TIME & TIED: AWARENESS

ARC 1.4 - Of Herself

PART 20a: FALLOUT 1

Luci's gaze snapped away from Julie and onto Lee, who was now standing in front of her. "Lee!" she said redundantly. "No, I... there's something else I need to do right now,” she said, scrambling for words.

"Yeah? Hey, I've been meaning to ask you, what brings you here tonight, don't recall seeing you at these..."

"Later Lee, okay?" Luci interrupted. Julie was almost out of sight.

Lee shrugged. "Okay, whatever. You're looking stressed though, you shouldn't be stressed at a dance."

“Y-Yes... I'll work on that," Luci said.

Lee snapped a finger and pointed at her. "Good idea." He moved to follow a few others into the cafeteria while Luci hurried back down the hall in the other direction. But by the time she'd reached the hallway junction point, Julie was nowhere to be seen.

***

Julie strode purposefully down the hall, keeping one eye ahead of her and one behind. There was no point being sneaky - that would only draw unwanted attention. However, there was also no point being slow.

She didn’t stop until she saw the unexpected shadow back in the hall, outside the stairwell near the gym. Having climbed five steps to gain the high ground, Julie turned around, folding her arms. "Come out, come out, no point in hiding."

A couple seconds passed. She didn’t budge. Then, Frank stepped out. “Don’t do it, Julie."

"Do what?" Julie protested. “Shouldn't you be back monitoring the coat check?"

"Never mind that. What you’re going to do..." Frank hesitated, then raised his hands in what she supposed was an attempt at an offensive stance. It looked more like he was about to give a ‘thumbs up’. "I can't let you."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Julie countered, pretending to fumble nervously among the pleats of her skirt. In the process, she tapped the button on the miniature remote she'd secreted away.

"You are about to play a recording that's damaging for both Carrie and Laurie," Frank clarified.

"Me? How could I EVER do such a thing?” Julie protested, a hand now to her heart. "You must have me confused with Corry. Or Carrie herself.”

“It’s not too late, Julie. Consider the consequences.”

“I have. You haven’t," Julie countered, shifting her tone to serious. "Better go, Frank. There's a cell phone ringing in your cloakroom."

Frank blinked. "What?"

Julie smiled. "Ring, ring," she whispered. "I wouldn't hit that talk button if I were you. Might set off a terrible chain of events.”

Frank shuddered. "You can't mean... you didn't. You couldn't have!”

"You start pushing buttons on that phone and it’s not me who will be responsible for consequences,” Julie said, narrowing her eyes. "Now, if you'll excuse me, DON'T follow me again... you time tripper."

She hurried upstairs, leaving Frank behind.

***

Carrie bit back a series of curses. Of COURSE the circuit breaker would be locked, why had she thought otherwise? She couldn't simply rush the DJ and unplug all his equipment either, he'd stop her, and then nothing would change except that she'd be in even bigger trouble. Not only temporally, but because there would be tangible evidence of her doing something on the stage. Carrie didn’t fancy talking herselves out of THAT situation.

She might still have a chance though. If she could shut down the main speakers by pulling out the leads at the right moment, there wouldn't be any sound available after Corry's song. Hence no way for the recording to be heard.

Edging cautiously into a position behind the stage, Carrie located the cables in question then fidgeted slightly, waiting for Corry to hurry up and finish singing.

~”None of this should have happened, I know in my gut

Yet our future is hist'ry, and I've lost what's what.

We must now beware, time is not playing fair,

I would solve this crime it's just I'm...

outta time... outta time... outta time..."~

"Yes, you are," Carrie whispered, grabbing the cords for the main speakers and giving them a hard yank. The leads popped free from the stage setup. Carrie smiled to herself in the brief pause that ensued.

Then the silence was broken, not by applause, but by the voice of Laurie Veniti coming through the sound system.

"I've figured out where the test papers are,” she stated.

Backstage, Carrie reeled. She quickly traced the cords in her hands back towards their source. She had the right ones. Those speakers out in the cafeteria should not be projecting sound! Her gaze flickered back and forth over the setup in front of her, even as she realized she wasn't going to have time to do anything more.

"What the hell?" Carrie whispered almost inaudibly in response to hearing her own voice coming from the sound system. Could someone have actually gone to the trouble of setting up a secondary feed? Or an alternate second set of hidden speakers? Who? Julie?

"Turn off all your audio equipment,” Corry snapped at the DJ.

“It's not his audio equipment," Carrie grumbled. She'd better get out of here though - Mr. Fisk was coming. Carrie beat a hasty retreat to the shadows on the far side of the stage.

