began. “That’s not right. I saved her. I saved you both.”
“Max, I . . .”
“No!” Max declared, loudly. “This is all wrong. You don’t understand.”
Bethany put on her glasses and then adjusted them as she read from the notes on the clipboard.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Garrison, it’s as we feared. He’s hopelessly locked into this other world of make-believe and has no idea which reality is genuine anymore. You can rest assured that he’ll be very well looked after here at the clinic. I’m so very sorry.”
Max’s dad simply nodded and then turned away from Max, attempting to contain his emotion.
“No!” yelled Max, standing up and knocking the chair over. “No! This is all wrong!”
“Mark,” said Bethany, getting to her feet. “He needs to be sedated again.”
Mark immediately stepped forward, brandishing a syringe with a hypodermic needle. Max’s dad looked shocked as he stood up and stepped away from the table.
“Max, please,” he said, in desperation. “They’re only trying to help you.”
“No!” Max shouted. “You can’t do this!”
He turned and dashed toward the door but Mark and Bethany grabbed his arms tightly. Max continued to yell and struggled to escape from their grip until he felt the point of the needle enter his arm and he slipped into unconsciousness.
WHEN MAX AWOKE he was in a different room with no windows. Lying on the bed, he stared up at the ceiling, still feeling numb as he tried to wake up. He sat up on the bed and discovered that his right wrist was fitted with a handcuff that was securely attached by a long chain to the nearby wall. He heard footsteps approaching. His heart was pounding as the handle turned and the door opened. Hammond entered, but which Hammond was it?
“Ah, I see that you’re awake,” he said, as he closed the door. “How are you feeling, Max?”
Max ignored Hammond’s question.
“Where am I? What am I doing back here?” he demanded.
Hammond smiled.
“Surprisingly, I can answer your questions. You see, this isn’t the reality where you last appeared, or even the one where you met your friend at the clinic. I can inhabit my body here and use it how I wish. You also have memories of the other realities that she took you to. I know that you have knowledge of other universes, even if you need her to travel. I’m sure she’s told you everything that she knows about me and my work. Parallel realities were just part of a theory but then we made an unexpected breakthrough.”
Max didn’t reply. This more or less confirmed what Julia had suspected, that the barriers between realities were breaking down. His own journey into the past to save David Dexter, followed by him and Julia changing the timeline, must have triggered something. Without their actions, Hammond might never have discovered a way to travel between different realities.
“Oh, this is almost the
same place but there are a few subtle differences,” Hammond continued. “For example, this version of Bethany isn’t even aware of travel to other realities. As far as she’s concerned, she’s simply been working with me to help unfortunate patients with serious mental issues, like you.”
“You’re the one that’s insane,” said Max. “Where is she? Where’s Julia?”
Hammond smiled.
“So that’s her name, is it? I have no idea where she is now, but I’ll find her, you can be sure of that. When I grabbed you at the park, she let you go just as I activated the mobile dispenser, otherwise I’d have you both. I was planning to go back to the reality where you visited me at my clinic but once I knew that I’d only secured you, I decided to bring you here instead. I’ve been to this reality before, where your mother’s dead. It’s easy to convince everyone here that you’re insane and need to remain under my care. I think her memories of you were the strongest and so vivid, since she was trying to save you. Because I’m linked to some of her memories, I was able to get some idea of what she knows about you. You’ve shared quite a few adventures, haven’t you?”
Max didn’t respond. He wasn’t sure how much information Hammond might have been able to gather from his link to Julia’s mind.
“Some parts are very jumbled,” Hammond continued. “There was someone called Kane and some kind of scientist, but it wasn’t very clear. I was able to learn something about you having mental health issues at some point although I don’t know all the details about that either. Anyway, that doesn’t matter. It’ll all serve its purpose.”
“And what’s that, exactly?” asked Max.
“I was hoping to bring Julia here with you but she went somewhere else, either deliberately or at random,” Hammond replied. “She’s the one I really need. She tried to find you once, when she escaped from the hospital. But you didn’t know her then, did you? Now that you’ve become reacquainted, I’m sure that she’ll try and find you again, and when she arrives, I’ll be waiting for her.”
Max knew that he had to play along until he could work out how to escape, although that seemed an unlikely prospect. This appeared to be the universe where Kovac had run his experiments and killed both Max’s mother as well as Julia’s. Kane was also probably around, and based on previous experience, Max knew that Kane would come looking for him sooner rather than later.
“Where’s my mom?”
Hammond smiled again.
“She doesn’t exist here, at least not anymore. This is a reality where Marina Garrison died in a tragic accident at the train station when you were a baby. Depression, they said, I think. And now, of course, you have similar symptoms, don’t you? Or at least as far as the medical community is concerned, and now you need to be institutionalized.”
“You know that’s not true!”
“Yes,” said Hammond. “I do, but unfortunately for you that’s the reality here. Your father’s resigned to it, and you’ll be in here for the rest of your life. Naturally, I’ll be conducting as many tests as possible on your brain to try and find your friend. Unless of course she decides to come here.”
“No!”
Hammond simply smiled and turned to leave.
“You can shout all you like,” said Hammond, as he stood in the open doorway. “No one’s going to care in here. The extra medication will soon kick in too. Then you’ll be nice and quiet.”
He smiled again before stepping into the corridor, closing the door behind him.
