"Yeah," Jeremy said. "What if this does us no good because"—he looked right at Wyatt as he continued—"Hannah found out what we tried to do here."
"I'm right here," Wyatt said. "I still remember meeting with her in the past, but I don't remember ever telling her anything about this." He hoped they would take the moment to think through their memories.
Jeremy smiled and turned back toward the gathered group that had started to enter the truck. A forklift pulled up behind the group, its driver slowly working his way out of the warehouse and onto the loading dock.
"Now's our chance," Brooke said. "Come on." She sprinted across the aisle behind the forklift and the others followed.
Wyatt took up the rear again. So far, his memories were still intact. Hannah was still someone he had visited in the warehouse of 2039. That memory made him wonder what that might mean. If he never lost his memory of her, would that mean that they didn't succeed?
He shook that thought away, remembering the way the business park memories had remained. He had either run himself over or been narrowly missed. Or maybe he had never been there.
Working for the Machina seemed to put them against other travelers and future fixers more often than against other threats.
On the other side of the aisle, Brooke stopped and waited for them to catch up. Most of the workers were busy with that truck, and they were alone once they crossed into the next aisle.
"How many more do we need to go?" Brooke asked.
"Do we have much time left?" Avery asked.
Aldan looked at his wrist terminal and shook his head. "My dad's truck should be here any minute now."
"Do you meet that truck?" Wyatt asked. "I just want to make sure we keep you away from your former self. We don't want to cause any more trouble than we already have."
Aldan looked along the wall of rollup doors from where they stood at the head of another aisle. Wyatt couldn't see any motion in that direction. It worried him that he couldn't see the truck Aldan thought would be there.
"Give me a minute," Aldan said, stepping back into a nearby gap in the shelving.
No sooner had he stepped into that gap than Wyatt thought he felt the resonance building. He looked toward Brooke, who had stopped and held the shelving beside her, shaking her head.
"We have to stop him," Brooke said.
"It's too late," Avery said. "How could we be so foolish?"
"Where do you think he would go?" Jeremy asked, stepping into the gap Aldan had vanished through. The resonance faded and the reality of what they were seeing came back almost full force.
Wyatt watched the others and folded his arms. He felt ready to give up. Too much had changed, and now, none of them knew who they could trust. He had seen the older and younger version of Hannah, but he had also seen Jarod. On top of that, he had also seen an older version of Avery, much like the one that had tried to get him to sign a contract back before his career with the Machina. It was all too much as he remembered the thin blonde woman.
Lost in his thoughts, he missed that Jeremy and Avery were standing a little farther away from him, speaking quietly about something. Even though he wanted to know what they were discussing, he didn't want to cause any more tension.
"Does this mean that Aldan's father won't be coming?" Brooke asked.
Shaking his head, Wyatt stepped around her and looked back toward the open rollup door. "Do you think his father came in that truck?"
"We might as well check it out," Brooke said. "Come on." Before he could answer, she stepped past him and moved toward the warehouse wall.
"Be careful," Wyatt said as he caught up to her. "We're not sure what they will do if they see us." He felt his heart racing as he followed Brooke around the end of the aisle. The three-wheeled forklift backed out of the trailer and through the rollup door, empty. No other workers stood in view. They must all be outside the warehouse, or inside the truck.
As the forklift's reverse warning beeped, it spun around and gathered another pallet. The diesel exhaust that filled the area increased and the forklift moved back through the doorway.
Brooke backed away from the open rollup door, moving along the wall past the next one. Between every other rollup door was a smaller man-sized door. She opened the next one and stepped onto the loading dock. Wyatt stepped through directly behind her, not really paying attention to where Avery or Jeremy had gone.
The loading dock was empty, except for four workers, dressed in blue overalls. Two of them faced Brooke and Wyatt, but neither of them seemed to react to their presence. They were busy wrapping plastic around the pallets and seemingly checking the security of the contents of each pallet.
