iRobotronic Page 2

  Seffy leaned her head back on the couch and closed her eyes. “I don't have the energy for you right now, Trent. Please go away.”

  She felt the cushion next to her sink down.

  “I know you've been down lately and I'm here to help.”

  Seffy could hear the mocking edge in his voice. Maybe she could get Gareth to do the experiment tonight. Might as well get it over with.

  “Okay, I'll stop teasing you.” He cleared his throat. “Do you wonder why they picked you to go back?”

  “Not really.”

  He leaned close. “Because it really is all about you.”

  Seffy cracked open an eye. “That theory went nowhere last time we talked about it.”

  “Well, I've becoming very adept at listening in to other people's conversations—”

  “What a shock.”

  “And I heard Gareth, Fenn, Eugene, and our buddy Baxter discussing how you're like the hub of a wheel, and the rest of us time travelers are the spokes.”

  “Sounds like geek speak.”

  “No, really. They think we are all connected to you somehow. That Verity chick said the words to you, back in 2006 and the rest of us showed up with you in Montana.”

  “I'm not connected to you, Jared or Cynthia and Eva.” That wasn't exactly true. She'd recently found out Cynthia and Eva had attended the same middle school during the same years she had. And Trent had been born in Big Sky Country.

  “That we know of. Maybe there's something we don't know about yet.”

  “Maybe everyone's connected to Verity instead.”

  “You don't sound terribly concerned about this, Sef. You should be.”

  She sat up straighter and eyed him, not bothering to mask her annoyance. “I honestly couldn't care less. I just want to go home. L.A. home.”

  Trent leaned closer, his gray eyes serious. “You know you don't get to stay there.”

  Studiously avoiding the lips that had so recently moved against her own, she frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean the experiment is to get you there and then back here at the compound. Once they know it works, everyone gets to go back to the future.”

  “That's stupid.”

  “That's the plan.”

  Seffy rubbed her face. “Who says I'd come back? I could end up on Melrose Avenue and ignore the coordinates or whatever at the...what do they call it?”

  “Rendezvous point. But you wouldn't do that. Jared would. Cynthia and Eva would. Heck, I probably would. But you wouldn't.”

  “So I'm the patsy now. Before I was the hub. Which is it?”

  “Both.”

  “Yay for me.”

  Trent was silent for a moment. “Are you scared?”

  She regarded him, noting his tousled dishwater blond hair, his scruffy face and intense expression, and wondered why he liked messing with her. Why did he keep coming around? Did he enjoy verbal abuse? Maybe he was full of self-loathing. It would explain the chip on his shoulder.

  And why had he said he loved her knowing she'd reject him? If anyone had a motive to leave this time and risk a wormhole, it was Trent. Seffy sighed. “Frankly, the unknown is a lot less scary than what I've endured here at the compound.”

  His laughter hit an odd note. “I can see your point there.”

  Seffy slowly got up from the sofa. “Well, as you can see I have a lot of preparations to make, so please leave.”

  He stood as well. “You don't have any preparations. You just want me gone.”

  “True, but I was attempting to be polite.”

  He smiled. “I think I'm wearing you down.”

  “No, I'm just beat.”

  Trent's smile faded. “I don't doubt it. Sometimes I can hear you down the corridor at night. Crying.” He reached out and touched her cheek.

  She flinched at the contact. “Just bad dreams.”

  “Yeah.”

  He turned to go, heading for the closet passage.

  “No, Trent. You use the proper door for all coming and going. There will be no skulking around secret passages anymore.”

  He looked at her and smirked.

  Someone knocked on her door. Damn! She shooed him to the closet and locked it behind him, angry that he was able to get his way after all.

  At her main door she found Malone. The hall lights shone on his bald head, which, coupled with his ice green eyes and dark chin stubble, served to make him look even more villainous than he probably was. Either way, she still didn't get what Lani saw in him.

  “It's time for another lesson, princess.”

  She blinked. “We already had one. Remember?”

