by Al K. Line
"See? Something is going on. Tellan said that this is a different universe, timeline, whatever, to the one I was in before. No, I'm in the right one, you're in mine."
"So, how do I get back to my true Dale?"
"You don't. I told you what he said. That me saved you, and everything else, by jumping into a version of me, stopping it all. So you jumped to the closest version of me there was, is, and that's me." Dale smiled widely, as if it meant problem solved.
"Dale, you aren't him, this is nuts. I can't cope with this. I'm sorry, I know this must be unsettling for you, but even if I do believe all this, then it means you aren't the man I've been with all these years." Dale looked crestfallen, Amanda couldn't even begin to imagine what this must be like for him. Was she being too cruel? "I'm sorry."
"Hello?" came a voice from out in the hallway.
Amanda stared in horror at Dale; he looked just as petrified. "Is that you?" she asked.
"Oh, shit," said Dale, panicking like she'd never seen him panic before.
The door to the kitchen opened and Dale, hair looking as though he'd been dragged through a hedge backward, still naked and rubbing his eyes like he'd just got up, padded into the kitchen and said, "What time is it? Any coffee?"
"Shit, shit, shit," shouted the Dale Amanda had been talking to. "Get back, don't come in here, stay away."
The just-entered Dale finally looked into the room, moving his hand away from where he'd been scratching at his belly, the other trying to tame his hair, and stared at first Amanda, then the other Dale, confusion turning to incomprehension, to astonishment, to abject terror. "What the hell...? A twin? Huh? What is all..."
Amanda screamed as the naked Dale walked forward and the Dale that was dressed turned translucent.
"Dale," whispered Amanda.
He was gone.
"Um, I think we better have a little chat, Dale," said Amanda, holding on to the counter top so she didn't black out for the second time that day. "Dale? DALE!"
Dale had clearly decided to take her place — he was out cold on the tiles that were a great investment and she still couldn't understand why Dale refused to admit quality was always worth spending the extra on.
Amanda wondered if there was any wine left from the night before. Unless that was the problem?
~~~
Five minutes later, Amanda had managed to drag Dale into the living room and prop him up against the sofa. She tried not to think about what had happened in the kitchen, tried not to think about the crazy morning, Tellan, any of it. It was incredible how hard it was to pull a person — the dead-weight made her feel like her arms would pull out of their sockets.
As she propped him up she suddenly panicked, her heart missing a beat before it thumped at double-time and she felt sweat bead on her forehead.
"What if this isn't him either? Am I just going mad? This can't be happening, it can't." Amanda wondered if the bump to her head had brought on all the crazy hallucinations of the morning, and it was that fall that had resulted in her reality being warped, rather than anything weird happening before she'd done it. She put a hand to her head. Yes, that was real at least.
Amanda stared down at Dale, then leaned forward and tentatively sniffed. "Smells like him." She sniffed deeper; it was definitely him. At least one thing was right in the world.
With a sigh, and a deep wish to go back to bed and wake when the nuttiness was over, Amanda slumped down onto the sofa next to Dale on the floor and sat, not knowing what to do, what to think.
Could what the other Dale had said be true? Was all this part of the unfinished business Tellan had told him about? What a mess.
"Ugh, what happened?" asked Dale from the floor, rubbing the back of his head and looking at her in confusion. He must have remembered, as moments later shock registered. "Did I... Um, was that? Ugh, I'm sure I just met myself in the kitchen. What the hell?"
Amanda suddenly remembered something. "What's the time, Dale?" she said hurriedly.
"Eh? What?"
"The time?"
Dale looked at her, then at his watch, clearly utterly bewildered. "It's almost quarter past eleven. Man, I slept late. If I'm awake, that is."
Amanda grabbed his arm and pulled. "Come on, we have to get into the kitchen."
"What? Why? What the hell happened, Amanda?"
"No time, tell you later," panted Amanda, as she tugged harder.