Across the loading dock area sat another parallel loading dock, but Wyatt couldn't remember if that was there on his first visit. His mind had to be playing tricks on him. He glanced back toward the doorway they had exited through.
"Is something different about this?" Brooke asked. "That loading dock wasn't there any other time I have been here."
"How many times have you been here?" Wyatt asked. He remembered returning from the visit when Hannah had taken his wrist terminal. He couldn't discount that Brooke had gone somewhere during that time. In his mind, he tried to recall the location code on her wrist terminal that she had hidden. His memories weren't that clear, though, and he gave up.
I'm not sure," Brooke said, shrugging. "But it's different. Doesn't it seem different to you?"
"That's what I'm trying to figure out," Wyatt said. "My memories of this place seem to have changed."
"Mine too," Brooke said, turning to face him. "Why would that happen?" But she didn't say the last as a question.
"Maybe this place is like Lenny's office," Wyatt said, shrugging. "His office is in whatever time he wants or needs it to be in, it seems."
"But we didn't feel the resonance as we stepped through the doorway," Brooke said.
"But we did feel the resonance," Wyatt said. "Think about when we saw Aldan leave." He moved back toward the doorway but kept his eyes on the truck that was being loaded.
"Who is that?" Brooke asked as she stopped beside him. She had turned her back on the truck and pointed behind him along the loading dock.
Spinning to catch a look, Wyatt caught only a slight glimpse of jet-black hair and a gray windbreaker. His breath seemed to catch in his throat, and he started walking in the direction of the doorway they had come through.
"Who was that?" Brooke asked as he opened the door and stepped through.
Wyatt wasn't sure how to answer. In the distance, he caught another glimpse, in the dimmer warehouse lighting. "I think that was Avery"—he stopped walking and faced Brooke—"but not the Avery from our group."
"Really?" Brooke asked.
Wyatt nodded and walked briskly toward the aisle that version of Avery had vanished down. He hoped to catch her but worried he had already lost her. "If you feel the resonance let me know," he said.
"Do you think she is going to leave?" Brooke asked as they moved past the opening of another aisle.
"Who would leave?" Jeremy asked as he saw them step past. "Where did you go?"
"Come on," Brooke said, without slowing her pace.
Jeremy and Avery moved in with them as they continued. They were only two aisles away from the one Avery had entered.
"Did you see Aldan or his cousin," Avery asked breathlessly.
Wyatt shook his head. He didn't have the wind to answer her yet. He increased his pace, jogging quietly toward the aisle. He stopped as he neared its end and scanned the aisle.
"Did we lose her?" Brooke asked.
"Who did you lose?" Avery asked.
"I think we did," Wyatt said, ignoring Avery's question. "She could have gone either direction along the small gaps between aisles. We lost her."
"Who did you lose?" Jeremy asked stepping around in front of Wyatt. His eyes scanned the full shelves to either side of the aisle. Before Wyatt could answer, it seemed he saw something. "She's over the
re." He pointed through the shelving to the left.
Without another word, they moved along the aisle until they reached the next gap. This time, that gap put them closer to where the older Avery moved. Wyatt peeked around the shelving and saw the older Avery. She stood with her back to them.
"Oh no," Avery said, gripping the shelving beside her. "Is that me?"
Wyatt nodded.
"We have to stop her," Jeremy said moving swiftly and quietly out into the aisle.
"She's not the one," Brooke said. "She isn't the one making the changes."
Wyatt ignored her. Moving quietly, with his eyes glued to the older Avery, Wyatt joined Jeremy. They managed to draw closer to her, without her noticing. That older Avery held something in front of her, but Wyatt couldn't see it. Jeremy seemed to notice it also. He signaled for Wyatt to stay where he was as Jeremy moved around to the older Avery's side.
"What are you doing?" Jeremy asked as the older Avery looked up at him with a start.
The older Avery began to step backward but noticed Wyatt standing behind her. Her eyes locked on his for a few seconds, and she shook her head. "You're not supposed to be here," she said.