  “You think one measly lesson is enough to become proficient in the use of firearms? I still owe you for saving me from becoming a zombie.”

  “Malone, this isn't necessary. You...more or less saved us from the zombies. I think we're even.” And we won't go into that whole selling us out to the bad guys thing.

  He grabbed her hand. “It isn't negotiable. Besides Lani wants you to get to know me better.”

  “This is silly,” she said as he pulled her into the hall.

  “Don't worry, doll, some day you'll thank me.”

  Chapter Two

  “Are you mad at me?”

  Seffy glanced at Gareth who sat at across the table from her in the cafeteria she was now allowed to enter—until the compound powers-that-be changed their minds again. The space resembled any institutional eatery—long tables and benches, stainless steel counters stocked with trays and silverware, even lunch ladies with hair nets.

  She turned her attention back to Gareth. The plea in his eyes erased a little of her angst. That and watching paper targets turn into confetti at the squeeze of a trigger—complements of firearms training with Malone. Amazing how violence could be therapeutic. “I already told you I wasn't mad. I'll go, okay?”

  He stared at his congealing Swiss steak. “It was Fiona's idea to do the big drama thing that way. I fought it, but since she's running the show—”

  “I thought Fenn was running the show.”

  “He is, but this time travel thing, for whatever reason, is her baby. She keeps Eugene, me, and the other science guys cracking at the end of her whip.”

  “Like I said, it doesn't matter.”

  He frowned. “You seem to be taking this awfully well. Aren't you freaked?”

  She looked down at her own wilting salad. “I think I'm all freaked out, meaning my freak is just plain gone.”

  He smiled. “Yeah, I get that.”

  She stabbed a cherry tomato with her fork and watched juice and seeds dribble out the holes. “So why me? How was I chosen?”

  “That goes back to Fiona. You were her pick. She seems to have specific reasons, although she only mentioned that you would be the most likely to come back.”

  “Lani would be the most likely to come back.”

  “I told her that. She said it was you or nothing.”

  Seffy blinked. “Hmmm. I'm feeling fresh paranoia coming on.”

  “I wouldn't blame you. But I do want you to know that I feel really good about this.” He reached across the table and almost touched her hand. “You know I would never put you in harm's way.”

  She forced a smile, thinking of the time he had, even inadvertently. “So, this is a sure thing?”

  He took a breath. “More like 98%.”

  “That it will go right or wrong?”

  “Very funny. That it will go right.”

  “So what happens if the 2% wins out?”

  He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “The worst I think will be that you don't end up in WeHo 2006. You might be in a different place or time period. But I don't think that will happen. Eugene took meticulous notes last time. We'll be able to replicate everything almost exactly.”

  “I'm not sure you can use 'almost exactly' in the same sentence.”

  “There is another option, but it's hardly worth mentioning.”

  Her tomato now looke
d like a deflated shell of a vegetable. Or was it a fruit? “I'd like to hear it anyway.”

  “Have you heard of parallel universes?”

  “Where everything seems the same but it's not?”

  “Yes. The thing is, they're just conjecture. Sci-fi stuff. There's no proof they exist.”

  “But time travel does?”

  He pushed his plate to the side. “Back in L.A., I wouldn't have bought it as a theory. But the compound has some kind of, I hate to say it, mystical properties, that make it more of a possibility.”

  “What's the mystical part? Zombies? Aliens? Pinko-commies?”

  He smiled. “The alien thing was all in your head, complements of that LSD mickey they slipped you.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “But in answer to your question, the keyword here is time travel.”

  “Oh.”

  “It's like a kind of Bermuda Triangle.”

  She smirked. “Hey, maybe all the people here were once lost in the Triangle. They sailed on their ship through the spot, then hasta la vista, they show up in Montana.”

  He chuckled. “That would actually explain a lot of things, baby.”

  She smiled. “Or maybe I'll end up in Atlantis. I'll see if the Atlantans wanna come back to Montana with me.”

