Dissonance (The Machina of Time Book 2)

by Daniel R. Burkhard

  "How does Hannah know about your haven?" Wyatt asked, hoping the change the subject and calm the contention. "Did you take her there once?"

  "I didn't have to take her," Aldan said. "She has been there before."

  Brooke glared at Wyatt for a moment before her smile returned.

  Wyatt felt his mind twisting with the struggle to understand what Aldan was saying and why Brooke had reacted so fiercely.

  Forcing his mind to focus on what Aldan had said, rather than Brooke's actions, he remembered the way Aldan had brought his cousin out of a difficult situation. Aldan had dropped Hannah off in the warehouse in the year 2041. That was the key. "You brought her here from there, didn't you?"

  Aldan nodded.

  "Your haven is where she started?" Avery asked.

  "And now it is gone?" Jeremy asked. "That sucks."

  "Now it is gone," Aldan agreed, lowering himself back to the sofa. "I think someone else took it over, and I'm not sure why my cousin would do that to me. I don't understand it. I only brought her here to keep her safe."

  Wyatt felt the same questions burning inside him. He had been attracted to Hannah, which was why he had jeopardized their previous missions to go back and talk to her. After being pulled from his life, he needed someone to talk to who was outside this group. Hannah had been easy to speak with. She knew how the time travel stuff worked, even though she couldn't feel the resonance.

  "That is bad," Brooke said, looking directly toward Aldan. "Your cousin doesn't feel the resonance the way we do. She could be going around making changes without ever knowing they were made."

  "She may not be the only one messing with our past," Aldan said, looking at Brooke. "You may be right about Jarod."

  "Can we stop her?" Avery asked.

  "That's why we need a plan," Wyatt said. "The longer we sit here worrying about it, and talking through it, the more things could change."

  "I'm sure we all feel the resonance in the background," Brooke said, rubbing her temples and closing her eyes.

  "The double memories are the worst," Jeremy said. He gestured toward his wrist terminal. "I don't think I can get my mind to settle on how this all started for me."

  Wyatt found himself nodding as he thought back over his experiences with the group. "I remember coming back after we stopped Aldan's first group, but anything before that is a little fuzzy."

  "I'm sure that is because you messed Jarod up," Brooke said.

  "That doesn't make sense," Wyatt said. He turned toward her again, trying to get a sense for what she was thinking. After a moment, he turned away.

  "All you have to do is think about it," Brooke said. "You sent the younger Jarod to a random time without a device to travel with. You sent the older version of Jarod forward to 2100, without a device."

  "And you left the middle-aged Jarod in 2099 without a device," Avery said.

  "Jarod can't be a part of this," Wyatt said, his confidence draining as he watched Aldan slowly shake his head.

  "Enough," Brooke said. "Let's focus on what we can fix."

  "Back to the places we remember," Jeremy said. "After we stopped Aldan's group, everything was going well."

  "That was one of the last times we saw Lenny," Avery said. "Do you think he would still be there?"

  "If we all still remember it," Wyatt started, "he might be." He thought back to that moment and remembered seeing Lenny with Hannah's older version in the white coat. "When we finished that mission against Aldan's old group, Lenny found us here. Do any of you remember seeing that older version of Hannah in her white coat at that time?"

  Brooke shook her head slowly and stared at the others.

  "Right as Lenny came in to congratulate us, she was behind him, stepping through a portal." Wyatt hoped they would remember that, but they didn't.

  Aldan shook his head and watched the other two.

  "You really saw that?" Jeremy asked.

  "What are you trying to suggest?" Avery said.

  Wyatt shook his head and spoke quietly. "We've lost Lenny," he said. "We're slowly losing our memories, or they are being confounded by other memories of events we didn't experience. The resonance is everywhere." He saw Aldan waving his hand as if asking him to move faster with his explanation, which he did. "I think we need to go back and catch Lenny at that point in time."

  "Won't that mess up our memories even more?" Brooke said.

  "Not if we don't allow our earlier selves to see us," Aldan said, nodding slightly. He turned to Wyatt. "Do you think we'll find anything helpful?"

