Dissonance (The Machina of Time Book 2)

by Daniel R. Burkhard

  "At what expense?" Jarod said, his demeanor darkening as he stepped closer. "Your death will end it. But I have another way."

  "How are you going to do it?" Wyatt asked. His question was only to draw out the conversation. He thought he understood Jarod's actions. This Jarod didn't see himself as a murderer. He couldn't kill Wyatt, but what was his other option.

  "You don't want to be a murderer," Wyatt answered his own question with as much disgust as he could muster. "That's why you have these two men here." He glanced at each of the two men but didn't see what he expected. Rather than sadistic smiles, they stood quiet. The paler man released his grip slightly, holding Wyatt with just one hand.

  "They are here for the same reason I am," Jarod said. "The future must be corrected and preserved. You caused too many changes." He motioned toward the two men with him.

  "You really don't want to kill me," Wyatt said, addressing the paler man on his right. That man's eyes twitched toward him for a moment, but they refocused on Jarod. His words had some effect on that large, pale man. He had to keep trying. "Do you know for certain that I am the one behind the mess you have seen? Can you honestly say that you know things will get better if I die?"

  The grip of the darker man relaxed almost completely as Wyatt finished speaking. His words Seemed to affect the men. He had to keep going.

  "Keep quiet," Jarod said, stepping closer to Wyatt. "There are more things at stake here than you know."

  "Yeah," Wyatt said. "You've already said the entire future depends on you fixing this."

  Jarod stepped closer. His hands still looked empty as he lowered his right hand from Wyatt's chest. "You're right, however," he said. "I don't want to kill you. I worry that would cause other problems. But I can't just toss you into some unknown time either." He smiled at Wyatt, but the smile had no life to it. "I must prevent you from coming back."

  "I only did what I had to do," Wyatt said. "The task I had was to stop you."

  "But you failed that," Jarod said, shaking his head and stepping back. He retrieved his small palm-sized black device out of his front pocket with his left hand, studied it for a moment, and activated a portal. "Your actions send me into a loop I cannot get out of."

  A whoosh of frigid air came from the open portal and Wyatt felt his hope fade. "Where are you sending me?"

  "Someplace you cannot return from," Jarod said, holding up his hand to stop Wyatt from speaking. "This is the only other way, beyond killing you."

  "Are you sending me beyond the year 2100?" Wyatt asked his voice cracking with the fear. Even if he had the wrist terminal in that time, the Machina ceased to be right after New Year's Eve 2099.

  "It is the only other way to fix this," Jarod said. "You see, letting you remain here will cause even more changes. I'll be stuck. Ever think you could live your life in a time loop, always growing old, but never getting anywhere? That's the trouble with time travel. Once the secret gets out, the world falls apart. We've worked hard to stop the Machina, and we succeeded until it found you and the others."

  "Found us?" Wyatt asked as a realization struck him. "Since you and the others working with you can't feel the resonance, every change that is made is suddenly the only reality you know, right?"

  "The resonance is a fabrication of the Machina," Jarod said. "You think you feel the resonance and the double memories, but that is just your mind. That is the Machina playing with you. We may not feel it as strongly, but we feel it when problems are created."

  With a signal from Jarod, the two larger men began pushing Wyatt toward the tear in reality that was the jagged portal caused by Jarod's device. Wyatt wanted to fight back. He wanted to break free of the grasp of the two larger men. Nothing would work. As he moved his arms against them, their grips tightened.

  "Jarod," Brooke said from behind Wyatt. "It doesn't have to be this way. You don't have to do this. We'll find a way we can work together to fix it."

  "He'll be coming for you next," Wyatt said.

  "And I won't put you anytime near Wyatt," Jarod said. "You have both caused me more than enough trouble this time." He sidestepped and looked behind Wyatt and the two larger men.

  "Don't do this," Brooke said. "It's not worth it. You think you are fixing time, but you are just making an imagined reality come true." Her voice cracked with emotion as she spoke, and Wyatt tried to look over his shoulder.

