DISSONANCE
OTHER BOOKS BY
DANIEL R. BURKHARD
THIS NEW EARTH:
BOOK 1: DEMONS OF A DEAD WORLD
BOOK 2: SECRETS OF A DEAD WORLD
THE THREADS UNBOUND
THE PROMISE OF DUST
PROGENITOR'S LEGACY:
PROGENITOR'S LEGACY: DECEIT
A MAP, A MAGE, AND A SACRIFICE
THE MACHINA OF TIME:
RESONANCE
DISSONANCE
DANIEL R. BURKHARD
Copyright © 2021 Daniel R. Burkhard
All rights reserved.
For anyone who wishes time travel were real. Imagine the fun we could have.
CHAPTER ONE
BUSINESS PARK STRUCTURE, R259PS
THURSDAY, JULY 7, 2089, 5:45 PM
As soon as Wyatt Barnett stepped through onto the sidewalk, he bumped into Avery Edmunds, who bent over coughing. He bounced off her muscled, shorter figure and she barely moved. His stomach felt sick also, but it was still empty, so he managed to keep it down.
The dizziness was another story altogether.
That effect of the resonance accompanied any travel through time or changes in the timestream. Wyatt had suffered it many times already, but this time felt different. It seemed like a dream.
He had stood on this street before. He felt sure of it.
It took several seconds for his mind to stop spinning. When it did, he realized all the others had made it.
"We're supposed to block that street?" Brooke said, pointing into a narrow street surrounded on both sides by high rise buildings. She smiled, revealing a slightly crooked upper right canine tooth among the rest of her white teeth. As she looked toward him, her brown hair fell into the right side of her face. With her right hand, she brushed it back behind her ear.
The area was hot and humid. The July heat seemed to radiate off the granite façade of the building on the other side of the empty street.
The roadway beside the empty sidewalk where they stood was lined with what looked like old-fashioned parking meters. Each had a small cord that could plug into a vehicle parked on the street.
"They charge their cars with these?" Avery said, pulling a thick blue cable out of one of the parking meters. Those words rang through Wyatt's mind as something she had already said.
"What are we blocking the street from?" Brooke asked, when no one listened to her earlier question.
Wyatt stepped closer to her. "There don't seem to be many cars on this street," he said.
The street was narrow, with two lanes separated by a dashed white line. No cars drove on it, and he struggled to find any sign indicating which direction the traffic would flow.
"Was it always this silly?" Jeremy Cox asked Aldan Turner.
Jeremy's stocky figure made him a good match for Avery. Aldan on the other hand was taller and a bit older. Over the course of their missions, Aldan had slipped away to his haven, to get away from the stress.
Aldan shrugged. "I have never been told to block a street like this," he said. "But it is not the weirdest thing the Machina has asked my group to do." He turned and faced Wyatt and Brooke.
"What do we do?" Brooke asked.
"You tell me," Aldan said. "You and Wyatt seem to have all the questions Lenny is after."
Wyatt glanced along both directions of the sidewalk where they stood. People moved along the intersecting connection streets, but not on the street where they stood. Those streets were busier, and this was more of a connecting road.
"Any idea where we are?" Avery asked. She stood with her right leg forward, and both knees bent. Both of her hands were above her waist as if she were ready for a fight.
All of them wore fluorescent orange shorts and tee shirts, as if they were out for a group run.
"At least it is still light and warm out here," Jeremy said.
"And humid," Brooke said.
Wyatt watched the streetlights to their left and saw a lone car sitting across the street pointed in their direction.
"There's a car coming," Wyatt said stepping into the street. "Come on."
"You think we can stop it by standing in the street," Aldan said, but he followed the others who followed Wyatt.
All five of them stood in the street, turning their backs on the car that was heading their direction. Brooke and Avery and Jeremy began to stretch like they were getting ready for a workout. Wyatt watched Brooke for a moment until he realized the car was not slowing.
"Guys," Wyatt said. "That car is not slowing down." His breath came quickly as he watched the car approach. "There isn't anyone driving it."
"What?" Brooke said, spinning around as the car neared. The car was moving too quickly.
Wyatt began walking back toward the sidewalk. Everything inside him told him to run, but he tried to preserve some of the bravado Aldan and Jeremy showed.
Both Aldan and Jeremy stepped toward the car, each walking down a separate lane. Avery walked down the middle line. Brooke sprinted to the other side of the street.
The whole scene was strange. The car hadn't honked or changed position. It was like the driver, if there were one, hadn't seen the five of them dressed in bright orange.
"Get out of the street," Wyatt yelled as Avery held up her hands. The car did not respond to her gesture, and she dove to the other side of the street as it sped through.
The next moment felt wrong. Not only did he see the car speed through, narrowly missing Avery, and the rest of them, but he also felt it striking him. He felt the impact while at the same time, he jumped out of the way unharmed.
The double memory was not right. He couldn't be both missed by the car and hit by it unless someone had changed their past.
Wyatt thought he had seen a driver in one memory. He caught only short blond hair, a thin face, and a white, lightweight jacket.
"There wasn't anyone driving it?" Brooke said, crossing the street to stand near him.