  Wyatt shrugged and sighed. If they didn't find anything helpful, he wasn't sure where else they would go. "I know I saw the older Hannah there with him," he answered. "I think that is as good a place as any to try."

  "Maybe we can get a satisfactory answer out of Lenny about what has happened here," Avery said, leaning back into Jeremy's right side.

  "I hope he has some answers," Aldan said. "But no matter what, all of us need to stay together."

  "When should we arrive?" Brooke asked after nodding at Aldan's statement.

  Wyatt shook his head. "Sunday, April 2, 2090, was a busy morning for us." He thought about his black notebook with all the location codes and times he remembered jotted down. He almost left to retrieve it.

  "I remember we came back there at 10:10 am.," Jeremy said. "Should we come back earlier?"

  "We have to be careful," Brooke said. "I remember being there for most of the morning. I think small actions of ours will ruin more things."

  "You're not still thinking of Jarod, are you?" Wyatt asked, but Brooke didn't seem to hear him. He voiced a different thought. "I think we need to get there around 9:30 am. And we need to get out of sight quickly."

  Brooke nodded and began to roll her wrist terminal around. So, she probably had heard his comment, but chose to ignore it.

  "So, 9:30 am.," Avery said adjusting her wrist terminal.

  "April 2, 2090," Aldan said, nodding. "I wonder if we actually felt the resonance of our arrival there."

  "I think there have been too many changes for us to know," Brooke said. "We just need to be careful, and hopefully we will see Lenny."

  Aldan stepped toward the doorway and activated his portal. He stepped through as Jeremy and Avery did the same.

  "You ready for this?" Brooke asked as her portal split the wall near the door. She didn't wait for his answer but grabbed him and pulled him through with her.

  CHAPTER ten

  DORMITORY ENTRANCE, R333PS

  SUNDAY, APRIL 2, 2090, 9:30 AM

  The sounds of the effects of the resonance seemed to fill the air as they emerged together in the dormitory entrance of a couple of days earlier. The mildew mixed with the smell of fresh sweat, and vomit from all their other entrances to that same time.

  "Come on," Brooke said, dragging him to his feet and away from the dormitory entrance.

  He followed her around the shelving, holding it as he moved. His body suffered the dizziness of the resonance, and he hadn't yet looked to see where the others were.

  Stumbling along the shelves, Wyatt followed Brooke. She also stumbled and held herself up as she moved.

  Moving two aisles away from their dormitory entrance, Brooke stopped and sat on a small portion of the lower shelf that was not filled. The cardboard boxes were everywhere, but they were unlabeled. Wyatt wanted to sit next to Brooke as he watched her holding her head with her elbows braced on her knees, but there was not enough remaining room on the shelf.

  "Are you guys okay?" Avery asked with a cough. "The resonance is a little longer lasting."

  "That's probably because we have already changed something," Aldan said. Squatting then sitting on the floor. He turned his head toward the direction they had come from. "You think that older version of Hannah will still come this way?"

  Wyatt shook his head and shrugged as Aldan looked at him. "I hope so," he said. "I still remember her stepping through a portal as Lenny came to talk with us."

 
"How much time do we have?" Avery asked. "It's just after 9:30 am."

  Wyatt thought back to the last time he remembered coming to this date, but Brooke beat him to it.

  "We were here around now," Brooke said. "Probably in the dormitory, but then we came back here at 10:40 am."

  "How is this going to work?" Jeremy asked. "The last time we were here at 10:40 am., we were struggling with a heavy load of resonance caused by Aldan's old group."

  Wyatt watched as each of them seemed to take a moment to look at each other. No one seemed to have a good answer. Wyatt knew what he had seen all those hours ago. Lenny had to come out. He inhaled, ready to speak, but Brooke touched his leg with her left hand.

  "Someone is coming," Brooke whispered.

  Wyatt crouched down beside her and looked through the narrow gaps in the stacked boxes. Brooke was right. As the others crowded silently around that side of the shelf, he though he saw two figures moving toward the dormitory entrance.

  "Who is that?" Wyatt asked.

  Brooke shook her head and continued watching.