"I guess, neither are you," Wyatt said, pointing toward the folded paper she held. It looked like a contract. "Is that your contract?"
The older Avery's eyes shot down toward the folded paper in her hand before she stuffed it into the right pocket of her gray windbreaker. She shook her head and looked at Wyatt.
"We need to know what is going on?" Wyatt asked. "Have you been changing things?"
Jeremy folded his arms and nodded his head. The older Avery looked from Wyatt toward Jeremy. When her eyes crossed the gap between them, Wyatt thought she paused for a moment.
In that same moment, the realization hit him. They had the younger version of Avery hiding behind them. He suddenly didn't want that younger version to overhear anything they said. Stepping closer to the older Avery, he spoke softly. "I don't want to ruin anything else. You must know what we mean."
The older Avery glanced toward Jeremy, who had also closed in. She didn't seem too worried about Wyatt, but he thought he could see a twitch in her right eye as she watched Jeremy.
"What have you done?" Jeremy asked, keeping his voice even quieter than Wyatt had.
The older Avery shook her head. She looked lost for a few seconds, and Wyatt couldn't help wondering if that was partly due to her younger self not hearing the conversation. That might work in their favor.
"Where did you come from?" Wyatt asked.
"I can't say," the older Avery answered, lowering her head and rubbing her hands together. "It's better if you don't know."
"Are you retired already?" Wyatt asked, remembering that this version had mentioned that when she had first come to get him.
She nodded her head and realization seemed to widen her eyes. "I think I remember seeing this before," she said. "That means I can't be far away." Her voice was quiet.
"Did you hear the conversation last time?" Jeremy said.
She looked at him with a wan smile that became a frown. With a sigh, she looked away and shook her head.
"Okay," Wyatt said. "Let's keep it that way."
"Do you think it will help your situation?" the older Avery asked. "What changes have you seen?"
Wyatt took the chance to scan Jeremy's face. Jeremy didn't show any sign of his emotions, which made it hard to determine what the larger man might think. "Is the memory of this meeting like a second memory of the same time?"
The older Avery looked directly at Wyatt for a second. She gripped her left wrist with her right hand and stepped back. Jeremy reached out to touch her, but she stopped him.
"Don't touch me," the older Avery said as her wrist terminal's portal blossomed behind her.
"You don't get to leave yet," Jeremy said. "Tell us what you remember."
"I can't," the old Avery said as the resonance of her portal sickened Wyatt.
Wyatt closed his eyes against the spinning of the warehouse for only a moment, but in that moment, noises erupted in front of him. When he opened them again, Jeremy chased the older Avery toward her portal, pulling her back from it.
The older Avery stomped on the top of Jeremy's right foot as he wrapped his arms around her from behind. Wyatt stepped close, fighting through the overwhelming dizziness. But it was too late. The older Avery worked herself free of Jeremy's hands and stepped through the portal. Wyatt almost read the code on her wrist terminal before she vanished, but all he caught was a date and year.
CHAPTER eighteen
LOADING DOCK, NEAR R142PS
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2040, 5:33 PM
With a grunt of anger, Jeremy stood in the space of the now vanished portal. "What was that all about?" he asked, rounding on Wyatt.
It took several seconds for Wyatt to realize Jeremy wasn't accusing him of anything.
"What did she tell you guys?" Avery asked, stepping out of her hiding place, and moving in close. "Was any of it helpful?"
"Her wrist terminal showed January 1, 2100," Wyatt said. "I don't think our wrist terminals go to that point."
"They don't," Brooke said after messing with hers for a moment. "The farthest I can set it is 2099."
Wyatt watched her as he nodded. He wasn't sure where she had gone a moment ago. Her pants looked like they were dusty around her shoes, but in the warehouse lighting he couldn't be sure. Her hair was matted with sweat near her temples, but they had just been running.
"What do we do now?" Jeremy said, drawing Wyatt's attention back. "This worries me." He looked at the younger Avery before continuing. "I'm worried we are part of the problem here." He stepped back from them and rubbed his face with both hands.
