Threads in time, p.25
Threads in Time, page 25
“What happened to you all?” Lisa asked us. “You three were gone for over a week…”
Sean kept his eyes shut, breathing in and out deeply between the fits of coughs. I glanced over at Jack. When we’d envisioned confronting Rob, we’d imagined an extremely different scenario to the one in which we found ourselves. For myself, one where I wasn’t so heavily indebted to him.
“We went to Florence,” said Jack finally. “But we had quite a rough time. We were attacked by yoffa on the way. Lyndall nearly died… twice. Which meant we were held up. We didn’t mean to be gone so long.”
“Why did you go to Florence?” asked Lisa. “And why just the three of you?”
“We were heading to the library.”
“Why?”
“We wanted answers.”
“What do you mean, you wanted answers?” asked Rob.
“We know, Rob.” Jack’s voice was soft. And not too accusatory; more matter of fact. “We know that you’ve been lying to us this whole time.”
“What?” Rob looked clueless. It was convincing; if it was a charade, he was a gifted actor.
“What are you talking about?” Lisa asked, looking from us to Rob. Rob just raised his eyebrows and shook his head, maintaining his nonplussed expression.
“Give it up, Rob.” Jack was beginning to sound exasperated. “Stop playing games!”
“Jack,” came a croaky voice. It was the first thing Sean had said. He tried to sit up. “Rob just saved my life.” His voice was husky. “When all is said and done, he’s a good man. I’m sure if he lied to us, he had his reasons.”
“OK,” Rob held up his hands. “I genuinely have no idea what the hell you’re all talking about.”
“Rob you can tell us, bud. We’re not mad. We just want to know.”
“Want to know what?!”
“The real reason for our mission!” exclaimed Jack.
“What do you mean?” Rob was steadily sounding more and more perturbed.
Sean sighed. “We know you’re Dedman’s son, Rob.”
Rob opened his mouth, the expression on his face a mix of bewilderment and irritation. But before he could say anything, Lisa spoke up. “He’s not Dedman’s son.”
“I thought the same thing, Lisa,” I said. “That he’s too old. But he could’ve left years after we did. Think about the randomness of the Bunkies landing.”
“No, you’re not hearing me: he’s not Dedman’s son.”
“How do you know?”
“Because David Dedman never had a son. He only ever had a daughter.”
33. AN UNRAVELLING TRUTH
There was silence. Punctuated by an occasional cough from Sean. We all looked at Lisa.
“You’re Dedman’s daughter?” Jack asked, scratching his head.
“I am.”
“But,” Sean’s voice croaked, “I heard Rob. I was outside the tepee. He was listening to Dedman’s message…”
“No, Mac. I told you. I was listening to a message from an ex-army mate. I can even show you the message if you want!”
“In the message Dedman said my child,” I recalled as Sean opened his mouth to respond. “He didn’t say son.”
“But she doesn’t look or sound anything like him,” Jack pointed out.
“I was adopted, alright? My mother wanted kids more than he did. When she died… well. Let’s just say the guy didn’t really give a shit when I left.”
“So Dedman’s message – the file that got damaged – that message was for you?” Sean asked and, when Lisa nodded, he addressed Rob: “I owe you an apology. I should’ve come to you … I should’ve trusted my friend first before jumping to conclusions. I’m sorry, Rob.”
“It’s OK, Mac. But now can someone please tell me what everyone’s talking about? What message?”
It seemed ridiculous that we could’ve been so wrong. I had mistrusted Rob from the moment I met him. But that mistrust had been misdirected. He wasn’t the one lying to us. Moreover, he had risked his neck to save Sean. On multiple occasions. Rob had proved his loyalty over and over and we’d repaid him with unsubstantiated suspicions.
“We were lied to, Rob,” Jack told him. “Dedman lied to us and Lisa’s been lying the whole time.” Jack explained about the hovercons and the broken message we’d heard. “We went to Florence to find answers. We learned that history is different here. This world doesn’t have the same past as ours.”