Wyatt almost argued that point, but his mind was too clouded. Had that been a woman driving? He couldn't shake that thought as the others moved around him.
Avery brushed the dust off her shorts and the blood from a scrape on her right knee. She cursed silently as she crossed toward Jeremy who stood a little apart from Wyatt and Brooke.
"Something is wrong?" Aldan said. "I don't think that was supposed to happen." He rubbed the bruise on his right cheek and Wyatt remembered him getting that from a fight no one else had seen. "Why would the Machina be sending us to the wrong places. Nothing is happening here."
"Do we just go back?" Jeremy asked.
"I think we should," Avery said.
"I'm not ready yet," Wyatt said, and caught their glares. The only one that didn't glare at him was Brooke. His mind was struggling to come to terms with both memories and the memory of the driver. Did the car run him over and kill him?
"Why not?" Aldan asked. "Are you feeling something the rest of us can't?"
"Are you seeing something none of us see?" Jeremy added.
Wyatt shook his head and turned away for a moment. The car that had narrowly missed Avery worked its way along the street as if nothing had happened. It stopped a few blocks away, pulling over to the right. As he watched, he couldn't see any damage. Just the fact he still stood seemed to indicate it had not run him down.
"Is every car in this city like that?" Avery asked.
"I don't want to stay and find out," Aldan said. "We need to confront Lenny about this. Something is wrong. First, he sends me back to get into a fight, and second, he sends me here with you, and we're almost run over." He spread his arms and spun slowly. "Clearly there isn't anything here that
we need to worry about."
Wyatt had experienced this before. But it had changed. He heard himself breathing and scanned the ground for any sign of blood from the impact one of the memories involved.
The road was clear.
Brooke stepped close and spoke quietly. "Are you okay?" she asked.
Wyatt nodded, glancing toward Aldan who was speaking with Avery and Jeremy. As he watched he saw Jeremy step through a portal, followed by Avery.
"Come on guys," Aldan said. "There isn't anything here for us to stop." He activated his portal and stepped away.
"Should we follow them?" Brooke asked, working her wrist terminal settings.
"I guess," Wyatt said as nothing else moved along the street. "I don't think we are going to stop anything from here. It seems like something else is going on."
As they were left in the street, the resonance filled the area. Wyatt's body felt tense. He saw the smooth, gray, bottom of the car on top of him, while at the same time he stood facing Brooke.
She seemed to vanish before she opened her portal and Wyatt felt his heart pounding. His breath caught in his chest, and he struggled to activate his portal. Every time he reached for his wrist terminal, a white banded, watch-like device on his left wrist, it disappeared. Frantically, he closed his eyes against the double memories.
Wyatt woke in a cold sweat, the room was dark, but he thought he heard conversations near the kitchen area. Pushing himself to a seated position, he saw the bathroom door closed and heard the water running.
He was back in the dormitory, and it had just been a bad dream. He tried to shake that off.
"Did you just have a nightmare or something?" Brooke asked as she rolled to face him from her bed. She wore a fluorescent orange tee shirt with the white sheet pulled up under her right arm.
He saw her tired smile and nodded. "I hope it was just a dream," he said quietly. "Either that or someone is changing my past."
"What did you see?" Brooke asked, rolling her feet out of her bed and sitting up. She wore short orange shorts below the tee shirt. As she sat, she pulled the tee shirt down to cover her belly.
Wyatt tried not to let his eyes wander. Brooke had already made it clear she wouldn't date anyone she worked with, even though he found her attractive. He shook his head and looked beyond her toward the kitchen as he thought of an answer. Avery and Jeremy stood, talking near the kitchen counter in the middle of their dormitory.
"I think it was just a bad dream," Wyatt said. He didn't want to worry her with what may have been only a nightmare. "After our last mission's end, I think I just got too worked up. I dreamed about a double memory of my own death."
Brooke laughed at that, and he forced himself to smile back, careful not to look at her in case she could tell he had lied.
"Do you want some breakfast?" Brooke asked rising and stretching her arms high over her head as she tightened the muscles of her legs. Her shirt rose to just above her waist, revealing her belly button.
Wyatt wondered if she just did that to drive him crazy because it worked. His thoughts seemed confirmed as she lowered her arms and laughed again. The cadence of her laugh was quicker than anyone else he had heard.
"Come on," Brooke said. She stepped away from her bed and into the aisle that made its way toward their kitchen area.
The dormitory was separated into nine places. The concrete walls had no windows, but light panels above each bed could be individually turned on for illumination. The front of the dormitory had the only lone, blue door. Coming through that entrance, the first of the three sections in the middle was a gathering area. Two large sofas sat facing each other. Just beyond them, in the center of the room, stood the kitchen area. It's granite countertop faced the area with the two sofas, with the refrigerator, range, oven, and microwave in the counters behind it. Those appliances shared a wall with the bathroom which sat at the back of the dormitory.
Three beds lined each side of the dormitory. Wyatt's was in the back corner near the bathroom. He had thought it a wise decision when they first moved in, but it meant the bathroom door was only feet away from the foot of his bed.
