Hexad: The Factory (Time Travel Thriller) Book 1

by Al K. Line

  What made it worse somehow, made it all the more surreal, was that each Amanda was made-up carefully, hair long, if less than full of vitality, lipstick and even a hint of rouge applied to the cheeks, as if somebody had taken great care to make them presentable, but on many faces the attempt had been mangled, red smears like open wounds running in gashes from her lips to her jaw, clearly where a machine had failed to apply the make-up correctly. It was obscene.

  It was a slide show of Amanda at various stages of her life with every possible body composition she would have been likely to have. There were fat Amandas, thin ones, some with scars, others with blemish-free skin that shone but would soon lose its luster, and there were other bodies that had clearly been taken right at the beginning of the horrible farming, little more than skin and bone however well the machines tried to maintain the valuable commodity that was an Amanda.

  It went on and on, the machinery moving tirelessly, a sick procession of unknowing Amandas in every conceivable form and state of well-being.

  Dale found it hard to imagine the mind of Hector and how he could ever have done such a thing, but he supposed that the man simply had no concern for people, and would do anything to ensure that Hexad production continued. What a shock it must have been when he unraveled the secrets of the Hexad plans only to discover that the fuel was cerebrospinal fluid from the body of a single woman.

  Once the discovery was made he'd clearly realized that if he wanted to go into production then he'd need an awful lot of Amandas, so that was exactly what he'd gone about harvesting. He'd probably sent Laffer hurtling through time and space to take Amandas from every possible universe. Dale guessed that Hector somehow diluted the concentration, or maybe the fluid could be made purer somehow, and it was this that allowed some Hexads to give the populace the ability to travel not only through time but to go to different versions of their own universe as well, meaning that time could be changed, acts carried out that had no direct effect on the universe you returned to. It would explain a lot, plus leave many questions unanswered.

  But Dale knew that he had traveled through universes without a special Hexad, and without really knowing he felt that if there was a strong connection to the place or person he wanted to see then that was enough to convince the Hexad to jump timelines and allow the exploration of an infinite number of universes. Maybe it was different for him? Because of his connection to Amanda — all of them?

  To be honest he didn't really want to think about it, he just knew that with his connection running so deep, she was a part of him after all, he would be able to jump to her in endless places, save her from the fate of The Factory, stop the madness even if it meant putting his own sanity in jeopardy.

  Decision Made

  46 Years Future

  Dale took his time, much as he hated to, but it was too important to not understand it as best he could — their previous visit to what he could only think of now as the milking room had been rushed, hardly able to spare a glance at the macabre lines of live Amanda flesh — back then little had functioned, Hector finally having admitted the heinous crimes and ceasing production. Now it felt like they had all the time in the world, although that wasn't strictly true. There were still people working at the facility, and although only Hector, Laffer and a few select and important personnel were allowed into the room there was still a risk of detection. Dale knew they would have to act soon, yet he couldn't bring himself to tear his eyes away from the worst crime he could ever imagine, let alone witness.

  Huge vats of nutrients bubbled in machines spaced evenly around the room, tubes weaving in and out of the machinery, on and on, countless vats and strange digital devices as well as esoteric looking equipment he had no idea about as to purpose.

  Too much, it was too much to take in, so he focused on one Amanda only, trying to see if he could make any sense of it all, knowing he couldn't. Such a violation wasn't worth anything that could possibly be gained: not power, not wealth, not the world. No wonder Hector had ended his own life rather than be confronted with his despicable crimes — Dale knew as soon as he'd seen the room that he would have made Hector suffer terribly for the evil he had committed in the name of power. But what could he have ever done to the man as recompense for this?

  The body he was focused on twitched, nerves firing, an automatic reaction to the nutrients flowing from the huge vat of green liquid that went through the abdomen, straight into the stomach. He watched as it flowed in, saw the stomach distend slightly, only so obvious as the body was severely depleted in terms of excess fat and muscle. This Amanda had clearly been like this for some time — the body appeared frail and old, although there were signs that she was still relatively young, maybe even younger than his Amanda. But she had been hanging for years, her hair had grown very long, dull and limp, as lifeless as her body.

  There were catheters to take away bodily waste and tubes up her nostrils and pads with wires stuck to her chest, maybe to resuscitate her if she died? The eyes were sunken and thankfully closed, the face all angles and blotches. Her extremities were dark, verging on black, the machine designed to move her limbs and keep muscles from totally atrophying clearly not functioning well enough to stop blood pooling, causing sores and strange reactions where odd fingers and toes were hugely swollen as if from a snakebite.

  It made no sense, not really. Dale understood the need to keep the bodies alive, but surely it would have been simpler to just keep the women imprisoned and take what was needed.

  Not as efficient, and a risk of the knowledge leaking out, or of her escaping.