  Even the two larger men slowed their steps for a moment. However, they still held on too tightly for him to look back at Brooke.

  "Move," the darker man whispered.

  The paler man grabbed his arm tighter, and they began walking again.

  "Jarod," Brooke said. "This is foolish. All that you have done is make a mess of all of this."

  "I made a mess?" Jarod said. "Everything I have done is to protect the reality that you and the Machina have destroyed. Without Wyatt, these changes would never happen."

  "That's not true," Brooke said, her voice coming closer and not sounding as emotional. "Let him go."

  Wyatt felt a quick thrill of excitement that maybe she had a weapon or some other way of preventing him from being tossed through the ugly portal in front of him. Its resonance filled his mind with dizziness and turned his stomach.

  Two steps left.

  "Please, Jarod," Wyatt said. "Listen to her. You have already seen how we stopped you the last time."

  "Not in this reality," Jarod said, his eyes latching onto Wyatt's for a moment before he nodded toward the two larger men.

  Before Wyatt could take a breath or prepare himself, he was tossed through the portal.

  CHAPTER forty-two

  SOMEWHERE BEYOND 2100

  The snow fell all around him as he stumbled into a snowbank, soaking his torso in the cold, wet drifts. His mind spun with the resonance as he looked back, trying to find the tear in reality.

  From this side, it was impossible to see. Coughing violently, he spat bile onto the snow in front of him, where it sank into the deep bank.

  The sky was darker, but not black. The reflected light of a town to his right lit the overcast, snowy scene. Beyond that, he was alone. He couldn't even tell if he stood on a dirt road, or in the middle of an open field.

  Scanning the area around, all he saw was snow. No footprints except for his. He thought he could see the ruts from tire tracks to his left a little bit, but when he started walking that direction, he sank into the snow to his knees.

  Stopping his movements in that direction, he tried to determine if it was early morning or late evening. All he saw were clouds and large falling snowflakes. In a way, after all he had been through, it was peaceful and quiet. Snow always had a way of quieting things down.

  Without another direction to head, he turned toward the lights of the town in the distance. Pulling the hoodie painfully around himself, he began walking.

  In several places the drifts were above his knees. By the time he neared the town enough to see it was just a few streets with orange lights, his feet ached from the cold. The cold had soaked him to his core, and he struggled not to shiver as he walked.

  Within a half mile of the town, he noticed a ridge of snow evidently pushed clear of a road. It looked like someone from the town had ensured the streets were cleared of snow, but not much of the road leading into the town. The freshly falling snow landed on the asphalt but didn't stick. It reminded Wyatt of the way Salt Lake City plows would plow the streets and apply a layer of salt to keep the ice melted.

  The orange lights were spaced evenly at what appeared to be corners of the main street. As he neared, a white car pulled away from one two corners down and headed in his direction. It was the only vehicle that moved on the street. But it moved with an effortlessness that seemed to indicate it was autonomous.

  Wyatt stepped over the snowbank at the edge of the plowed road and kicked the snow off his shoes. The cold in his toes made his feet hurt, but at least he could still feel them.

  The sedan was more bulb shaped than any of the cars
he had seen in 2090. The upper half was glassed in, except for around the area of the two doors. He got a good look at the car as it drove by, continuing along the unpaved portion of the road. The person riding in the car looked almost familiar.

  He turned and watched the car as it slowed and came to a stop just outside the area lit by the street. Was it waiting for him?

  None of the doors opened. It simply sat there. The driver had to be watching him, but it was difficult, due to the distance and the snow, to see the driver. Wyatt simply stood there looking at the car like a fool.

  He knew he should do something. He was stuck in that time if he didn't act. That car was the only thing moving in that small town. As he took another look back along the plowed, main street, he saw that it curved gently back around to the left after a few hundred feet. The houses and buildings to either side were separated from each other. As he looked across the town, he thought he saw a mountain on the other side. If not a mountain, it was clearly a large stand of trees, collecting the snowflakes that had fallen.

