Hexad: The Chamber, page 23
Dale heard an almighty crack from behind as they lost sight of the pole. It must have snapped as The Chamber rolled, smashing into the floor like the bomb had already gone off. Buildings collapsed in all directions as The Chamber rolled away, the spin giving it huge momentum, its size destroying anything in its path like they were nothing more than buildings in miniature.
All Dale could think of was Godzilla movies and how the beast paled into significance against The Chamber.
Dale's head was buzzing. He didn't know if it was from the pain, the sound of The Chamber, or maybe it was the sound of an atomic bomb hurtling towards earth that would kill countless people but would help end the Second World War. It got louder and louder. Something wasn't right, he could feel it in his bones. Dale looked at his watch, they still had five or so minutes before the explosion, and as he looked up at Amanda he knew she was feeling the same thing he was.
"This isn't right, is it? It's like I can feel the future changing just by us being here."
Dale shook his head. They were clearly both in-tune enough with such a momentous invasion on reality that they were both getting the same bad vibe. "No, it's very, very wrong. We just killed I don't know how many people by jumping here, all those buildings crushed."
"I know, but there's going to be a bomb dropped here, so it won't make any difference."
"But does it? What about for us? We just killed people. I know they would be dead anyway, but it's still murder, isn't it?"
Amanda was struggling as much as Dale: where did you draw the line? He could see it in her eyes. Time travel was making a mockery of the morals they had believed in their whole lives. Was it murder if people would be dead anyway? Or murder if what you did resulted in people having never existed in the first place? What about the bomb? Shouldn't they be using time travel to stop such catastrophic events from ever happening? It was something he'd thought of a lot, but seeing the result of interfering with the way things happened meant it was simply too dangerous to meddle.
"Do you think we've done something bad?" asked Amanda, interrupting his dark thoughts.
"I think so. What if they don't drop the bomb now, because they've seen this? The Chamber may be broken but it's still here. And what about the war? We might have changed the entire course of human history. We need to put things back how they were."
"Dale, I can't stand this, I really can't. I don't want to do this anymore, I want to go home. Why do we have to make such decisions? We're here, where they drop the first atomic bomb and people die horrible deaths, and we could stop it."
"And be responsible for maybe millions more deaths? That's not a decision I want to make. This is an impossible situation, we need to change it." Dale was resolute.
Amanda nodded.
She pulled out the Hexad, the 5 flashing. "Where to?"
"We jump back to just before we first enter the machine room, and we make a different jump, one where we can get rid of The Chamber without it interfering with anything. It has to have never existed in the future, Hexads need to have never existed."
"Okay." Amanda adjusted the Hexad, said, "Ready?" and as Dale nodded they jumped.
The bomb dropped.
Try Again
Time Unknown
"What are we doing Amanda?" said Dale, standing by the familiar touch screen in the machine room.
"What do you mean?" she asked, as she repeated what she'd done before and set the screen again, ready to take the Hexad, now flashing 4.
"I mean is this all necessary? Taking this whole damn thing away? Isn't there another way? To make it so it has never existed, that Hexads never existed? Something simple. This is getting ridiculously epic. Atomic bombs, crushing cities, can't we just, um..." Dale had no idea what to do, how to stop it.
"Give me a minute, okay?" Amanda brushed dirty hair away from her face — she looked terrible. "Hey, don't forget what you have to do, you know, jump to The Caretaker, get him to come help us in The Chamber? Do that now, so I can think. Okay?"
Damn, I nearly forgot. What will happen if I don't make that jump?
"Right, good idea." Dale took the Hexad, made the adjustments, found he could get into the zone quickly where he was able to direct the Hexad to that awful place that he'd jumped before to find Tellan, and gave Amanda a kiss on the forehead before jumping.
~~~
A few seconds later he was back. He stared at the Hexad, 2 flashing accusingly. They were almost out of jumps, and this was their only remaining Hexad now. Dale realized they were out of options, and part of him wished he had an endless supply of the terrible devices, just for a little peace of mind.
No more room for mistakes.
"You weren't gone long, I haven't had time to think," said Amanda.
