by Simon Rose
“So where is he now? You said he’d gone back.”
“I don’t know,” she said, frowning again.
She winced in pain and almost stumbled, as Max once again steadied her.
“Here,” she said, pointing at another shard not too far away on the same wall.
Hammond was shown in the lab at the clinic with Bethany, Mark, and one of his colleagues. Hammond sat up sharply on the bed, yelling as he looked around the lab, his eyes wide with fear. He hit Bethany, sending her crashing to the floor, and then tore at the tape that had secured the various tubes and cables to his body. When Bethany attempted to get to her feet, Hammond hit her again, before Mark and one of his colleagues rushed into the lab. After a brief struggle, Hammond was restrained, and Bethany plunged a needle into his arm to sedate him.
The image then changed and Max and Julia saw Bethany go into the clinic’s front reception area, where she was talking with police officers that appeared to be preparing to search the clinic. At that moment, the fragments stopped vibrating and the dissolving effect ceased. The images in the fragments all around them were also no longer moving.
“My God,” Julia gasped. “I think Hammond’s actions have sealed the breach.”
“Are you sure?”
Julia nodded.
“I don’t sense anything, and look, the images are static now. All the different universes still exist but the barriers between them are in place again.”
“And those scenes with Hammond and Bethany are from our world, right?” said Max. “Or at least the one that we think of as our real world.”
“Yes, I think so,” said Julia. “It looks like Hammond’s plan has failed and the police are now onto them.”
“So, it’s safe for us now,” said Max. “We can go there.”
Julia didn’t respond and once again was unsteady on her feet. Max lowered her to the floor and helped her to rest her back against the wall.
“We can go there,” he repeated. “You can take us there and we’ll be safe.”
She slowly shook her head.
“I can’t, Max. I don’t exist there. Max, I can’t picture her face.”
“Who?”
“My mother, in the world where I had lots of friends. I’m starting to forget things. Oh, my God, it’s happening again.”
Max was astonished as Julia started to fade away, her hands briefly disappearing and then becoming solid again.
“What’s going on?” he said.
“This is what happened when I disappeared from your backyard after we changed the timeline with Kovac. I’m ceasing to exit.”
“No,” said Max, defiantly. “I won’t let that happen. You have to remember how to take us home.”
Julia was now almost unconscious. Max had to try and penetrate her mind. He remembered how he’d gone back into Kovac’s memories to prevent the car accident that set the doctor on the path to experiments with psychics and mind control. Surely Max could do that with Julia too? Somewhere deep within her mind, even if she was beginning to forget, there would be memories of when she last used her powers.
“Julia,” he said. “Julia, try and stay awake.”
“What?” she mumbled.
“You must try and stay with me. We need to link our minds again, like you did when you first brought me here. I think I might be able to help you regain your powers.”
“It’s useless, Max,” she said, her eyes almost closed.
“I can’t believe that,” he said. “I can go back into your memories. Maybe I can stimulate your mind so that you’ll remember, even if it’s only for enough time for this to work. Please, Julia. We have to try.”
But she’d lost consciousness. Her hands and then her lower arms also momentarily faded before returning to normal. Max knew that he had very little time.
He concentrated, just as he’d done when he’d entered the mind of the man at the clinic when he’d made his escape from his room. An unintelligible mass of images from Julia’s mind flashed through his head at incredible speed as he entered her memories. He struggled to focus his efforts, as he attempted to reach a memory that would help Julia to temporarily reconnect to her ability. The movement of the images began to slow but it was still very confusing. Max assumed he was experiencing what Julia had seen when she was randomly tumbling between different realities, before she’d been found in Castlegate Park.
Suddenly, he was looking through Julia’s eyes, but only remained in the memory for an instant. In rapid succession, he saw himself as Julia approached him in the school library when he was studying the SecretConspiracyXpose website, when she opened the door to let him into her house, their visit to the Records department at the hospital, and their escape from Kane at the shopping mall. Max knew that he had to focus on a time when Julia had been using her powers. That was the only way that he might make her remember. Then everything stabilized and he was in Julia’s mind when she was at the hospital. She was inching along the wall, taking care not to be seen by the nurse working at the front desk. Max felt Julia focus her thoughts, forcing the nurse to turn her head just long enough for Julia to dash behind the nearby cart, stacked with patient gowns and hospital linen.
Then the scene changed and Max was in the clinic, at the moment when Julia had disabled the camera. Bethany, Mark, and his colleague were lying unconscious on the floor. Max was looking through Julia’s eyes at himself, as he backed away.
“Hammond was right. You really are crazy.”
It felt so weird to be in control of Julia’s body, as he heard himself speak in her voice.
