Out of Sync Chapter 4
Information is on chapter one
The sun was nearly at its high point when Ashley stumbled on something that might finally help them at least understand what was going on, if not cure it. She had just opened her mouth when a girl she didn’t recognize walked in. She had dark skin complimented by black hair and eyes. If Ashley guessed her looks would be best summed up by exotic. This girl looked to be about her age and Ashley had a sinking feeling she couldn’t explain. “Hey Druitt!” the girl called.
“Miss Freelander,” he returned with out looking back.
“People were wondering where you got to,” she said conversationally.
John continued with his book. “I’ve been in here, reading,” he told her. “I’ve barely moved most of the day.”
“Why would you want to be cooped up in dust ball like this?” the girl wondered. It was the same thing Ashley would have said delivered in the exact same tone. Her sinking feeling increased.
“For the same reason anyone goes into a library,” John said. “To read and gather information.”
“That’s why you have informants,” she said.
“I’m reading DaVinci,” John retorted. “I hardly think there are any informants left on him.”
“I guess not,” she agreed. “Listen it’s about lunch time so you should move it along pretty quickly.'
“I’ll be there in a moment,” John said with finality. The Freelander girl shrugged and left. Clearly she knew a dismissal when she heard it.
“Seems like I need to be leaving again,” John murmured.
“Who’s that girl?” Ashley asked quietly.
“Hmm? Oh that’s the ex con your mother brought in,” he said distractedly. “Her name is…Kate. Kate Freelander. It suits her. Or rather it did.”
“Why’s that?”
“She used to work for the highest bidder,” John told her.
“Interesting,” she murmured.
John caught her tone and looked up. Ashley snapped her eyes back to her book but not before John caught a flash of emotion. He was intrigued but decided not to comment on it. “I should be going,” he sighed, closing his own book.
“Yeah,” she agreed. “I actually think I found something but it can wait until after you’re done.”
John reached over to squeeze her hand. “I’ll be back as soon as possible,” he promised. “Would you like to walk me down again?”
“I think I’m gonna wait up here,” Ashley said. “People will start wondering if you just walk everywhere now.”
John gave her a strange smile that she couldn’t quite interpret. “People talk about me all the time anyway,” he told her. “It’s not that unusual.”
“I don’t think we should risk it,” Ashley maintained. “Besides I want to read up some more. There might be more information.”
“That’s a good idea,” John agreed. “If you need anything, you can still come down and get me.”
“I’ll remember that,” she nodded. “Now you’d better get moving before they wonder where you are.” John smiled and squeezed her hand one last time. Ashley gave him a thin smile. As she watched him walk off, Ashley wondered if it was weird that she was actually getting used to him touching her. She guessed that it really didn’t matter because he was the only person that she could interact with anyway.
She flipped through a few more books but didn’t much feel like reading right now. It was a little ironic that the one thing that could save her was the one thing she hated doing. At least she thought it was ironic but then she was never an English major, as her mother liked to tell her. “God this sucks,” she sighed. She was tempted to throw the book across the room in a fit of anger but thought better of it. Flying books wouldn’t do anything to help this situation. Sullenly, she marked the page in the book and went to watch out the window.
She heard her father’s voice before his footsteps. “Ashley,” he called softly. “Ashley, are you still in here?”
“You shouldn’t do that,” she said, not looking away from the window. “People will think you’re crazy. Talking to yourself isn’t a good thing you know.”
“So I’ve heard,” he agreed. He stopped about a foot away from her. “I didn’t think I took that long at lunch,” he commented. “Did you get lonely again or just sad?”
“Neither,” Ashley retorted. “I just didn’t want to think for a while.”
“Understandable,” John nodded. “Where is this book that you found?”
Ashley sighed and continued looking out the window for a moment. Then she pushed away and went back to the table. She opened the book to the page she had marked earlier. “It’s right here,” she said. She pushed the book over to him.
John studied the page she had found. It talked about the plans of DaVinci to make a machine that could propel a man through dimensions, including time as he theorized. “Not bad,” he murmured, “But it does not show the plans. Nor do we have any idea how he would even conceive of such a machine.”
“We’re talking about the man that came up with plans for a tank,” Ashley pointed out. “He was probably an Abnormal.” John turned to her. “What? I pay attention …sometimes.”
“Well that’s a starting point but with out anything further we don’t have much to go on,” John stated. “The question now becomes, what’s our next move?”
“You said Uncle James kept a journal right?” Ashley asked.
John thought back. “If I recall correctly, he did,” John nodded. “At least he did back then. But even if he still kept one for all these years would it not be in the UK Sanctuary? His successor would need his notes.”
Ashley stared at him. "Uncle James is dead?" she asked. John nodded. "Was it my fault?" she wondered in a small voice.
"It was not," he assured her. "He died during the search for the Source Blood. His suit gave out. But he was surrounded by friends which I believe is the way he would want to have gone.
"I wish I could have said goodbye," she whispered.
John reached over to squeeze her hand. "I wish none of us had needed to say goodbye at all," he told her. "But he has gone to a far better place now."
"You think I could convince mom to take me to his grave?" Ashley sighed.
"I've no doubt that you can," John agreed. "But we need to get back to business. Specifically the business of your uncle's journals."
"They should be around here somewhere," Ashley stated.
"As I said before, would they not still be in the London Sanctuary?" he wondered.
“Actually, I don’t think so,” she said. John gave her an inquisitive look. “You’ll have to bear with me because I’m really reaching into my memory but I remember once when I was twelve years old a lot of luggage and boxes were delivered here. Mom and I were …we were playing in the study.” She let the memories wash over her and her voice became far away. “The Big Guy came upstairs looking for mom. I followed her out to the balcony where we watched everything being unloaded. I remember asking her if we were going on a trip.”
