Chapter 6

"So engineering?" asked Cindy after she took a swig from her bottle. "You're going to design cars or something?"

Cindy and I sat at a small booth in a ramshackle restaurant not far from campus. In my reality, a Starbucks stood on this site, but here it was a quaint, if not a bit dilapidated, bar and grill apparently popular with the university's students. A gathering of said students clustered around two pool tables whose felt covering had faded to a dull lime green color. We had picked the far corner of the bar to talk, giving us distance from a blaring loud old fashion jukebox, playing a catchy, albeit unfamiliar song to me. To be honest, this dive was an improvement over the slick but ultimately soulless coffeehouse of my world.

I took another bite out my hamburger and set it down on my plate. "Not that type of engineer," I corrected after swallowing my food. "I want to be a microelectronics engineer."

The wrinkle which formed above Cindy's brow told me she had no idea what the term 'microelectronics' meant. I could see she worked the word over in her head and then with a smirk she said, "What's that mean? Going to build tiny power plants?"

I laughed, "No, I mean microchip stuff. You know, computers."

Cindy eyed me speculatively, "You think those things are going to be good for anyone other than bored researchers or accountants with too many numbers to crunch?"

The secret of my world's technologies pushed a sly smile across my face. "Oh, I think there's a future in those PCs."

Another confused crease of Cindy's forehead "PCs?"

'Careful Jason, ' I told myself. On this world, personal computing had not caught on and most people of this world thought of computers as something used only in a business or school. The idea nearly everyone would own one was still a foreign concept. I spun a little lie to cover my mistake. "Sorry, I've just heard some computer experts call them that. PC stands for personal computer." I explained.

"Oh, okay," replied Cindy with a shrug and took another sip of her beer.

"And you?" I asked, figuring I had been sharing enough about myself.

Cindy eyed me with a slight bemused look, "Oh, you don't think I'm here for an MRS degree?"

I did not catch the reference and it was my turn to give the blond a confused stare. "You know, a Missus degree, as in going to college just to get married," elaborated Cindy with a tired smile.

Mulling over what I knew of this world, I could see how a college campus would be prime ground for young women looking for a compatible Bond-mate. I shrugged and replied to Cindy's original question. "I guess you don't strike me as someone who just wants to be a bored housewife."

"I'm a pragmatic girl, Jason. I'm not opposed to finding a good man to get bonded with. If he's got a good bank account," she added with a self-satisfied grin. "Just saying I'm not counting on it. If I need to make my own fortune, then an MBA will have to do."

"Ah, the business world. Best of luck to you." I said agreeably after I took a swig of beer from my own bottle.

Cindy nodded slowly. "I know, not the easiest job for a woman. Likely I'll spend half my time fending off rumors I'm a Sapphic or some other idiotic nonsense."

I stopped myself before I opened up my mouth and asked something stupid. Between talks with Abby, and to a lesser extent, Cindy, I was beginning to put together how women rated in this world. Pregnancies were almost guaranteed when women had monthly cycles of increased libido tied to their ovulation. Combined with these pheromone-induced Bondings, it appeared women did not enjoy the same independence I was used to. Abby had said that after the devastation of the plague, society was desperate to repopulate. While it was apparent women weren't treated as breeding machines, it did appear there was a role females were expected to play. But then this Restricteral birth control comes along and changes the old equation. Let women have control over getting pregnant. Now Becky and the MHS stance towards the drug made more sense to me. What had Abby called it? The great debate of their time.

Cindy took my introspective silence as an agreement to her comment. "It's just me and one other girl in all the econ and accounting classes. I mean no one says anything, at least to my face. But I know plenty gets said behind my back."

"Sorry," I offered, not sure what else I could say. I stared at the plate of my half eaten burger, no longer hungry.

"Yeah," she replied with a cautious note in her voice. I looked up to see her again studying me carefully. "See," continued Cindy with a slowly growing steam, "that's why I want to talk to you alone about Abby."

I figured this was why Cindy took me out to lunch. It seemed she was ready to get down to business. I leaned back in the booth and focused on Cindy. "Alright, what do you want to talk about?"

The blonde nodded once and began. "Abigail is smart. I mean really smart ... when it comes to books, classes, and studying. Not so good with people. She likes to take them at face value. It's sweet, naive as hell, but still sweet."

I did not say anything, just gave the smallest bob of my head in agreement. Cindy was so far not saying anything I had not already known or guessed about Abby.

"So how much did she tell you about Brad?" asked Cindy.

"Her Ex? Not much."

Cindy made an irritable flick of her head. "Figures," she muttered. "She was head over heels when she started Bonding with Brad. She gushed about him constantly. She drove me and Mandy nearly nuts."

