24
Reiner Drive
Kayla passed one of the hypercubes to Luna as they lay next to each other, watching the TV droning them about the weather that they fire shots to disperse anyway.
“Your twin called me. On my phone.” Kayla sighed as she looked at a concerned butler looking at her own cube. “Has to be that.”
“We’re leaving for someplace that has nothing in the bank for us, Kayla.” Luna took the cube and examined its sides. “It’s not ours. It’s someone else’s.”
“I know.” Kayla adjusted her own pillow.
The peripheral vision for Luna caught the cube turning purple.
“Kayla.”
The rich girl looked at her own, then at Luna’s own. Her face investigated the new color, and she turned away for a second before she reacted to it verbally.
“I think we should give that a shot. Who knows what we may run into?”
Luna hitched up her eyebrows, slowed her breathing, and looked at Kayla.
“I’m serious. We can just wake up, right?”
“That’s true, Kayla. One more thing.” She eyed the rich girl’s left pocket. “Do you have the clip?”
Kayla placed her hand and retrieved the stack of cash and handed it to Luna.
“Five. Ten. Thirteen. Right.” She passed it back to her. “On three.”
“One, two.”
“And three.”
They found themselves among a bustling city street. Men in denim and women in flat heels. The floor is wet, and the signs above them supplemented the street lights that called the people’s attention if they wanted a drink.
A few of them had their friends by the shoulder. Talking, laughing, blocking half the road and stopping anyone else from advancing away from them. The pair took the first alley inlay that cut away from the main path did they allow themselves to look.
Cabs whizzed by, bicycle peddlers had the radio on blast, the broadcast mentioning something about President Clinton and tax reforms. The mini shack across the street had its vendor talking to a pager clipped onto his shirt.
Some guy with shades rushed towards the painted lines across the street for a grocer, while another pushed a few buttons on his folding phone with a giant antenna sticking out of it.
The homes looked like they were built in the sixties, as evidenced by the peeling paint on some of the doors and the wearing away of the material that flew their team flag.
“Kayla, it looks like we went even further back.”
Kayla looked at the crowd, checked the scrolling board across from her.
April 9, 1993.
She eyed a cab that is coming towards her, and she raised her arm and called for it.
The yellow vehicle slowed to a halt in front of her, and Luna’s arm instinctively shot forward to open the door for her. She waited until Kayla has been settled inside, then she climbed in, and closed the door behind her.
“3109 Reiner Drive.” Kayla drew Luna’s immediate attention. The latter stared at her, the former looked back, then the latter nodded and turned away.
The cab pressed through the suburban town with a flowing foot traffic making a beeline for the city center where a small carnival was being held. The radios were being fired as if the driver were in charge of the cell towers at Newark. The buildings thinned out until they hit the highway, as the sun rose over the plains that their vehicle passed by.
The buildings soon came back, but compared to the ones that they have been next to, these ones have a small lawn in front where some have been clipping away. The paint looked like it was just slathered on last week.
The vehicle rolled into a giant open space dotted with sparse homes, and the cab moved in front of a small house just left of the giant lawn a few old ladies sat around that had their pedigree breeds on a leash.
It pulled over. Kayla handed the driver her hundred and got a handful of coins in return, and the door was held again.
Luna looked at the cab as the doors closed as it sailed away. She took in the quiet that had slowly formed around them both.
Kayla examined the lawn behind her, and the row of small houses in front of her. The far circle of small lifestyle stores looked similar to her.
But the door that stood in front of her sure didn’t.
“The mansion was completed in June 1996, Kayla.” Her efforts were futile in halting her master from pressing on the bell.
“Coming!” The voice opened the door and revealed itself belonging to a man in his 50s in an old tuck shirt. “Can I help you, young lady?”
“Do you know of a Ryan?” Kayla’s frail tone was looked on by her butler in the background.
“Ryan— Ryan— Honey, do we know anyone named Ryan?” He craned his neck backwards to shout inside his spacious home.
“Never heard of a Ryan anywhere close.”
“Sorry, lady.” He was noticeably softer as he noticed the face on Kayla.
“Alright. I understand.”
The old man scrunched his nose and shut the door in front of him.
“Does he know that we will be putting our trucks through his house in two weeks?” Kayla turned to a concerned Luna. “Less than two weeks.”
“Your father’s probably processing these deals.” Luna turned to the chatter forming behind them. “As it stands, he won’t be around here until a year later— yep, 1994. Not until the house is half-built.”
“I just don’t know which timeline this is, if my dad failed in this one or not. I’m tired.”
Luna looked around the community one more time.
“It looks normal—“
“Yeah, the place, of course. But the person? No Luna Two came now.”
“We would have to look for him, then, Kayla. No way around it.”