Neither Here Nor There

by Nikki Harmon

  Amy walks up to me. “Kim, I’m so sorry. I read it when it came in.” I turn towards her. “I did it, Amy. I traveled. I traveled on purpose. I can do that. I tried to stop this though”, I shake the phone her way, “but I couldn’t. I went to three different timelines but they all ended the same. Even when I went with him to try and prevent it, it still happened. I just saw it happen. The boys wanted sodas so they stopped at the corner store and got sodas. Next thing, we are walking back to Eric’s house and cop cars come out of nowhere. Like six of them and they just scooped up the boys and Walter … Walter resisted. I tried to get the boys home fast, I tried to speak to the cops, I tried to tell Walter to shut his fucking mouth but …”. I slam my hand down on the table over and over again.

  “I’m so sorry,” murmurs Amy as she guides me to a chair.

  “But why?” I demand. “Why couldn’t I change it? Isn’t that the whole point of this traveling? Isn’t that what this training is for? So we can change the terrible things that are happening?”

  Behind me, a door clangs open and scares me half to death. I turn and see Sujatha and Manny walking towards me. Amy calls out, “That was quick!” Sujatha looks straight at Amy. “Well, can she do it? Did she?” She looks at me with apprehension. Amy replies, “yeah, she can do it but something has come up. Something personal.” Manny smiles at me, “No offense but personal shit always comes up. Grayson found something, he texted me last week but now I can’t find him. He thinks he knows what the Russian plans to do or rather, plans to have us do. I can’t be sure but I feel like things are shifting. We have to get moving.”

  Chapter 29

  A shot of bourbon and Earth, Wind and Fire calms my nerves as I call my mother back and get the details. Another shot stopped the crying. A third and I was again resigned to saving this messed up world. Manny left after studying a book left on an otherwise empty shelf, I walked over to see the title. The book was tattered and faded and bloated with water damage but tilted the right way I was able to make it out … The Anarchist Handbook. Great. I throw it back on the shelf.

  Sujatha was asking Amy about Grayson. “When’s the last time you talked to him?”

  “Um…. Actually, I haven’t seen him in a couple of weeks.” While they talk, I look up from the rings my empty glass makes on the table to look at Sujatha. Her big brown eyes are looking from me to Amy. Her skin is a warm cinnamon color that seems to glow from within. Her nose ring is minuscule but it catches the light and flashes every time she turns her head. Her heavy black hair hangs in a tousled braid over her shoulder. I watch her talk, and though her lips stay twisted in impatience they are full and perfectly drawn with deep burgundy lipstick. I guess I never noticed before. She waves a hand in front of my face. She snaps and I break my stare.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “Sorry”, I reply “but you gave me the bourbon, remember?” I look away from her towards Amy who is watching us with a raised eyebrow.

  “What?!” I fling at her. “Oh nothing,” she answers and turns to Sujatha. “So, did you check other timelines?”

  “Yeah, but I think he is stuck back there. I got worried. I even went back to the warehouse and checked his lines …” Sujatha pulls out her phone.

  “Look, I took a picture.” She opens her pictures and zooms in on the screen. “There is his line on this timeline … see … it stops here … now.” Amy takes the phone and studies it. I peer over her shoulder. Then she clicks it off and puts the phone face down on the table.

  “You think he is gone?”

  “I think he went too far back and something happened. Maybe too far back this time.”

  “Hey,” I say, “let me see that phone again.” Sujatha opens it up for me. I look at the picture and look at the dates. “I don’t understand. How can he go back before he was born? That doesn’t make sense with what you told me, Amy. I thought if we weren’t there, we couldn’t go there.” Amy looked at Sujatha who nodded in my direction. “Tell her. She can handle it.”

  Amy looks at me and sighs. “So, as you noticed, Grayson’s lines extend way back before his birth?’

  I think back to the lines and the graphs. “Yeah, it didn’t dawn on me at the time but his went back, way back. I remember thinking that maybe that was why he looked so rough around the edges but now, I don’t get it.”

