by Richard Lord
“Explain what you are?” The detective quietly asks.
Barely able to breathe, yet again, Renfield explains. “I’m not alone. As those who know me pass on they have a choice. They pass on their ‘thing’ to me or I take away what ails them. They all know I am bound by my promise to accept either fate. They all know if I accept what ails them, I have to store that forever and it means I will eventually cease to be. Some choose to share themselves and some lead me closer to my ultimate fate. I don’t get to choose. That’s the other side of how all of this began. Did I mention it’s complicated?”
“I can’t even ask those guys to treat you right now. If they saw you, they would not understand why you’re alive. Not that I do, but I’m starting to accept it. Why?” Brady looking frustrated stands and paces for a moment than looks back at Adam, “For her?”, he shouts at Adam while pointing to Chirstina.
“You keep digging, that’s why you’re a detective” Renfield tries to smile. “She is the mother. She has to live. All of you are here based on a lot of learning time after time, but this is my last time, so it has to work.”
“What does? What’s going on, this is getting... Damnit, I’m not going to say the word, but, please just tell me!”
And yet, as he turns he notices Renfield was completely unconscious. Brady realizes that even if Renfield had heard the query he probably would not have answered. If he had he would have explained that it was complicated.
CHAPTER 18
“I was neither the beginning nor the end, but I was.” -- from the book of Christina
“I’m sorry, two more valleys to get past. I’m, good. You should have been moving me while I was out.”
“Stop! I heard you mutter the words, ‘The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.’ You know what this is so well for a reason. You created it. Now you are making amends for it, but you’re moving people’s fates to stop it. I know you’ve done this over and over and you’ve failed. What gives you the right to keep trying?”
“Brady, there is not one of us here that doesn’t want the same thing. This needs to end and I know no one remembers why, but there is an echo from the other ‘you’s’ in all of you. We should be at the summit of this mound by now, why didn’t you move me?”
“Renfield, you were dead. I saw it, we all saw it. I picked up the line to call in a strafing operation, but Christina stayed my hand. She said I should believe, because I’m your friend, as you predicted. She doesn’t know what to think of you, but I know a man on a mission when I see one. Did you create this ‘thing ‘we are struggling against? That you are struggling against so hard that you come back from death?”
“Yes and no, it’s…”
“Complicated? Break it down. How did this start? If we’re going to win, we need to know what we’re up against.”
“Understood”, said Renfield and Brady’s eyes widened. Clearly he had once been a brother. “It was a theory someone else had about a theory I had. It wouldn’t be had I not given the answer to the query. I trusted people to know right from wrong and I never imagined that a thought I had on just one topic would ever be used. Basically, I put it in story form so it could be understood. If God were to have created man what would motivate man to move if he could not die. If man could die what would motivate him to try to live. At the end of the story Adam sees Eve and runs after her because the answer to the riddle God put inside them. At least the concept of God did.”
“So Adam, you? And Christina is Eve?” Brady said quietly.
“She is, but she hates that before knowing after knowing, while trying to understand and then…when… she loves so deep it…”
“Relax, I’d say you’d pull a stitch but we didn’t sew you up. You were dead, Adam. We all saw it. How do you explain that?”
“We need to move, we’re behind schedule.”
“Again! Can I hate you and love you as a friend, Adam Renfield?” Brady looks at Renfield and then around at the expanse of sand, rocks and carvings that ancient rivers had once created.
“As you wish. As long as you wish we were already doing it at the next rock.” Adam replies.
“We call them cliffs, mesas and a few other words, we don’t call everything a rock, just to be clear. I know what you mean. We move now. Wait, can YOU move now?”
“Of course, I could outrun you all there!” Renfield grins at Brady.
“Of course you can, Adam. That is what I want to understand.” Brady’s eyes narrow as he responds to Renfield’s quip.
“In time, but let’s be over there when we talk about all of this.” Renfield pointed at the next rock formation as he was beginning to call them in his head. He remembered that now.
CHAPTER 19
“Deciding to act is often harder than action and why others fail to succeed.” -- from the book of Illumna
Brady yells, “Adam! Stay with me! Adam! Christina is here, I told her some of what you said. She’d run from you right now if she could, but that would be illogical. Stay with us, for her. How many times can you get ripped to shreds like that? It’s insane! You got us all here safely, but we’re worried you won’t make it. If you won’t explain it all to me, explain to her. At least tell me what you know. Renfield, tell us what you are. We have to deal with this one way or the other and we’re wondering. In case you…”
“Sir, let me talk to him. From what you’ve told me, I should at least get to know him.” Christina leaned over Renfield and looked at him in doubt, but part of her wanted to know if any of it were true. What she had seen certainly proved there was some reality to his words. The madness she had seen over the last few days was proof of that. She asked Renfield softly, “Why me?”