“Okay, I was hoping not to have to do this.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
He once again sensed Julia’s deep concentration, as she locked her eyes on those of the boy in front of her. Max clearly recalled her intense gaze when this had happened before. He took a step forward and instinctively knew want to do, placing Julia’s hands on either side of the boy’s head, spreading her fingers around his skull.
The scene abruptly changed and Max was in the circular room. At first, he thought he’d returned to the present but quickly realized that this was another memory, when he once again saw himself. This was when Julia had used her powers to take them to the safety of Castlegate Park.
“It’s starting to shift again,” he heard himself say. “We could end up anywhere if we leave it too long. Take my hand.”
“What for?” said the other Max.
“If you hold onto me, we’ll travel together, in theory.”
“In theory? So, you don’t know if this will work?”
“Hopefully we won’t get separated before we get there.”
“Get where?”
“You’ll see, now take my hand.”
He extended Julia’s hand and grabbed the other Max as the vibrations affecting the fragments around them intensified. The fragments then shattered like glass, followed by another flash of brilliant white light.
WHEN MAX OPENED his eyes, he was still in the circular room, but this time he was in his own body. Julia remained on the floor against the wall and she wasn’t moving.
“Julia,” he said, gently shaking her shoulders. “Julia, you have to wake up.”
“Max,” she said softly, as her eyes slowly opened. “I sensed you, inside my mind.”
“Good. Now do you remember those times when you used your powers?”
She nodded.
“Yes, I think so, but it’s so hard to keep hold of the memories. It’s like trying to hold water in my hands. It all keeps slipping through my fingers.”
“I’m going to try and help you,” he said. “You need to focus on those memories of your happy life, with your mother and your friends. I’ll try and keep those thoughts stable, while you work on getting us to my world.”
“But I’m not supposed to exist there,” Julia insisted. “How can this possibly work?”
“I really don’t know, Julia, but it’s our only hope, and you might not exist anyw
here else soon either.”
Julia’s body then began to fade away, the effect this time beginning with her feet and moving rapidly up her legs.
“Oh my God! Max!”
“Focus, Julia,” he said. “Think about getting us to my world.”
He then closed his eyes and concentrated, quickly entering Julia’s mind once again. It was very different this time. Julia was struggling to channel what little power she had but Max could also sense her almost overwhelming fear. He located Julia’s memories of her mother and her time with her friends at school and when they’d visited Deanna Hastings at the waterfront. If they both focused on these and Julia used her powers to get to Max’s reality, they might just have a chance.
“Max!” Julia screamed.
His eyes snapped open, and he was shocked to see that Julia had almost completely faded away. Only her head and shoulders were now visible and to his horror the effect was accelerating. He could only watch as Julia disintegrated before his eyes.
“Julia! No!”
Then everything vanished in another burst of white light.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
An Ideal World
MAX WAS AT his birthday party, along with his friends from school, his parents, and his grandmother, as well as some of their friends and neighbours. He could hardly believe what he was seeing. Was this yet another reality or even an illusion? Was his world going to suddenly transform again and he’d find himself back at Hammond’s clinic or even with Kane and his friends at the warehouse? He was startled when someone slapped him on the shoulder.
“Hey, Max, thanks for the invite.”
He turned around to see Jason and Jeff.
“Yeah,” Jeff added. “Where’s that cake?”
“What?” said Max.
He quickly scanned his surroundings. Everything seemed to be in place. The picture of his parents was on the shelf above the fireplace. In the kitchen, his grandmother was chatting with Jeff’s parents.
“So, no cake?” said Jason.
“Oh, I have no idea,” said Max. “I’ll be right back.”
He hurried to the back door, desperate for some fresh air. He also needed time to think. He stepped out onto the deck, closing the back door behind him, and gasped.
“Julia?”
“Hi, Max.”
Julia was standing beside the patio table, with her shorter light-brown hair, white tee shirt, and black jeans.
“Julia?” said Max, hesitantly. “Is it really you?”
“It’s me, Max,” she replied.
“Are you a ghost? Or are you going to disappear again?”
“Neither,” she said, smiling.
She stepped forward and kissed him on the cheek.
“I’m real,” she said. “But I’m not sure how.”
“So, it worked,” said Max. “It really worked. This must be the ideal world, for both of us.”
“But what did you do?” said Julia. “How can I even be here?”
“I’m not exactly sure how it happened,” Max began, “but I have a theory. You had little power left, but because our minds were linked and we were both so focused on those memories that meant so much to you, we must have somehow combined the two worlds together.”
“But I wasn’t supposed to exist here,” said Julia. “Kane never grew old enough to have children in this reality.”
“That’s still true, but he did in the other reality, although he died before you were born. This now seems to be the combination of what are ideal worlds for each of us.”