My puzzled expression jumped to my face again. "Mandy?" I questioned. "Mandy Persaud?"

"Yep, her former roommate." Cindy saw the surprised look on my face and sighed. "Didn't tell you about that either, did she?"

I nodded again. What had happened between Abby and Mandy? Last night Abby seemed ready to bite Mandy's head off when the Indian beauty had introduced herself. I thought Abby's anger was from getting discovered in the showers. It looked like there was more to the story.

"Yeah, little Mandy and Abby were nearly inseparable at the beginning of school. Add Brad Peterson into the mix and it was all one big happy Sloppy Joes."

I could not help myself. I blurted out, "What!?"

Cindy gave me the strange look again. "You know, the TV show. Sloppy Joes ... Where Joe gets Bonded to Mary and has to deal with all the wackiness..." She trailed off and looked at me skeptically. "What, didn't you have a TV when you were a kid?"

I was destined to fail any pop culture quiz given to me on this wacky Earth. There was not much I could do to fix this screw-up. I just shrugged helplessly. Cindy frowned for a moment and then brushed it off and started to get back on track with her talk of Abby

"Anyway, all's fine for a while, till Abby begins having second thoughts about Brad. He's already planning they'll seal their relationship with marriage when he graduates in another year. And of course Abby should stopping using Restricteral. He wants to have kids..."

A piece of the puzzle fell into place for me. I interrupted Cindy's narrative, "And Abby wants to be a biochemist. She wants a career."

"Exactly!" exclaimed Cindy. "When you're Bonded you've only got eyes for each other," said Cindy a little wistfully. "You know how hard it is for a woman to disrupt the hormone loop once its gone a few monthly cycles. But Abby did it. She broke it off with Brad and got him out of her system."

I did not completely follow Cindy's terminology, but I got the gist of it. Abby had said it was difficult for her to end her relationship with Brad. It appeared to be something rarely done. All the strange biochemistry of this world had made such a mess out of relationships. At least to me. But this was natural to Cindy and Abby and I waited expectantly for her to continue.

"Brad..." began Cindy but made a disgusted sound in the back of her throat before she went on. "He didn't take any of this well. So he plots his revenge."

"What did he do?" I asked, but I already had a feeling I knew what Cindy was going to say.

"Seduced and Bonded with little Mandy in their dorm room, and Abby walking in on the two of them in bed. Of course it was a terrible Bond. Mandy was mortified she had done it and Abby was livid."

"What an asshole!" I growled out. I felt a genuine surge of anger at what Brad had done to my Abby. Muscles in my arms tensed and my hands squeezed into fists. I had not gotten into a fight since my freshmen year in High school. And I had not done so well, Patrick Warner was several inches taller than me and a good twenty pounds heavier. Yet if this Brad were to suddenly appear before me I felt like I would smash in his skull.

If Cindy noticed my sudden agitation, she did not react. She paused in consideration as she must have been replaying the events in her mind. "Bard isn't really a bad guy, I suppose. He's just the product of the times, you know. It was a big blow to his manhood to get rejected by Abby."

"That doesn't make it right," I shot back. My anger still at a near boil. This earned me another curious glance from Cindy.

"You two already have a helluva Bond going there don't you?" said Cindy as she eyed me speculatively. "You're touchy just hearing about Abby getting hurt in the past."

Blood ran to my face and I looked away embarrassed. Was that why I was so angry? Brad had humiliated Abby and our Bond caused me to react. Within my anger I realized I also felt a surge of possessiveness about my redhead. I roughly exhaled, trying to deflate my anger. Glancing back to Cindy I said, "I suppose you're right."

Cindy nodded at my confirmation. "And so we get to the heart of the matter." Her eyes drilled into me, suddenly very intense. "Jason, I'm not exactly sure what's your deal, but I don't want my friend hurt again. Who are you? Are you really a friend of Abby's from out of town? She never spoke of you before."

For many long seconds neither one of said anything. Cindy was apparently waiting for me to give her an answer. I was not sure what type of answer I could give. From the moment I woke up yesterday, hardly anything made sense. Except Abby.

Giving myself a moment to collect my thoughts I turned to the students playing pool. I watched as a group of guys in matching jackets took turns on the table. A woman with dark curly hair came up to the men. She appeared to make some friendly conversation, all the men stopped playing and focused on her. As I watched, she went to each man and kissed them. There was something almost robotic about her actions like she was doing something ceremonial rather than intimate. After she was done, she went to the second guy she had kissed, and they had a longer make out session. There was at least some passion this time. After they had broken apart, cheers came from his friends.

