Redemption: Supernatural Time-Traveling Romance with Sci-fi and Metaphysics Page 24

His pixels rippled and he looked his usual self again. “You have a video message.”

  Ann sat up in her seat, intrigued. “Well let’s see it then!”

  Immediately the waterfall graphic on the windshield disintegrated, replaced with a beautiful bouquet of white roses against a pink background. The sound of birdsong and gentle music filled the car as did the gentle smell of flowers.

  “Nice!” said Ann, smiling in appreciation. “Who’s this message from?”

  As if in answer to her question, Michael’s face appeared over the roses, a charming smile lighting up his eyes.

  “I wish you a wonderful day, Ann!” said his recorded voice. “Looking forward to seeing you soon!” With that, the waterfalls returned as the message ended and the birdsong and the music faded away. Ann sighed and breathed in deeply, savoring the last fragrance of the flowers before it evaporated. Closing her eyes she allowed herself to daydream for a little, thinking back to the vision of Isabelle as she toyed with the handsome Albert, though instead of Albert’s face she pictured Michael instead.

  We haven’t been in touch for quite a long while… Since that dinner and dancing in the nightclub. Ann sighed. He left me alone then… once again in fact… “Who is this guy?” she whispered in irritation. “What is his intention?” The words fell into a silence without answers as the car continued its journey through the tunnel.

  “Well, that was a nice message!” said Rob, now appearing with curly blond hair like Michael’s, his voice chirpy and a broad grin on his face.

  Opening her eyes, Ann frowned in Rob’s direction. “You’re no help, Rob! I need to talk to someone who understands about these things!”

  “Would you like me to find you a relationship counselor, my lady? According to my database there are twenty-seven in the central Chicago area alone.” To demonstrate this, a stream of names and contact details scrolled across the screen of the E-A device.

  “Thank you, Rob, but no. I know exactly who I need to talk to.”

  Rob’s face, his hair a mass of unruly curls, reappeared, giving her a knowing look. “I’ll put a call through to Nina then, shall I?”

  Nina answered on the first ring and her face appeared emblazoned across the windshield.

  “Ann, darling, I was just talking about you.”

  “You were?” said Anne, hunting for the switch to move her seat back so her friend’s image was not quite so overwhelming. “Who with?”

  “With dear Federico. He’s such a love.”

  “Federico?” Ann looked up in astonishment. “Who’s he? What happened to… what’s his name? You’ve only been seeing him for a week or so.”

  “You mean George? Oh, he’s still around, sweetie, don’t worry.”

  “So who’s Federico?”

  “He’s what you might call a comparison. Just a little something to lay alongside George.”

  Ann laughed. “Laid is right! Your ever-changing stream of boyfriends will never end. Could we talk about mine for a moment, please?”

  “The lovely Michael?” Nina raised her eyebrows in delight. “I didn’t realize he was your boyfriend, darling. Go you!”

  “Well, no. He’s not. That’s the problem.”

  Nina put on her serious face, which just made her look even more mischievous. “Tell me about it, my sweet.”

  “One moment,” said Ann, disengaging the car from the tunnel’s SmartDrive server and taking hold of the wheel. “Just coming up to my exit.” Finding herself sitting too far back to reach the pedals, she fumbled around for the button again to make the seat move forward.

  “Are you done?” asked Nina, her face shifting from the windshield to the E-A device. “What’s the problem?”

  “It’s just all moving too slowly,” said Ann, steering the car up the ramp to join the city traffic.

  “Too slowly for what? For sex?”

  “I guess,” Ann shrugged expressively. “Sex, something tangible, the suggestion that there is a relationship at the end of all this. That we are more than just friends.”

  “Well, I can’t say I’m surprised, darling. He’s an archaeologist. Those boys deal in eons and ice ages, and they move about as slow as a glacier. Can’t you wait?”

  Ann threw up her hands and quickly grabbed the wheel again to avoid hitting a cyclist. “Of course I can wait. But I’ve been waiting for years! And now that I’ve found a nice guy, waiting is not what I expected. He’s taking forever to make any kind of move to the next level. What the hell can be wrong with him?”