"SOMEONE TURN THAT GOD DAMN RECORDING OFF!" Corry yelled.

'Temper, temper,' Carrie thought to herself. Actually, Corry's act was really convincing, now that Carrie got a better look at it. She hadn't been paying that much attention the first time. And Luci's comment about how Corry was protective of his sister came unbidden into Carrie's mind, casting further doubt on the whole situation.

But if it wasn't Corry... no, it couldn't be Julie either. I mean sure, maybe her friend had been acting a little weird lately, and should have given Carrie a heads up of some sort, but to outright lie about this later? No way!

No way...

Burying that unnerving thought, Carrie ducked out of the cafeteria whilst everyone's attention was drawn to Corry meeting up with her prior self.

***

"Run that by me again?"

"I think Julie rigged a cell phone to act as a trigger for her recording,” Frank repeated.

"When did you run into Julie?" Luci pressed.

"She passed right by this classroom. I’d hidden the time machine, and didn't see you, so I tried tailing her myself. Except, uh, she saw me. We talked briefly. And although she never admitted to anything... I think she set me up along with Carrie.”

Luci frowned. “I guess I’m glad that one of us spotted her. I should have remembered when I'd run into Lee.” She shook her head. “Still, rigging a cell phone? That’s overkill.”

“But it fits,” Frank insisted. “A cell phone rang towards the end of Corry's musical number, I tracked it to Carrie's jacket, and Joe said to answer it. I didn’t hear anyone on the other end of the line, and when I hung it up, that’s when I heard Laurie's voice in the cafeteria. Me using the cell phone, that must have triggered it.”

Luci leaned back against the classroom wall, crossing her arms. "No, I still don't buy that," she said at last. "Too risky. Even if we assume that Julie has Joe Drew working for her, too much could go wrong with that scenario.”

"Luci, how else could Julie have known about the phone?"

"Oh, she planted that, obviously," Luci agreed. "But only, I think, in order to play with your mind. To distract you." She paused briefly. “Which means maybe I haven't been giving Julie enough credit. Which bothers me, seeing as I'd already given her more than I felt she was due."

"I don’t even remember where I put the phone after that," Frank added. "I should ask Carrie if she got it back."

"Got what back?" Carrie inquired, entering the room.

"Your cell phone."

"I never lost my cell phone. What are you babbling about?"

"Your, er... you had a cell phone in your jacket pocket at the dance Friday. Today," Frank amended. "I answered it when Corry's song ended."

Carrie lifted up an eyebrow. "Can't have been my jacket. I wouldn’t leave my phone in there."

"But I'm sure the jacket was yours,” Frank protested. "I've seen you wearing it.”

"Carrie, could Julie have slipped the phone in your jacket pocket?" Luci inquired, now pacing back and forth.

"Oh, great. Here we go blaming Julie for everything again."

"Actually, wait, it doesn't matter. She could have gotten Joe to do that later,” Luci amended.

"Frank, could you remind the gifted little girl here that people should remain innocent until proven guilty?"

“Wow! Exactly when did that become your philosophy on people?” Luci countered, looking back up at the blonde.

"Okay, come on, we are NOT doing this again," Frank said desperately. “You’re both right, okay? After all, we haven’t proven guilt... but Carrie, I did run into Julie in the stairwell. And she all but admitted she knew about our time machine.”

Carrie's mouth twisted into a hard line. “That means she didn’t admit to the recording. And before either of you suggest Julie paying off the DJ, the sound still played even after I cut the connection going to the speakers he was using. So it wasn’t that.”

"You... what?" Frank said.

Luci resumed her pacing. “This is bad," she observed. "To account for the speakers too...? Well, Julie certainly has the funds to set up a secondary system and listening devices, but... wow. I hate to say it, but I finally understand how Chartreuse felt all last week."

"Oh, by all means, let's mention the nutty psychic in our conversation as well," Carrie said, throwing her hands up in the air. “Seriously, what is with this vendetta you people have against Julie?”

Luci whirled on her heel, eyes alternately flashing green and blue in the dim light of the classroom. “Julie’s dangerous, Carrie! For whatever reason, this year she’s started causing people real emotional pain. Don't you give a damn about your classmates? Or do you truly only give a damn about yourself??”

Carrie didn't back down, rather she took a step forwards. “Julie’s our classmate too! And for all your talk, you don’t seem to give a damn about her - so if she IS behind this, it has to be for a good reason.”

“Then what is it, Carrie? By all means, she’s your friend, so you tell us, what is it??”