Andromeda

Yes, this is post 69 of Andromeda. Yes, that’s sixty-nine, if I must spell it out for you. No, there won’t be any sixty-nine-ing in this post. This post is just a natural progression after post 68 and will be followed shortly by post 70.

Pull your minds out of the gutter, you kinky boys and girls. Get to reading!

https://conchigliadivenere.wordpress.com/2017/10/06/ray-donley-1950-american/
Ray Donley (1950, American)
Lucretia (No. 6)

After her respite of coffee and pastries, Anna was thrown into another time and place again. She stood at the halfway point on the Chain Bridge connecting Buda with Pest. Buda was on her left, with Buda Castle Hill rising above the river bank. Pest was on her right with the Parliament standing ahead of her; a red Communist red star above the center dome. The Danube flowed below. It was a cool spring night. The starless sky was overcast with low clouds reflecting back the city’s limited street lights. A few drops of ran hit the pavement around her. No traffic crossed the bridge, only the occasional pedestrian. A couple strolled by. They did not notice her or Odin.

“What time did you take me to?” she asked, though she feared she knew the answer already.

“Look that way.” Odin nodded towards the Pest side. She followed his gaze to Roosevelt Square. She saw a figure in the shadows dart across the grass and run up to the Chain Bridge. “Do you know now?”

“Yes,” she said. “It's 1963. You've skipped ahead five years. This is when I escaped from Uri, not the first time with the girls, but the second time. This is when I had been sent back by MI6 to bug his apartment. I hadn't counted on Uri’s new girl, that Sofia the opera singer, to catch me.”

This is when things had gone wrong for her. Or perhaps things went wrong years before and events came to their nexus on this bridge. There were things that she had forgotten about this night, things she pushed back in the recesses of her mind.

“Are you going to make me relive everything?” she asked.

Odin didn’t answer, no longer playing the caring lover or the father figure who rescued her a few minutes ago. Or, was it five years ago?

They watched as police cars stopped on each side of the river. The past Anna ran desperately onto the bridge. Flanked by police on either side, she had gotten the idea of hiding inside the bridge’s trusses. Past Anna removed a steel plate leading to the belly of the bridge. Future Anna saw her flop down the hole she created. She couldn’t see the position her past self was in. But, she remembered that she had slid down and jammed her shoulder against intersecting struts.

“Your MI6 handlers prepared you well for this mission,” Odin said. “But you miscalculated your limits. You didn’t know how stressed you were. You didn’t know you were on the last of your adrenaline.” The two peered over the edge of the bridge to see the past Anna attempt to right herself and then slip and tumble over to end up dangling by her fingers. “You seemed to be doing well at first. You really looked like you could have made it. But, look into your eyes now: fatigue, dread, despair, resignation.”

Anna looked down at her past self clinging with her fingers to the cold steel.

http://noukhada.com/bridges/

“How did you get out of this?” Odin asked.

“I don’t know, “ she answered.

“Did something so bizarre happen that you were forced to put it out of your mind?” Odin prompted her.

“Help!” they heard the past Anna’s plea.

Future Anna looked at Odin. “Does she see us?” she asked him in a murmur.

“I know someone’s up there!” past Anna called out, hanging from the bridge. “I can hear you speaking.”

Anna and Odin looked at each other, then they looked down into the hole.

“Please, I’m slipping,” past Anna said, her voice was shaking.

“Could I speak with my other self?” Anna wondered aloud.

“I don't know who you are or why you’re here,” her past self cried up. Her eyes spoke of the desperation of someone on their final gambit. “But I’ve seen you before. You were there in the shadows watching me. You always wore that same evening dress. I thought maybe you weren’t real, yet you are! Please help, I can’t hang on any longer.”

“I’m coming.” Future Anna climbed down the hole onto the girder. This time she did it with grace and landed feet-first on a horizontal beam. She took hold of a vertical truss with one hand and reached down with the other to grab her past self's hand. “Grab hold.”

“I can’t let go. I’ll fall!” the hanging Anna cried.

“I’ll grab your wrist.” Anna stretched her arm as far as she could without losing her own balance.

“I’m slipping,” past Anna cried.

“Odin, help!” Anna shouted, anger welling up in her as she saw the god staring down at them. “You brought me here, you prick. You’ve toyed with my life ever since we made the mistake of summoning you. Do something useful, and help me pull her up. Or are you as much of an asshole as Loki?”

“Very well,” Odin said, almost with a yawn. He then materialized beside her on the girder. His faded blue robe swayed in the wind making him look otherworldly. They each took hold of one of past Anna’s wrists and pulled her up beside them.

They stood on the ironwork of the bridge’s underbelly — all three of them looking at each other silently.

Past Anna stared at Odin, surprised, yet not surprised to see him here. Then she looked at her future self. “You’re me!” she gasped. She touched the other Anna’s face. Her mysterious woman in the black dress wasn't a phantom or a figment of delirium, but a flesh and blood person. As she marveled at her other self, and Odin’s trickery to cause this, the past Anna lost her balance and fell backwards off the truss.