  “He’s an archaeologist, like I said. Glaciers, remember!”

  “Point taken.” Ann pulled up at a set of traffic lights and looked at her friend’s face, still wearing its serious expression. “Tell me, Nina. In your experience how long does the average man take to get going with the physical side of things?”

  “It depends, darling,” said Nina, considering the question for a moment. “At one end you have guys like Graeme, you remember him don’t you? The stock car racer? Unfortunately he wasn’t so speedy in the bedroom. It took over a week to get him to take me for a spin! Then at the other end there’s Paul.”

  “Paul?”

  Nina smiled at the memory. “Paul the banker. Terrible bore, but thankfully wasn’t interested in conversation. By my reckoning it was under three minutes from me walking into the bar and him bedding me.”

  Ann stared in surprise. “Three minutes!” A car behind her beeped its horn and she realized the lights had turned green. “He bedded you in three minutes?”

  “Well, his hotel room was just above the bar. Classy boy, Paul!”

  “So in your experience anywhere between three minutes and a week is how long we should be looking at?”

  “Give or take, yes. How long has it been with Michael?”

  “More than three months!” Ann shouted, thumping the steering wheel and accidently beeping at the car in front.

  Nina’s face disappeared from the screen, replaced by what looked like a ceiling light. “Sorry,” she said, bobbing back into the picture. “I knocked the phone over. More than three months? Three months! How have you survived, darling? It sounds like torture.”

  “It does, doesn’t it? And yet he keeps leaving me lovey-dovey video messages and wanting to meet up for outdoor activities.”

  “Outdoor?” Nina says the word as though spitting out something unpleasant. “A lover whose activities are all outdoors is no lover at all, sweetie! Your Michael is a strange one.”

  “He’s not my Michael! And since he doesn’t seem to want to take this relationship anywhere, I’m wondering what it is that he actually wants… Maybe he’s a spy.”

  “A spy? Like James Bond? Well, darling, that would certainly be something, a proper Hollywood thriller! But I thought such men were supposed to be swift workers when it comes to indoor activities!”

  “Not that sort of spy. I mean like a competitor. Someone trying to find out what we’re up to at A.I.I. and milk me for information.”

  “Has he tried to… milk you?” Nina laughed at the idea. “Do you talk about business with him?”

  “Not at all,” said Ann, the frustration clear in her voice. “But I can’t see any other reason for him being so damned nice to me all the time. If he doesn’t want this,” she gestured to her body, though Nina couldn’t see most of her, “then what else could he be after? Maybe he’s waiting for the right moment to hack into my computer or force valuable insider information out of me.”

  “But even if he is a corporate spy, he’s still a man! And men only really want one thing.” Nina winked at her, to make sure her meaning was clear.

  “I guess. Unless he’s got a girlfriend or a wife back home somewhere, and he doesn’t want to cheat on her.”

  “Seems unlikely to me, darling. All men cheat if they can get away with it. At least, all the men I know anyway!”

  Ann sighed, slightly louder than she meant to, and was glad to see that she was nearly back at her apartment building. “I’m exhausted, Nina
,” she said, and sounded it. “I need to get some rest and forget about all this stuff for a while.”

  “Come on, darling. It’ll all be all right. You’ll see.” Nina gave Ann a kindly smile. “He could just be a bit crappy at relationships. And let’s not forget the ice ages and glaciers. He’s an archaeologist remember, maybe he’s just playing a long game. A really, long game. Whatever it is, it’ll all become clear in time.”

  Part Four

  PEACE

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Corporate spy!”

  Ann looked up from her display screen to see Linda halfway along the aisle in front of her, pointing across the office. There was a broad smile on her face and a large orange-yellow giraffe on her dress.

  “Quick everyone!” shouted Linda, with a laugh. “It’s a corporate spy!”

  Ann craned over her desk to see who Linda was talking about, and caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a man on crutches. She stood up to get a better view, but at the same moment the whole floor burst into action with people jumping up from their desks and rushing over to surround the newcomer.