  One of the figures spoke, and Wyatt thought he could hear Lenny's voice. He wondered if that were just his mind confirming what he wanted to hear.

  "We need to get closer," Avery said. "I want to hear what they are saying."

  Wyatt nodded, glancing toward her.

  "We can't risk messing anything up worse than it already is," Brooke said.

  "I agree with Brooke," Jeremy said.

  Aldan shook his head slowly, leaning his back against the shelving the rest of them peered through. Wyatt glanced toward Brooke, but she still watched through the gap, twisted sideways on the small portion of shelving where she sat. The answers they sought were out there, walking in that aisle, and Brooke didn't want to get too close.

  "Everything has already changed so much," Wyatt said. "Do you really think we would ruin it that much more?"

  Brooke glanced toward him. "I'm not going to mess it up."

  "I want to see what is going on out there," Avery said. "We need to know what happens to Lenny."

  "Are you thinking you will just follow him?" Jeremy asked.

  "What else should we do?" Avery asked.

  "Our earlier selves will be arriving here shortly, unless that has changed." Brooke shook her head and her eyes met Wyatt's for a moment.

  Wyatt had had enough of simply talking about it. They knew Hannah was making a mess of their past. Lenny was right there in front of them. They could follow him.

  He rose to his feet and noticed his bare left wrist again. In the excitement to find out what was going on, he had almost forgotten he had no way of traveling.

  "Do you want to go out there and follow him?" Avery asked. "I'll go with you, and we can stay together."

  Wyatt noticed the way Brooke looked at Avery. There was an almost jealous angle to her eyebrows and the way she didn't look at Wyatt.

  "We'll go and follow Lenny for a bit," Avery said. "If something goes wrong, we'll go back to where we left."

  "What time?" Brooke asked, raising her wrist terminal to her face and looking at it.

  "Let's try for dinner time," Aldan said. "If something even feels wrong, go there. Eight o'clock."

  Wyatt watched Brooke for the moment it took her to nod her head. She adjusted her wrist terminal and continued to watch the two figures through the shelves.

  "If any of you see either of the women in white," Wyatt said. "See what she does."

  "You don't think that is her out there with Lenny?" Aldan asked.

  "Do you think that is her?" Wyatt asked in return.

  Aldan turned to look and shook his head.

  "Stay with me," Avery said. "If we end up having to run, I want you near enough I can take you with me."

  Wyatt nodded, rising to his feet and stepping closer to her. they moved away from the others in silence for several seconds. At the first small gap in the shelving, they turned to the right and crossed the next aisle. Lenny and the other figure were on the other side of the next shelf and Avery sprinted quietly toward them. Wyatt followed, stopping at the shelving and finding a place to look through.

  "This is not the way it was supposed to happen?" Lenny said to the other figure whose back was to Wyatt and Avery.

  Wyatt had seen that figure a few other times, and he couldn't help glancing toward Avery to see if she recognized that figure.

  "Who is that other person?" Avery whispered almost too quietly for Wyatt to hear.

  Holding back a laugh, Wyatt stepped back from the shelf for a moment and watched Avery. From behind, she had the same form as the figure that talked with Lenny. That figure spoke too quietly for either of them to overhear, but the graying hair signaled to Wyatt that it was the same older Avery that had come after him during the Salt Lake City earthquake.

  "I told you it would be difficult with more people involved," Lenny said, finishing with another sentence Wyatt didn't hear.

  The other figure shook her head. In that moment, with the way her hair moved away from the side of her face, Wyatt saw it was the older version of Avery. He watched Avery, hoping she would have seen it, but Avery held her nose as if trying to hold in a sneeze.

  "Did you see her?" Wyatt asked as he stepped closer.

  Avery shook her head, still holding her nose with her right hand. Her eyes were closed, and she began to back away from the shelving. A sneeze right now would ruin everything. Wyatt stepped between her and the shelf, watching Lenny and the older Avery as the Avery that had come with him backed away.

  "You need to go back and warn me," Lenny said. "If it is truly falling apart as you say. I need to know if Linda causes it." Lenny faced Wyatt as he spoke.