  Dale wondered what kind of a difference it would have made if people keen to own a Hexad knew exactly how they functioned. It made him despair just knowing that some would give anything to possess one, even when confronted with the truth of how they were powered. He could imagine the conversations people would have with themselves, justifying their purchase with the knowledge that there were infinite Amandas, and what difference would it make if just a few of them paid the ultimate price to allow them to go back and save their own family members, make a better life for themselves and their loved ones?

  Maybe what the universes had done as a reaction to such blasphemy was the correct course of action after all?

  Should a race that could commit such terrible acts be allowed to flourish and enjoy everything that the world had to offer?

  Dale came out of his reverie, vision slowly focusing through the tears, only to find that he was alone. Cray was by the only door, a dead body at his feet: a technician, white clothes stained bright red down his front where his head had been smashed in with the bottom of the ever useful Hexad.

  Cray was staring grimly down at the body, nothing but hate on his face. Dale didn't know what to think about the man — on the one hand he had been as much to blame for what had happened as anyone else, perpetuating the cycle of the damn Hexads being found in the first place, but he wasn't a monster and clearly wanted the whole thing put to an end. Dale nodded at Cray, who nodded back solemnly, then Dale went to get Amanda, the only Amanda not hooked up to a machine.

  "You okay? I can't imagine what this is like for you, seeing yourself like this." Dale had no words to make it better, nothing inside of him to tell her it would be all right. Whatever they did the vision would always remain, unless...

  "You're right, we need to go and kill these poor women, stop them being taken, stop the Hexads ever being made in the first place." Dale stroked Amanda's cheek, tears all gone, none left to fall for herself any longer.

  "You sure? It's going to be pretty grim. Nasty in the extreme."

  "I'm sure. What could be worse than this?"

  "Looking into my eyes a thousand times as you kill me," offered Amanda.

  It suddenly hit home, the reality of what they were about to do rather than it being an abstract concept. Could he really do it? Stick a knife in her throat? Stab her in the back? Jump somewhere to get a gun and shoot her in the head? Watch the terror, the fact she
didn't understand why her lover had turned on her and her last sight before she died was of him, the man who had sworn to love and protect her forever, now taking her life and she didn't know why?

  How can I do that? How can I stand before her and kill her? I can't even put a bird caught by the local cats out of its misery without throwing up. But this? Killing her and not being able to offer an explanation? I can't tell her the truth, she would never believe me.

  "It's okay Dale. I'll understand, there's no choice. We have to stop this."

  Killing Spree

  46 Years Future

  They were ready. They'd jumped to get weapons that seemed the most appropriate after much debate about what would be the best way to do it. In the end it came down to one thing: what was fastest, painless, and would allow them to have the nerve to repeat it over, and over, and over again. If they could do it at all.

  They were back in The Factory, they had to be, much as all of them hated the place. If they were to jump to where each Amanda had been taken from then they had to be close enough to get a sense of the woman, where she originated, and when, otherwise they would never be able to perform the cross-universe jump that it entailed, if, and only if, the connection between Dale and Amanda was strong enough to break through whatever barrier was barring Amanda entry to anywhere but the one universe.

  It made the whole thing worse: standing there, staring into what was for all intents and purposes a dead face, knowing you were to jump back to when she was fully alive, hopefully happy, and eradicate her from the future.

  But at least she won't have this future.

  Dale said he would go first, there was no point them all jumping and doing something so terrible if it didn't actually work, or make a difference. What if they went back and killed an Amanda only to find that all it meant was that Laffer would have jumped back to an earlier time and still taken her? They had to test what happened, and Dale wouldn't allow Amanda to be the one to make the first kill, Cray either, he owed her that much.

  He argued it was safer for him to try anyway, if he managed to do just one jump, change one universe, then the rest should be open, and the more Amandas that were killed the more chance there was that they could all jump to carry out the terrible task ahead of them.

  ~~~

  3 Years Past

  Dale made no comical noise as he jumped, the only sound was the pounding in his head and the sound of the machines. He closed his eyes, began to adjust the Hexad until he felt in tune, felt when it was that the Amanda before him had been taken from her world, brought to her nightmare future as nothing more that fuel for depravity.

  She had been taken three years before their present. He didn't know how he knew but he did, so he wanted to allow her to have enjoyed life right up to as close as the moment she had been taken as he dared — he owed her that, and much more besides, so that was the least he could do.

  He reached out mentally, feeling the connection to his Amanda, to all of them. It was going to work.

  Now here he was, standing over her as she slept, as she slept beside him, not him but one very close to him. He stood in the room, listening to himself snore, noticing that as usual he'd taken all of the blankets but then got too hot and pushed them down to his lower legs.

  His bum looked too big, he wasn't really that wobbly in the arse was he? And since when did he have cellulite? He snorted, almost waking himself up, then rolled over and put an arm over the naked torso of Amanda. She was slightly slimmer than his Amanda, a little younger but just as beautiful, and he was about to do the worst thing possible.

  Dale slid out the extremely narrow blade, nine inches long, as thin as a finger and as sharp as hell. Could he do this, kill her, knowing that when the him in the bed woke up it would be to grasping a corpse, distraught and fearful, knowing someone had crept in during the night and killed his love? Was there a better way? There probably was, plenty, but he had to do this, stop what was to happen to her if he failed to succeed.

  Dale moved silently toward the bed, avoiding the creaking floorboard he knew was right where Amanda always stood when she got up. He smiled as he noticed the hairbrush on her bedside table — she really did love her hair, sometimes he even woke in the night to find her brushing it in her sleep.

  He bent over her naked body, gently moved aside her hair from her ear, marveling at the perfection of the earlobe, and then in one quick movement, with a steadiness of hand he didn't think he had in him, he placed the tip of the steel a fraction away from the perfect ear before sliding it in hard and slamming down on the top of the hilt until it was buried deep. He pulled it out fast, watching as a trickle of thick blood slowly stained her perfect skin before falling like a death tear onto the white linen of the pillow. The body twitched slightly, then was still. She wasn't breathing; she was dead.

  Dale jumped.