Dale got to his feet reluctantly; Amanda dragged him into the kitchen. She looked at the digital clock on the oven: 11:14. "One minute to go. Watch the table, don't take your eyes off it. I'll tell you everything in one minute."
Dale looked at her in utter confusion. At least she wasn't the only one now who didn't have a clue what was going on. She nodded to the table and they both stared at it.
Thunk.
"No. Way." Amanda couldn't believe it, the other Dale was telling the truth. So was that man: The Caretaker.
"Shit." Dale jumped back, almost falling, clearly not steady on his feet yet.
They both moved forward and peered at the device, noses almost touching the metal. It was a squat cylinder with a blue domed top, a 6 flashing happily. It appeared to be made of brushed steel, with concentric rings of brass engraved with intricate numbers.
"What is it?" said Dale.
"I think it's a time machine. Um, a time travel device, anyway."
"Is there a difference?"
"I have no idea."
"So, um, morning," said Dale, suddenly rather bright and chirpy.
Amanda stared at him — how could he be taking it so calmly? "Morning," she ventured carefully. "You okay?"
"Yeah, I think so. It's weird, this kind of feels familiar. I'm not nearly as freaked out as I—" Dale dropped backward and smacked his head on the tiles for the second time that morning.
"Thought he was taking it a little too well."
Amanda put the kettle on to boil and stared out of the kitchen window. The feeders in the apple tree were almost empty and that damn squirrel was nicking what was left. Her eyes moved to the patch of ground she'd stared at earlier.
Click.
The kettle flicked off. Amanda set about making coffee.
Not Quite a Stranger
Present Day
"Bloody hell, Amanda," said Dale, sipping his coffee, "this just sounds ridiculous."
"I know, but what other explanation can there be? Look, when you, the other you, told me what The Caretaker had said, well, I didn't believe a word, not really, but there was something nagging at me, something telling me that maybe it was all true. And that wasn't you, not like this is. Anyway, what about that?" Amanda pointed at the Hexad in the middle of the table.
"Fair point," said Dale, staring at it as intently as Amanda.
Neither of them had touched it when Dale came around a few seconds after collapsing again. He seemed all right, it was just one of those days for being unconscious — they'd both made a good job of it so far.
"All that stuff you told me, what the other Dale told you The Caretaker had said, how can that possibly be real?"
"I honestly don't know. This has been a mad morning so far and I can't see it getting any better, but he didn't tell me everything. There was more to it, I think, stuff he never had the chance to say. I wish The Caretaker was here, then maybe we would make some proper sense out of it all."
"Well, it's a good job I am then, isn't it?"
Dale and Amanda turned at the voice of Tellan, who stood in the middle of the kitchen, frowning and slowly taking his hat off.
"Um, hello?" said Amanda.
"What's up?" said Dale. Amanda frowned at him for being so rude. "What?"
"Show some respect," said Amanda.
"How do you do?" said Dale, winking at Amanda and getting up to greet Tellan.
"Hello, Dale, it's been a while. Well, actually it hasn't, and I suppose that's part of the problem. Sorry to disturb you again so soon, Amanda, but I do believe I have made a slight error."
> "Error?" asked Amanda.
"Yes, my fault entirely, most unexpected. It seems that Dale here is more, how shall I put it? indestructible than I imagined, and he, um, gosh I really do hate time travel. He—"
"Please, sit down, there's no need to rush this. In fact," said Amanda, pulling a chair out for Tellan, "I think we would both prefer it if you went as slowly as possible. Right, Dale?" Amanda looked at Dale, then burst out laughing.
"What? What's so funny?"
"You haven't got any clothes on."
"Oh."
"Don't get dressed on my account," said Tellan. "We were all born that way. Most of us, anyway," he said cryptically.
Amanda got the feeling she really didn't want to ask what he meant by that. He was The Caretaker after all.
"No, erm, excuse me for a minute." Dale left and went to dress.
