Hexad: The Ward (25 page)

Every time she brought up the subject with Dale he would smile and shake his head, refusing to talk about anything but trivial matters, forcing her to relax and not dwell on things that had come close to breaking her. It worked to some degree, she certainly felt like her old self again, but the memories of The Ward lingered, refused to leave her. She doubted they ever would.

Now and then she would catch Dale looking at her funny, clearly trying to imagine what it had been like in that terrible place, maybe even thinking of the other Amandas that had possibly sacrificed their very existence for her to have the chance to be with him again. It seemed like the better she got the quieter he became. He was probably just anxious, wanting to put an end to it, but refusing to do so until he was sure she was as close to well as was possible.

Amanda got up from the hammock, now quite an expert at moving from prone to standing without falling on her bum as she tried to get out. "Right, that's it, I can't stand it any longer. Are we going to go and sort this stupid, bloody ridiculous mess out or what?"

"Oh, thank god, yes! This is driving me nuts." Dale was up and across the room in a heartbeat, bare feet loud on the dark floorboards, staring at her like she'd just saved him from certain death.

"If you're that keen why didn't you say something sooner?"

"Because you had to get well," said Dale. "But this has been driving me mad. I'm bored out of my brain and I can't help thinking about everything we have to do."

"That's exactly the problem though, isn't it? What are we supposed to do?"

"Well, I'm glad you asked..."

You What!?

78 Years Future

"That's your plan! No way." Amanda forced back the tears.
I will not cry, I will not cry.

Dale turned to her, still sweaty from love-making, the heat making it a bad idea to go to bed mid-afternoon and be so active.

Amanda wished she hadn't brought up the subject of what to do so soon after such a pleasant experience, it kind of put a downer on their enjoyable, if rather too hot, afternoon tryst.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, we won't do it, but I couldn't think of anything else. There's more to that place than we've seen, I'm sure of it. We have to find out what he has been up to. We have to know exactly what to change before we can even think about changing it. I'll go alone, you don't need to come."

"Dale, you know that I have to. Without me then something could happen to you, and anyway, I don't want us to be separated again, not ever."

"I know, honey, but maybe you should wait here? It was my idea, after all, and as long as one of us knows what the hell Hector got up to, then that's all we need. But we do have to know, and I'm sure The Ward is just a part of whatever is really going on there. We have to know."

Amanda could tell he was resolute, and it did make sense in a weird kind of way. If they were to fight Hector, and win, then they needed as much information as possible so they could figure out the best way to stop him. They'd gone over and over the various options, returning to the conversations they'd had before they tried to stop him the last time, and the only conclusion they came to was that they had to go back to The Ward, to the time when Amanda had been there.

Everything centered around that time, that place. It was too much of a coincidence for them to have jumped there in the first place, right at that moment, right when Hector was getting ready to give his first Hexad to that billionaire. That was the crux, where pasts, presents, futures and universes converged. It was where they would find the answers and where they had to be to stop it all.

They were both certain, yet neither understood why they were so sure.

It was time travel — when Wozzy knocked the Hexad and they all jumped, they ended up exactly when everything was about to change forever in the world, and Amanda was incarcerated in The Ward when it was running as smoothly as they supposed it ever would. That didn't happen by accident, it was fate, time conspiring. It couldn't be ignored. That was where they had to be, when they had to be.

"I'm going to go pack," said Amanda, getting up, body slick with sweat. She'd worried about letting Dale see her naked as she wasn't feeling confident about her body, not after what she'd been through what seemed like a lifetime ago but was little more than a week, but he'd told her she was as beautiful as ever, and held her head in his hands and kissed her gently. God how she loved him.

"Haha, we haven't got anything to pack."