  The town was small. From his vantage point, it seemed like the street may have been the only street in the town.

  Taking a deep, cold breath that made him shiver more, he turned back toward the waiting car. Jarod had just sent him to this place, and it seemed likely that the person waiting in that car would be the older version of Jarod, or a version of Linda. He shook his head as his mind went one step further and suggested it could be both.

  The car just sat there with its lights on.

  Wyatt stared at the car for a moment longer, but the snow and the cold were getting to him. His legs were soaked from the knee down, and his feet hurt. His back burned under the dampening hoodie, but whether that dampness was from the snow or blood, he wasn't sure.

  He began to step slowly toward the car, watching it through the snow. It seemed likely he was walking in the darkness of night and not earlier morning. Due to the lack of other cars on the road, it seemed the most likely.

  He passed a post that looked to have once held a speed limit sign, and wished he had a connection band.

  The car still waited.

  He was now only thirty feet from the car. He could hear the whir of the electric fans, probably the heat, warming the inside. He saw a figure inside, but in that area of the darkness, just outside the fall of the streetlights he couldn't discern anything else about the occupant.

  The car didn't move as he neared it enough to touch it.

  Inside sat a person in a black coat that fit snugly. The hood covered the person's face, but the figure raised a gloved hand and the drivers' side door swung upward.

  Wyatt stopped and stared for only a moment. After that moment, he shrugged and stepped closer. Standing in the cold, he would be no better off that what awaited him in that vehicle.

  The warmth that flowed from the interior of the car was overwhelming. He felt it on his face and hands as he ducked under the door and climbed in. the seats were arranged around the outside of the car, facing the middle. The figure sat in the back passenger side seat location, and as Wyatt stepped in and the door closed, the figure pulled the hood back from his face.

  White hair and a mustache showed Wyatt it wasn't Linda or Hannah. His horror grew with the realization it was Jarod. The man was quite old.

  "Why are you here?" Wyatt asked as he situated himself on the seat in the front passenger side. The motion set his back on fire again, and he hoped he wouldn't bleed all over the car.

  "Relax," Jarod said, his face looking much older. The creases in the skin around his eyes and jowls made him much older than any version he had ever seen.

  "How old are you?" Wyatt asked.

  Jarod shook his head. "Not the right question for right now," he said. His voice was calm and even.

  "Are you after the same thing your younger version was?" Wyatt asked.

  "That is the real question, isn't it?" Jarod said, his thin lips spreading into a smile that somehow made him look even older. "I was, or maybe still am. I've lost sight of what I was after. I've lost sight of what he was after."

  "Why are you here?" Wyatt asked, shaking his head. "Do you even remember why you are here?"

  Jarod straightened up and looked at him. "I remember you," he said. "One of the things I hated about you is the way we could never stop you from changing things. You have done nothing but create a larger mess. My younger version worked tirelessly to prepare for you, but I still got stuck here."

  "How would you know?" Wyatt asked. "From what I remember, you can't feel the resonance." He placed his hands on his knees, feeling how wet his jeans were, and watched the older man. So far, Jarod had both gloved hands in his lap. Wyatt saw no weapons nearby. "Am I stuck here?"

  "If you were me," Jarod asked, "would you do it any other way? After all, you tossed me into the future, stranding me here."

  Wyatt nodded slowly. "I don't have any way of getting back?"

  "Even if you had a wrist terminal, you wouldn't get away from here," Jarod said. "It wouldn't let you. The Machina doesn't work here."

  "So, I'm stuck?" Wyatt asked and thought he saw a smile as Jarod wiped his mouth with a gloved right hand.

  "How did the resonance feel when you came through that portal?" Jarod asked. "Did it tear you up?"

  Wyatt shook his head and looked out through the window of the door he had entered. He wondered what use it would be to try and get away. He was trapped in this future, and it was freezing outside.

  "So, what happens now?" Wyatt asked.