  Gareth slid his hand across the table and this time, he did touch her. He rested his fingers on her arm and he looked solemn. “I said that if it worked there was a 98% chance that you would end up in the right place and right time. But even more than that, I think there's a 99.9% chance that nothing will happen at all.”

  “You mean like I'm still here?”

  “Like, yeah. I'm afraid we might just be stuck in 1980 for the rest of our lives.”

  ***

  “So what are you going to do first?”

  Seffy looked over at Lani from where she sat on the sofa. The brunette was stretched out on her bed, her head propped in her hand. Seffy wondered why her friend seemed so excited that she was going to be flung into a wormy chute of time. She shrugged. “Maybe I'll buy a couple of new Juicy Couture tracksuits. The one I have now is shot.”

  Lani's blue eyes twinkled. “Yeah, that'd be good. I can't believe you keep wearing it. It's almost to the point of being pink lace.”

  Seffy smoothed the ragged velour of her beloved suit. It was all she had of 2006 and she just wasn't ready to let go yet. Her fingers sought the J pull on the zipper, but it was gone—probably buried in the sparkly sand near where they'd landed after the blast, the pink rhinestones shining in ironic counterpoint to the pink sky above.

  “How much time do you think you'll have there?”

  Seffy refrained from mentioning Gareth's doubts about ever getting off the ground. “I don't know. They haven't given me any specifics. I don't know if I'll have five minutes or a couple of days. I don't think they'll want me to have too much time, because of that whole Grandaddy Syndrome thing.”

  Lani rolled onto her back, her dark hair spilling over the bedspread. “If I could go back for say, a day, I'd get the full spa treatment, pick out something adorable at Kin's, then head to Morton's for dinner—”

  “We've never been to Morton's.”

  “And I'd let you know how amazing it was.”

  Seffy smiled. “At this point, I don't have any plans of what to do. Maybe I'll see Bruno about this grow-out of mine.”

  Lani wrinkled her nose. “I can't believe how fast your hair is growing. When we got here, your hair was barely shoulder length, now it's almost to the middle of your back.”

  “Must be all those 'additives' they keep pumping into me. Pretty soon I'll be known as Two-tone Seffy.”

  “I like your natural hair color,” Lani said. “Of course you're fantastic as a blonde, but that color of brown looks good on you, too.”

  “It's the color of Irish whiskey and highlights her pansy brown eyes.”

  Seffy stiffened as Trent strolled through her door. “Don't you know how to knock?”

  He smirked. “If I did you wouldn't let me in anyway.”

  She grimaced in response. “What do you want?”

  “Besides the obvious?” He paused, allowing his meaning to soak in.

  Seffy rolled her eyes, hoping Lani didn't pick up on his tawdry double-entendre.

  “Fenn asked me to come and get you.”

  “Fenn.”

  “Yes.”

  “Not Fiona.”

  “Just Fenn.”

  Seffy blinked. “When?”

  “Now-ish.”

  She bit back a groan, not wanting to leave her comfortable spot. After a month and a half of harrowing adventures and hospital confinements, she was enjoying her three weeks lacking in blood and bruises. Just getting off the couch threatened physical pain when one was stuck in the wrong decade, in the wrong state, in an abandoned psychiatric ward of a dodgy compound in the middle of the desert. “Give me a few minutes.”

  “Okay.” Trent sat on the edge of the bed next to Lani.

  “Uh, I'll meet you in the hall.”

  He smiled. “I don't mind waiting here.”

  “I do. Get out.”

  Trent stood up, tried to look forlorn—and failed when he cracked a smile. Once he pulled the door closed behind him, Seffy blew out a frustrated breath. “God, he annoys me.”

  “I think he likes you,” Lani said in a low voice.

  Seffy stood and stretched out the kinks in her muscles. “He doesn't 'like' me. He just wants to bed me.”

  Lani's blue eyes widened. “How do you know that?”

  “Because he's always telling me so.”

  “Well, he is awfully good looking. It would be tempting.”