"I wasn't expecting to see you again so soon, and I also wasn't expecting the man you told so much to then disappear and be replaced by my Dale," said Amanda accusingly.
"My dear, I do apologize. I came as soon as I realized the error." Tellan placed his hat down carefully on the table, an immaculate pork pie hat that matched his seventies suit with wide lapels perfectly. "It wasn't my fault though," he added hurriedly, "I came the instant I felt the change."
"Felt the change? How?"
"Oh, nothing for you to worry about. Ah, here comes Dale now."
Dale wandered back into the room, dressed, hair still wild. "Okay, can somebody please tell me what the hell is going on? I just saw myself and then he, me, ugh, whatever, he disappeared. What's happening?"
"Well," said Tellan, "it seems that after you jumped into an earlier version of you, then by rights you should have canceled everything out so you, this you I might add, should have reset to this morning, the same as Amanda."
"But...?" goaded Amanda.
"But, as the pair of you failed to tidy up behind you, did you tell him what I told the earlier Dale, Amanda?" Amanda nodded. "Good, I do hate repeating myself, and I am rather busy. I digress. So, after the little oversight, your timeline, your universe, played a little trick and Amanda jumped to a slightly different place than was expected, to compensate. But as this is time travel, and it so very confusing, it seems that finally you, Dale, have caught up with yourself, and now here you are." Tellan seemed satisfied with his explanation and got up as if to leave.
"Hang on, hang on," said Dale. "Where did the other me go?"
"I have absolutely no idea, my dear boy, it's a very big series of universes out there. At least at the moment anyway, which is mighty time-consuming for me, I must say."
"So, I'm just gone then?"
"No, you are right here." Tellan picked up his hat and placed it on his head, adjusting it until it looked perfect.
"Um, Tellan?" said Amanda. He nodded slightly. "What do you mean by universes, and all this timeline business? And do we have to jump to meet ourselves and write a book? How do we know what we have to do exactly?"
"Oh, don't worry about that, all the information you need will be along in a moment. Now, I really do have to go. But once you sort out this slight oversight everything should return to normal. Do it fast though, if you leave things in the air like this then... Let's just say it can get messy, and leave it at that."
He was gone.
"That cleared all that up then," said Dale, then put his head in his hands and banged his forehead on the table.
"Dale?"
"Yeah?"
"You know the pub?"
Dale lifted his head from the table. "What, you wanna go?" he said excitedly, licking his lips.
"Um, no. I went earlier, with the other you. But is Steve, er, jolly? And is the pub all done up and does Steve play music and the beer's nice?"
"What? Hell, no. He's a grumpy sod, the place stinks, you stick to the carpet and the beer is crap. Why?"
"Oh, um, I think we might have a bit of a problem then."
Amanda went through everything that had happened to her since she got up, again, leaving nothing out.
It took a while.
~~~
"If in doubt, have a fry-up, that's what I always say," said Dale, turning the dials on the oven then getting the goodies out of the fridge for their usual Saturday food extravaganza.
"Haha, you've never said that in your life."
"From now on I will." Dale busied himself getting everything ready while Amanda watched. She couldn't help it, she felt immensely happy, relieved too. The morning had been terrifying, the Dale that wasn't Dale had really scared her, and although it was awful to think he could be just gone, although she expected it was more likely he had simply returned to where he should have been now her true Dale was here, she couldn't help feeling happy that at least she had Dale with her — together they would cope with whatever they had to deal with.
Amanda suspected that what was actually going on was that her mind couldn't even begin to process the craziness and she would crash and burn at some point — best to ride the wave until that happened.
While Dale cooked lunch they talked about what they should do. It all seemed so out there, so ridiculous, but there was no questioning what they had seen, and the story related by the other Dale to Amanda, and what Tellan had said, did, when you got down to it, sound plausible in a mind-bending way. Not to mention the Hexad sat on the table and the still as-yet-undiscovered proof in the garden.