  “Grayson claims that he can access his past lives and he travels back through them, the people he used to be.”

  I look from Amy to Sujatha and back. “Past lives? Are you kidding me?” They shrug and nod back at me.

  “Well, what about you two? Do you have past lives? Do you believe in that?”

  Sujatha smiles at me. “I’m Hindu honey, of course, I believe in past lives.”

  Amy interjects, “Kim, I didn’t believe in past lives, I grew up Presbyterian but you have to admit, considering what we can do, it’s not as far-fetched as it used to seem.”

  I turn to Sujatha. “Have you gone back to another lifetime?” She laughs. “No, Kim, I’m pretty sure I was a cat in a previous life and have no intention of catching rats for the Russian.”

  I roll my eyes at her. “Seriously,” she continues, “I observed Grayson and I decided that it didn’t seem worth the risk. You have to double the dosing to crossover, he says, and when he comes back, he is bedridden for days and sometimes can’t get his language back; once it was his eyesight. Took him two weeks, right Amy? That was kind of scary for all of us. In any event, I think he’s gone back again, way back and I’m worried.”

  “Let me see the text,” sighs Amy. Sujatha hands her phone to Amy then walks over and sits next to me. “Do you want some water? Maybe something to eat? You shouldn’t drink on an empty stomach.” She smells good, like oranges and coconut.

  “I would like another shot, if you don’t mind.”

  “Sorry, but we need you sober. Amy?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Let’s go out to eat. Even superheroes need to eat, and I haven’t had a decent meal in ages.”

  “Ok. This place is depressing. We can talk over dinner. Casual or fancy?”

  “Let’s go fancy. Could be our last meal.”

  “That’s really fucking funny,” I reply.

  “I wish I was fucking kidding,” Sujatha replies as she gets up.

  I think back to my brother, lying in a hospital bed, unconscious. “I don’t know if I can eat. I should probably go to the hospital.”

  “You can go after. We have to make plans and you will probably be in the middle of it all, right Amy?”

  “Yeah, enough talking, let’s go.”

  ∆∆∆

  We enter Dharmama under-dressed and without reservations but manage to get a table anyway. By the time we sit on the plush chairs and I am handed a menu, I can feel my stomach rumbling in anticipation. It might have been the warm glow of all the candles, the light piano being played just over my left shoulder or the smells of the Thai fusion, but I am grateful we came. It feels so ordinary. I look at the other patrons, eating, drinking, laughing and whispering secrets and just breathed in the normalcy of it all. I must have sighed a thousand times, the last I tear up with relief. So much had been so crazy, I hadn’t realized how tense my shoulders were, how shallow my breathing, how tight my tenuous grip on sanity. Sujatha smiles and takes my hand.

  “It’s ok. It is crazy. But we are in it together. You will feel better after you eat. This place has the best Indian food in Philly. And you can have one glass of wine, ok?”

  She slides her hand away and immediately I ache for it. I slip my hand down into my lap and quickly look away, tears welling up again. Amy leans over and starts pointing out various dishes on the menu, distracting me with their whimsical names and elaborate descriptions. She pretends not to notice my discomfiture. I am thankful.

  ∆∆∆

  Bellies full, wine relaxed, we begin to make our plans. We decide that the simplest course of action would be to sabotage Patel’s research on me. But we de
cide against it because if I am the key, and it doesn’t work, then we have no back-up plan. Sujatha suggests killing Patel, but that leaves Wasserman with his research and with thousands of other unknown scientists eager for funding; he could probably still complete the research and get the technology. We also have no idea of when they met, how, why or what their communication was like. Killing Wasserman is probably not a good plan. He has goons. We laugh, but none of us can think of a better word. “Goons” is pretty apt. And we know little about him nor how to get to him. Amy and Sujatha discuss trying to go back to their “missions” and undoing what they did.

  “Why did you guys agree to do the missions anyway? I mean, how did you even get in this position?” Amy looks embarrassed and nods towards Sujatha.