“But that’s impossible. No one can go back in time. It’s impossible. The past can’t change. History is unalterable.”
“Apparently, here it is…” I routed around in one of the bags. I found the old history book with its picture of Franz Ferdinand. I showed Rob and relayed the tale of discovering it and our subsequent findings. When he heard everything, Rob looked as baffled as we’d all been.
“Right Lisa: you have some explaining to do. You owe us all that much.”
Lisa looked at all of us with an expression that was difficult to read. “Alright. But what you four need to know is that there’s so much that even I don’t understand. You’re right, though. The mission was never about going into the future. And we’re not technically in the future of our past world.” She reached into her bag. Sean tensed but when Lisa withdrew her hand, all it held was her e-tablet. “Let’s start with showing you the message. The full message. This one is a copy of the hovercon’s. But it hasn’t been damaged.”
She held the screen and sat down, looking up expectantly for us to all gather around, which we promptly did. It was the clip Sean had shown me. Dr Dedman appeared, only this time not as a projection on a tree trunk but on the two dimensional screen. The audio of this clip wasn’t crackling. It was clear enough for us to hear. And Dr Dedman’s crisp voice rang through the surrounding trees.
“If you’re listening to this, then you have successfully travelled through the wormhole.”
The others looked wide-eyed. We’d been taught that wormholes were only theoretical. By Dedman himself. He must’ve lied about many things.
“You need to find the other volunteers. They are currently in the dark and will need to be enlightened when the time is right. They were deceived. I led them to believe that this programme was about sending them into the future. This was a lie. The volunteers were never meant to travel into the future. You’re not in the future. You’re in a new world, a new reality, altogether. There was a different purpose to the mission. You only know the beginning, my child. You are a small cog in a big machine. I need you to be strong… and obedient.
Where you are, you have one imperative task. You need to find a woman called Isory. She is a woman from that world. A woman with certain gifts. Find her. It’s of vital importance – more important than you can possibly imagine. Find her. Then, and only then, watch the next clip. It will explain everything. Do not try to listen to it until you find her. That is crucial. All you and your companions need concern yourselves with is finding Isory. Then watch the clip with her. Good bye, Lisa and good luck.”
The video cut out. It was a surprise that this should be how a father said goodbye to his daughter. But of course that paled into insignificance alongside the substance of what we’d just heard. It provoked a plethora of thoughts and emotions. Yet I was so weary of it all. Each time we seemed closer to the truth, the further away it seemed to slip. It always felt like we were so close to answers; but that last push, that last burst of clarity, seemed to be constantly eluding us – perpetually around the corner.
“So…” Jack broke the heavy silence. “We went through a wormhole?”
“So it would seem.” Sean’s voice, still husky from all the smoke, sounded as deathly tired as I felt.
“But why?” Rob asked Lisa, “What’s the point of this mission? I bought into Dedman’s whole ‘for the sake of Science’ reasoning but this sounds like something else is going on… and how does Isory come into it?”
Lisa looked taken aback. “Do you know her?”
“Yes,” the rest of us said in unison.
“You all know her? How am I the only one who doesn’t know her? And I’m the one who’s actually been looking for her!”
“I don’t know about these two, but Mac and I met Isory the first year we were here. She helped me out of a bad situation. She’s a Luler,” said Rob. “How do you know her?”
“She just helped me out of a ‘bad situation’ too.”
“Ah. Vagosi-Rima?”
“Yes.”
“Well you all heard the message,” Lisa said, rather frantically. “We have to find her!”
“And why should we do that?” Rob demanded. “Why should we do anything your ass of a father says? When he lied to us all. When you lied to us all.” Rob didn’t raise his voice. But he was talking through his teeth, which was far more intimidating. Yet Lisa had never been one to cower to Rob.
“Oh, I’m sorry your feelings are hurt,” she shot back, voice seeped in sarcasm. “Don’t you get it, though? There’s something bigger than us going on here. Take your head out of your own arse and tell me where we can find Isory.”
Looking over at Jack and Sean, their expressions – like Rob’s – were unforgiving.