  “Let me through,” said Ann, weaving her way among the press of bodies. “Let me through, come on.” But she could hardly make herself heard over the buzzing chatter of her colleagues. Suddenly a hand reached out, grabbing her arm and she turned to see John hurrying along behind her.

  “What’s going on?” he asked. “What’s all the excitement about?”

  “No idea. That’s what I’m trying to find out.” She glanced down at John’s hand on her arm, her eyebrows raised.

  “Sorry,” said John, releasing Ann quickly and rushing to follow as she pushed on through the crowd. At last she emerged in the center of the throng to find Linda with an arm around the man she had pointed at. Distracted for a moment by Linda’s outrageous dress, Ann took a moment to realize that the man next to her, supporting his weight on a pair of crutches, was Peter.

  “I don’t believe it!” said Ann, staring at her colleague in amazement. “Look at you, up and about.”

  “Hi Ann,” said Peter, inching forward on his crutches. “Good to see you too.”

  Ann stepped forward, ignoring the hand he was holding out and hugging him instead.

  “Ow!” he said, but with a little chuckle to show he wasn’t really hurt.

  “Well. I must say you look much better than the last time I saw you, with all those tubes and machines attached.”

  Peter pretended to frown. “Why did you have tubes and machines attached to you?”

  “Funny,” said Ann, shaking her head. “I see you managed not to damage your sense of humor. Pity.”

  John burst through the crowd behind Ann, almost bumping into her, and stared at Peter. “Look at you!” he said. “You’re all up and about.”

  Ann turned to gaze at him. “We’ve already done that, John.”

  “Doesn’t he look well?” said Linda, stepping forward to stand next to Peter as if claiming ownership. As she did so, Ann caught a whiff of Linda’s perfume and coughed. Well, whatever she’s wearing it isn’t French and Louis certainly wouldn't like it! She smiled at the thought and passed it off as her delight in seeing Peter again.

  “So what are you doing here?” asked Ann. “You must only just have got out of the hospital.”

  “This morning, yes, but I wanted to let you know that the doc said I could be back at work in a couple of weeks.”

  Ann looked surprised. “And you couldn’t just send me a message?”

  “You know me,” said Peter, smiling confidently at his boss. “I like to do things in person.”

  Ann was impressed and, for the first time, she realized that Peter would probably make a good team leader.

  “Let’s have a chat,” she said. “John?”

  John jerked to attention at the sound of his name. “Yes?”

  “Which Mike is free at the moment?”

  After a moment’s consideration he said, “Mike-7 is free all day.”

  “Excellent!” Ann turned to her giraffe-covered colleague. “Linda. Please could you help Peter into Mike-7 and give him anything he needs? I’ll join you in a few minutes. I’ve just got a report to finish.”

  “It’s okay,” said Peter. “I can get there okay. In fact…” He lifted both his crutches off the floor and held them out to Linda. She looked around for somewhere to place the E-Panel that was forever clutched in her hand.

  “Ann,” said Linda, turning to her and holding out the E-Panel. “Would you mind?”

  “Sure.”

  Having handed the device over, Linda took Peter’s crutches, and he began to walk, slowly but steadily, across the office to the applause and cheers of his gathered colleagues. Ann glanced down at the E-Panel and her eyes were drawn to a single word written on the screen: Michael. Next to this name was a group of numbers and, although she only glimpsed it for a moment, it looked similar to Michael’s number at the Field Museum.

  Surely not, she thought. Not Michael and Linda! Suddenly feeling anxious and confused, she handed the E-Panel to John and made her way through the crowd again. Back at her desk, she tried to focus on the last paragraph of her report, but it was no good. She kept finding herself thinking unhelpful thoughts about Michael and Linda. This is crazy! It probably wasn’t even his number, or even my Michael. And he’s not even my Michael, so what am I getting so worked up about? Have I really fallen in love with him? Is this what unrequited love feels like?

  Unable to concentrate, she headed to Mike-7 to talk with Peter. As she entered the room she was pleased to find Peter alone, with the exception of Mike’s ever-smiling face, though the air seemed full of Linda’s terrible perfume, and Ann had to take a moment to compose herself.

