My mind begins to drift again. For one moment, I’m back at the institute being berated by Sir Wilfred and Lady Williams for destroying the institute, then I’m in my apartment living room in San Diego where Iffy and Ellie ask why I’ve left them behind, and then in the kitchen of Lidia’s Echo Park house as her grandson Kane yells at me, “You were supposed to stop her. Why didn’t you stop her?”
“Stop,” I yell.
It’s this cell. It’s a mental echo chamber. If it shoves me across the line into insanity I’m sure I won’t be its first victim, and I’m not sure I’d be able to find my way back.
“Find the chaser. Extract my blood. Dry it. Rekey the chaser. Make things right.”
When I tire of my mantra, I discover singing also keeps the demons out of my head. I work my way through every song I can remember, making up lyrics when the real ones don’t come to me.
Perhaps the act of singing to myself in this tiny space could also appear psychotic, but I’m not going to worry about that. I’d rather seem crazy than actually be crazy.
Unless I’ve been crazy all along, and there was no such thing as the Upjohn Institute, and I never learned to travel in time.
Before I can dive too far down that hole, I break into a horrendous version of “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen.”
At some point in the mess of lyrics, my mind reaches overload and I mercifully fall back asleep.
__________
CLUNK.
It’s not so much the sound that wakes me as the intensely bright light seeping through my eyelids. I part them just enough for a peek.
The light is a thin line running up and down the wall in front of me. Though there is no heat, I would swear the sun is only a few feet on the other side.
“Find the chaser. Extract my blood. Dry it. Rekey the chaser. Make things right.” The words, barely a whisper at this point, have almost no meaning for me anymore, but I can’t help saying them. They are what keeps me sane now.
I’m not sure how long I’ve been in here. Three days? A week? More?
In all that time, water is the only thing I’ve been given, in a container on the floor that my foot usually bumps into when I wake that I have to work up my leg until I can scrunch enough to reach it. I move my foot around but there is no bottle this time.
As the ribbon of light widens, I squeeze my eyes shut and twist my head away.
“Find the—”
Something touches my arm and I realize I must still be asleep and dreaming. There’s no one in the box with me. I’ve always been here alone. I will be here alone until the end of time.
Time.
What year is it?
What world?
What—
The touch encircles my arm and twists me toward the light. I’m not sure, but I think my feet are moving. There are sounds, too. Voices. But I can’t understand anything. Like crowd noise, more distinct yet just as indecipherable.
I hear the clack of…steps? Yes, steps. Moving toward me.
I crack open my eyelids to look at my dream again. While it’s still bright, I see shapes now. Walls and doors and people in…uniforms.
The prison guards have made an appearance in my imaginary world. But why wouldn’t they? They control my whole conscious life so it’s only fair they take charge of my unconscious one, too.
Odd, though. They don’t seem to be wearing the uniforms they usually do. The color’s wrong. Or maybe I’m remembering incorrectly. It’s a dream, after all. They can wear whatever my mind wants them to wear.
The clacking focuses my gaze on the silhouette of someone nearby. The hair and shape tell me the person is a woman.
“Denny,” the silhouette says when she stops in front of me.
She knows my name. Another perk of the dream. Only why can’t she be Iffy or Ellie?
At least she’s not Lidia.
“Denny,” she repeats, and then asks a question I don’t understand.
Because it’s not English.
She says the phrase again.
It’s Latin. It means…understand me. I think.
“Sure,” I say. “I understand.”
There’s a pause and she asks one more time.
“I already answered you,” I tell her. But it’s me she doesn’t understand because I’m speaking in English. Forcing myself to concentrate, I come up with, “Ita. Intelligo.”
I can see a bit of her face now. She’s not sure whether to believe me or not.
I don’t care what she thinks. All this talking has dried out my throat and used up most of my energy. “Aqua?” I croak.
The woman turns away and says something to one of the other shadows in the room. A few seconds later, a bottle is thrust into my hands. As the liquid dribbles into my mouth, I realize the woman is familiar. Another gulp and I have it. She’s my mysterious visitor from before. Dumont Elaine.
“Denny,” she says.
For the first time, I wonder if this isn’t a dream.
“Apologies,” she says. “You”—something I don’t understand—“be here.”
She shouts another order to the uniformed men, who I can now verify are not wearing prison guard attire. Their garments are crisper, higher quality, as if built for more strenuous use. The men also carry themselves in a way that makes me think if it comes to a fight between them and the prison guards, the guards would be beaten into the ground before they could raise a fist.
As several men line up between us and the room’s main exit, I decide this isn’t a dream at all. Though the rifles aren’t pointing at anything, each man holds his weapon across his body, ready for action. Two other guards take my arms. They must have been the ones who helped me out of my cell. While strong, their grips are not aggressive, more assistance than manhandling.
Dumont turns toward the exit and we begin walking.
“Wait,” I say. English again. I either can’t remember or never knew the right word in Latin, but one does come to mind. “Sistite!”
