by Al K. Line
Dale thought for a moment; something wasn't right. "Hey, hang on, nothing has gone wrong yet, with the future. So how do you know you've met me?"
"Because the Laffer you just met isn't my present day Laffer, he's a future one, come back to warn me, silly fool got it rather wrong and—"
It was too much, Dale couldn't take it, nothing was making sense.
It doesn't matter, just kill Hector, it will all be over.
Dale lifted his Hexad, he'd slam it down right into the old man's head, again and again until he was dead. Yes, that's what he'd do.
A second of inaction can change a man's future forever.
He was gone, just like that. Laffer appeared, grabbed the old man then disappeared, all in under a second, probably taking him right back into his correct time.
"Argh, will this never end?"
Laffer re-appeared, and Dale could do nothing but jump.
~~~
39 Years Future
3.
The number flashed at him accusingly. The last Hexad and already it was half used up. No time to worry, Dale had to run. Laffer was dashing toward him pushing pedestrians out of the way on the busy high street like they were nothing but cardboard cutouts.
They were! Dale realized that they actually were nothing but cardboard cutouts, hundreds of them, lining the shopping precinct as if about to become animated and go spend some money — the stores were closed though.
What was going on? He was years before when it was all gone, the streets empty, so obviously it had happened before the furthest into they future they had jumped previously. Dale realized that he actually had no idea exactly when the Universe fought back and eradicated the problem caused by humanity, it could have been a few days ago, or years ago. Just how quickly had Hector produced Hexads for the world and caused everything to fall apart? How long had Hector then been trying to put right what he had done?
No time for that now, he had the giant to contend with, and Amanda, where was she? Was she safe? And where was he? The sudden succession of jumps left thoughts mangled like timelines across universes. Where had he jumped to?
That was it, he'd thought of Peter, meaning he must be around somewhere. But how? Where?
"You took your time," shouted Peter from up on the roof, taking aim and firing, the boom echoing down the street, cardboard people vibrating from the noise, store windows rattling.
Laffer ducked down, then disappeared an instant later.
Guess he'll try again another time. No matter, he won't get me, he didn't. Ugh. Damn, Peter, he's still here. Man, he looks old, seriously old.
"Hey buddy, what took you so long? I was beginning to worry."
"Why do I get the feeling that I told you in your past and my future that I'd meet you here?"
Peter just smiled then lowered the rifle and peered over the edge of the flat roof. "Good to see you. You won't believe how lonely it is here now."
"I think you'd be surprised. If I haven't already told you."
"Ha. Come inside, you look like you could do with a drink."
Old Friends
39 Years Future
Peter had been a friend of Dale's for about eight years. They'd met at some kind of convention, one of countless that both Dale and Amanda had attended in various countries over a few years until they stopped going as they were starting to draw too much attention to themselves.
The places ranged from small gatherings in cheap, sometimes seedy hotels, to huge events spanning a week or longer and centered around many, some would say crack-pot, theories and conspiracies that a surprising number of the population believed in with all their hearts. From UFOs to the advent of nanotechnology, conferences on esoteric mathematical theories and sometimes just the plain weird where time travel was the focus and a number of different lectures were given on theories that many believed to be true even while nobody really had an explanation for how much of anything actually worked, they attended them all, hoping to find answers, coming away sad, confused, and no better off for their trip, just out of pocket and depressed.
There were a series of faces that began to become familiar, people that seemed to spend their lives going from one fringe gathering to the next, seemingly with never-ending funds to allow such a nomadic existence. Those people may have been well-off enough to afford such a life but they were some of the unhealthiest people Dale had ever seen: living off fast-food, airport meals, or whatever they could get from the buffet table at the conventions they seemingly never tired of attending.
Peter was one of them.
He looked older now, but not as old as he should have been if he'd lived through the intervening years. Dale studied him carefully as Peter led him down through a series of tunnels until the twists and turns left Dale completely disorientated.
"It stops anyone finding us. The more convoluted the way then the less likely anyone will ever know where we are. You can't get a fix for a jump down here beneath so much rock and with so many different tunnels." Peter took him ever deeper, the rough rock tunnels illuminated by a simple torch, shadows flickering wildly over the damp surface.
"Where are we? Oh, sorry Peter, it's great to see you buddy, it's just, well, a lot has happened really rather quickly today. Amanda's gone."
"I know, you told me. But don't worry about that," said Peter hurriedly, "you just drop back to see me and fill me in quickly. Actually that's the reason I'm here. You came to me and told me that as soon as the Hexads were common knowledge then I was to get away, spend some time in the past, then jump forward to this place once everyone else was gone. It's pretty lonely you know?" It was a slight accusation, but there was no bitterness.
"Well, I suppose that makes as much sense as anything else." Dale didn't even try to figure it out, but it was clearly something he would have to remember to do in the future, so at least he had one. "Was Amanda with me?" he asked desperately.