  “Only to the desperate. Then again, maybe I should just go through with it. Maybe then he'll leave me alone once I've been conquered.”

  “Seffy, that's a terrible thing to say!”

  “Why? How is it any different than going to bed with him because he's attractive?”

  Lani made a face. “Either way, you're just being all mocking again.” She clasped her hands together. “I wish you were back to regular Seffy.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  Lani twisted her hands. “You're just so cynical now, so edgy. I get that you've gone through some bad stuff, and that we're stuck where we don't want to be, but becoming bitter isn't good for you.”

  Seffy knew her friend probably had a point, but she kinda liked bitter at the moment. It helped keep the weepy despair at bay. “I should get going,” she said quietly.

  Lani took the hint and got up to leave. When she was alone, Seffy went in the bathroom and did the basic refresher routine, already wishing the interview with Fenn was over.

  Fenn. What an odd duck—albeit an attractive one with his dark hair and light eyes. Still, it seemed all he did at the compound was offer excuses why they couldn't leave the place. That and date a scary female with a slice-and-dice attitude. All the comforts of home.

  Seffy found Trent waiting in the hall. His gaze was caressing as he reached out to touch her hair. She jerked her head away and shot him a lowering look. “Why does Fenn want to see me?”

  “He didn't say.”

  She snorted. “So what, he asks you to come and get me?”

  “Yep.” Trent headed down the hall.

  Seffy followed a few paces behind. “I can see why you think this place is built in a series of concentric rings. Explains why I feel like I'm going in circles.”

  He sent her a bored look.

  She knew digging for more information would be fruitless, so she stayed silent for the rest of the trip, glaring at the plain ugly walls of the rotten, stupid place where she was trapped—according to Gareth—maybe forever.

  As they neared what she presumed was Fenn's quarters, she saw several security guards milling about. When they saw Trent, she noticed their reluctance as they allowed him through. Seffy offered them a tight smile as she followed Trent. After going through an antechamber with low lights, th
ey entered a bright living area consisting of white shag carpet, black leather, and potted plants reaching for the pink sunlight streaming through the large skylights above.

  Trent paused. “No music.”

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind.”

  She sensed him watching her expression as she looked around the room.

  “We're a few minutes early, so let me go see if he's ready,” he said.

  Seffy shrugged and lowered herself onto one of the couches as he headed toward the kitchen area which flowed from the living room. She wondered why the compound leader got windows when the unwanted guests in the old psych ward didn't. No fair.

  Suddenly she heard a muffled shout from the other room. Seffy stood as Trent rushed back into the living room. “Go tell one of the guards that Fenn needs a doctor.”

  Seeing Trent's white, pinched face got her moving. She hurried through the antechamber and pushed open the doors, grabbing the first guard she saw. “Fenn needs a doctor!”

  Once she saw him bark orders into his walkie, Seffy hastened back into Fenn's quarters. Not sure what to expect, she headed through the kitchen and looked in the door where Trent had gone. What she saw made her cover her mouth with her hand.

  Trent saw her but said nothing as he removed a rubber strip from Fenn's arm. A syringe and ampule lay on the table next to Fenn's unconscious body. The compound leader sat slumped in a chair, his head lolled back. Seffy looked away from his waxen face—and the thin trickle of blood from the injection site. As she heard a commotion coming through the main doors, Trent grabbed the evidence and stuck it in a drawer of a nearby desk.

  A man in a white lab coat burst into the room, followed by three guards. “What happened?”

  “Fenn asked to see us,” Trent said, straightening. “When we got here, he was unconscious.”

  He moved out of the way as the doctor approached. Trent took Seffy's hand and pulled her out of the room. When they were alone, she hissed, “You have to tell the doctor what happened!”

  “Shh! I can't and you know why.”

  They entered the living room. He pushed her down onto the couch. Seffy swatted his hand away. “You knew about this, didn't you?”

  Trent looked past her toward the guards and lowered his voice. “I knew of his problem, not that he was getting juiced while we were on our way in.”