  “Fine. I’ll tell her. Originally, it was just like any regular “study” they conduct on campus. Come for a few days, earn 300 dollars for taking some experimental but safe narcotics and you know, being monitored. I came for the money, but I know some came for the drugs. We started out with a cohort of 30 people. Some of the students became ill and some ran off in the middle of the night. Then they ran a second session and 15 came back – the ones who enjoyed the high or needed the money. Again a few got sick. And this time they added some weird personality tests. The third time they ran the experiment only a select few were invited back and they were offered a lot more money.”

  “Were you jumping the whole time?”

  “Oh no, that didn’t happen until the third session when we had to sign a non-disclosure contract and several waivers.”

  “And you weren’t suspicious?”

  “No, by that time, we were familiar with the scientists and each other. The first time I jumped though … I’ll never forget it. It was stupid but incredible at the same time.”

  “What did you do?”

  “They set up limited scenarios like changing your shirt and picking pepperoni pizza over vegetarian but it was so freaky! I could still taste the mushrooms and garlic as I was biting into pepperoni. It was … just a singular experience.”

  “You liked it?”

  “I liked it a lot. And then I got good at it and it was fun.”

  “Fun?”

  “Yeah. When I jumped for me, it was exciting. We had to come back and report. We did little experiments. I mean, we are all scientists, so who wouldn’t want to pursue this new discovery. It’s fucking amazing! When I realized I was being used …”

  Amy, who had been nodding the whole time turned somber. “When he first asked me to convince my parents to invest in Macintosh, I thought he was being generous and smart but when it worked, when it actually worked, I realized how dangerous this could be.”

  “But it was too late,” adds Sujatha.

  “Why don’t you just stop then?” I ask. “Why don’t you just leave this dimension and never see them again?”

  “We tried that,” answers Sujatha.

  “They just got another group of students . . . And they started to train their … goons.”

  We all laugh. “It took months to go back and fix that mistake. We all had to go back individually and undo what we undid … honestly that was exhausting to keep track of.”

  “Yeah, the problem is once the technique gets solidified, it’s probably too late.”

  I ask the obvious but I need to hear it anyway. “When did it solidify?”

  “Kim, you already know, on 23AK, when you get captured by the Russian. Before that, Wasserman doesn’t know what Patel has accomplished because Patel doesn’t know what you can do. It’s still hypothetical at that point.”

  “I have to go back there?”

  “Yes. But …” Sujatha hesitates.

  “But what?” My buzz has worn off and I am just tired now. Tired and full and feeling the weight of this murky responsibility.

  “We have a few things we could try first and you should get a little more practice before you go back. When you go back, you go alone.” Turning to Amy, Sujatha says, “Let’s head back to the warehouse. I’m ready to have some fun.”

  ∆∆∆

  Sujatha guides me into the car and we make the drive back to the warehouse. The sun is setting and the buildings take on a brilliant orange glow, even on the oldest, most decrepit of walls. The sky has begun its subtle shading down for the night. Bright blue on top, hinting towards coral near the horizon, dark shadows on the ground. We are soon back at the warehouse. I want to stand in the waning sunlight and watch the sky but Amy reminds me that our safety lies in our discretion and I duck into the cold gray walls of the warehouse.

  Amy makes mint tea and we bring our chairs close, cupping our mugs for warmth.

  “Maybe Joan is the key?” I offer. “She’s like me, right? The one who gets the experiment first right? Maybe I can convince her there is something fishy going on and get her to destroy the lab or something?”

  Sujatha sighs. “It’s worth a try. But I think Amy should go with you just to be safe and to make sure you get back. You ok with that Amy?

  “Of course. Joan is on this timeline … we have to go back then. What like five years? I was 17 … ugh… Let me think, what was my trigger then ...?"

  “I transferred from UConn to Temple my sophomore year and met her that August.”

  “You said you were friends with her right?”

  “Yup, she was my TA and helped me study.”

  “Let’s pick a time to meet. How about homecoming of that year?”

  “I was new. I don’t think I would have gone to any of that stuff.”