"Sorry, no. Look, don't think about that for now, we have other things to do. Gotta save the world, right?"
Dale nodded, allowing Peter to lead him further through the tunnels. The rock pressed down on Dale's thoughts, sending them dark, heavy and grim, making his whole life seem futile. How could he beat time?
Finally they came to a door; Peter unlocked it, ushering Dale inside.
~~~
The room was vast, lost in darkness at the edges even though the center was well lit with a rather eclectic mix of light sources that could run on deep-cycle batteries. Dale sat in a comfortable armchair, feeling out of place, the situation too surreal for him to even consider relaxing.
The cave was all Peter: chaos in other words. Packed with systems that only Peter understood, huge mountains of 'important' stuff, vast now that Peter had countless timelines to delve in and out of.
It seemed that this Peter was the original but had spent a fair proportion of his time jumping around timelines, performing a trick that Dale and Amanda themselves had done: as soon as the news about Hexads broke he'd promised that in the future when he had one he'd send one back to himself, and that's exactly what he did. He turned his back on where he told himself he'd place it, then a few seconds later, after a "Here you go me," from a future him before he disappeared, he turned and there it was. He'd even tied a bow around it.
Since then he'd been exploring, seen so much he didn't know were to start, but telling Dale it could wait for another time. The main thing was that he'd found a way to get everyone back, he thought.
"How?" asked Dale, leaning forward eagerly despite the epic tiredness that was trying to pull him down into sleep.
"Look, when you visited me in the past, told me what had happened to you and that Amanda was taken, and how the Hexads actually run, which still freaks me out every time I use one you know?"
"I know, how do you think me and Amanda feel?"
"I can only guess. Well, look, to stop it, to stop everyone getting one we simply need to ensure that you stop this guy Hector, who's a nasty piece of work by the way,
from being able to ever get his facility up and running."
Dale sighed. "Look, I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to stop you there. It won't work, trust me, I've tried. We tried stopping him, I tried just now, and apparently I try in the future, and at the same time he tries to kill me and Amanda. In the end he regrets what he did, even makes some futile attempts to put it right, but it doesn't work, none of it does. It all happens as it already has, loops of confusion swirling around universes getting more and more convoluted as the future unravels."
"Well, there goes a few years of my life," said Peter dejectedly. "I've been working on ways to sabotage the production plant for an age, but don't worry, there are other options."
"The only thing I can sensibly see working is for us to forget about this time, about Hector and mass produced Hexads, and go right to the source."
"Exactly! That was my next suggestion. Look, you told me before about what had happened to you, no need to explain again, and if you didn't want to try to stop it in the near future, past, or whatever," said Peter, waving away the notion, "then I was going to say why don't we jump right forward into the future to when these things were first made and stop whoever these crazy future people are from ever having Hexads?"
"Do you think it will work? I mean, they are jumping back in time to try to stop us having them, aren't they? The future must be bleak for them now. If there is nobody here now then what will it be like then?" Dale couldn't imagine, the belief in any kind of future marred by the fact that it had all been over for humanity. But if that was the case, and humanity disappeared, then there would be no future people to invent Hexads in the first place. Paradoxes again, God's cruel joke on the minds of mankind.
"You know what I think?" said Peter smugly. Dale just shook his head. "I think that this must be the answer. It stands to reason. Okay, look, these future dudes must still exist, right? Otherwise they wouldn't be coming back, and in order for them to exist then it means at some point you do succeed, and you do stop everyone from just disappearing. Right?"
Dale was getting excited, that actually made sense. "Yeah, of course. If I didn't succeed in stopping this then they wouldn't be there and they wouldn't have invented Hexads in the first place. Oh, hang on."
"Exactly, if you succeed in saving the world, which means there are people in the future, then they invent Hexads as otherwise they wouldn't be coming back, and if they do invent them then what happens to us will happen. Man, this stuff is so confusing." Peter put his head in his hands, his pale red hair, still the same weird cut it had always been, spilling over his eyes, showing the shaved line at the nape of his neck.
"Tell me about it. But one thing rings true, and that is that I must succeed in saving the world, somehow, or none of this would be happening at all. Agreed?"
"Agreed," said Peter reluctantly.
"So, we just need to, well, I need to, go to the future, stop them at least ever letting Hexads work for more than a few people in the world, then it's problem solved. As long as one works for me then everything can happen that has happened to me, and you, if one works for you, and the rest will all make sense."
"Dude, that is so mixed up I don't even know were to start, but at least it's a plan."
Dale felt better, like he had a mission that made sense in a warped kind of way, and going to the source, ensuring that the devices simply could never be used by more than a few people, would stop at least most of the madness. The past would make sense, sort of, but it would never get so out of hand that time would be so mangled that the universes simply couldn't stand for it any longer.
But then, if he did this, he wouldn't remember the past as it had been, it would be different. Normal maybe, and that was a very good thing. Normal, how great would that be?
"Don't suppose you've got any spares?" asked Dale, frowning at the terribly low number on his Hexad.