Chapter Sixteen
Safe at Home
JULIA AWOKE IN a bed but had no idea where she was. She sat up and quickly examined her surroundings. The room looked completely unfamiliar and yet at the back of her mind there were tiny details that she thought she knew yet couldn’t quite put her finger on.
There were tasteful pictures on the walls and what appeared to be a tapestry hanging by the window. A wide shelf made of white wood was filled with stuffed animals. The room’s desk was also made of white wood and had a built-in bookcase on one side, on top of which were a couple of sports trophies. Julia climbed out of bed and went over to the desk. None of the book titles looked like her kind of reading material, and yet oddly she could somehow remember details of the stories. The trophies didn’t display a person’s name and had been awarded for participation in volleyball and swimming teams.
On the desk were a laptop, a phone that was charging, various make-up items, a necklace, two bracelets, several hairbrushes, and a very feminine purse. Julia cautiously opened it and took out the wallet. It contained no money but there were bank and credit cards in the name of Julia Marshall, along with numerous other cards for clothing stores, cafes, and coffee shops that she’d never usually visit. This was clearly yet another reality, but who was she here?
She then turned and caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror on the wall above the dresser. Her hair was much shorter than usual and was her natural light-brown colour, not jet black with the familiar red streak. She had fewer earrings too, only one in each ear. Julia stood up and walked over to the mirror, staring at her face and running her fingers over her cheeks and around her eyes. It was definitely her face but yet it wasn’t. Her tattoo was also missing from her arm. She then had a flash of images across her mind and felt unsteady on her feet. She took a couple of steps backward and steadied herself on the edge of the bed. She sat back down in order to regain her composure.
The images that had briefly sped in her mind where unfamiliar, incorporating faces that she didn’t recognize, and yet she still had that nagging feeling that she should know them. She had to learn more. And what had happened to Max? Hammond had appeared when he shouldn’t have known them but he clearly did. She had to assume that Hammond had captured Max or perhaps Max was hopelessly lost in yet another world.
Julia stood up and walked over to the closet and slid open the door. Her eyes widened when she saw the vast array of clothes that the closet contained, none of which she’d normally be seen dead in. There was also a large collection of shoes, boots, and sandals, which were similarly unlike anything she’d normally wear. Casting a few glances around the bedroom, which was far tidier than it should have been, there was no sign of her signature leather jacket or torn jeans. The closet also contained very feminine T-shirts in colours that she despised, instead of styles that she’d usually love to wear. Clearly, she was a very different person in this world. She quickly got dressed in the least offensive outfit that she could find, a plain white tee shirt and black jeans, and left the bedroom.
JULIA CAUTIOUSLY MADE her way down the staircase, feeling strangely at home but simultaneously as if she were an outsider in an alien world. At the bottom of the steps, nothing seemed familiar and there were no framed family photographs or other points of reference to give her some clue as to where she was. Yet at the same time she felt that she’d been in this place many times, sat on the couch watching TV, played on the carpet as a child, sat at the nearby dining table for meals, or repeatedly walked in and out through the front door. Memories flooded into her mind and Julia gave her head a shake. She had to stay focused if she wasn’t going to lose herself completely. She had to stay in control and figure out a way to get back to the real world, although she increasingly had no idea which reality was her home anymore.
Julia stepped into the kitchen, which like other parts of the house was gradually beginning to seem more familiar. There was a set of keys and a woman’s purse on the counter. A clip-on nametag was lying face down beside them. Julia went over to the counter and picked up the nametag, turning it over. It displayed the name April Marshall, who was a senior advisor for some kind of financial company.
“There you are.”
Julia was startled but when she turned around she couldn’t believe her eyes. It was her birth mother, the mother that she’d never known. She appeared to be in her mid-thirties. Her light-brown hair was cut short and she shared Julia’s green eye colour. Julia recognized her birth mother from the picture that she and
Max had seen in the files at the Records department at the hospital.
“I was just about to come and get you, sleepyhead,” said her mother. “Did you forget that I was taking you to school today?”
Julia was speechless. What was going on?
“Julia? Are you okay?”
“What? Oh, yes, just pretty tired. Sorry.”
She cast a quick glance in the direction of the fridge, where the outer surface of the door was covered in a variety of magnets. Some secured photographs of Julia, her mother, and a man Julia didn’t recognize, but who at the same time seemed really familiar.
“I forgot to tell you last night,” said her mother. “Dad’s going to be staying an extra day on that trip.”
Dad? thought Julia, panicking slightly, yet for some reason she knew that her father wasn’t Kane. How was this possible? She glanced back at the picture on the fridge door. Was the man that had seemed familiar her adopted father? That was the only explanation that she could think of.
“Julia?”
“Huh?”
“Wow, you really are still sleepy, aren’t you? Anyway, let’s get going. Are you hungry?”
“No,” Julia replied, shaking her head. “Not really.”
“There’s still a muffin or two in the fridge, if you want one for the ride?”
“No, it’s fine, thanks,” Julia replied. “I’ll get something at school.”
She wasn’t even sure how she knew but somehow, she was aware that the cafeteria at her school offered a small selection of breakfast items, mostly for kids that arrived early. She also seemed to know that this was the same school that she attended in the other world. Perhaps when she got to the school she’d have a clearer picture regarding the true nature of this particular reality in which she currently found herself.