Dumont looks back at me.
“Jovan,” I say.
I can only assume my friend is still in one of the other solo cells, and I can’t leave him here.
I point at the cell door I saw his guards moving him toward when we were locked away, and I say his name again.
Dumont’s eyes narrow. She asks me a question I don’t understand, but it’s not hard to figure out what she wants to know. I tell her through words and gestures that my friend is in that cell and I’m not leaving without him.
She looks annoyed, and I’m sure she’s going to ignore my demand. I’m having a hard enough time just standing, so it’s not like I can follow through on my threat. But then she calls over her shoulder toward the door, and from the hallway enters a pair of her soldiers pushing the administrator who locked up Jovan and me.
Dumont fires a question at him. When he doesn’t answer, one of Dumont’s men nudges him in the back with a rifle. This gets the man talking.
Whatever he said results in Dumont sending two of her soldiers to Jovan’s cell. They push a button and the door swings open. With the soldiers’ help, Jovan stumbles out of the narrow space.
He looks as bad as I feel. He is given some water and helped over to us.
When he sees me, he sniffs the air and says, “You stink.”
“You’re smelling yourself.”
Dumont gives an order that gets our whole group moving toward the exit again. This is when Jovan seems to realize we’re not in the company of prison personnel.
In a whisper, he asks, “What is going on?”
“I don’t know.”
We exit the room and move down the corridor. Every twenty feet or so, we pick up a pair of Dumont’s soldiers who have been standing guard. When our number reaches nearly thirty, I wonder how many people she has brought with her.
We take a lift to the surface level, but instead of exiting into the prison yard that would lead back to my and Jovan’s group cell, we turn in the other direction and pass through a
series of open security gates guarded by more of Dumont’s people.
What’s bewildering is that I see none of the regular prison guards anywhere. Except for when I was behind a closed cell door, there has never been a minute during my imprisonment when a guard wasn’t nearby.
We go through a particularly heavy door, and enter an area I’m sure no prisoners are ever allowed. There are pictures on the walls and desks inside some of the rooms we pass.
“Where we go?” I ask, my voice more a whisper than I intended.
Dumont continues onward without responding.
As we pass through another doorway, I start to ask again, but upon stepping over the threshold, the words stick in my throat.
We’ve entered what appears to be the public entrance lobby to the prison. There are several rows of empty chairs, and an unoccupied reception station behind a wall of thick glass. These are quick impressions, because my attention is drawn to a feature of the windows lining the wall to my right.
Through them I can see an area filled with vehicles that look both familiar and different from any I’ve ever seen. Parked next to the walkway not far from the lobby doors are four larger group transports—buses, if you will. Around these are more soldiers in uniforms matching those worn by Dumont’s entourage.
Before we reach the door that will take us to the outside, Dumont turns to her troops and nods at her men toward the back. They bring the administrator forward. Dumont’s conversation with him is short and one sided, the man bowing his head as she appears to berate him.
When her men escort him back to the door we just came through, Dumont’s gaze pauses on someone right behind me and she shouts something.
“Hey, wait a minute,” Jovan says.
I turn and see the two soldiers propping up Jovan are starting to lead him back the way we came.
“No!” I yell as I twist back to Dumont. “Stay. Not go.”
“He is not needed.”
“Yes. Needed. He…speaks words mine.”
She cocks her head, her eyes narrowing. “You, me talk…now.”
“He talk better.” Worried I’m not getting my point across, I add, “I show you.” When I turn again, I’m thankful to see my commotion has caused Jovan and his escorts to stop. I wave for the soldiers to bring my friend back.
They don’t move.
I glance back at Dumont. “Please. I show you.”
After a moment she nods, and the soldiers return with Jovan.
In my friend’s and my unique style of gestures and mashed-up languages, I tell him to convey to her I’ll help her understand the box but he must come with us. He asks what I mean by “the box,” but I tell him there’s no time for that right now and she’ll understand.
He turns to address her. I know the moment he mentions the box because Dumont’s eyes widen and her lips part slightly.
She says something to him, and he replies without consulting me.
“What did she say?” I ask.
“She wants to know what I am in prison for.”
It is a good question. Jovan has told me he was locked up for theft, but he’s never gone into any detail. Of course, he could have told me that to conceal a worse crime. Since he’s the only one I can talk to, how would I know? Then again, who am I to judge? I’ve killed billions.
Dumont shouts a question at the administrator, to which the man, after some prodding from a guard, answers.
“What’s going on?” I whisper to Jovan.
“She’s checking what I told her.”
“And what did you tell her?”
He looks at me, surprised. “The truth.”
Dumont considers the administrator’s response, and then says something to Jovan’s escorts. As we head toward the exit again, I’m happy to see my friend is coming with us.
Nearing the transports, I see not all of them are alike. The vehicle we are guided toward is second from the front and the most bus-like. The others are more military in nature, with complicated-looking guns mounted on the roofs.