  For a moment, it appeared Lenny's eyes met Wyatt's. It sent a shock through him. The last sentence he said sent a chill down his spine.

  The older Avery said something in return, still too quiet to be heard. Wyatt heard Avery's harsh breath as she allowed herself to sneeze. The noise stopped Lenny and this time Wyatt thought he saw Lenny looking back at him again.

  "You need to get out of here," Lenny said. "We have too much at stake."

  The older Avery nodded and stepped away quickly and quietly. Lenny stood in the middle of the aisle, watching the older Avery as she ducked into another space between the shelves.

  The sickening resonance filled the area, and Wyatt stumbled backward from the shelving as he and the younger Avery dropped to a crouch. His mind spun with the effort of keeping track of what had happened.

  "Who was that?" Avery asked. "I feel like my mind is falling apart."

  Wyatt glanced toward her, unsure how he wanted to answer that question. Telling her it was the older version of herself might change things. She didn't yet know what her older self was after.

  "Did you see who that was?" Avery asked again as the resonance faded.

  "I think I saw her before," Wyatt said. "But I'm not sure how much I should say."

  "If she wasn't either woman in white, who was she?" Avery asked, pushing herself back to her feet.

  "You can't be here," Lenny said through the shelving. "Don't mess this up for the rest of us."

  Wyatt's heart froze until he heard Hannah's voice. "This is necessary," she said.

  "It is not necessary," Lenny said. "You can't go and read their contracts. You aren't supposed to know what they say about them."

  "But if I don't, we'll never be able to help them," Hannah said.

  Wyatt slowly rose to his feet and watched as Hannah's older version stepped along the aisle toward Lenny. She wore the same heavy white coat she had worn every other time Wyatt had seen that older version. She seemed to be unchanged from any other time he had seen her. It proved to Wyatt that she was not the same woman Gene had spoken with.

  "You can't be here," Lenny said.

  "Don't worry," Hannah said. "I put their contracts back where they had them." She stopped within a few feet of Lenny.

  "When did she take our contracts?" Avery whisp
ered close to Wyatt's ear.

  Wyatt shook his head once to quiet her. He was interested to see how Lenny would handle Hannah's actions. Avery pressed herself near Wyatt to get a better look at the older version of Hannah.

  "How much have you changed?" Lenny asked.

  "Don't you wish you could feel the resonance stronger," Hannah asked. "You really don't know much about the changes that have already happened."

  "Why have you done this?" Lenny asked.

  "It needs to be done," Hannah said. "Without reading their contracts, none of us would know what the Machina expects."

  "Don't speak to me about what the Machina expects," Lenny said, folding his arms and backing toward the dormitory. "I know full well what the Machina needs. These are dangerous times."

  "Why does the time travel stop just after New Year's Eve 2099?" that older Hannah asked, her voice carrying a lilting tone. "Do you know why?"

  Lenny didn't answer, his eyes tracing the shelving where Wyatt and Avery hid. It seemed once again that Lenny saw Wyatt. Wyatt found himself holding his breath as the eyes passed over him. It was almost too much. He felt certain Lenny would call him out shortly.

  "You say you know full well what the Machina wants," Hannah said softly. "But you don't even know what happens then to stop time travel."

  "Maybe we do our jobs well enough," Lenny said, shrugging and keeping his voice calmer. He looked toward the dormitory door. "I need to go and congratulate them on a job well done."

  It was all shaping up to what Wyatt had seen right after their mission to stop Aldan's old group. Hannah shook her head as Lenny turned toward the door.

  "You're going to wish you had worked with me," Hannah said. "I could have protected you from what is coming." She turned and walked away along the aisle.

  Lenny walked into the dormitory room, and it only took a few more seconds before another wave of resonance washed over Wyatt. Hannah, the woman in white, had left again.

  Avery shook her head and turned her back on the shelf. As she turned, she leaned back against the metal shelving. "How did she end up this way?" she asked.

  "She wasn't like that in 2039," Wyatt said, backing away from her. "She was much more pleasant." He couldn't shake some of the words that older version of Hannah had used. He looked down toward the floor as Hannah's words played through his mind again.