"You think we would change our past?" Brooke asked.
"Wyatt already did," Jeremy answered, pointing toward Wyatt. "Look at what he did with that car in 2089. He drove it when his girlfriend should have been driving it."
"Are you sure it wasn't Jarod that drove it?" Wyatt asked.
"He wasn't there until after you started to drive the car," Avery said. "I don't think he would have driven it."
"We don't know if Hannah was the one that originally drove the car," Brooke said. "I still remember you being run over by it."
"I didn't see my body after I drove through our group," Wyatt said, wondering why he hadn't checked the front of the sedan before trying to find the rest of his group. His memory of being run over seemed to indicate a version of himself might be stuck under that car.
"I hate this time travel stuff," Jeremy said. "It doesn't make sense."
Wyatt nodded and glanced over his left shoulder toward the rollup door and the beeping blue forklift that entered. He could barely see it through the gaps in the stacked supplies. This time the forklift turned around as it entered the aisle and drove off into the depths of the warehouse.
"I think we need to start moving," Wyatt said. "It sounds like they might be done with that truck."
"Any idea where Aldan would have gone?" Brooke asked, pointing toward her wrist terminal. "If we had some idea, we might be able to find him and at least see what he is doing."
"I'm sure it had something to do with his cousin," Jeremy said. "He seemed a little different talking about her."
"Yeah," Avery said. "When he first told us she was his cousin, he said he had brought her here to keep her out of trouble."
"Are you thinking he would have sabotaged our goal here?" Jeremy asked.
"I think that is exactly what he has done," Brooke answered before Avery spoke. Wyatt nodded his agreement and she continued. "He told us his father would come into the fourteenth door from the corner where we started, but as soon as we came in here, he left us."
The beginnings of a headache formed near Wyatt's eyes. He worried what it might mean as it started to grow. The pain seemed to dig into his forehead between his eyes. Everything seemed to fall out of focus. He stepped backward, away from the others as his mind clouded.
"Can you feel that?" Avery asked. "Does that mean something else is changing?"
Wyatt watched Avery for a moment, seeing the way her face was drawn tight and her eyes seemed wider. It struck him that anything they said or did now, could be what that older Avery remembered. How dangerous would it be to talk to her openly?
"This isn't good," Brooke said, coughing and holding her head. "My memories are missing. I don't know what just happened."
"What?" Jeremy asked.
"I feel it too," Avery said.
Wyatt wanted to ask about it also, but it quickly became apparent to him that an important memory was slipping away. He remembered an auburn-haired woman dressed in white, but her face seemed to fade in and out of his memories. "I'm losing my memories of Hannah," he said, gripping the nearby shelving to steady himself as his mind felt like it would explode.
"Does that mean that someone has succeeded in changing the past?" Brooke asked, squatting down where she stood. "I can't take this." Her voice sounded ready to crack. The pain seemed to land on her forcefully. She closed her eyes and sat.
"It's okay," Wyatt said, crouching down beside her. "We can fix this."
"What is there to fix?" Jeremy asked, stepping beside Wyatt, and looking down. His mouth was a tight line, and his eyebrows were drawn down tightly across his eyes. He looked angry and worried.
"Do you remember what we came here for?" Wyatt asked, fearing he might be the only one remembering Hannah. As soon as that worry crossed through his mind, her name vanished again. For a moment, he focused on the auburn-haired woman of his memories, but he only saw an older version. That version was somehow important, but the reason escaped him.
"Do you remember what we are doing here?" Brooke asked, her voice sounding like she was suffering painfully. She sat on the floor, leaning forward, and started to drop to her left side.
Wyatt reached out his hands to catch her and take her the rest of the way to the floor. By the time he gently lowered her head to the concrete floor, she was unconscious.
"That's not good," Avery said. "I remember we came here for something important, but I don't know if we succeeded."
Dissonance (The Machina of Time Book 2) Page 16