Hexad: The Factory (Time Travel Thriller) Book 1

by Al K. Line

  Amanda pulled her hair back from her face and frowned at the ends of her locks. "It's played havoc with my hair. I need a shower. And you're right, we need to think about this properly. Sorry about using it."

  "Hey, we're both pretty new to this. I still can't really believe any of this is actually happening. It's like a dream or something. How are we going to find out what we are really supposed to do? Tellan said he came to tell us we had to save the world. Pretty bonkers."

  "Yeah, kind of a big responsibility. Not to mention that he's The Caretaker."

  "What? You know what that is?"

  "Well, I haven't really heard anyone use the term before, but I assume he's, you know, The Caretaker."

  "Jeez, what is with you and him saying it like it explains everything?"

  "Because it does. He's the one that makes sure everything is taken care of. He makes sure everything runs how it's supposed to, makes sure the world works."

  "And we messed it up?"

  "I don't think so, not really. I think it's more that because we are the ones, or the other versions of us anyway, that first discovered these Hexad things, then whatever has happened he decided that we should be the ones to fix it."

  "Wonder what that is then?"

  "It's sure to be dramatic. What a Saturday!"

  Thwack.

  "Shit, shit, shit. You can say that again." Dale peered at the huge lump of meat that had splatted onto the table, steaming and writhing before it went still. "What the hell is that?"

  "Looks like, no, it is, it's a person, just all mushed up."

  Dale peered at the steaming mound. There was something there; something moving.

  An eye, it's an eye.

  It blinked at him, then swiveled to look at Amanda before it closed.

  Dale scraped his chair back across the tiles, pushing hard with his feet to get away. Amanda did the slightly more sensible thing and got up and backed as far away as she could.

  "I think maybe we should go out, what do you think?" said Dale.

  "I'll get my bag. This kitchen is getting way to busy for my liking."

  They went out.

  Feeding the Ducks

  Present Day

  The park was only around the corner, a huge sprawling collection of open spaces, lakes, play areas and formal gardens that they often went to in the summer, or even in the winter if they fancied getting away from the house. In fact it was where Dale had first met Amanda, over ten years ago now.

  He'd been wandering around, not really doing anything, then sat watching the ducks and throwing them some of his sandwich. She'd come and asked if she could sit down — all the other benches were full of parents and kids either screaming or smiling and licking their ice-creams.

  They'd got chatting, him keeping his fingers crossed that such a hot girl might fancy him, but knowing it was wishful thinking. After she'd eaten some kind of weird salad thing she'd got up and left, saying goodbye. He'd kicked himself for not having the courage to ask if they could go out on a date, then whooped so loud he freaked out the ducks when he realized that she'd left a scrap of paper on the bench — her phone number.

  They'd seen each other every day for months until they moved in together, then gone through a series of rentals interspersed with trips abroad, neither of them interested enough in careers to give up the chance of seeing the world when they had enough savings. Finally they'd returned to live close to where they'd first met, hitting on a small business idea that allowed them the luxury of working from home and setting their own hours, although they worked harder than they ever had when they had 'real' jobs.

  Dale took care of the writing work — he didn't exactly enjoy being a content writer for hire for any website owner that was willing to pay his price per word, but it meant freedom — and Amanda took care of all the admin, the posting of his credentials on various sites that were the most popular for people looking for his type of talents, and she also dealt with the research side of things, giving him simple bullet points for information he needed so that he could work his words around them to provide whatever it was the client wanted.

  The bills were paid easily, they had disposable income without a mortgage, and Amanda got to express her penchant for high quality furniture from days gone by.

  Dale watched the ducks, thinking back over the years about how they had come to where they were now, wondering what kind of life awaited them now they inhabited a world where lumps of mangled bodies dropped from the future onto people's kitchen tables and little machines allowed you to travel through time.

  Probably not a great future.

  "Ow! What did you do that for?"

  "Because I've been trying to talk to you and you haven't heard a word I've been saying, that's why."

  "Sorry."

  "That's okay. Look, what are we going to do? I'm scared. I know we kid around a lot, always have, but this is some serious stuff Dale. I mean, like, really really serious. I don't like it."

  "I know honey, it's freaking me out too. Hey, look, maybe we should go and you know, take the tin and the note and go back to bury it? Just so it's done?"

  "What? We can't, can we? I mean, we just watched ourselves do it. If we go and do that now then won't we meet ourselves there doing it? And if it's the tin and note that we have then that is, you know, impossible, right?" Amanda scrunched up her nose, trying to get things straight in her head.

  She's as confused as I am by all this.

  Dale thought for a minute, seeing if there was any way for it to make sense. There wasn't.

  "Well, it's just one of those quirks of this whole thing, isn't it? We have to send ourselves the note so we get it so we then do what we've done today and then go and bury it... I think."

