Pest. Control. Technician.
I wanted to argue, but I wanted to escape even more, and reminding them I was right here probably wasn’t the best way to do that.
So, I took a careful step toward the stairs, and neither the crazy-sexy girl with the shotgun or weird computer dude noticed.
“Your father raised you better than that, Karla,” the computer reminded her. “A human being’s job isn’t what defines them. What defines them is—”
“Yeah, yeah, I remember,” Karla half-chuckled, half-grumbled. “It’s their character and the ultimate potential of what they do with their life that decides their impact on the world. Dad certainly programmed his boring life lectures into you, huh?”
Now.
I took off in a full sprint toward the staircase. My heart hammered in my chest as I ran, and the muscles in my legs screamed as they powered my body forward.
“Stop!” I heard her scream.
I didn’t bother looking back. I was almost to the stairs.
Suddenly, there was a loud gunshot from behind me, and a spray of concrete chunks exploded into the air as the floor in front of me was turned into a crater.
I halted in place, spun around, and fumbled at my belt for my screwdriver.
It wasn’t gonna do jack shit against a shotgun, but if this was the end, at least I’d go down fighting. I let out a frustrated scream as I charged at Karla and prepared to stab her with my flat-head.
She shot the ground at my feet once more, but it didn’t stop me.
I was on her in a few more strides as I hauled back my makeshift weapon.
The next thing I knew, I felt the butt of the shotgun hit me in the stomach. As I doubled over in pain, Karla used the barrel to knock the screwdriver out of my hand. Then, in one elegant motion, she twirled the gun around, brought it up to the crook of her arm, and took aim once more.
When I came up for air, I was staring down the barrel of the twelve-gauge.
“You’d really better hope the IFDR is right,” Karla hissed. “Because if you’re not the Wayfarer, I may just have to blow your head off for that little stunt.”
“Karla, please be reasonable,” the man on the screen pleaded. “This is no way to treat the Wayfarer of your dimension.”
“Call me a skeptic,” the brunette woman growled without taking her eyes off me, “but why would a Wayfarer just show up on our doorstep like this?”
“It’s only been five years, daughter,” Dr. Nash mused and clicked his tongue. “Must I really explain to you the two-headed arrow theory again?”
“I remember,” Karla scoffed with a smile. “The idea that time works as a two-way street, and that all events in the present influence both the past and the future simultaneously. ‘Fate,’ as the less-intelligent like to call it.”
“Precisely!” Dr. Nash’s face lit up. “If I had to wager a guess, I’d say a version of us from another dimension, past or future, has been working hard to ensure this Wayfarer ended up in this laboratory, precisely at this point in time.”
“Okay, look,” I gasped as I tried to stand upright. “If you’re going to hold me at gunpoint, you at least gotta tell me what all this science mumbo-jumbo means, for crap’s sake.”
Karla and the face on the screen exchanged cautious looks, and then Dr. Nash nodded slowly. His daughter hesitated for a second, but then she slowly lowered the gun from my face.
“Promise not to try and run again?” she inquired.
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” I lied. “I value my life too much.”
“Oh, so maybe we shouldn’t explain everything to him, then?” Dr. Nash pondered aloud.
My heart sank into my stomach at his words. It must have shown, because both Karla and the face on the screen instantly burst out into laughter.
“He’s just messing with you,” Karla explained. “I’m glad to see this thing still has my father’s sense of humor.”
“And what exactly is this… thing?” I questioned. “Some sort of computer program? How does it know my name?”
Karla strutted over to a nearby desk, pulled out its chair, flipped it around, and then motioned for me to sit.
“You’re gonna want to be sitting down for this,” she warned, “it’s a long, complicated story.”
“I’ve got time,” I joked as I walked over and plopped down in the cushioned seat. “Especially when I’m being held against my will by a woman with a shotgun and her computerized dad.”
“Let us explain everything, and then you will be free to go,” Dr. Nash offered. “However, I believe you won’t want to leave once we let you in on just how special you are.”
What was this, an intervention?
“Alright,” I said as I leaned forward in the chair and rested my chin against my open palms. “Try me. Who are you people, and why are you so obsessed with me?”
“As I said before,” the computer explained, “I am Dr. David Nash. Or, at least, a glimmer of what he once was.”
“So, what?” I interrogated. “You uploaded yourself into a computer? Or are you dead, and this is your daughter’s convoluted way to try and bring you back?”
“As with most things, the answer is ‘somewhere in the middle,’” the glowing face on the screen noted. “Dr. David Nash was a brilliant scientist whose discoveries in quantum mechanics and string theory had the potential to completely change the world. He had it all… a beautiful wife and daughter, the admiration of the scientific community, and so many awards and prizes. He probably would have won a Nobel Peace Prize had he been able to finish his work.”
“So, he did die.” I nodded. “You keep referring to him like he’s dead.”
“We don’t know that for a fact,” Karla sighed and lowered her head. “All we know is my father has been gone for almost eight years now. He might be dead, or he might still be out there somewhere.”
“Out where?” I asked. “Was he kidnapped by one of those people you accused me of working for?”
“Doubtful,” the A.I. on the screen explained. “The IFDR logs show it has been used once, and only once, but the data was corrupted as to when and where Dr. Nash ended up. Every calculation I have made leads back to the theory that Dr. Nash used the device on himself and has been missing ever since. We do not know how he accomplished this, however, since he was not, to our knowledge, a Wayfarer.”
“He spent all of my teenage years building that damn thing,” Karla interjected. “And then, lo and behold, the second it’s finished… the second he might just actually have time for his family again… he up and uses the thing on himself and leaves.”
“He probably didn’t intend to leave, my dear,” the computer-man said. “We’ve discussed this before.”
“Not to sound like a total idiot,” I cut in and raised my hand, “but what exactly does this machine do? Other than host your missing father’s conscience?”
“I am not the conscience of Dimension One’s Dr. Nash,” the computer explained. “I am the conscience of the Dr. Nash from Dimension Six-Eighty-Seven.”
My brain was starting to hurt.
“So, your dad is missing, but the guy in this computer is your dad… from another dimension?” I pointed to the glowing face.
“That’s correct,” Karla explained. “When my father disappeared, I spent months trying to figure out how to operate this machine to get him back. After countless hours of heartache, headaches, and frustration, another version of my father appeared in the lab and offered to help me try and figure it out.”
“You see, in my dimension, it was Karla who used the IFDR too soon and went missing,” Dr. Nash explained. “So, I used my device to send me to a dimension where my doppelgänger was missing. I figured the combined brainpower of my daughter and I would be able to crack the code and bring both of our missing halves back. However, the joke was on me. You see, because of slight variations in the space-time continuum, the version of the IFDR that Dimension One’s Dr. Nash built was much different than my own.”