"Well," said Amanda, turning and putting her hands on her hips, jiggling her upper body just enough to see something stirring beneath the sheets, "in that case I guess I don't need to get up quite yet." Amanda nodded at the thin coverlet. "Although, speaking of getting up, I see someone—"

"Come here, you." Dale pulled back the sheet. Amanda got into bed.

~~~

Later that afternoon, Dale showed Amanda something she had put to the back of her mind: his collection of Hexads. They jumped away from the beauty and tranquility of the island, and she found herself at a place in stark contrast to the perfection and heat of the South East Asian paradise.

Now she was in what she could only describe as a bunker. Cold, gray, heavy on the concrete, light on soft furnishings. As they landed, Dale not focusing properly as usual and their jump bringing them a few centimeters above the floor so she felt like she was falling to her death, she stared ahead at the long concrete wall, lit by recessed overhead lights casting strange shadows across row after row of Hexads, blinking blue, pulsing their cool light against the stark interior, making it feel even colder and more wrong than it already did.

"You weren't lying about collecting a load of Hexads, were you?"

"Um, no." Dale shifted about, looking uncomfortable, as if he was about to be told off.

"What? What's the matter? These are all from the trunk in the garden, right? When you acted like a muppet and got Cray involved for no good reason?"

"I knew it! I knew you'd bring that up. Look, I got confused, okay?"

"Haha, I'm just messing with you. I'd be more worried if you weren't confused."

"Yeah, s'pose. Anyway, I just wanted to show you, show you they are safe. What I'm not sure about, and this has been bugging me for days now, is how to get rid of them."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, just how the hell do we stop them from popping up again? Look, all of this started with Tellan, with a different me in bed when you woke up, then he came again... Ugh, anyway, look, the damn Hexad just appeared, and they keep on appearing, so even if we got rid of these, doesn't that mean that as soon as we go back to our own time then in that future it will just happen all over again and they will still be sat there, buried in the garden, waiting to be dug up?"

"Dale!"

"What?"

"Now you've got me more confused than ever. I don't know, I don't know about any of it. All I know is we have to stop this, stop it for good, make it so there has never been a damn Hexad, ever. But you're right, they keep turning up, and the whole paradox of them coming to us at all ends in a stupid loop of nonsense with no end in sight. This is why we keep getting in one mess or another. We are stuck in this with no way to stop it."

"This isn't right, something isn't making sense. Come on."

"What, already?"

"Yeah, right now. But first we have to do something."

"What?" Amanda was worried. Dale had a funny look, like he'd made up his mind and she wouldn't like what that signified.

"We're going home."

Before she had the chance to ask more, Dale set the Hexad, held out his arm for her, and with a "Whooooooooooooooooooosh," they jumped.

Damn Cat

Present Day

"Wozzy!" Amanda had to admit it, she had missed the little dude.

He swaggered across the kitchen, legs wide to accommodate his prized jewels as though he was immensely proud of his somewhat oversized testicles and wanted everyone to know it.

Amanda bent and scooped him up, gave him a hug and snuggled into his fur like he was a soft pillow. Wozzy purred happily, nestling to get under her chin.

"Blimey, the little man really missed you."

"Yeah, he's a little cutie, aren't you, Wozzy? Eh? Eh? Good boy. Argh, bugger, get him off! Get him off!" Amanda tried to prize Wozzy away from her but his claws caught on her neck, the skin pulling tight as she attempted to dislodge him. Wozzy finally retracted his claws and she dropped him to the floor. He sauntered over to the fridge and meowed loudly, expecting milk for being so good.

"Ha, same old Wozzy."

"The little sod. At least he's still here, which is something. I was half expecting us to just land somewhere where everything is different. Think this is, you know, really home?"

"No, it can't be, can it? We didn't have a cat, remember?"

Amanda stared off into the distance, letting Dale's words filter through the fog of confusion her life had become. "Yeah, you're right. I think. Unless..."

"Just don't worry about it. We're home, it's the present, and everything will be fine."

"Is it the present though? How does that work? How long have we been gone?"