  Amanda had come to a decision. "No, we shouldn't do it, it's happened already so it will happen at some point, or maybe it's even other versions of us that do it anyway and all of this is a terrible mistake. Can you imagine if we go and do it now, it'll be all 'Hang on, would it have been like this before? We're over in the bushes, right?' And you'll be saying, 'Ssh, don't let them know. Oh my god this is getting ridiculous. Are the other ones of us that put the tin here going to come along as well? There will be tins all over the bloody garden at this rate.' See? It's confusing just thinking about it, and besides, we already used two jumps, if this is the only chance we have then we should save them, actually think about what we want to do, where and when we want to go. Plus we should look at the Hexad properly, figure it out correctly."

  I think that made sense... maybe.

  "This is doing my head in. Come on, let's go somewhere a little more private and see if we can work this out."

  ~~~

  The pub was quiet, just a couple of old men sat at the bar reading their papers and having a drink. Dale ordered two pints and then walked over to the booth as far away from the bar as possible. It was gloomy in the pub, the barman was always grumpy, the obscenely patterned carpet was always sticky and the beer was never cold — a proper pub in other words, and now hard to find. Everything was a chain, generic interiors pretending to have an 'Olde Worlde' feel when the result was just sterile and nothing like a relaxing atmosphere to have a drink in.

  Amanda pulled the Hexad out of her bag and placed it on the table carefully. Dale moved so his back was to the people at the bar, hiding the device from view.

  They sipped their drinks, frowning at the dark liquid like they always did, staring at the strange machine.

  Dale felt the warm beer go down smoothly, the strong alcohol calming his nerves a little but making the day feel displaced, surreal and nothing but the result of a hangover. Maybe they should swear off the booze? What had they lasted, a morning? Now they were drinking again; not good.

  Dale took another sip and stared at the Hexad. It stood a little taller than his hand, a fat cylinder with a flat base and a domed top. The digital display was backlit with the same blue light that ran around it's circumference in narrow strips just above and bel
ow the various dials. What wasn't really clear was how you set any kind of destination, but there were dials for what appeared to be dates — you could line them up to pretty much take your pick. There were a lot of strange details to the device that were easy to miss on first inspection. The flat base, a dull gray metal just a few millimeters thick, had some kind of indent, like it was for some sort of Allen key. The main body was like brushed steel, with what seemed to be brass fittings that made up the concentric dials. There were intricate markings on them as well as numbers, patterns engraved in swirls that had no obvious meaning and maybe went no further than to make it a beautiful object, and it was.

  Just looking at it made you want to grab it, feel its warmth, fiddle with the dials like the combination locks Dale remembered he used to have for his Raleigh Grifter when he was a boy. But it was the dome that was the real draw: the light drew you in somehow, made you want to peer in, uncover the mysteries that were locked inside. It wasn't glass, although Dale couldn't tell what it was, but the number display was crystal clear, like on the highest quality watches.

  "How did you set it to take us to certain places?"

  Amanda took a gulp of her beer, frowning at the warm concoction. "Honestly? I don't know. I was just playing with it really, lining up the numbers for the date and what I assumed was the time. Then I kind of just thought about where I wanted to go. I wasn't really thinking about that to be honest, just did the date and pressed down on the top. It pushed in a little, made a click, and hey presto, time travelers. God, that sounds so stupid saying that. Are we really having this conversation?"

  "I know, crazy right? I feel like I'm in a dream. This can't actually be happening for real. And what do you mean by just thinking about where you want to go? You didn't set anything?" Dale stared at the device again — it really didn't look like there was a way to set it to a destination.

  "Nope, just thought it. Does that mean we could go anywhere? What if we chose the moon, think we would end up there?"

  "Let's not try it. We'd be dead in an instant and then it would be game over."

  "Haha, no we wouldn't. Because as long as we don't jump back and put the note in the tin then we stay alive, so we can do anything and be all right, as long as we hold off on doing that." Amanda sat back smugly, taking a celebratory sip.

  "Or," said Dale, "it was another us from a different timeline that did that and we could die in this universe and almost every other one too. How about that?"

  "Spoilsport."

  Dale wanted to turn back the clock, not in any kind of brain-meltingly convoluted way involving weird men and ridiculous conjecture about the bending of reality, just go back to the morning and wake up and not check for messages from the future. It was too late now though, the damage was done, or would be. He had no idea about anything anymore; nothing was making sense.

  At least he had Amanda. Without her he knew he would have lost the plot entirely, probably ended up getting eaten by a dinosaur or something.

  Dinosaurs! How cool would that be? Or the future, like hundreds of thousands of years. Would everyone be downloaded into some kind of kick-ass clone body where they were full of nano machines, living forever and able to travel to other planets? It seemed that anything could be possible, and there was a way to find out.

  But options were limited with only four jumps left — that's what they called it when you traveled in time wasn't it: jumps? But if in ten years they find a stash of these things, whatever they truly were and whoever invented them, then surely they would have more, as and when they needed them? Or not. From what he understood, and granted it wasn't much, then it all depended on whether or not you stayed in your own timeline or somehow happened to switch over to others.

  Ugh, brain melt time again.

  Dale stared at his empty pint glass, drying froth patterning the sides of the scratched glass, not even remembering drinking it. "Fancy another?"

  Amanda stared at her own empty glass, clearly just as surprised as Dale about the lack of liquid refreshments remaining. "Yeah, why not?"

  Dale grabbed his leather satchel and hunted around for his wallet. A flash of silver caught his eye and he stared up above the table as something came crashing down onto the sticky surface from out of nowhere.

  "Bloody hell, nearly gave me a heart attack."

  Amanda had jumped back and dashed around behind the bench seats, but a pair of wide eyes appeared a moment later, peeking cautiously at the latest surprise.

  "Good job you're here for support," muttered Dale, staring at the Hexad, a large number 0 flashing orange on the top. There was something taped around the middle of it. Dale reached out a hand to see what it was.

  "Careful."

  "Bit late for that isn't it?" Dale peeled back a corner of the tape and unwound the piece of paper.

  Run. Now, you idiots! Was the simple message.

  "Guess we should run then?" said Amanda, grabbing her bag.

  "Guess so." Dale picked up both Hexads, stuffed them into his satchel and grabbed Amanda's hand. They ran past the bar, and Dale shouted, "See ya Steve," to the barman, who just grunted and carried on wiping glasses that really didn't need wiping.

  They went down the corridor, ran past what Steve referred to as his office but was really just somewhere he nipped off to on a regular basis to have a cigarette, and the doors to the Ladies and Gents, and out through the open back door that led into the beer garden, at least that was what Steve liked to call it. The reality was it was a small courtyard stacked with empty crates, beer barrels and all manner of junk, but as Steve had bought a single picnic bench he felt justified in labeling it as the beer garden. Dale closed the door and moved Amanda to the far end of the dirty space and asked, "Are you okay?" trying to control his panting from the stress.

  "Yeah, you? What the hell is going on?"

  "I'm fine, and dunno, it said run so we ran."

  The door crashed open and what Dale could only describe as a genetic freak with an awful lot of hair emerged into the open, seemingly taking up all available space.

  "Give," he said, with a voice that made Dale think this was what a rock would sound like if it could speak. A very, very big rock. He held out an impossibly large hand just as Dale said, "No," before he and Amanda disappeared into the future.

  Really Confusing

  75 Years Future

  "Ugh."

  Dale landed on the ground and crumpled in a heap, Amanda falling awkwardly on top of him. They'd both materialized only a few inches above the ground but the lack of terra firma instantly sent the mind into confusion, believing the body was falling, which it was. Just not very far.

  Wonder how you stop that from happening?

  Dale looked around, pulling Amanda to her feet. It wasn't night time, was it? Well, obviously not, it was light.

  So where the hell are all the people?

  "I thought we were falling to our deaths," said Amanda, clearly blaming Dale for the lack of ground on arrival.

  "Me too. Don't know why we landed like that."

  "Well, did you think about being on the ground when we arrived? And where the hell are we? Where is everyone?"

  "Um, no, didn't know you were supposed to. And no idea for the other two questions."

  "What!? You're the one that brought us here, where did you think of when we jumped? What year at least?"

  Dale was getting a really odd feeling, like his brain was all criss-crossed, and his body sort of had bits in the wrong places. "I just fumbled with it in my satchel and pressed go when I pulled it out. It looked like it was going to be seventy five years, but I didn't think about where to go. Um, do you feel all right, I feel all mixed up?"

  Could things be in the wrong place? Nah, I wouldn't be working if they were.

  "All jumbled you mean? Yes, didn't you get it before?"

  "Not like this, no. Anyway, come on, let's move, just in case that guy is right behind us."

  "Good idea. Big, wasn't he? And hairy, did you see that be
ard?"

  "Kind of hard to miss, bet his haircuts are pricey."