“They’re getting smarter each time I do this, dear. Echo memory. It makes this harder each time. The Queen understands echo memory. So the faster I get the faster she gets.” Renfield responds.
“When did I become your ‘dear’?” Christina looks down at Adam suspiciously and a bit offended.
“Sorry, Christina. I have to do things differently than I did before, they’re going to come up this hill. Sometimes we stand the ground and fight and we die here. Sometimes we make it to the next rock formation.”
“What happens when we make it?” Christina asks. Detective Brady thought it was best that she ask the more delicate questions that Renfield seems to continually avoid.
“You and I spend a lot more time together.” Renfield laughs weakly. “My point is they know the same outcomes I know. So if you want to help right now, think of a different scenario.”
“What if I leaped off of here into them, then your ‘mother’ thing couldn’t happen. That would change it!”
“I don’t want to think about it, but yes, you tried that before too. It’s a horrid memory.”
“Did it change anything?” Christina’s eyes blaze with the question as she stares at Adam.
“Everything was hopeless to all of natural evolution from that moment forward. You’ve come up with that idea more than once. You damn everything except them. It’s a total win for them and damnation for everything else.” Renfield stands as he speaks. His mind wandering back to the pasts he doesn’t want to think about.
“I don’t believe you Adam. I think you just want and you seem to get what you want.” Christina looks at him as if she wants to slap him.
Laughing in less labored tones, “Well, that I do, dear. Know me long enough and you’ll be even more convinced and satisfied!”
“What does that mean?” Christina looks at him with slits for eyes as she crosses her arms to avoid overreacting.
“Satisfied that I am truly telling you what I already know. What did you think I…Oh.” This time the laughter was a bit stronger. “I’m not getting into that, I mean I…” Renfield pauses considering his words, but unable to find better, “Yeah well I meant…” Renfield pauses and then considers the things he hasn’t done before. Adam then says, “Look at what we figured out you could put on me that would last!” Ren
field begins to unbutton his shirt while stating, “It’s your own drawing and you know your own hand well. You’re a pilot. Look and tell me you didn’t draw it and I’ll shut up about all of this and if you want to jump, go ahead.”
At that Renfield showed her the markings that would always remain, no matter what happened to him. Christina immediately knew they were hers. They were a representation of a dream she had.
“You are him! I’m sorry I didn’t believe. I…” And then she kissed him deeply.
CHAPTER 20
“In chaos, someone should take command, even if they are guessing. It increases the odds of success.” -- from the book of Vladimir
“We all agreed to give you a break and we know that puts us behind schedule, but we weren’t about to interrupt. Given the noises proving you’re healthy again. Instead we spent the time on two other plans. One was very bad and we lost a good officer. So no more digging. The other is we go around, not over. There is a problem with that plan” Brady looked harried as he said the last.
“I can make it!” exclaimed Renfield. “Let me add to that. I know how to make it work! Our pilot is about to become a skydiver!”
Christina looked down at him inquisitively. The ‘heli’ guy or me? Didn’t you just give me a speech against jumping? After last night, I at least proved I’m worth keeping around. Didn’t I?”
“No you. Of course you! They would be thinking we would never try that maneuver again, so while you fall we run.” Renfield grins at her as if he has seen a light he didn’t expect to be in the darkness.
“What kind of protector are you? Talk about one-night stands! This ended worse than any date I’ve ever been on!” Christina looked at Renfield in awe of the audacity, but he just smiled.
“We have plenty of tents! In communications you get different results on a wire depending on the number of twists per inch. If math serves correctly I know how many twists per inch will cause enough feedback on the line. It’s complicated, but we need to get everyone twisting tents as fast as possible.” Both Brady and Christina look at him confused. Renfield continues anyway, “Brady…thanks to you and the others. We needed our time.”
“Time for you to plan my death?” Christina was truly angry now. At first, it might have been a joke, but Renfield was clearly not joking any more.
“I love you and I know you’ll have faith in me. You might want a change of underwear for later.” Renfield quipped.
Christina looked at Brady who just shrugged.
Renfield went on. “If we get the twists right, it will seem to them that Christina, whom they are aware is the mother has taken an old strategy as she plummets to the ground. They will think they’ve won and not note the rest of us going around instead of over. She will hit a tensile resistance point that’s going to really hurt those hips, but she’ll be projected upwards. If we get it right, she’ll go over the top and land close enough to run the rest of the way, hence the rest of the skydiver part, because some of the tents will be used as a parachute. You do trust me, right?”
Christina came at Renfield furious! “If I didn’t know you were brilliant I’d hate you for putting my life at risk after, well, all I’ve done.” She looked downward, then up as she started to move, “Well Brady, get your people working on twisting some tents, but please put the best of them on making the chute!” Christina looks back at Renfield with a look of anger he didn’t think she could muster as she left the tent in a quick march to her own.
