[Continued from: The Cross Walk] The little A/C unit in the window would sometimes shiver through its constant hum. I had it cranked up as far as it would go but it was laboring to keep the room in the eighties.
"Okay, so you were at your job…" I wrote in my notebook without looking up.
"Just got off work." Enjeru finished off her beer, slid the bottle into the crowd of empties gathering at her elbow and cracked open another. She had taken a shower and was sitting in a racer back tank and bike shorts. She was drinking through a twelve pack of Negra Modelo without breaking a sweat. I had barely finished one and Enzeru drank only water.
We sat the end of the table that had been cleared of the dinner's wrappers and bags. Enjeru had treated us to several entrées off the menu from the kitchen in the Super Mercado. Almost all of which were too spicy for me and meat heavy for Enzeru who was vegan. We ended up splitting a plate of chips and guacamole while Enjeru ate the rest. Though she complained loudy about having to take up the slack she finished practically everything.
"And you were…" I looked up at Enzeru. Having declined a shower she stripped down until she was in a dark camisole and pants. Her hair had been let down from its professional bun into a loose pony tail.
"I was about to rendezvous with my partners to investigate a triple L occurrence." Enzeru consulted her own notes in a device that looked like a semi-transparent card that constantly shifted between luminous diagrams and abstract lettering.
"A triple…?"
"A ley-line lesion." At my blank look she continued "An abnormality in a ley-line such that there are significant imbalances that may lead to a compromised dimensional integrity." I had stopped writing. She attempted to explain again. "Typically there is an acceptable amount of fluctuation within the laminar flow of a ley line but if certain tolerances are excee-"
"She was at work." Enjeru contributed as she picked her teeth.
"At work?" I started to write again tentatively.
"Yes. I was at work." Enzeru sighed and set down her pad. It became a blank opaque tile.
"There is nothing I can find that would indicate rifts, spikes or attenuations of any sort at my last location. And as soon as I found myself on the bus I made D-scan after D-scan. Each one came up negative. Before I was transported and after show the same results which can't be possible. According to this" she tapped the tile "I've not moved from where I was before I came here AND I was in this time and place –on the bus- since before I actually appeared on the bus.
"I contacted my partners and while we were able to communicate via my locator set." She tapped her temple where she had worn the shades. "They could not find me. If I could not be dimensionally located then there should be no way for me to communicate with my team. It makes no sense. It shouldn't work at all."
"So they are looking for you?"
"Not exactly. At least not yet."
"But you can contact them?"
"I shouldn't be able to but yes, I have been in contact with them since I came here. Once on the bus and then while we were at the market."
Enjeru swirled the bottom of the bottle as she made her suggestion "So just tell them where you are. Give them the address: The westbound bus stop at –what was it- Nellis and Vegas Valley, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, North America, Earth, the Solar System, the Milky Way. "
"It's not that easy. That address you just gave is like taking someone to the beach and saying I'm somewhere on the beach when I am actually a single grain of sand on that beach. In order for my partners to find me they need my exact location. "
Enzeru looked at me "But you know this, already: how the DPC works right? I mean, this- rather, our worlds are worlds you created so…"
"No. Yes. I mean… I either I don't know or maybe at one time I did and then forgot...? I know I should know more about you and Enj but I just don't. I have this feeling like everything about you is very familiar in a vague way. Like someone I used to know a long time ago but whose name I forgot but it's right on the tip of my tongue bothering me. Like my mind is saying I know this. I know this. I know this –but nothing comes forward until it does and when it does it's all in flash. Everything. I know everything like I just remembered it all in single moment. And it's too much. Almost as fast as it comes it goes away again. I might know a little more than before but mostly I am kind of relying on you to tell me. And when you do tell me I'm like: Right, right. I knew that.
"I'm sorry. If I could access all of these things I could probably sort this out in no time at all. I mean, what if it's the fact that I can't remember anything that caused this? Like all these things, names and places and details got away from me and are… I dunno." I felt a dread starting to rise within me again.
"KaMu, don't worry." Enzeru had put her hand on my arm and it stilled my growing apprehension like turning off a tap. "If that's the case then we'll figure out how to get you clear again." She went to where she had draped her jacket over the sofa and pulled her shades –her locator set- out. Within the arc of motion she took to put them on they unfolded into their full configuration. "If you don't mind I'm going to use your room while I check in with the DPC and see if they have found out anything."
I scanned the notes we had made earlier about relative time frames. I thought I might be able to make the connection to their timelines in regards to their respective story lines but I needed more information.
"Can you contact your work?" I asked Enjeru.
"My mobile doesn't work but I checked my radio and it's still receiving from dispatch."
"So you talked to them?"
"Nope. I just checked: I can tune in to the other courier channels and the field-wide broadcasts, so I know it's receiving. Then I did a quick ping and they heard me. It works."
"Pinged them? What do they say?"
"Tsch. I told you I didn't talk to them."
"But –maybe they can-"
"Hah. Fuck those guys! I aint giving those assholes a minute more of my life. I'm off for the weekend, chica."
I set my pen down. I would try again when Enzeru was back. She was more adept at handling Enjeru than I was. I opted for small talk. "This probably wasn't the weekend you weren't hoping for."
She gave me a look before finishing her beer and then sliding it over with the others. "Got that right. I had a date tonight that I was looking forward to."
"Oh. I'm sorry."
"So am I, so am I." chin resting on her palm, Enjeru looked out the window. "She's got this fantastic hair that's dyed at least four colors. Pinks n' purples and blue. I called her my little Twilight Sparkle and she kicked my ass."
"Oh."
"She literally kicked me in the ass and then hit me and then threw my own helmet at me. Bounced it right off my fuckin head." She tilted in her seat and pointed at her butt. "I can show you the bruises."
"No thank you."
"God, I love a woman that knows how to hit."
"And she still wants to date you, and you her?"
"Shit, we were laughing our asses off."
Enzeru sat down. She tapped the earblade of the locator set and it retracted itself. It went from black wrap around visor to lightly tinted shades. She looked less than pleased.
"What?"
"Now I can't get through."
"Well, fucknuts. Now what."
"They'll keep looking, right?" I asked.
"Yes."
"What is it, hermanita? I know you enough to know that look says shit aint right."
Enzeru stared at Enjeru a moment before she took the beer from her.
"One of the agents is my S.O."
"Superior Officer? Don't see a problem." Enjeru was bringing up another beer since hers had been snatched.
"My significant other. My fiancée." Enzeru took a good pull from the bottle.
"Oh." I suddenly remembered him. I remembered his name and why she would be worried.
"As long as I had contact with them, I could assure them that I was fine, --that I was in a special detachment and just having technical difficulties. It wont take him long to figure it out." She rubbed her forehead and sighed "There's no telling what he'll do to find me." After saying that she laughed half heartedly "Most of the time that would be some grand romantic proclamation, but where I am concerned he can be a bit… volatile." She shook her head and muttered "He can be such a fucking…" finishing the sentence with a slug from the bottle.
I knew 'a bit volatile' was the understatement of the year but I didn't say a thing.
"First of all…" Enjeru reached into a bag on the cluttered side of the table, pulled out a bottle, poured something clear into a small plastic cup from the same bag. She traded Enjeru's beer for the cup, setting it in front her.
"Where my sister is concerned aint no one more volatile than me. I'mma have to meet this sancho who would make my li'l sis use the fuck-word." She poured two more drinks setting one in front of me before authoritatively clunking the bottle of tequila in between the three of us.
"And second, we are going to make some goddamned toasts." She lifted her cup. "To Twilight Sparkle: May she always hit like a girl."