“Yes,” she said. “And the breach between the different realities is now sealed for good. Somewhere there are other versions of us and everyone else, just like there should be. The only difference is that no one can travel between the realities anymore.”
“But you can,” said Max.
She shook her head.
“Not any more. Whatever happened to get us both out of that nightmare world and into this one together has completely wiped out my powers. Because our minds were connected at the moment we left there and the two words combined, your ability to see ghosts and visit other people’s memories is probably gone forever too.”
“Well, I don’t think I’ll miss that, if it means that I’ll have no more visions and nightmares,” said Max. “So, do you think we’ll forget everything about all the other timelines? Like I did before?”
“I think we’ll probably still remember them, even if we’re in this reality for good now,” replied Julia. “It’s hard to say exactly what’s going to happen but since I’m here at your party it seems that we’ve obviously been friends for a while. I’m sure memories of our previous lives here will eventually form for both of us, but we’ll still need to get reacquainted.”
“I wonder why we arrived back here?” said Max. “My birthday party was a week before all this stuff with Hammond began.”
“Yes,” Julia added. “How come everything restarted again at that point in time?”
Max simply shrugged.
“All I can think is that the merging of our two realities and the sealing of the barriers between all the others caused some sort of time loop when it all reset. None of it makes a whole lot of sense but I get the feeling that everything’s okay now. So, what do we do now?”
“Well, I don’t know about you,” Julia replied. “But I think I might go shopping for a leather jacket and some ripped jeans. I might get more ear piercings too, not sure about the tattoo though. I’d like to change my hair colour as well but I think that I’ll have to wait for my hair to grow a bit more first.”
They both laughed. Max was startled by a woman’s voice.
“Hey, Max. What are you doing out here?”
“What?”
Max turned around and gasped. It was Julia’s mother. He recognized her from her younger photograph that he and Julia had seen in the Records department at the hospital.
“Well, get in here,” said Julia’s mother. “Everyone’s wondering what’s happened to you. After all, it’s your birthday.”
She stepped back inside the house and Max and Julia followed her to rejoin the party.
Epilogue
AT THE WESTLAND Institute for the Criminally Insane, the man and the woman pushed the bed along the hallway to the soundproofed room located in the most secure part of the hospital. Alastair Hammond lay unconscious on the bed but was also securely restrained.
“So, what’s the story with this one?” said the woman.
“That’s right,” the man replied. “You’re new here, aren’t you? Well, this one’s completely crazy. He has no idea who is but he also doesn’t know where he is.”
“Well, that’s quite common, isn’t it?”
The man smiled.
“It is, but this guy thinks he’s in a different universe, or actually living in lots of different universes. If he’s on the really strong medication he actually talks quite coherently sometimes but most of the time he has no grip on reality whatsoever.”
“And why is he being moved to a soundproof room?” asked the woman.
“Because he yells all the time when he’s not on the medication. We can’t keep him permanently sedated and we can’t have him on the strongest medication too often either, so it’s the only way to keep him quiet. This room’s going to be his new permanent home.”
“I’ve heard he’s quite violent at times too,” said the woman, as they turned into another corridor.
“Yes, that’s right. He’s injured a few people here before, sometimes quite severely. Your predecessor was one of them, actually. He’s never coming back to work here again after what happened.”
“I heard that this guy used to be a doctor,” said the woman. “Is that true?”
“Yeah, he had a private clinic somewhere in the city, I think. Apparently, he was a really smart guy and got lots of awards for his work and everything.”
“So, what happened to him? How come he ended up in here?”
“No idea,” the m
an replied. “Some people just go crazy for no reason. I heard that the clinic that he was running was closed down by the police. There were some suspicious patient deaths, I think. One of the other doctors there that worked with him went to jail too. Well, here we are. Let’s get him settled in for the night.”
The man opened the door and they wheeled Alastair Hammond into the soundproofed room where he’d be spending the rest of his life.
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About the Author
Simon was born in Derbyshire, England and has lived in Calgary since 1990.
He is the author of The Alchemist’s Portrait, The Sorcerer’s Letterbox, The Clone Conspiracy, The Emerald Curse, The Heretic’s Tomb, The Doomsday Mask, The Time Camera, The Sphere of Septimus, Flashback, Future Imperfect, Twisted Fate, and the Shadowzone series. Simon is also the author of The Children’s Writer’s Guide, The Time Traveller’s Guide, a contributor to The Complete Guide to Writing Science Fiction Volume One, and has written more than a hundred nonfiction books for younger readers.
Simon offers programs for schools, is an instructor with the University of Calgary and Mount Royal University, and offers services for writers, including editing, writing workshops and coaching, plus copywriting for the business community. Find Simon online at www.simon-rose.com
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