1965-June-30 “Ripples In The Water” for Hannah* (born 1962)

It was, by Hannah’s estimation, a lovely New Mexico morning on a Wednesday. In 1965. Twenty years earlier than it had been when she woke up the day before. 

Merritt, Emma, Kent, and she had Translocated back to Tucumcari, New Mexico arriving in a room of the Blue Swallow Motel. It reminded Hannah in some ways of places she stayed with her family when they vacationed early in her life.

The mission was vague. The pagers that The Agency gave them had displayed a few cryptic hints.

1965

Vision of the future

Ripples in the pond

Butterfly effect

The Translocation Team had tapped into the memories of their duplicates and come to think they wouldn’t exactly see what they had changed. When their duplicates had time-shifted, they sometimes had no idea what their actions could have changed.

The concept that something they did was like a stone in a pond that, much later and far away, pushed a stick onto the shore became a way they explained the point of the mission to themselves. 

Hannah felt herself becoming skeptical. The merged memories of the duplicates were riff with questions, frustrations, and, indeed, doubts. 

So for some purpose that Hannah doubted she’d ever know, she and her husband, Kent, were sharing a room in a hotel on Route 66 in New Mexico with Merritt and Emma. The mangled, tangled memories of all the duplicates included a time when some of the Hannahs were dating some of the Merritts. It was a confused mire of connected, interconnected, and unconnected memories.

Hannah looked back toward the hotel room as Kent came out, heading for the pool. At least, she told herself, she had something nice to hold onto.