Brady looked at Renfield, “Soooo?”
Renfield looked up and said, “What? She’s probably going to pack her other set of underwear. If she actually needs them, make sure no one comments on it, okay?”
Brady looks at Adam. He holds a finger to his chin and then points with his elbow resting in his other hand. “So this is how you impress the ladies? Seems like a bad strategy to me.”
Renfield looks back at Brady and comments, “A good strategy is determined by the winner. I plan to win.” Then he also leaves the tent and begins to survey the route.
CHAPTER 21
“Laughter cures some things. Good love cures more.” -- from the book of Brian
Christina came bolting up the hill and ran straight into Renfield’s arms screaming, “Don’t you ever do that to me again, but it was amazing! I love y…” She stopped short. “I’m sorry. Way too soon, huh?” After a bit of a pause as they both stared away she asked, “Do you miss them? The other ‘me’s’.”
“Of course, very much, but this you I want to get to know and what you were saying was not out of line.” You have residuals of the other ‘you’s’. They were special to me. You are too. You’re you. Does that sound, too soon?”
“No, Ren, I get it. I feel odd that you know more about me than I know about you, but I get it.” Christina begins to pull away.
Renfield holds her arm as she turns and when she looks down at his hand he says to her, “In one night, I barely know this you. But I can tell you have an appetite for adventure! That works!”
“Two nights!” She corrects him. “We have tonight.” She turned to show she didn’t need the change after all. Renfield grins as he looks at her derriere, inspecting more than her lack of requiring a change.
Renfield laughs. He regains his composure and replies, “Best we take advantage of our lead, but hard to turn down a proposal like that!”
“One problem, your ‘no tent’ or mine?” She was pointing out the obvious.
“Oh, umm, we do seem to have a problem there. It’s OK, eat. ‘Problems are solutions that haven’t happened yet’.”
“You have a lot of sayings. Are they other people’s?”
“No usually they are things I tell myself when I am bored. If you hadn’t noticed things for me tend to be active. When they are not, I get, well bored. I repeat them to myself when I have to, ummm, rebuild me.”
“About that and the other thing…”
“Christina are you getting all specific with me?” Renfield grins at her.
“No creep! Yes, I get that was vague, but so are you! Just tell me something. How is it you, I don’t know, move through time back to where you began all of this before?”
“Hmm, that would be the hardest to explain. It’s not like bending space or a wormhole. I see where I need to be and my mind calculates the gates and when I know the math is correct…it’s complicated.”
“With you what isn’t?” Christina rolls her eyes at him.
“Now you are reminding me of someone else from my past. She was wonderfully funny.”
“Did she look like me, do you have a type?” Christina prods.
“Nu shi was frucking British, culdn’t understand the wench ‘alf the time. When I did I was usually laughing but so was she. Good times.”
Christina giggles at his poor attempt to imitate an English accent. “How did that go?”
“Well. For many years. Then she died. Life’s a long song, her chorus was interrupted. I wasn’t in love with her, although I completely reveled in her company. As she would say, ‘ave a propor tempor, aye do!’” Renfield smiled at the memory. Adam turns to Christina, “Great gal, wish you had met her.”
“Have…?”
“No, none of the other ‘you’s’ met her, and that’s a shame. When she wasn’t yelling at me or asking other people to ask me to ask her back she was quite funny. I miss her.”
Christina noting the far away gaze in his eyes asks, “And me?”
“This you? I won’t be missing you, dear. We’ll win this time. Then we’ll retire and buy a home in the country and forget all about this.”
“You implied before I don’t die, this time. As if you know the outcome. I know you don’t know or you wouldn’t be trying so hard. But can you die?”
“I also implied you should go eat while I solve the no tent problem I desperately want to solve!” With that he grinned down at her and walked towards Brady.
She stood still for a few moments, pondering then she went to eat.
Renfield approached Brady and said, “I umm, have a favor to ask.”
CHAPTER 22
“I remember the weather that day. It was hot and dry. The same as it was every day.” -- from the book of Persistence
Christina woke up and realized Renfield was still awake. “It’s time to go, isn’t it?”
Renfield stopped staring at the stars and turned his gaze towards her. “Yes, but soon this will be behind us.”
“In weeks, months or years, how long have you been trying to win this?” Christina asked.
“Hmm, if laid out in a timeline, I suppose it would add up to well before you were born. I’m probably older than my grandparents now. Weird when I think of it that way.”
“You already know the future, don’t you? You know, you’re not guessing, are you?”
“I umm…”
“Ren, that’s what you were doing last night. Checking in on this future. You don’t think I understand you.”