"Sorry, didn't want to risk it. The other us, and Tellan, will be here in a minute, so we have to do this now. But I told him, so that's all set up. Let's do this."
"What though?" Amanda was panicking; they were out of time.
Dale's face dropped as realization dawned. "Oh."
"What? What is it Dale?"
"I'm sorry Amanda, I really am. I love you."
"Dale?"
Amanda was alone. Dale had jumped.
A Simple Solution
2 Days Past
What if none of it had ever happened? That was what they were striving for, wasn't it? Making it so the whole insanity of the last few days had simply never been, that life was just normal, getting up on a Saturday morning, feeling hungover, having a fry-up and mowing the lawn, wishing that you'd bought the snazzy Bosch rather than the budget own brand mower from the out-of-town DIY store.
Normal.
Realization came to Dale like a bolt out of the blue as he stood in a machine room that powered an artificial world that warped reality and made a mockery of living one's own life as it was meant to be lived.
Dale knew the answer, knew how to set things right, allow a single reality to play out as it was meant to: linear, the past and the present affecting the future, not all mixed up so all of it meant little.
So he paid the ultimate sacrifice. Dale jumped back to where he knew he had to so that reality would be normal, things would work out.
Dale smiled down at the sleeping form of Amanda and smiled.
I love you.
Dale pressed down on the flashing 1.
~~~
As his thoughts faded and his eyes closed Dale had only one regret: he never did get to say goodbye to Amanda. Not properly.
There was one final act. Dale set the Hexad, the 0 flashing accusingly, then slammed it into his chest, or rather, the mess of flesh that was this him and the him that in the reality that would have been if all this hadn't happened was standing in the kitchen at the fridge reaching for the milk to put in his first cup of coffee of the day. Feeling rough while Amanda had a lie-in.
He'd understood the truth of the situation just in time: it wasn't Amanda that had been the cause of the production of Hexads and all that ensued, it had been the existence of her and him, so he took the burden, doing what he had to do to ensure none of it, not any of it, would ever come to pass.
Dale was soon to be no more, and as the mess of flesh that was two Dales winked out of existence, jumping with a Hexad that flashed -1 before it too vanished, Dale wondered what would happen, not to him, but to the one reality he was leaving behind.
Hopefully it would turn out all right in the end.
If not then it would all have been for nothing.
Still, it had been a wild ride, and, if he was honest, it beat mowing the lawn.
He hoped Amanda remembered to feed the birds.
Dale and Dale vanished.
A Strange Awakening
Present Day
Dale opened his eyes with a start, as if something had woken him. He turned to check the clock but it was still too early for the alarm, and besides, it was Saturday wasn't it? It wouldn't go off anyway. He tried to recall the dream he'd been having, but it was already gone, elusive and fading as they always seemed to do.
Amanda stirred beside him and opened her eyes sleepily, looking sexy as hell with disheveled hair, smiling at him like he didn't look mad with his hair sticking up as usual. It wasn't fair, she looked hot in the morning, he looked like he'd been dragged through a hedge backwards.
"Morning honey," said Dale.
"Morning."
Dale snuggled back down, sinking into the pillow, pulling the covers tight, one arm exploring Amanda beneath the sheets. "Mm, you smell nice," said Dale, sinking his face into her hair, taking her scent in deep.
"Haha, I haven't even had a shower yet."
"Doesn't matter, you always have this lovely smell to you."
Amanda turned on her pillow and smiled, then sniffed deeply, making fun of him.
She shot upright, eyes wide with fear, looking completely terrified. "Who the hell are you? What's going on? Where's Dale? DALE!"
"Amanda, it's me, it's me. What's wrong?"
Amanda crawled out of the bed, then backed away heading for the door. Naked and terrified, she shouted, "You're not Dale, you're not him. You don't smell anything like him," as she ran for her life before the monster in her bed had the chance to do anything at all but sit there nonplussed, wondering what kind of a nightmare she must have had to wake up acting so strangely.
Hopefully it would pass.
But what if it didn't?
The End
Book 3 in the series is Hexad: The Ward
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Al K. Line, Hexad: The Chamber