“I think what we need,” said Sean quietly, “is to see the rest of that clip.” Lisa didn’t respond. But her face looked incredulous. “Lisa – we’ve been waiting for the truth this entire time. Ever since the lids of our Bunkies opened and we learned that we weren’t five hundred years in the future, but over three thousand. We didn’t have a clue what was happening. It turns out that, after all this time, you had the answers. You owe us. You owe us for all of the lies.”
“Look, I’m sorry I lied to you all, I really am.” Although Lisa sounded markedly un-contrite. “I was choosing the right time to tell you about the wormhole, and about Dedman.” I was surprised by the level of impersonality she used when referring to her own father. Albeit, adopted father. “But everything that man did, he did for a reason. He may’ve been a lousy father but the man was a genius. If he said that it’s important we don’t listen to the next clip until we find this Isory woman, we should do exactly what he says.”
Without warning, Rob leapt forward. He tried to snatch the e-tablet from Lisa’s hand, but she wrenched it free. They ended up losing their balance and toppling onto the ground, struggling to get hold of the device. They looked like two bickering siblings. It would’ve been comical had there not been so much at stake. Rob predictably won. He tore the e-tab from Lisa and left her on the leafy ground. Rob proceeded to fiddle with the screen, hurriedly swiping his hand along in an effort to find the next clip.
“Put it down Rob!” came Lisa’s authoritative voice. “Put it down or risk saying goodbye to Jack.”
While all of us had our attention concentrated on Rob, Lisa had come up behind whoever was closest to her. She was holding a knife to Jack’s throat. Rob’s initial shock dissolved into a slight smirk.
“Come on, Lisa. You’d never.”
“Oh yeah?” she returned. “Of course I don’t want to. But I was deadly serious about this mission being more important. Call my bluff if you like but do you really want to gamble with Jack’s life? Put it down.”
When Rob continued to stare Lisa down, she applied a bit more pressure to the knife. A trickle of scarlet began dribbling down Jack’s throat. Before, I’d never have thought Lisa capable. It seemed so out of character – mind you, so did the obedient daughter role. We were learning a lot about Lisa that day. Moreover, having just seen how her father communicated with her, and from what she’d said of him, I surmised that she must have some seriously unresolved abandonment issues. I appealed to Rob: “Just put the thing down. It’s not worth risking Jack’s life over this!”
Lisa’s eyes were unflinchingly trained on Rob’s face. So she didn’t see when Sean came at her from the side and tackled her, once again, to the ground. Another struggle ensued. Lisa was a strong fighter anyway and Sean had nearly been roasted alive only a matter of hours earlier so he was weak. Lisa used this to her advantage. She ended up on top of Sean; pinning him down, hands around his throat. Lisa’s expression was wild, and Sean was choking. I didn’t truly believe that she had it in her to kill one of us. Here, we were the closest thing we all had to family. But Lisa seemed to have forgotten that Sean’s near-asphyxiation that day had made him a lot feebler – and potentially a lot easier to suffocate.
Before the others reacted, I grabbed a large stick, leapt forward, and whacked her over the head. She was knocked off Sean, stunned, and Sean managed to roll over so that this time he pinned her to the ground face down.
“Hand me something to tie her hands.”
Rob tossed him a frayed bit of rope, which had been binding one of us earlier. Lisa was still dazed so she didn’t resist as her hands were fastened. I didn’t want to hit her; but there didn’t seem to be any other choice at the time. It was difficult to think we were turning on each other. An uncomfortable comparison to Lord of the Flies came to mind.
Dusk was starting to fall. Across the waters of the lake, smoke was still rising, and the various buildings that had been glowing with fire were being doused. The battle must be over. I wondered who had won. Or if I even cared.
The others tied Lisa to a tree. As the only other woman of the group, I felt I was letting the female side down by staying silent. But Lisa had only just held a knife to Jack’s throat, and constricted Sean’s. This assuaged any guilt. Lisa expelled a stream of diatribes as they secured the knots.
