Lost in La La Land(22)

The screen image was fuzzy from the dim candlelight, but she nodded as she sat up. “Okay.” She sounded different, still detached but less depressed.

The gloomy creepy-looking woman, who had hidden in my apartment for days on end, was gone. Old Lana was back.

“When I go in, it’s dark and peaceful. It’s quiet for a moment, like the world is building in front of me but I can’t see it yet.” She shuddered, wrapping herself in the blankets. I realized there was frost in the air when she spoke, and suddenly registered that I was frozen solid. I turned on the gas fireplace that likely used to be a wood-burning fireplace but was converted in the eighties.

She breathed softly, continuing the story, “Then it loads, all at once. I’m blinded and overwhelmed. I see everything, maybe too much for a second, and then it’s normal. Wherever the story was when I left, it takes off from there. So now, my baby is about to be born. I’m quite pregnant. Danny’s worried I won’t survive labor. He doesn't understand that this world isn’t real and that he’s dead.” She chuckled.

“Sorry, what?” I cock my head, certain I’ve misheard her.

“I’m pregnant—”

“No, I got that part. Did you say the story takes off where you left it, exactly? Like the book is loading where you left off, like reading? Or the story you’re creating is taking off?” The system was designed to allow a traveler to experience a book in chronological order, but this sounded like she was off story, big time.

“I haven’t been in the book for ages. We finished it off and then created our own.”

“So you aren’t Cousin Mel, having a baby?” I gulped.

“No. Mel died. I am me.”

“Margaret?” The character I created for Gone with the Wind, named after Margaret Mitchell.

“No. When we left the storyline, when I saw Danny and was able to connect with him fully, I stopped being Margaret.”

“You chose to stop being Margaret?” My insides felt like water. My mouth dried completely as I tried to understand this.

“Yeah.” She smiled, pleasant and calm. My insides threatened to burst all over the room and my brain was ready to explode, but she was calm.

“You weren’t distracted by the novel?”

“No.” She shrugged. “I mean, I was. It lasted like the first couple of weeks, I don't know. But then I thought of Danny and I stopped living in the dream. I found him and started playing a new storyline out.”

“And from there, every time you enter, you are taking off where you left off?” I felt numb.

“Yes.”

That was impossible.

“But you’re present, you know you’re in a story and it’s fake?” I couldn't get a handle on this.

“Of course. It’s just like living out a fantasy, one where I get to have everything I ever wanted.”

“Is the story still set during the Civil War?”

“No.” She wrinkled her nose. “Too violent. We changed it a while ago. Different setting. I decided on the sixties. He has a job as a salesman, and he goes to work in a blue suit and an old car. It’s new to us though.”

“We. Us. What the fuck?” I stood and paced the room. “Why do you even go into Gone with the Wind?”

“I assumed the control is part of that storyline,” she answered hesitantly.

“We need to see. Lie back.” I hurried to the machine, starting Shawshank Redemption. It was nowhere near Gone with the Wind, and I couldn’t imagine Stephen King would be as easy to stray from.

She went in once more, her brain repeating an identical response as some of the nanobots strayed from the herd and went directly to the cerebral cortex again.

I let her stay in for an hour before pulling her out. Again, she was a zombie before I sent the sirens call a second time.

“Well?” I asked impatiently.

“Story took off the same as last time.”

“Didn't the book load?”

“It did but I stopped it and made my world.”

“Impossible,” I muttered, stumped and yet fascinated.





Chapter Ten


“You’re certain you understand?” I asked her again as I lay back, scared of her inability to work the machine.

“I’ve watched you hook me up hundreds of times. I could do this with my eyes closed!” Lana snapped.

“Right, but that’s sort of the part I’m worried about. You aren’t exactly the queen of focus.”

“No, but if you don't come back, I won’t be going back in, will I?” she snarled.

I parted my lips to continue arguing but paused, seeing her point. “Okay then. Don't let me die in here. Four hours, no more no less.” I lay back, fighting to relax.

“I don't want you staying in longer than four hours. I want my turn,” she growled and pressed the buttons, starting the procedure.

We’d gone over it a dozen times once I realized sending her back in wasn't ever going to lead me to the answers I needed. She was too far gone from the book and couldn't trace back her steps. I needed to go in and see if I could control the changes myself. You had to break it to fix it. I didn't want it to be me, but we couldn't risk the repeated exposure to another person’s brain. Plus, finding a candidate like us, one who had suffered a great tragedy as far as lost loves were concerned, wasn't going to be easy.