Page 7 of Dream Mates
Once, I’d thought precisely that.
Like I had a choice to testify against you.I’d almost ended up on the defense bench with them.
Or instead of them.
Me not testifying against them had never been an option open to me. I took another deep breath. Yes, I could do this. I had to.So I can go back to Wes.That’s the one good thing that came from this mess. I’d somehow gotten tohim.
After a couple of confirmation questions, the prosecution–which was led by the Temporal Authority–asked me about the night Enforcement raided Rydor Corp for violations of the Parallel World Travel and Trade Embargo for Class IV worlds.
Bit by bit, I told the judge what I’d seen that night at Rydor Corp, the defense company where I’d worked during and after my PhD. I’d accidentally wrecked a colleague's research. To make it up to them, because they were mad at me, I’d been staying late after work to fix it. I’d gone to the vending machines for a snack and ended up seeing things I shouldn’t have.
Because I could be a real dumbass sometimes, I got closer…
…and had gotten caught.
Those memories I’d had, of running in the foggy dark, of fences and guns and men with badges? They had been ofthatnight. The night that I’d seen my favorite professor engaging in a transaction with military officers in uniforms I'd never seen. She, my boss, and a few others had been moving cratesof weapons through some strange device that made themdisappear.
I ran, was caught, they’d hurt me. Right after that, we were raided by the Temporal Authority Enforcement–or, what Spencer called theTemporal Police.Enforcement was the department responsible for investigating unauthorized movement between worlds. I’d been brought in with my colleagues, interrogated, imprisoned, and generally terrified.
Especially when my side project about traveling to parallel worlds was used against me. Professor Jaffey tried to pin their entire interdimensional smuggling operation onme,to makemethe mastermind of the operation in order to save herself.
They’d known that selling our weapons to another world was illegal–though they’d tried to plead that they’d only known thatpeoplegoing back and forth was prohibited. Their interdimensional mapping project was a cover for their smuggling ring.
That was why I hadn’t been put on that project like I’d hoped. Why I’d been told that my parallel world project wasn’t viable for funding, just something for fun.
Her plan all along had been to use me as a scapegoat if things went wrong.
The prosecution finished their questions, and the defense took their turn, making me cry, as they painted me as an unstable liar who should be on meds. They used records from my teenage years to prove that I really could be a mastermind, not just building a device to enable parallel world travel, but orchestrating contact with a parallel universe to smuggle weapons.
“Her disappearance only solidifies her guilt. She was supposed to be in protective custody with the others, and shedisappeared.The only one who’d be able to do that would be the one behind this, the one with the connections,” the defense stated.
Another sob ripped from my throat as I wished that Wes was here to hold me. I’d been so lonely after graduation. Some of my colleagues were my friends, but most had gone on to other places and projects. I’d worked long hours and often been isolated from the few friends I had. Probably on purpose.
A secretive loner made a better mastermind.
No one would miss me if anything happened to me, either. I had no significant other, no mother, and had gone no contact with my family, other than the occasional text from the people I’d grown up callingdadandgrandma.
Apparently I also made a good mastermind because my calculations for parallel world travel wereclose.
“If she’s the mastermind and disappeared, then why would she reappear just in time to testify?” the judge asked the defense, her look skeptical.
“Enforcement found her, obviously. Either that or she wanted to make sure they were imprisoned so that she could stay free,” the defense pressed, giving me a scathing look.
“If I could interject,” the prosecution said, “the witness isnoton trial here. She didn’t disappear. She was placed elsewhere for her own safety after an attempt on her life when there was a breach in protocol regarding protective custody. She returned because we asked her to.”
I shuddered, remembering thatbreach.
What I didn’t precisely recall was how I ended up on the park bench in Wes’ world with amnesia.
“An attempt she probably staged,” the defense countered. His eyes focused on me. “Where have you been hiding, Dr. Ellington?”
Don’t trust anyone. Don’t mention where you were,Agent Weigmier had whispered to me before he pushed me into the courtroom.
“With all due respect, where I was is of no consequence, since I’m not the mastermind of this project. I was in protective custody because Professor Jaffey tried to kill me. Just like she killed the others.” My heart wrenched at the thought.
I hadn’t been the only witness that the Temporal Authority had brought in from my world to testify.
“There’s no record of additional protective custody for this witness,” the defense stated, reviewing a tablet.