  ~~~

  It soon became apparent where they were, and it really didn't help.

  Venice, popular tourist destination, romantic getaway for countless thousands of people every year, sinking community where not a single car could drive, home to some of the most inspiring architecture the world had ever seen, canals bordering every house and the perfect place to spend a long weekend with a loved one.

  There wasn't a person to be found.

  Not a single soul in the most important tourist destination in the world due to art and beauty, home to sixty thousand inhabitants and fifty thousand tourists a day — nothing, nobody. Just cats, cats, and more cats. They were everywhere. They peered down at Dale and Amanda from incredible Venetian Gothic architecture in Piazza San Marco, the large square where they had arrived. Ancient flagstones, walked over by millions upon millions of feet over the years, were now devoid of anything but huge piles of trash. The smell of cat feces was almost as dominant as the smell of decay.

  It was eerie. The day was beautiful, crisp and clear, the views of the buildings incredible. But it was also obvious that Venice was no longer what it had once been: buildings were collapsing, some gone, sunk into the canals that always threatened to take away the order they had been forced into. Other buildings were sunk down low, still standing but at odd angles, only held up by their neighbors.

  Walkways and pillars were eaten away until they fell, stone crumbling, mortar weak and no longer able to support archways and upper story balconies. It was all due to neglect, pure and simple neglect — Venice had always needed incredible maintenance and now there was none.

  Just cats.