"It doesn't matter. Anyway, looks like Peter has been taking care of things here. I'm amazed the place isn't in more of a mess."

Amanda looked around the kitchen. Dale was right — Peter had been looking after Wozzy while they were away, and that would mean he'd probably stayed over, eaten all the food and she expected the kitchen to be piled high with dirty dishes, but it was surprisingly clean. The table was wiped down, the counters almost tidy, and there were only a couple of plates in the sink to wash.

"Do you think he's okay? Peter isn't known for his hygiene."

"Maybe he's just being good as he knows we will be back at some point and doesn't want to leave a mess?"

Amanda stared at Dale, waiting for him to admit the truth.

"Okay, you're right, this isn't like him at all. Maybe he hasn't been for a while?"

"Oh my god, oh my god!" Amanda stared in horror at the sight that greeted her in the living room. No wonder the kitchen was so tidy.

Dale dashed to her side, looking worried, and put an arm on her shoulder to comfort her and jump if needed. "Bloody hell. Well, at least it isn't Laffer, but, um, wow, what the hell has he been doing?"

"Making a mighty mess, that's what. What's wrong with him? How can he live like this?"

"You've seen his house, he's just a bit of a messy bugger."

Amanda turned to Dale to see if he was being serious. "A bit of a messy bugger, are you joking? Look at my living room! Where's the table? I can hardly see it under all the mess." Amanda stared at the nightmare that was the living room, the only saving grace was he'd clearly stuck to the rules concerning no shoes anywhere but the kitchen.

Remembering her own rule, she slipped of her Converse and made her way across the carpet, managing to circumvent the pile of bedding strewn across the floor like some kind of nightmare day after the sleepover from hell and opened the window to let some fresh air into the stale room. It stank of curry, pizza, sweaty feet, and other things she didn't even want to think about — Peter had clearly not been expecting them home quite yet.

There were clothes strewn over the backs of chairs, cushions seemed to have done something very bad so as punishment Peter had flung them across the room at random, further humiliating them by throwing dirty socks on top to make them really suffer. Underpants hung off the back of the sofa along with shirts and jeans, and he appeared to have been trying to make some kind of den out of all the bedding.

That was nothing compared to the chaos that spread from the sofa where he'd seemingly spent the majority of his time. The coffee table was lost beneath piles of dirty plates, cutlery, mugs not on coasters, and boxes of takeaway, lids open, half eaten contents congealing like he was trying to breed new life forms. Stacks of burger wrappers had toppled where it looked like he had tried to build towers, cartons had plastic forks stuck in the top, decorated with hard strings of chow mein, and he'd clearly been trying to set a world record for eating the most fish and chips in a week judging by the greasy paper that revealed pieces of soggy batter and more salt than could be healthy for the whole country, let alone a single man.

Worst of all, the glimpse of the wood beneath the mess revealed rings where he'd put hot drinks on the table. Like the crack from when Laffer had attacked Dale wasn't enough of a reminder their life was a disaster.

My table.

"Come on, let's tidy it up," said Dale, for some reason smiling.

"What's so funny? Look at this mess!"

"Sorry, I know it's awful, but, well, at least it's normal."

"I suppose you're right," said Amanda with a sigh, "I'd actually forgotten about everything else for a moment there."

"Let's leave it, I'm sure he'll sort it out soon enough. Come on, let's get changed, I think I've got sand in places where there shouldn't be sand. Let's have a shower and then..."

"Then we can save the world, the universes, and go back to normal, right?"

"That's the spirit," said Dale. "And actually, if we do put everything right, maybe we'll wake up and none of this will have happened and the living room will be nice and clean."

"Well, that's one way to avoid the cleaning, I suppose." Amanda couldn't help it, she smiled too. Smiled at the absurdity of the situation, the impossible task that faced them, and the sheer madness of everything in her life. The only constant was Dale; she knew that without him she would be nothing.

"Come on." Amanda grabbed Dale's hand and led him carefully out of the chaos.

"Where to?"

"I thought you said we had to shower?" Amanda kissed Dale.

"Oh. Oh!"

"Haha. It might be the last chance we get to have some us time for a while."