Future Anna reached to grab her but their fingers missed. Past Anna screamed as she fell towards the rushing water below.

The Annas looked each other in the eye. There was nothing her future self could do to save past Anna. Then, faster than mortals can imagine, Odin reached a hands-breadth further and grabbed the falling Anna by the fingers. She hung suspended over the Danube as she held on to Odin’s hand.

Odin lifted her back onto the girder. He then helped the two Annas climb up onto the bridge’s pedestrian path. He appeared standing next to them without climbing through the hole.

“Odin, tell me what's going on!” the past Anna said pointing to her other self.

“Yes, I do see you’re beside yourself in consternation,” Odin said. “Both of you!”

The Annas looked at him with furled eyebrows, not amused.

“Don’t you have to get to your safe house?” Odin said, trying hard to stifle his grin and present a serious voice. He looked the past-girl in the eye and in a commanding voice said, “Never mind what you just saw.”

Odin's directive penetrated the past Anna's brain only as a god’s word could. She immediately obeyed his command and forgot what she saw — the entire experience evaporating from her short term memory. The safe house was all that remained for her as a singular goal.

Past Anna turned and started running again. They watched her turn back, she couldn't see Odin and her other self. She ran off, clearly confused, into the dark.

“So this is what built up to my heart attack.” Future Anna said. “Seeing me rescuing myself?”

“There’s more,” Odin said.

“More?” When she turned back to him, she saw a rotary telephone sitting on the bridge’s granite wall. It was a bulky black model that had seen better days. Odin picked up the handset and started dialing.

“I hope my call gets through. This communist run telephone system is atrocious.” He finished the number and waited for the phone to ring.

Anna stared at the telephone wire snaking under the bridge. “This is absurd,” she said.

“Someone from the future gave me a phone that’s got no wire coming out,” Odin said, ear to receiver. “It’ll also take your photograph and plays a mean game of backgammon.”

“Now I know you’re teasing —”

“Hello?” A woman on the other end answered, Anna could hear the voice in the ear-piece clearly even though it was against Odin’s head. It was Sofia, Uri’s new girl.

“I would like to speak with the General, please,” Odin said.

“Uri, come to the phone,” Sofia said. “Don’t mope. I don’t care how wonderful Anna is. If you don’t put her out of your mind right now you can forget about me. Pull yourself out of your depression and take your damn phone call.” Then they heard shouting and something hitting a wall. “That’s it. I’m leaving. Here’s your fucking phone.”

“Yes?” Uri finally answered.

“Andromeda is heading up Buda Castle Hill.”

“Who’s this? How do you know?”

“Hurry,” Odin said, then hung up. The telephone disappeared between his fingers as he slammed the handle onto the cradle.

“You sent him after me!” Anna couldn’t believe what he just did. “Every man I’ve ever let near me has screwed me over! And I don’t mean the sex. What did you do that for? I would have made it to the safe house! I never would have killed him. And, you couldn't blame me for sending him to Hell!” She collapsed against his body and started pounding his chest with ineffectual blows. Anna cried hysterically, “You bastard, you.” He pulled her body to his and hugged her.

“Stop. Stop.” He cradled her head. She kept crying. “I had to bring this to a close, whatever that may be. If I didn’t, your lives would have intertwined over the years. Your love and hate for him would have consumed you, and his love for you would have shriveled his soul to a point that his damnation would be a thousand-fold more severe.”

When Anna stopped sobbing, all Odin said was, “Take my hand.”

“No.” Anna was barely audible.

Nonetheless, he took hold of her and pulled her into another place, once again.

This time, it was the on top of Buda Castle Hill, in the middle of Disz Square. All the street lamps but one at the far end of the square were out. The sound of a car’s engine broke the silence of the night. A Lada pulled into the square. It was Uri. His chauffeur wasn't with him. He drove past the two interlopers from the future, not seeing them. It occurred to Anna that he could have run them over. Odin wouldn’t have been hurt, but she would have been killed.

Anna didn’t have time to ponder what would happen if she died after she was already dead. No sooner did Uri park his car and hid in the shadows, than past Anna staggered into the square. She was exhausted and had been crying. She didn’t see Uri standing in the shadows as she surveyed the square. The past Anna took a deep breath and stepped into the open of the square.

“Andromeda, my dear.” Uri spoke, just as future Anna remembered he would. “I’m sorry I missed you at the flat.”

Anna saw the look of dread on her past self’s face.

http://www.pictorem.com/67218/Foggy%20Day.html

“You're bleeding,” Uri said looking down at the past Anna's feet.

Both Annas followed his gaze. Past Anna's feet left a trail of blood. “Come, let me bandage them for you. I have some shoes for you, and clothes worthy of a lady.” He took a step towards her. She backed away.

Anna remembered those words: syllable for syllable.

“Stay away from me!” her past self cried.