  "I'm not sure," Jarod said, laughing a couple times before the laugh launched him into a coughing fit. It lasted only a moment, but something seemed to change with Jarod.

  "Did you fix the problems with the past?" Wyatt asked. "Did tossing me into this future fix it?"

  Jarod took a deep breath and looked out the window on the passenger side of the car. It took Wyatt a moment to realize Jarod's right hand entered something in a small touch screen on the side of his seat. As Jarod looked back up at Wyatt, the car backed up and began a three-point turn to head back into the city.

  "Where are we going?" Wyatt asked, watching the way Jarod seemed to smile at his discomfort. It felt like everything was over. The past was ruined. Without a way of giving his notebook and wrist terminal to Hannah, he didn't see a way for it to ever be fixed.

  "My home," Jarod said. "Do you know what happened when you sent me here?"

  "I just picked a place at random," Wyatt answered as he thought back to that experience. "That happened before I noticed my past begin to change."

  "Yes," Jarod said. "But that is only because the changes hadn't taken hold of you yet. You hadn't begun to feel the resonance for them yet." He laughed and coughed two times.

  "I don't understand," Wyatt said as the old man's coughing stopped. A rough patch in the plowed street made Wyatt wince as the hoodie caught the tender areas of skin on his back.

  "You don't," Jarod said, smiling. This time it did make him look older. "The Machina found you and the others because of your ability to sense the resonance. But no one really knows what causes the resonance."

  "It's changes in the timestream," Wyatt said, shifting his weight to the inside of the car. The last turn had pulled him closer to the passenger side and pressed his back uncomfortably against the seat.

  "Is it?" Jarod said. "Let me tell you what you feel." He clasped his hands in front of himself and leaned forward slightly. "If the resonance was the key to knowing when the timestream had been changed, did you feel it when you stepped into this car?"

  "No," Wyatt said, wincing at the thoughts that Jarod's question brought. He didn't want to believe that the resonance was anything different than the universe or whatever it was telling him and the others that the timestream had been changed.

  "You are future fixers," Jarod continued. "But what parts of the future have you fixed?"

  Wyatt shook his head. He wanted to shrug in answer, but that would have been painful. Trapped as he was in th
at car, he could only sit and listen.

  The car had turned to the right again and slowed considerably. Houses of wood and brick lined both sides of the street, but they were set back behind a ditch to either side, and fences of diverse types of white plastic or stained wood. The fences were more decoration than to keep anything in or out, it seemed.

  Quarter-sized snowflakes continued to fall.

  "All your group of future fixers has done is cause more damage," Jarod said, wiping his mouth with the black glove of his right hand. He glanced through the window on the passenger side.

  "I don't believe that," Wyatt said, even though he could only remember a few times they had actually helped the future. "We have contracts that tell us what we need to fix."

  "Why would that be?" Jarod asked. "If the Machina chose you because you can feel the resonance, why would it also leave you a document you can only read in retirement?" He looked back at Wyatt and shook his head. "I feel bad for you, stranded here like you are."

  "You're stranded also," Wyatt said as the car pulled into a narrow garage below a wood and stone house that looked to have been built in the twentieth century. He didn't like the way Jarod smiled at his comment. "Did I say something wrong? When I tossed you through that portal, I just needed you out of the way."

  Jarod held up his right hand and shook his head once more. "You did what you thought the Machina needed. Nothing more. That man leading your group was wrong. The past you remember is not correct."

  Each word worried Wyatt. "If you are so certain, why did you pick me up?" he asked the question as the car's doors hinged upward and the old version of Jarod began to work his way out of the car.

  As the old man rose to his feet and gestured for Wyatt to follow him, Wyatt scanned the garage. Beyond the normal unpainted drywall on the sides of the garage, the ceiling was exposed wooden rafters from which hung the garage door opener. A black device that hadn't changed much since Wyatt's time.

  "Let's get you warm and cared for," Jarod said.

  "Why waste your time on me," Wyatt said. "In an earlier time, you tried to kill me."