"Take your pick," said Peter, flicking a switch. A far corner of the cave lit up, revealing a mound of Hexads, all flashing weakly, casting a blue light onto the walls.
Dale couldn't help smiling — he'd bet good money that Peter thought of this as his Bat Cave, he always did want to be a superhero.
"Wow! You've been busy."
"Yeah, well, I had to fill the time somehow, waiting for you to turn up. This was what you needed me for Dale, I'm your backup guy."
"Peter, I have to ask..."
"I got lonely, okay? You don't know what it's been like spending some time here in the future all alone. I put the cardboard cutouts out there just so it felt a little bit more normal."
"Um, okay." Dale smiled at his friend, the only one he had left. Where was Amanda? Could he just jump to where she was just by thinking of her? Of course he could, idiot. Jump to her and take it from there.
But first...
Catching Up
20 Years Future
Dale jumped back to see Peter, performing his duty so he could actually have the meeting he just had. He had the feeling that if he didn't do it right away then it would get lost amongst a myriad other convoluted trips he had to make just so he had the reality that he did.
It felt futile even as he winked out of existence and appeared in Peter's cramped living room surrounded by books, papers, electronic equipment and more computers than could be healthy for a street of families let alone a single man. As usual, the curtains were pulled closed. Peter always said he found it hard to concentrate when he made one of his what he called 'vacations' at his own home between trips to conventions, if the outside world kept interrupting him with such unimportant matters as when it was day or night.
He wasn't in the mood for chit-chat, and made his apologies, but emphasized the importance of what he was about to tell Peter, even though at the moment Peter wouldn't believe him, but he would soon enough.
Once it was over, and Dale had apologized again for being so frazzled and for not saying anything apart from what he had to, and Peter had stopped interrupting him and calling him a liar, and asking where the hell he'd been all these years — which did kind of worry Dale — Dale waited for the inevitable question.
When Peter asked, in an exasperated, and understandably rather annoyed manner, what on earth could convince him of such a story, and that time travel was real, Dale had simply finished telling him what he had to and jumped, knowing that was proof enough for anyone, and definitely for Peter. It didn't matter anyway, as soon as Hexads became common items then Peter would know he had to do as Dale had instructed.
~~~
1 Day Future
There was nothing left he could do in the state he was in, so he went home, a day after they'd informed the police of the Hexads and the bomb squad had stood outside their house, remotely viewing the trunk via their robots, scratching their heads and calling for more equipment and more specialist manpower.
Dale hit play on the answer machine, listening over and over to the angry voice of the detective inspector, telling him to get in touch as soon as possible, informing him it was safe for him to return home but he better not have left — there were some more questions he would like to ask.
Well, he'll just have to wait.
A cold beer sat all alone in the fridge so Dale decided to take it out and keep it company. He slumped down on the sofa and lay back, closing his eyes, hoping the buzzing would clear and his thoughts would unwind into some kind of normal pattern. He dreaded to think what such jumps did to your head — surely it was impossible for all those firing neurons to work properly and stay in the right order when they hurtled through time and space, spanning universes?
He had to get some rest, he knew it would be no good jumping into who knew what without making some preparations. It seemed clear that the convoluted cat and mouse game that had to play out between him and Laffer was still to come, and the end result was that it all ended in his favor in the future, meaning nothing got resolved that way, and neither party got what they wanted, so he had to believe that the plan to go to the time when Hexads were invented
was a course of action that could deliver results.
He had no better idea anyway, so that was what he'd do. He just needed to rest, just for a little while.
I love you Amanda.
~~~
Dale woke to the phone ringing and stumbled to the kitchen, answering it before he had a chance to realize what he was doing, just going on auto-pilot. It wasn't until he'd said a groggy "Hello?" that he remembered Amanda was gone, he'd spent the previous day jumping all over the place, and he felt so hungry his stomach was threatening to crawl out of his mouth and go find its own food.
"Mr. Ando, this is Detective Inspector Cray, I've been trying to get a hold of you. Would you mind telling me where you have been?"
Damn, this is the last thing I need right now.
"Sorry, we, er, we just wanted to stay out of the way."
"Yes, well, that wasn't what we agreed, now was it? You need to be available at all times. I have a few more questions for you and your partner, may I speak to you both this morning?"
"Um, it's not really convenient at the moment."
Damn, think of something.
"You've been missing for a day and a half, I need to speak to you."
"Amanda's gone... shopping. She's stocking up. You know, the big shop? She'll be a while."
"How long Mr. Ando?"
"Probably won't be back until lunch."
"I see sir. So does she often go shopping at six thirty in the morning and take five hours?"
Dale looked at his watch. He was right, it was that early. "Oh, you know, she likes to take her time, compare prices, all that stuff. I think she's even got an app."
"An app?"
"Yeah, you know, you can scan stuff with your phone and it checks other stores for better prices." Damn, I'm rambling.