"Didn't anyone ever tell you it was rude to stare at people tasting?" asked Cindy. The condemnation and irritation in her voice snapping me back to our booth. I cringed from her criticism. I had stumbled into another cultural taboo. Unlike the family restaurant we went to last night with Cindy, this bar was obliviously much more for the young and single.

'Maybe I should just tell Cindy the truth, ' I thought as I sat there in the booth trying not to look guilty. The longer I was here, the more I realized I was never going to be able to keep up the charade. This world was just too different.

"Look, Cindy..." I began and then stopped. Where to begin? Explaining I was from a parallel Earth and not sounding like I was crazy was not going to be easy. My iPhone was in my pocket and it was my best evidence I was telling the truth. But not a wise idea to go showing it around here.

Cindy was staring at me expectantly and I tried again. "Okay Cindy, why don't we head back? When Abby gets done with her chemistry lab today, all of us can discuss everything."

She gave me another long searching look. I held her gaze. I was not going to budge on this. There were way too many unknowns going on and I needed to be careful to whom I told my secrets. Finally, Cindy relented and leaned back in the booth, letting out a strangled sigh. "Alright fine," she said in reply to my request.

We drove back to the campus in silence, with neither one of us feeling like talking. I needed to focus on trying to track down any information on my father. That was my own lead. If I could not find any trace of him, I was going to be stuck with not many options. Cindy seemed lost in thought as well. She had seen through my supposed background. Possibly she had realized it was a lie as soon as Abby told it. I realized it was a bad idea to underestimate the woman. And as much as she could be a pain, it was clear to me she really cared about Abby.

Coming to a stop in the parking lot near the library, Cindy left her car running as I gathered my meager possessions of a notebook and pen Abby had lent me. Cindy caught my hand before I opened the car door. Her words were casual, but there was an undertone of warning in her voice. "I'll be back to Abby's room at 3:30. We'll talk."

"Yeah, we will," I confirmed as I exited her car. As soon as I closed the door, Cindy stepped on the gas and her strange looking car took off down the parking lot. I remained watching her car speed off as she turned out of the parking lot and headed for who knows where. Shaking my head, I turned and started walking back to the library and the fun of searching through more old newspaper records.

Trudging back up the stairs of the library I felt my stomach gurgle unpleasantly. Apparently my burger and fries were not sitting so well. Great, I could add indigestion on top of all my other problems. The archives were just the same as when I left with Cindy. No one was around and it was as silent as a tomb.

Walking up to the desk where I had been working for most of the morning, I right away noticed something wrong. I had sorted out two piles of microfilm. I had left a simple ordering of spools of film I had viewed and those I had yet to look through. But now my two collections were merged together into one neat stack. A tight spot of anger welled up in me, some clueless librarian had decided to 'tidy up' after me and just ruined all my searching.

"Fuck!" I announced to no one in particular and with an angry swat of my hand I sent the spools of microfilm across the desk. What I would not give for a real computer and a decent search engine. I would have to start over. Picking up a film spool I tried to remember if this was roll I viewed or not. But then I noticed a folded piece of paper that had been underneath all the film canisters. Strange, all my notes were in the pad of paper I was carrying. The note was not something I had written and it had been well concealed by the microfilm.

Sitting down I picked the paper up and unfolded it. Someone had hand written the message in a hurry. Messy scribbling filled the page:

I stared blankly at the piece of paper for a long time. I felt like someone had just kicked me in the gut. Another revelation, just as shocking as my dad's email. Rereading for the second time I came away puzzled. What did whoever wrote the note mean by what I was looking for and to not contact them? What the hell was this message trying to tell me? There was no other writing on the paper and nothing else other than the microfilm on the table.

Then it dawned on me. There was nothing else on the table except for the microfilm viewer. My mysterious new friend knew I was looking for my news of my dad. My hand shook as I switched on the viewer. The screen lit up with a soft yellowish glow. The newsprint was a little out of focus. I worked the controls quickly and the image before me grew sharp.

Right in the center of the screen was a grainy black and white photo. A picture of a young man, just about my age. And he was most certainly my dad. The headline above the photo read – "Family of David Kitchman to continue their search."

I was almost at a dead run when I got to Anderson Hall. At first, after reading the message, I had sprinted around the library floor, looking for someone, anyone. A wild hope that I would find who had helped me. But the archives were empty, no one there but me. Whoever had left the hand written note was long gone by the time I had arrived. As I left the library, my growing excitement about Dad's article derailed. Someone knew I was looking for him, someone who had waited till I had left with Cindy. I was getting the distinctly frustrated feeling I was being played with since I woke up yesterday in this mad house. Manipulated by unknown people for unknown reasons.