Dan reddened a little. "Honestly, I thought this would be open-and-shut:
I'd ask you if we could go save Dexie, and you'd say yes.
I mean, you did like this girl, didn't you?"

---

 
When Your Tabula Is Not Rasa
 
Chapter 18
 

---

"You know how it is when you lose someone close to you. I sort of made a backup." — The Eleventh Doctor

---

 

"Bring Dexie back?" I echoed. "Back from the dead?"

"Yes," Kristy replied.

"Can they do that?"

"Apparently," Kristy said. "But you really have to hurry, because they are running out of time."

"Why?"

"I don't know why. But there's a limit, a time limit, and we've almost reached it." Once again, I heard the voice in the background, urging Kristy to tell me to hurry.

"Who is that?" I asked. "Who's talking to you?"

"You won't believe this," she answered, almost laughing, "but he's an attorney from Texas."

Puzzled, I retorted, "Why wouldn't I believe that?"

"Oh! You don't know! Because we're on the flying saucer... the spaceship, whatever."

"You and Carla?"

"Yes, and you need to come, right now! If you don't, they won't be able to bring Dexie back."

I hesitated a moment, then asked the obvious question: "Can't they just beam me up?"

"No, I already asked. They don't have that technology." Then, the voice in the background was speaking again. She said Okay to him, and to me said, "Listen, do you have access to a car?"
 

---

 

In the cab, on the way to pick up Arrow's car, I called Lizzie and told her that an issue had come up with the Holderlins (which was true), and that I'd be back as soon as I could.

I even threw in "I love you, Mom," at the end. It seemed like the right thing to do.

Arrow's car was exactly as I left it. It had only been a few days, after all. To retrieve the hide-a-key, I had to get my shirt dirty, lying on the ground and shifting under the car until I could reach the little magnetic box.

But hey! There was a clean shirt in the go-bag in the trunk. So after a quick change (and no, I didn't care if they saw my bra on the security cameras), I took off toward 90 West. As soon as I got out of the city, I called Arrow, and filled him in. I said, "Listen — you have to ignore the GPS tracker, especially if it turns off. Once I'm on the saucer, I don't know where we'll go."

"Where are you now?" he asked.

"I'm on 90 West. Once I pass Granite Lake I'll pull over and they'll pick me up."

"Don't go," Arrow told me. "Do not go. Go back to Spokane or turn around and take Route 2. Get the hell away from there."

"I have to go," I told him. "Otherwise Dexie stays dead."

"You are Dexie," he said.

"No," I countered. "I'm becoming Dexie, but she really is Dexie. If she can come back and live her life, I have to give her that chance. I can't steal her life."

"What about YOUR life?" Arrow retorted. "You realize for her to come back, you have to disappear."

I blanched at that.

"Or," he continued, "you have to go back to being Fred. Do you want that?"

"No," I assured him. "I definitely do not."

"I don't think Kristy wants you to be Fred any more either," he put in.

I sighed.

"I'm almost there," I lied. "I'm going to have to hang up."

"Just say no," he urged me. "Just say no! Don't leave me, Dexie. Don't. And don't do this to yourself. I love you!"

"I love you, too, you crazy man," I said, and turned off the phone.

I hung up because I needed time to think. But what exactly was there to think about? Dexie, if she could come back... I had to help. At the same time, I wanted to pull over and work out what I thought and knew and felt, but there wasn't time. If I stopped, Dexie would stay dead forever.

Obviously, they needed me so they could give Dexie her body back. And then? What would they do with me? They couldn't make me Fred again. Fred's body was broken beyond repair, and two weeks had passed... what a disgusting thought. I'd been embalmed (with everything that goes along with it) and buried. Even if they could clean up that mess, there was no way I'd step back into it. I didn't want to be Fred again. I was NOT going to be Fred, ever again.

Could two of us be Dexie? Could we both be Dexies? Maybe they wanted me back so they could make a clone, and put Dexie into it. Or I could be the clone. Maybe they could give me black hair, so we could be different. I don't know how Dexie would feel about that, but I could live with it. I'd be glad to go live in a different part of the country. All I'd need was a new identity, a new social security number...

Dexie, on the other hand, would be stepping back into the life I had already changed. I've already met her mother. Although, with Lizzie's high tolerance for the improbable, Dexie might be able to simply tell her the truth and start all over again.

And of course I'd give Dexie the composition book with her family history... I'd brought that along.

Hell, I could even go live with Arrow. That would keep me out of the way. I'd be way out of sight. I didn't need to marry the guy. Plus, I felt pretty sure that Arrow could help me cook up a new identity.