  “Of course not! Let’s meet in the science lounge, sometime during the football game, ok?”

  “Ok.”

  Sujatha gets up and goes to the fridge. She hands Amy and me cold silver spoons and drops 3 drops of the ice-cold LSD on them. We guide the spoons into our mouths and swallow the liquid. The metallic taste of the spoon makes me want to gag, but I know I need the minor chemical reaction that sets off to get the full effect. Instead of a candle, I look into Amy’s eyes until she closes them. She hands her spoon to Sujatha and lounges back in the chair. She fades and shimmers into a mirage, there and not there. Sujatha retrieves the spoon from my mouth and pushes me backward. I close my eyes and focus on that first fall at Temple, the bitter heartbreak always in the back of my mind like a stone. I ride this wave and find myself standing in line at a food truck. Aware of mySELF but hungry in this body, I am relieved when it is my turn to order. I order the taco chicken cheesesteak with extra jalapeno sauce and fries. The guy who takes my order looks at me.

  “Something different about you today Kim.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah .. you seem stressed. Here, take some Peanut Chews. It’s on me.”

  “Thanks … Zo.” It took me a second to pull up his name, but then I remember the drugs, and something else … the lounge, the science lounge … Amy. Feeling like a visitor in my own body, I take my food and turn my feet to the Science Building. It seems like everyone else is walking the opposite way and I can hear the roar of the crowd in the far distance. Homecoming … yeah, that’s right. The air is crisp, but the sun is warm as I shuffle through the newly fallen leaves. I open the door to the building and head to the back of the building. The lounge is empty. I sit at a table speckled cherry and white, open up my sandwich and take a huge bite. So. Good.

  Ten minutes later, a young Amy comes through the door just as I’m popping the last of my sandwich in my mouth.

  “Damn, it smells good in here. What was that?”

  “Cheesesteak but I dogged it. You can have the fries though,” I say pushing the thin white bag towards her. She sits and starts pulling them out one by one.

  “So, we did it. You did it, Kim. You chose, you jumped and we met up.”

  “Yeah, I guess we did do it.”

  “I believe you have completed my course in dimension jumping and time manipulation.”

  “What no final exam?”

  “This was it and you passed.”

&
nbsp; We stare out the window while she finishes the fries.

  “Anything to drink?”

  “No.”

  “Weird.”

  “Sorry, but my friend at the truck gave me some Peanut Chews.”

  “Sweet! But I’m stuffed, save them. Let’s go find Joan.”

  ∆∆∆

  We find her deep in the library, by the window looking out towards the football field and the crowds streaming towards it. She turns and smiles when she sees me in the reflection.

  “Kim! What are you doing in here? Why aren’t you at homecoming?”

  “You know that’s not my thing. I’m so behind in my classes! I thought I would come and study.”

  “Oh”, she said looking at me strangely. “Well, where are your books?”

  Amy, wearing her book bag, steps up to us and Joan looks at her. “Oh. Hi?”

  “Joan, this is my friend Amy. Amy, this is Joan.” Amy leans down to shake Joan’s hand which she takes hesitantly.

  “Amy? Are you in the department too?”

  “No,” says Amy, “I’m just a senior in high school. Kim is showing me around.”

  “Oh, ok.” I sigh, bored with all this pretense and pussyfooting around.

  I pull up a chair and roll it close to Joan. Amy takes a seat on a bench behind me.

  “Joan, I need to talk to you about Professor Patel.”

  “OK”.

  And then I just went for it. I asked her about her work-study, I told her about the experiment, I didn’t mention all the dimensions, just the other one when I got the scholarship instead of her. That’s when I lost her.

  “Kim, I’m willing to admit that Patel is a little strange and I could even be convinced that his experiment is two-fold but parallel dimensions – come on, nothing like that has even been close to being proven; it’s impossible physics.”

  “Joan, I know it’s hard to believe but I’m telling the truth and you are in danger.”

  “Listen, I really did come here to get some work done. Please let me work.”