“We don’t want to, Lis,” said Rob heavily. “But if you don’t shut up we’ll gag you.”
But at that, I had to put my foot down. So, instead, we left Lisa and set up camp a couple of hundred or so metres away: far enough so we couldn’t hear her cursing. We started a fire because it was getting chilly, and because the Broeni or Khorenni – whoever now held power in Broena – wouldn’t be able to see us across the lake, and even if they did, the smoke would be camouflaged by the rest of the residual smouldering of the battle. Sean eyed the fire uneasily. He’d probably never look at fire in the same way again.
We decided to get moving in the morning. For what destination, we didn’t yet know. But we didn’t want to think about it: we were all exhausted and just wanted a wash and a rest. We agreed to get cleaned up and settled before finding Dedman’s final message. Despite the general fatigue, the buzz of anticipation was tangible. Hopefully this message would be the last piece of the puzzle, and would answer all of our questions.
I left the men to take my own bath, following the edge of the lake until I was out of sight from them. Unclothed immersion in the fresh lake water felt heavenly after the sweat and smoke of the day. Not to mention after our muddy imprisonment the night before. I submerged my head and let myself hover, suspended in the water. No sound could be heard. Wonderful nothingness. The water was providing its own sort of vacuum. When I resurfaced I saw that darkness was beginning to fall.
So much had happened that day, and in the days before… and the weeks before. And months. Today, I’d nearly watched Sean burn to death. For several long hours, I’d thought he was gone again. And I hadn’t had the chance to speak to him properly since learning I hadn’t lost him after all.
As this thought occurred, I heard footsteps wading into the lake behind me. Perhaps the same thought had occurred to him. Turning, I could see Sean approaching in the half-darkness, naked. He was covered in ash and dirt so that, as he submerged himself in water, black wisps clouded away from his skin. He halted when the water was at his midriff. Wordlessly, I came behind him and started gently washing away the dusty soot from his shoulders and upper back.
“Come here.” Taking his hands, I gently led him down under the water so that he could share in the wonderful nothingness. He probably needed it more. When we resurfaced, his face was cleaner, albeit bruised.
“Thank you, Sean.” I ran my hands through his beard. “For today.”
We both knew I was talking about his sacrifice. And while I wanted to say that he shouldn’t have done it, I thought it would not only sound ungrateful but also fall on deaf ears. After all, Sean was Sean. He would’ve done anything to help others. That was why I’d once loved him. Why I still did. I knew that he would need to be comforted, not confronted, after suffering such a traumatic prospect – that of burning alive – only hours earlier. But Sean was unresponsive to my attempted caresses and kisses.
“I thought I was going to die today,” he said eventually.
“I know.”
“Do you know what I felt?” I shook my head. “Nothing…. I felt nothing.”
I wasn’t sure what Sean meant. Perhaps he was referring to the numbness that was so familiar to me; perhaps it had claimed him too. I didn’t want to push. I continued gently rinsing off the residual soot lingering on Sean’s skin. I went around him, tracing the blackness from the muscles of his shoulders and back. He gently pulled me to face him. Despite the increasing dark, Sean’s features were still distinguishable. You could perhaps attribute it to the darkness, but his eyes had lost their usual glimmer.
“What did we do, Lyndall? Why did we come here… And, now, what’s the point of it all?” His questions, and their tone, provoked an overwhelming empathy which twisted my insides. Sean had always been strong. It was unsettling to see him vulnerable and hopeless.
“You followed me here, Sean. That’s why you’re here. Because you’re the bravest man I know. And now we’re going to find out everything. Then, hopefully, we’ll know what it’s all for.”
I felt his hand on my neck. He brought his face closer to mine so that our foreheads were touching. I couldn’t stop the shiver, but whether it was one of cold or desire was difficult to know.
“Let’s head back,” said Sean, interpreting it as the former.
Back with the others, we shared a mundane supper of tinned vegetables, and the e-tablet lay conspicuously on the ground between us like a ticking bomb. The power it was radiating over us fuelled a burning quite different to the flames of the bonfire; a burning curiosity.