Oh, and my petition to change my name — or, rather, Dexie's name! That would be easy to undo. If she didn't show up at the court, or if she showed up and said she'd changed her mind, it would be fine. The process would simply stop. I'll give Dexie the money from her father, along with her birth certificate. I'll have to give her the explanations, too, since Lane won't be willing to do it again. (I'd have to explain *that*, too.)

It would all work out.

Once I'd settled everything in my head, I felt a lot better.
 

---

 

On my right, the watery expanse of Granite Lake was zooming by. I was getting close to the rendezvous, and I'd made pretty good time. It was only twenty minutes since Kristy's call.

To my surprise, the spaceship was parked just off the highway, in plain view, at the southern tip of the lake. Kristy and Carla stood near the craft, waving me toward a ramp.

"Do I just drive in?" I asked.

"Yes," Kristy said, as she and Carla climbed inside. "Get moving. There's no one on the road at the moment, but we can't dilly-dally."

I drove carefully up the ramp and turned off the engine. The ramp closed silently behind us, and we had a quick family hug.

"Sorry to rush you," Kristy apologized, "but they keep telling us that we're running out of time. Come on."

We ascended a spiral staircase, down a hall, and entered a conference room. It looked like any conference room on Earth, except that it had no windows. There was a long bar against one wall, filled with food: fruit, nuts, sandwiches, hot dishes of meat, chicken, rice, pasta, and all sorts of drinks. I helped myself to a large glass of white wine, which was quite nice.

"Are you sure you want to do that?" Kristy asked.

"I'm sure," I said. "Look at me." I held my arms up. "I'm shaking. Do you know what's going to happen?"

As Kristy replied in the negative, the door opened and a good-looking man in his forties walked in. He was wearing a suit and tie. "Are you the lawyer from Texas?" I asked.

"Guilty as charged," he quipped, and came forward to shake my hand. "You can call me Dan."

"Is that your name?" I asked.

"No," he admitted. "I like to keep my interstellar activities off the radar, so to speak." He smiled, but none of us did. "I'm going to sit down, but feel free to sit, stand, eat, drink... whatever makes you comfortable, while I explain what's going on.

"Let me apologize in advance if I appear hasty or insensitive, but time really is running out for your young friend, and I'll explain why in a moment.

"First of all, I have to ask: is Dexie — I mean young Dexie, the one who died — is she your daughter?" He looked from Kristy to me and back again.

"No," Kristy replied. "She is... she was a friend of the family."

"Is she a minor?"

"No, she just recently turned eighteen."

"Good," Dan said. "Now, here is the situation in a nutshell: The young aliens who caused your crash broke a heaping pile of laws, several of which are horrifying and distressing to the aliens in general, but to their parents in particular. Simply the act of racing with you qualifies as a form of harassment known as interfering with native culture, which is already a serious crime.

"But the fact that young Dexie died as a result, makes it a major crime. It's similar to vehicular homicide among us, except for one thing: the aliens take death far more seriously than we do.

"The parents of the young aliens want me to convey their deepest regrets and apologies. They want to express how horrified and mortified they are. They realize how badly this reflects on them, and they hope that you can find it in your hearts to join with them in setting things right. They especially want you to understand that they came as quickly as they could. Unfortunately, their ship had to assist in a rescue operation. There was an accident on another, unrelated ship. Forty-five people were killed, but several hundred were saved. And, because of the nature of their mission here, the survivors had to be off-loaded onto a third ship. Waiting for that third ship to arrive resulted in a delay of several days."

"Why couldn't they just bring the survivors along?" I asked.

"I'll come to that," Dan assured me. "But as to the rest of it, you're all with me?"

We all nodded.

"Next, we come to the reason for all the haste and pressure: The crimes that the young aliens committed against you and young Dexie are so serious, that — in Earth terms — they could spend the rest of their lives in jail.

"It's not really jail, per se, but they would pay for their mistake for as long as they lived. Luckily, they come from well-to-do families, and those families carry insurance that covers cases like these."

"Insurance?" I echoed. "What do they plan to do? Buy us off?"

"No," Dan said. "The insurance covers time travel: a very short, very focused intervention to correct the situation."

"Time travel?" Carla echoed. "Are they going to fix it so the accident never happened?"

"No," Dan said. "That's against the law. What they can do is prevent the accident from killing either Dexie or Fred Holderlin."

"Wait," I objected. "If they really can do this—"

"They can," Dan assured me.

"If they really can go back and alter the past, what do they need us for? If they've got all this power, why didn't they just go fix it?"

"They need your consent," Dan explained. "Time travel is very expensive, but it's also VERY highly regulated. There are all sorts of laws and controls and bureaucracy. They don't use paper, but if they did, there would be a mountain of paperwork on this."