“Come,” Odin whispered to his Anna. “Let’s take a peek in the car while they’re talking. I’m curious to see what he brought with him?” They looked into the back seat while Uri and past Anna argued. “Hmmm, shoes, pants, your shirt, a jacket he once gave you: things you left behind when you escaped. He kept them all these years. Interesting. Oh, and look, a first aid kit. He really was going to bandage your bleeding feet.”

“Why can’t you leave me alone!” they heard past Anna plead.

“I did leave you alone...” Uri answered her.

“I don’t think he meant to hurt you,” Odin said.

“Why else would he be here?” Anna couldn’t believe Odin's revelation.

“He’s here alone. No Soviet agents, Hungarian police, not even his driver. But, he did remember to bring the change of clothes for you. Did he say anything threatening so far?”

“No, but ...” Anna said. “It’s not what he said. It’s, it’s, him!”

They watched as Uri walked towards the past Anna. His arms were open. Her past self pulled a dagger from her bag and plunged it into his chest.

“Andromeda! No!” Uri gasped as he collapsed onto the cobblestones.

“You prick!” the past Anna fell on him. “Look what you made me do to you.” She started to cry.

“Anna, why!” Uri wheezed.

“He was only there to help you get away,” Odin said. “And perhaps look at you one more time. Watch, you’re about to plunge the knife into him again. This time, it will be the heart. You will kill him. And since he’s already down, you can’t even call it self defense. Watch, you’re about to commit murder. And you know what will happen to him next: he’ll be condemned to an eternity in the frozen mud. Pity, I saw the possibility for redemption in him — had he lived.”

“Stop!” Anna cried, shrieking out into the night.

Odin thought she was directing her plea to him, but Anna’s words were too loud to be meant for his ears.

“What!” The past Anna looked up. She saw her future self standing next to Odin. “You again!” This time in history, she recalled what had transpired on the bridge. “Are you following me? And you too, Odin?”

“Look at me! I’m you,” future Anna said. “I mean, you’re me. I’m from the future. You’re going to have to live with what you’re about to do. I mean, I’m going to have to live with what I did.”

“But he ...” her past self said, lost for words.

“I know you’re conflicted about him. Anna, it’s okay to love him!”

The dagger fell through past Anna’s fingers. It tumbled off Uri’s bleeding chest to land beside him on the cobblestones.

“I see it now.” Future Anna walked towards her past self. “When I killed him — when you’re going to kill him — this ate away at me. This is what killed me!”

“But he, he, deserves ...” Her past self didn’t know what to do, what to think. She looked at her future self, at Uri, then at Odin.

“What do you deserve? What do I deserve?” future Anna said. “I don’t know what will happen if you let him live, but I know the future history of letting him die. Don’t kill him!”

“Will you two help me!”

Blood gurgled from Uri’s mouth.

“You died?” the past Anna asked her future self. “Are you dead? A ghost?”

“I don't know. I’m just as confused as you.” Future Anna knelt beside Uri. “We’ve got to save him!”

Odin yanked his Anna back to her feet and turned her around to face him. “What are you doing?” There was fear in his eyes. “I brought you here to understand, not change things.”

“You’ve given me this chance to change the past and reclaim my life. Don’t stand in my way!”

“Anna, listen to me.” Odin's voice quivered for the first time. “Don’t change this.”

“Odin, you’re afraid!” Anna said. “And I know what you’re afraid of, you time traveling god! You told me so yourself. You said I’d be surprised at your limitations. I know what they are. Since you can travel up and down time, you see all of time. Everything is preordained for you. You know how everything will turn out. So, you can’t make changes. You don’t have free will. Ha! Look at you, a god so powerful, yet you don’t have free will! Well, I do, and I'm going to use it!”

“Anna, you don’t know what you’re about to do.”

“Oh, yes, I do!”

“Anna, I implore you, don’t,” he said. “You’ve no idea of what changes you’re about to unleash across the dimensions.”

“I don’t think you can stop me,” Anna said. “If you could, you’d have done it already. With lightning bolts from your fingers an’ all.” She turned back to her past self and Uri. “Help me get Uri to his car,” she told her past self as she took Uri by the shoulders. “We’re taking him to a hospital.”

The two of them picked up the bleeding general and dragged him into the back seat. The two Annas sped off, the past Anna in the back seat cradling her former lover's head while the future Anna drove. She looked in the rearview as she careened out of Disz Square to see Odin recede into the night, his shoulder slumped in defeat.

… to be continued …

You made it to the bottom. Here are some unrelated 69’s for you

https://conchigliadivenere.wordpress.com/2018/02/05/johann-nepomuk-geiger-1805-1880-austrian/
Johann Nepomuk Geiger (1805 – 1880, Austrian)
No Title

https://conchigliadivenere.wordpress.com/2017/10/27/erich-von-gotha-1924-english/
Erich von Gotha (1924, English)

https://conchigliadivenere.wordpress.com
Paul Émile Bécat

By Seedfeeder - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9852806