Dale caught Amanda staring out of the window. "Should we go and see? Dig it up?"
"Tellan said not to. I wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of The Caretaker, would you?"
"About that. What does it mean? The Caretaker?"
Amanda turned to Dale and said, "He's The Caretaker."
"And?"
"And nothing. He's 'The' Caretaker." Amanda made bunny ears with her fingers.
"Fine," said Dale in a huff, and carried on dishing up the food.
"I don't know what else to say. That's what he is. He's The Caretaker."
"Of everything?" asked Dale, sliding fried eggs onto their plates, the yolks golden and runny. Amanda eyed them greedily. "Amanda?"
"Yes, of course. Now can I have my fry-up or not?"
Dale served lunch.
It felt too surreal for words after the morning Amanda had experienced, or both of them, she supposed — it can't be easy watching yourself fade away like that, and just sitting down and eating like normal was a very strange experience.
"Dale?"
"Hmm?" said Dale, chewing on a slightly overdone hash brown.
"What happened? Before you got up, I mean. It was a different you here when you woke up and freaked out, so obviously it wasn't this you. So how did you just suddenly appear?"
Dale put down his cutlery. "I honestly don't know. I woke up in bed, had the remnants of a weird dream, tied up with going to get the milk from the fridge and I think maybe even little bits of memories of that Chamber, even you hanging on hooks or something, and that was it really. My head felt rough, like it always does from drinking, then I got up and came into the kitchen. You know the rest."
"This is nuts," said Amanda, returning her attention to her food.
"You can say that again."
Thud.
Dale and Amanda pushed their chairs back in panic as a small, spiral-bound notebook landed smack bang in Amanda's remaining fried egg, splattering yolk all over the table, almost staining her dress.
"You know what?" said Amanda. "I really hate time travel."
"Me too," said Dale. "At least we could have finished our food first."
Amanda picked up the notepad, neither of them had touched the Hexad yet, and read the cover. "Jobs for Dale and Amanda, by Tellan."
"At least we'll have some idea how to do whatever we have to so we can get back to normal," said Dale.
Amanda opened the notebook to the first page.
"Learn Your Lines...
Present Day
...and stop moaning," said Amanda, sure Dale was bein
g awkward on purpose.
"It's hurting my head," complained Dale. "After having to make that stupid book, telling us, you know, the us that are in The Chamber, what they were supposed to do, although it didn't really tell them much to be honest, then my mind is a mess. Now I have to learn this."
It had been going on for hours. They'd followed the instructions in the notebook, first finding an empty A4 pad and making a book just as described, Dale having to write it as that was what happened when the other them, well, actually it was them, they just couldn't remember, had got hold of it.
Dale had completely exasperated Amanda saying why didn't he write something more useful, her replying that he couldn't because he didn't, and did he want to risk the end of the world just by trying to be clever? Dale did as he was told, but it meant the confusion of the day built as they got deeper and deeper into the concepts of time travel.
By the time they'd had about their seventh cup of coffee and moved to rehearsing a conversation they'd already apparently had with themselves far into a future that shouldn't even be there as it had gone because they eradicated Hexad production, well, neither of them were at their calmest or most accommodating.
The day was too surreal. Amanda had already witnessed a Dale disappear as her current Dale walked into the kitchen, and the fact he was taking that in his stride made it feel like an impossible dream — if not for the Hexad, Tellan, and the belief she was out of her own universe, Amanda would have believed she had lost her mind. Maybe she had? It would certainly explain the madness.
"Okay, let's have a little break," said Amanda. "And I'm sorry."
"For what?" asked Dale, as he leaned back in his chair, his neck cracking as he rolled his head from side to side.
"Just for being snappy and grumpy. It's not your fault."
"I'm sorry too. It's been a crazy day, right?"
"You can say that again." Amanda wondered how much worse it was going to get. "Dale?"
"Yeah?"