“No trip,” Helen told her daughter. “The luggage is not ours.”
“Then who’s is it?”
“It belongs to Hadeek Rashim,” she said. “The man that ran the Sanctuary in India. You might remember him from when we went to visit two years ago. He gave you that pretty carved unicorn.”
Ashley did remember him. He had let her play with his cats. “Why is his luggage being sent here? Is he coming for a visit?” Her mother usually did her business over the computer or the phone but it wasn’t unheard of for people to come visit the Sanctuary to talk to her.
“No he’s not,” Helen told her.
“Then why do we have his luggage?”
“Because he died two days ago.” Ashley looked at her mother curiously. “All his things are being sent to me so that I might go through them,” Helen explained. “To make sure there is no sensitive information. When I’ve gone through and extracted anything his successor will need or anything that would not do well outside the Sanctuary, the rest will be sent to his family so they may mourn him.”
“Will this happen every time someone dies?” Ashley asked.
“When it is someone important in the Sanctuary network, yes.”
“If there was ever someone important in the Sanctuary network it was Uncle James,” Ashley pointed out. “I know that things have been screwed up since the whole Cabal thing but she would still get all of his personal effects. Hell, he probably willed them to her.”
“A good point,” John admitted. “If I know your mother as well as I used to then his journal will be kept in her office. If we want it we will need to think up some reason that she should allow me to see it.”
“You’re not even supposed to know it exists,” Ashley reminded him. “She’ll never fork it over. Besides, he was a hundred and sixty years old. He’s definitely got more than one journal. And you’d better hope you pick right the first time because we won’t get a second chance.”
“Then it appears we are at an impasse,” John sighed.
“Not necessarily,” Ashley said. John raised an eyebrow. “Well she can’t see me right? So I’ll go in, search the place and find what we need.” John didn’t look convinced. “Piece of cake,” she shrugged.
“You can’t just rummage around your mother’s private office,” he objected. “Especially if she’s in there. Things moving on their own will not do either of us much good. She might believe something else has gotten into the Sanctuary and she will lock it up tighter.”
“Ah, figured a way around that," Ashley grinned. "She won’t be in there because you’ll be playing a distraction.”
“Distraction?” her father repeated.
“Yes, distraction,” Ashley said. “Look I’m not asking for anything big, just get her out of the room for a few minutes so I can search.”
“How exactly would you propose I go about that?” he asked.
“Like I know?” she shrugged. “Come on, do what ever it was you did back in the day. God knows you got her attention back then. You courted the woman after all."
John frowned at his daughter. “The rules have changed, Ashley,” he reminded her firmly. “Things are different now.”
“Yeah, I get that,” she said dismissively. “Look, pick whatever topic you want but just keep her out of the office for awhile.”
John decided it was time to switch tactics. “I still don’t like you going in alone,” he stated. “I could do this easier.”
“You get thrown in the SHU and we’re both screwed,” Ashley reminded him. “I’ll take care of it.”
“Will you not be caught on camera?” he wondered.
“Not a chance,” she told him. “Mom doesn’t have cameras in her office. She’s got all sorts of other security but no cameras. It’s where she does her super secret work.”
“Providing you do manage to get and take the books with out your mother’s knowledge,” he agreed, “How do you propose to get them out of the room? There are cameras in the hallways and books walking by themselves will cause no end of problems here.”
Ashley bit her lip. “I hadn’t thought that far,” she admitted.
“I thought not,” John said.
Ashley glared at him. “It doesn’t mean this won’t work,” she insisted. “It just means we need to plan a little more.” She sat back down again to think.
“When was the last time you actually thought out a plan?” John asked her.
“Dude, I have your issues and mom’s instinct. Planning doesn’t usually come into the equation. Now give me a second so I can think here.” John was tempted to remark on that but thought better of it. Instead he went back to the book and tore out the page they’d been looking at for future reference. Then he replaced it on the shelf. “Another thing mom doesn’t like is defacing her books,” Ashley commented.
“We’ll need this to compare to Watson’s journals,” he pointed out. “And besides we’re already contemplating stealing. I don’t see what harm tearing out a single page will do.”
“Have I mentioned I hate it when you’re right?”
“Not in words yet.”
“Well, just so you know I do.” Ashley thought harder. “There is one possibility,” she murmured.
“And that is?”
“I could teleport.”
John stared at her. “Can you?” he asked. “Even in this state?”
“It’s worth a try isn’t it?"
“Where would you go to?” John wondered
Ashley thought about it. “Do you think they still keep the camera on in my room?” she asked.
“I wouldn’t know,” he said.
“I bet,” she murmured, more to herself than him, “that even with them on no one would check them. There’s no reason to. No one would ever go in there for anything. The Big Guy probably doesn’t even clean the place.”
“Mind sharing your idea with the class?” John cut in.
“I’ll teleport to my room,” she explained. “You can follow me when you’re done with mom. I mean other than her, who would go in there? Only Henry and Will know me well enough to think it and the whole grief thing is probably still pretty fresh in their minds so they won’t touch it. It’s the perfect spot.”
John thought about it. “This actually could work,” he agreed
“As long as you can get mom out of her office for say…half an hour tops?” she said, “then yeah probably.
“I believe I can find a way to do that,” he nodded. “Are you certain you won’t need help when in your mother’s office?
“I’ll take care of the office,” she told him, “You just take care of mom.”
“Then let’s begin,” he said. Ashley took his hand as they began the trek to her mom’s office.