Crossover, Page 3

latest revelation, the door to the lab opened again.

  "Redmond!" Rachel cried. "I remember..." but it was too late. A number of things happened at the same moment: A third Redmond Quain entered the room with weapon drawn, and set to maximum. He moved with lightning speed to where he could get a good shot at Dillard, apparently immune to the effects of the nexus and oblivious of the other two in the room. Redmond raised his weapon, and for the first time since this began, knew exactly what course of action he must take.

  The second Redmond fired on the third and vaporized him in mid stride. His shock and surprise burned itself into Redmond's mind as he watched himself die in agony. Yet, without hesitation, he fired on the first double, sending that self to the same fate as the first.

  A strange knowing smile crossed the double's lips as he faded out of existence. Then all that was left was a photon weapon, clattering on the concrete floor. The nexus was weakening, but not completely gone.

  "My God, Redmond. What have you done?" The voice echoed it's horror through his mind.

  "Given this planet, and us, a new lease on life I hope. But it's not over yet, Rachel. Those two were from the distant future. Our future, not our past."

  "What are you saying?" Rachel asked.

  "What I'm saying is, this is the first time we've done this but it won't be our last. We may have to reevaluate our course of action. A wrong decision now will mean repeating what we just went through, ad infinitum."

  Redmond noticed that Doctor Dillard had come out of his comatose state and was holding the abandoned photon weapon in his hand.

  "I have seen the future, Mister Quain. I can not allow my work to be perverted in that way."

  Tears rolled down his cheeks as he held the weapon to his temple. Redmond lunged across the room to stop the inevitable, but Dillard had already pushed the fire button, and was dissolving before his eyes. The nexus subsided.

  "I'm bringing you back, Redmond." Rachel said. The link vanished, only to return full force when Redmond re‑materialized in the twenty sixth century. Rachel flung her arms around him, and they flowed into each other as if they were a single unit.

  "We're back where we started from, aren't we?" Redmond asked in the after glow. Rachel handed him a data pad from her desk.

  "It seems Doctor Dillard's assistant, Doctor Adra Davis, completed his work and sold it to the Agency. They made her chief of medicine where she went on to modify R6 for the war effort. Two years later there was a successful democratic uprising, the war was stopped by the new interim government, and a few weeks later she was mobbed and bludgeoned to death."

  "So the time line, up to this point, has been restored?" Redmond sighed and leaned back against the wall. “Mission accomplished.”

  "That's something we have to talk about." Rachel said in a low voice. Redmond pushed himself forward and faced her.

  "What do you mean?" he asked with a ting of exasperation.

  "I know why you killed your doubles. At the same time Dillard pushed the trigger and took his life, I was linked with myself in the two future time lines your doubles came from.

  You were right when you said it wasn't over, and it will never be finished as long as crossover exists. We don't belong in this time line, Redmond. We came here to find a way to prevent the destruction of the planet in the late twenty ninth century, not in the late twenty second. The focal point was not Dillard after all. I'm not sure what happened, but it just goes to show how messed up things have become.

  In a very real way, those two were from our past. Somewhere in the future, you've left me grieving for you in two time lines that now exist simultaneously with this one. Over the years we have been doing this, distortions we had no way of knowing about have been accumulating. Now there is no way to know anything for sure anymore. If you had killed them in any other continuum outside of the nexus, you would have ceased to exist all together, but you knew that. I have to believe you knew."

  "It was the only thing I could do." he answered solemnly. “I knew they were both from the future. If I died, they would never have existed anyway. If one of them had been from the past, I would have turned the gun on myself.”

  "You have to go back, Redmond."

  Quain steeled himself for what he knew was coming next, but he had to ask the question, if only on the off chance that he was wrong. "To what time period?"

  "A couple of days before you met me." Rachel said without emotion. His worst fears were being realized.

  "You were right, back then. I should have known I couldn't stay in control of crossover forever. We came to save this world, but every step we take just drives us deeper into uncertainty."

  He took her in his arms and kissed her. Their minds intertwined for what they knew might be the last time.

  "You have to stop me from creating it, Redmond." she said catching her breath. "No matter what it takes. Do you understand?" She knew he did.

  Even now he was mentally preparing for this next mission. Though the totality of what she was asking threatened to drag him to the depths of despair, he silently promised her he would find a way to make things right. He wouldn't let it come to that. He couldn’t. His arms tightened around her, and he gained strength from her. “I'll miss you." he whispered “I always miss you.”

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