Hexad: The Chamber by Al K. Line Read Free Book Online Page B

there?" Dale really hoped Amanda wasn't lying to him, and why would she?
    "Let me think, but I promise you, I'm not lying to you Dale, everything I have told you is true."
    "Okay then, so where did you get the Hexads to do all the jumps?"
    "From that room we were in. The room I told you the detective made: Cray. It's full of them."
    "And that room is in this world, in the future?"
    "Yes."
    "But nobody else knows about it, as everywhere else it won't exist?"
    "Yes," said Amanda, clearly getting exasperated.
    "Right, come on, we have someone we need to go and see." Dale stood, ready to jump immediately.
    "Dale, Dale, calm down. What's going on? Where are we going?"
    "We are going to see this Caretaker of yours. He's lying to you, lying to us."
    "Wait, what do you mean? And Dale, we can't go to see him, or I won't anyway. Don't you get it? That's where I was while all the craziness was going on. I can't go back there, I won't."
    Amanda was in tears, visibly shaking, like a dog that had been locked in a cage all its life and was now expected to go for a nice walk in the park.
    "Tell me," said Dale.
    Amanda told him all about it.
     
    ~~~
     
    By the time it was over Amanda had regained her composure, but Dale agreed that it was no kind of place to go to voluntarily. In fact he was amazed Amanda had come through such an experience with her sanity intact.
    But one thing was for sure: things were not as they seemed, and the fact remained that if Amanda had been diligent with the truth then The Caretaker had been playing with her. For what reason neither of them could figure out, but it left only one course of action and one possible explanation: Amanda had ruined everything and The Caretaker hadn't told her. Why?
    For the first time since he'd been with the new Amanda it was him doing the explaining.
    Dale had finally figured it out as they sat talking — it should have been obvious.
    Everything Amanda had told him had been true, right up until she jumped and found him and told him not to dig up the garden. So he hadn't, had he?
    "And that's it, none of it happened. None of it. You stopped it all."
    "No, wait, that can't be right. We saw us going to the pub, like we did before, and I jumped everywhere and everything was back to normal, apart from in this world."
    "Everything was back to normal because I never dug up the note in the first place, and if I never dug it up and then a Hexad appeared in the kitchen, blah, blah, blah, then none of the rest of it would have happened. We didn't need to go off and have all those crazy adventures as there was no note, no Hexad, so no us in the future doing what had already happened so it would play out that way. Everything was just normal."
    "So how did we see you at the pub if you are here with me?"
    She was right, he wouldn't have been, as Amanda interrupted all that. Damn, you muppet Dale.
    "Because that was a different timeline we jumped to."
    "Damn! Of course, you're right." Slowly it was all making sense to Amanda, Dale could see that now.
    Amanda spoke, trying to get her thoughts straight. "So everything that happened had to happen, and we stopped the problem, but me coming back here, stopping you digging up the tin, that means that none of the rest of it happened anyway, not any longer. Everything's cool and right with the world. Worlds?"
    "Exactly."
    "Except..."
    "Except now we have to stop the damn thing playing out anyway as we now have Hexads and the whole thing will happen all over again, somehow, and will warp reality again and we'll be right back where we started."
    "Dale, I can't go through that again, not all of that. Not that room, not any of it. It's too much; I won't cope."
    "Don't worry, you won't have to. Look, forget everything that has happened, everything's normal everywhere, peace is restored. All we need to do is get to the heart of where these damn things really came from. Stop them and it's all over."
    "But I explained that Dale, it was a self-fulfilling prophecy.