Each small bed wore the same white sheets and bright orange blankets. Everything was color coded inside the Machina's giant warehouse. Their dormitory was deep inside that warehouse that spanned both time and space.
"You guys are awake," Avery said as they rounded the kitchen. She stood beside Jeremy. To Wyatt, they looked like they were built for each other. Both Avery and Jeremy were bigger, but not fat.
"It is a little early," Jeremy said. "I hope we didn't make too much noise." He smiled and brushed against Avery as he turned from leaning on the counter and faced the sofas.
Wyatt shook his head and smiled as Brooke stepped into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. Bottles of water and cans of soda, with their labels removed, sat inside it. Whoever stocked their dormitory didn't want to reveal anything about the time they were in.
Looking at his wrist terminal, he saw the time was 6:38 am., Monday, April 3, 2090. It hadn't quite been a day since their last mission as future fixers ended. As he watched Brooke retrieve two breakfast burritos from the lower portion of their refrigerator, he couldn't help wondering where Aldan had gone.
"Have you guys seen Aldan this morning?" Wyatt asked.
"No," Jeremy said. "After our last mission ended, he kind of disappeared for a while." Jeremy smiled as he said that and raised his arms with a shrug.
"He has probably gone to spend time in his haven," Brooke said. She unwrapped the two breakfast burritos and placed them in the microwave. After turning it on, she faced Wyatt.
"He tried to get me to find one," Wyatt said. "But I don't know where to even start looking."
"It would have to be someplace without cameras," Avery said. "We know the Machina sees anything that was or will be recorded by cameras."
Wyatt nodded toward her and leaned his left arm on the countertop while he waited for the microwave to finish. "It is kind of reassuring that the Machina knows what will happen, isn't it?"
"I'm really tempted to read my contract again," Avery said, sitting beside Jeremy on the sofa to the left of the door.
"Are you sure you want to do that?" Brooke asked.
Avery glanced toward Jeremy and shook her head. Wyatt turned away from her, scanning the orange footlockers at each bed on his side of the room. The first bed was Avery's, the middle one was Brooke's, and his was the last one in the corner. Opening his footlocker, he would find the plastic, soiled envelope that contained his signed contract with the Machina. He had been shown that he had signed that copy, before being brought into a room to sign it.
Time travel was an odd experience. Things didn't happen in a logical order sometimes. Before signing his contract, he had been approached by an older version of Avery who demanded he sign it. Then he had been helped out of his apartment by Hannah Stephenson, a woman he would count as a friend later. Of course, the first time he met her was not her first time meeting him. Her first time meeting him had been just a few days ago, subjectively for Wyatt.
Time travel was strange.
"Here you go," Brooke said, handing him one of the warm breakfast burritos she had wrapped in a paper towel. The heat soaked into his hand, but the pleasant aroma of sausage, egg, and cheese prevented him from putting it down.
"That should help you forget your nightmare," Brooke said quietly as she moved to sit on the sofa across from Jeremy and Brooke.
Wyatt took a bite of the hot burrito and thought about his contract. It was right there, in his footlocker. All he had to do was open the envelope and read it. Maybe it would shed some light on the nightmare he had just experienced. Maybe it would tell him who that woman in the white jacket had been.
As Brooke motioned for him to join her on the sofa, Wyatt couldn't help wondering if that nightmare was more than a nightmare. The images were too clear. Shaking his head, he sat on the sofa, silently eating.
CHAPTER two
&
nbsp; Dormitory, Near R333PS.
Monday, April 3, 2090, 1:00 pm.
Wyatt sat sideways on the large brown sofa to the right of the entrance of their dormitory, holding his heavy, white envelope in his hand. He had stopped looking at the envelope, and simply watched the left side of the dormitory.
The envelope held his contract and he had spent all afternoon holding it, afraid to open it. The warning that had been given as he signed it was that reading it could change the future, invalidating the information it held. Supposedly, after they retired from their duties as future fixers, they would be told to read their contracts and be tasked with fixing errors or changes that had occurred.
From his seated position, turned toward his right, he watched the kitchen and the three beds on the left side of the room. The damp mildew odor that hung in the air of their dormitory was not as bad as the hallway outside in the warehouse.
"Are you okay?" Brooke asked from the kitchen area in the middle of their dorm. She stood facing the counter and him, holding a bottle of water.
It had been more than twenty-four hours since their last mission. But they had succeeded, and time travel was safe.
When Wyatt looked at her, she smiled. "You're thinking about your contract again," she said.
Wyatt looked down at the heavy, white envelope in his hand. That had started all of this for him. "Yeah," he answered.
"We've already talked about it," Brooke said, smiling again revealing a slightly crooked upper right canine tooth among the rest of her white teeth. "If you read it, you may mess up the future."
"You're not still talking about your contracts, are you?" Jeremy asked. He stepped around the right side of the kitchen and stopped at the counter, facing Brooke.
Brooke watched him, her smile fading slightly as she seemed ready to change the subject. "Where is Aldan?"
"He is in the bathroom," Avery said. "I saw him go in there a few minutes ago."
"He sure likes to spend a lot of time in there," Jeremy said, turning slightly to face Avery as she approached.
Dissonance (The Machina of Time Book 2) Page 1