After we take our seats, I note the windows are made of extra thick glass—bulletproof, Iffy would call it—and there is an arsenal of weapons in a cage at the back.
What kind of world did Lidia create?
CHAPTER FIVE
IN THE MONTHS I have been in this reality, my exposure to this world has been limited to the empty hills where Lidia and I arrived, the room my captors treated my wounds in that first day, the pitch-black dungeon they threw me in where I was punched by a man I couldn’t see, the inside of a windowless vehicle, and the prison where I met Jovan.
Now, as we drive through the city, I’m getting my first good look at the civilization Lidia brought into being.
I’m basically in the same geographical area as San Diego in Iffy’s world, but this place looks nothing like that. It has the same rundown look of the Shallows where I grew up in my original timeline. But even that’s not a good comparison. As bad as the Shallows was, this place appears so much worse.
We do drive through sections that seem well maintained, but many of the hills and most of the valleys look like seas of thrown-together shacks and piles of garbage. I can’t imagine anyone living in these areas doing more than barely surviving from day to day. The people we pass reinforce this impression. Their clothes are old and dirty, worn thin by overuse, and while most of the adults appear to have some kind of shoes on, few of the children do. And then there are the expressions on their faces, or, I should say, lack thereof. It’s like these people have never heard of the concept of hope.
Soldiers, many in riot gear, are everywhere. Their uniforms change every few miles, and I guess that different groups control different neighborhoods. Something else I pick up on: at least twice the soldiers in our bus tense when we move into a new zone, and they don’t relax again until a change of uniform occurs outside.
Yes, I know. What I’m seeing may not represent what the rest of this world is like, but that doesn’t prevent me from wondering if it does.
Eventually we pass through a giant gate manned by soldiers wearing yet another kind of uniform. This is the first time we’ve encountered a setup like this. Before, when we moved from zone to zone, there were wide swaths of empty land dividing the areas. Here, on both sides of the gate stretch double rows of menacing-looking fencing, at least twelve feet high and continuing as far as I can see. The spaces between the fences and on both sides are cleared of trees and brush so that no one can approach unseen.
No soldiers are on the side we are coming from, but inside the gate there must be thirty or forty standing at the ready. The gate opens right before the first vehicle in our convoy arrives and we are waved through. It appears we’re expected.
We pass through a grove of trees and the view opens up.
The change from the other zones is almost unbelievable. If the area in front of us were the only place I’ve seen in this world, I would think this world might be vastly superior to the others.
Gone are the shacks and the sagging buildings and mountains of trash. Here, the hills are dotted by beautiful homes and commerce centers that look as if they’re from Utopia. The shabbily clothed hopeless masses have also been replaced. The people we pass now are dressed in bright, well-made clothing, and they smile and laugh as if the misery only a few miles down the road doesn’t exist.
If there are soldiers among the residents they’re keeping a low profile, because I haven’t spotted one since the gate. The men in our bus are now the most relaxed they’ve been since we started the trip. Some have even removed their helmets, and a guy sitting a couple of rows in front of me has leaned back and appears to be sleeping.
Clearly we’re safe now from whatever potential threat was out there.
Though my own body craves rest, the adrenaline that has been coursing through me since we left the prison does not allow me to stop observing.
We make a turn toward the west and enter—if I haven’t completely lost my sense of geography—the area in I
ffy’s world known as La Jolla. If I’m wrong it’s not by much, because soon we are driving along the top of a bluff that overlooks the Pacific Ocean—or whatever they call it here—where Iffy has taken me before.
Less than a minute later, we reach the gates of a facility that abuts the cliff and is surrounded on the other three sides by ten-foot-high brick walls. There’s a sign outside the fence that I assume identifies the place, but I can’t read it because the script holds little resemblance to the alphabet I know.
My gut tightens as the gate rolls open. Have Jovan and I been brought all this way only to be put in another prison?
If it is a prison, it’s not like any I’ve ever seen. The dozen or so buildings within the walls make me think this is some kind of scientific facility, perhaps part of a university or whatever the equivalent is here. I base this on several things: a building at the north end that looks exactly like an observatory, the clusters of storage tanks of varying sizes next to several of the larger structures, the antenna-like things attached to the roof of the highest building, and the groups of studious-looking people about my age walking from one place to another.
Still, it’s only a guess.
Our transport stops in front of a three-story building at the south end of the compound.
When the soldiers who escorted me onto the bus signal for me to get up, I try to comply but my body is nearly drained of energy. Seeing this, they help me off and all but carry me into the building, following Dumont. Jovan needs assistance, too, but at least he can walk and relies on his companions only to steady him whenever he loses his balance.
A large DNA-strand sculpture hangs from the ceiling of the two-story lobby, further reinforcing my idea this place is a scientific facility. There are also portraits on the wall, life-sized head-and-shoulder shots of men and women. Behind some of them you can see what appears to be laboratory equipment.
A lift takes us up to the third floor, where we go down a white corridor almost to the end before stopping in front of a door that looks like all the others we’ve passed.
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