  ~~~

  46 Years Future

  He was back in the exact spot he'd just left, gone for less than a second to Amanda and Cray, what felt like a lifetime of bad dreams for Dale.

  He began to shake. His hand was uncontrollable; he dropped the weapon, the sound as it hit the white tiles ringing out loudly in the cavernous space.

  "Shit, shit, shit. Ugh, that was awful, I killed you, I killed you!"

  "Hush, it's okay Dale, it's okay. Look, she's gone."

  It was true, where once was an Amanda there was now an empty space — it had worked, one less Amanda meant countless less Hexads would now have been produced, all the jumps made by those possessing a device powered by that Amanda would now never have happened.

  "God, that was awful, truly awful. Seeing you there, so beautiful, me lying next to you with my huge arse, man, I never knew I could do such a thing."

  "But you did Dale, you did it for love, and for the future of everything. I love you, and thank you."

  "I love you too, but I really need a drink."

  "No time for that," said Cray, "we have work to be do. A lot." He looked grimly at the rows of bodies still present — it was going to be some time before any of them had the chance to rest.

  Broken Minds

  46 Years Future

  Once the sickness had passed, Dale got to his feet and watched as the machine slowly moved past, taking the emptiness with it, only to be replaced with a quite young looking Amanda, clearly taken when she was still in her early twenties. It brought back a lot of memories, of how they had traveled and seen so much before finally settling down into their comfortable life Dale wished more than anything they could return to. He wondered if that could ever be possible, or if it was now nothing more than wishful thinking.

  Again, I have to do this again, just to make sure, just to numb myself to it. So the others can jump too.

  Before he could change his mind Dale picked up his weapon and felt the connection with the young Amanda. He set the dial, not even looking at the Hexad as he did so, and he jumped once more.

  ~~~

  18 Years Past

  Thailand, the heat hitting you like a bucket of warm water poured directly over your head, humidity through the roof, mosquitoes buzzing noisily the other side of the dirty, holey net. He recognized the place instantly, or almost, as there were a few things slightly different: the room somewhat larger, the throw over Amanda a different pattern to the one they'd used themselves.

  Where was he? The Dale that should be asleep? Probably just got up and sitting on the beach like he had so many times, unable to sleep because of the heat and the damn mosquitoes. He never understood why they liked the taste of him so much yet seemed to leave Amanda alone.

  Dale lamented the life this young woman would now never have as in just a few days she would be taken, brains scooped out and hung up as nothing more than prized meat to be used to pervert reality. Was it fair to steal even a few precious days though? Shouldn't he wait until the very last minute? No, that way he risked getting it wrong, maybe meeting Laffer and the whole enterprise falling apart rapidly.

  Dale lifted
back the net and reached for the blade in its sheath at his side, Hexad stowed in his ever-present satchel. He noticed another draped over the back of a rickety chair on the corner, looking almost pristine compared to his own after all these years.

  "Dale, what you doing?" said a sleepy Amanda, propping herself up on her pillows, rubbing her eyes.

  Damn, what am I supposed to do?

  "It's okay, go back to sleep. I'm coming to bed now."

  Amanda leaned back and stared through half-closed eyes, before something suddenly clicked in her head and they snapped wide open, confusion fighting with disbelief and horror, none of it registering as it was impossible.

  "Who...? What? How? Is that you? How are you older? What's happening?"

  "Nothing honey, you're just having a dream is all, go back to sleep. I love you."

  "Dale, I know this is no dream. Who are you? A brother? Father? I don't understand."

  Dale did the only thing he could think of, he jumped back a few seconds, before she awoke, and without thinking he quickly pulled out the blade, lifted the net and ended Amanda's life just as her eyes began to open.

  Dale would never know if she saw an old and much more haggard him leaning toward her, blade at the ready, before she died. He knew it would haunt him forever, fighting with the countless other atrocities he had been involved in, and would be for some time to come.

  Dale jumped again, back to the room of Amandas, Hexad spent.