"Why all the hurry, then?" Kristy demanded. "If they can travel in time, they could start next week or next year! Why did the three of us have to drop everything and run? Just because they feel ready?"

"No," Dan said. "You can't just go dipping at random in the past. They are only allowed to touch the recent past, and only if no major events have occurred. There is a time limit, and we've almost hit it."

"What is the limit?" I asked. "How much time do we have?"

"I can't tell you," Dan replied.

"Can't or won't?"

"I won't," Dan said. "It's against the law."

"Why?"

"Because it adds an adversarial element to these negotiations. If you knew how much time was left, you would want to use all that time. One side or the other could use the limit as leverage. If we pass the limit, I'll tell you. But I won't warn you when we get close. Besides, what if a major event occurs while we're talking? We have to make haste, but as carefully as we can."

Stunned, Kristy, Carla, and I looked open-mouthed at each other. Dan watched us, then assured us in a soft, quite voice, as if he were afraid of being overheard, "Don't worry. We have enough time to talk. We don't have time to argue or dissect every detail. We'll address all of your concerns, but we can't waste time. In any case, the decision should be simple. It comes down to this: Is young Dexie going to live or not?"

Dan took a deep breath and drank a little water, then he continued in a normal tone. "The more time passes, the more difficult it becomes to change things. It takes more energy, because there is a kind of unwinding that needs to be done. It also becomes more dangerous, the more time passes, and major events can prevent them from going back at all."

"After they've fixed it... after they change the past, what happens to all the things we've done since the accident?" I asked.

"It all disappears," Dan said, "because those things won't happen."

"We'll remember everything, though, won't we?"

"No," Dan said. "You won't experience it, so you won't remember it. You won't remember any of it."

"Wait," Kristy said. "Back up a step. You can't hold a gun to our heads like that. If we pass the limit are you going to say, So sorry, too late: Dexie stays dead?"

Dan reddened a little. "Okay," he said. "I'll see if I can give you a warning. I'll have to go ask. But honestly, I didn't think we'd need much discussion. I thought this would be open-and-shut: I'd ask you if we could go back and save Dexie, and you'd say yes. I mean, you did like this girl, didn't you?"

"Yes, of course we did!" Kristy protested. "We do! We all do!"

"Are you hesitant because you don't want to go through the accident again?" Dan asked.

Kristy stopped. "I hadn't thought about that..."

"It will be the first time for you," Dan said. "It won't be a repeat experience. I'm sorry to ask you to go through it, but it's the only way."

"Exactly how are you going to save Dexie?" I asked.

Dan got a smug, satisfied look on his face. He enjoyed this part. "Dexie died because the air bags failed. We'll go back before the accident and fix the air bags. Simple! That way, she'll get banged around a little, but she'll walk away without a scratch."

"And me?" I asked with a gulp. "I mean, what about Fred?"

"That was a tricky one," Dan said with evident satisfaction, "but I came up with the solution. Your body was mashed up because you weren't wearing a seat belt. The problem becomes: how to put you in a seat belt? The answer was pretty simple: we'll put seat-belt sensors in the back seat. It will all be done using current Earth technology, and after the accident, the car will be totaled. No one will ever know."

"Hmmm," I said, with a little sadness. Dan didn't notice.

"So!" Dan said, clapping his hands together and rubbing them. "Are we all on board?"

Kristy looked around the table before she spoke. I nodded when she looked at me. She was doing just fine as our spokesperson. "We all want to bring Dexie back. We want her to live and have her life back. But there's something else: we all have something to lose here."

Dan's brow wrinkled. Puzzled, he asked, "What would you lose, exactly?"

"I was epileptic," Carla offered. "The aliens fixed that after the accident."

"I was legally blind," Kristy put in. "And the aliens fixed that. And... I was a little older, too."

Dan chuckled. "I don't think that will be a problem! Let me just run this by my alien counterpart—" and he began to stand.

I put my hand on his arm to stop him. "I have an issue, too," I said.

"And that is?"

"I was Fred."

"I know that," he replied, smiling. "Don't worry! We'll put you back, good as new. You'll be Fred once again."

I looked at him. I squeezed his arm and shook it gently, but somehow I couldn't speak. The words refused to come out. So Kristy spoke for me. "I don't think she wants to be Fred again."

"Oh!" Dan exclaimed. "Really! Well— Huh! I just assumed— I figured... I thought... hmmph! Well, well!" He was clearly flustered and embarrassed. "Now, that's a horse of a different color, isn't it!"

© 2014 by Kaleigh Way