  “Right then, Peter,” she said at last, sitting down on the opposite side of the meeting room table. “A lot can happen in two weeks…”

  ~

  The following morning, as Ann took the tunnel to the supermarket, more as a diversion than anything else since the SmartHome server sorted all of her delivery needs, she still found herself troubled by the same unhelpful train of thought. The night’s sleep had only managed to make things worse as, once again, her dreams were disturbed with the same strange images as before. What’s going on with me, she wondered. I feel like a ship in a storm being tossed about by the waves of fate.

  “What do you know about fate, Rob?” she asked, as much to distract herself as to get information from him. “The psychic said it’s a sort of pre-written script for a person’s development, something that cannot be changed.”

  “Interesting,” said Rob, nodding on the screen of the E-A device. “My sources would agree, though it’s less like a written script than a program.”

  “Like a television program?”

  “Like a computer program, much like the one that is used to run me. I cannot change my code, and in that sense I am restricted to do what I have been programmed to do. Yet at the same time, I am constantly growing in knowledge, both through my research and interaction with you. You humans are far more complex, but your individual fate works in much the same way.”

  Ann considered this for a moment. “So, are you saying that the script or program for my life is set? That I cannot change it?”

  “Not exactly.” Rob’s image flickered as he took on the appearance of a professor, complete with mortarboard, gown and glasses. “Let me explain. At present you are Ann living in twenty-first century America. However, as you have seen, you were not always this person. In former lives you have been Mi, a woman from the Stone Age, and Ra, a priest of Isis in the Roman Empire. And during the reign of Louis XIV, you were Isabelle, a girl from Paris. Correct?”

  “Er, yeah,” said Ann, impressed. “Nice summary. But what has this to do with fate?”

  “You will recall our conversation about Karma?”

  “Of course. It’s the effect that one life has on the next, yes?”

  “Correct!” Rob’s hand appeared on the screen and stuck a g
old star in the corner. “Now imagine I have a bug in my programming.”

  Ann smiled. “That’s not hard. Especially when you look like that!”

  “If I had a bug,” he continued, ignoring her, “which I don’t, of course, you would get your guys to go into the program and fix the code, yes?”

  “I guess so.”

  “And then you would upgrade me, so I had a new bug-free program; a new life, if you like.”

  “Are you saying that’s what I’ve done as I’ve gone from one life to another?” said Ann. “I’ve been upgraded?”

  “Exactly,” said Rob, beaming at her and sticking another gold star in the corner of the screen.

  But Ann was unconvinced. “So who upgrades me?” she asked. “Who fixes the bugs in my program?”

  “Well you do, of course! When you use your Free Will to make correct choices, you are working to upgrade or develop yourself, shaping your own program, your own fate.”

  Ann thought about this as she disconnected from the tunnel’s SmartDrive system and headed towards the exit. Could this really be true? Had her life in twenty-first century America really been shaped by the lives of Mi, Ra and Isabelle? Had there been other lives in more recent history that had also affected her life now?

  “So let me just get this straight,” she said, merging with the Chicago traffic. “My fate is already set, but it has been shaped by my Free Will choices in past lives. Is that it?”

  “Exactly,” said Rob. “The reason your Creator gave you Free Will in the first place was to make you each different, unique individuals instead of uniform robots produced in some divine mold.” He put on a sad face. “Unfortunately I have run out of gold stars.”

  “Pity,” said Ann with a smile. “I was doing rather well! Explain more about the relationship between fate and Free Will. How exactly do they work together?”

  Rob seemed to ponder this for a moment, though Ann knew this was just part of his programming; he could analyze many terabytes of data in a fraction of a second. “Fate and Free Will work together well. You’ve been given Free Will so you can choose your personal direction, but your choice does not remove the next milestone of your fate. You still have to come that next programmed point.” Rob eyed Ann from the screen, noting the thoughtful look on her face. “Consider this,” he continued. “We are on our way to the supermarket, which, if you turn right at the next set of lights, we will approach from the south entrance. However, if you choose to turn left instead, you will end up approaching the same shop from the north. However, your purchases will not be affected by this and you will still end up going to the shop. This is similar to fate and Free Will. You cannot escape your fate, but you can choose how you face it.”