All our lives

Chapter 16

For half an hour he tried not to think at anything and just have his breakfast in a self imposed silence. It wasn't an easy task as curiosity and bewilderment were urging him to leave aside the hotel's breakfast offer and feed on whatever information he could find about the reality of that strange circle. He pushed away the plate although he hadn't even eaten half of what he had intended to, and put the UTS on the table. What the hell was that combination? It was the worst starting point for his research, but he simply couldn't get over that unexpected change. For days that screen had been dead and now it had gone mad. It was like it wanted to make up for its previous stillness.

He was so absorbed by those circles that he didn't realize someone was standing next to him until the UTS was taken away from his sight.

"What's this?" Dave asked, curiously inspecting that object he had taken in his hands.

"Uhm...A...puzzle," Jon answered cautiously, quickly scanning his friend from head to toes. The man looked as always. Or maybe his hair was shorter? It could be. How the hell was he supposed to know? He had never paid attention to Dave's haircut and he never imagined a 'spot the difference' moment like this would ever come.

"And what do you have to do to solve it?" Dave asked, slightly frowning.

"Have no fucking idea," Jon responded frankly.

"But you tried the notorious muscles over brain method, I see," the keyboardist observed amusedly.

"It's designed like that," Jon lied, making David chuckle.

"Sure it is," he handed it back with a smirk on his face. "So, you ready?" Dave changed his tone to a more serious one. "Steve is waiting for us in the car."

Jon drowned his confusion in a mouthful of coffee, faintly confirming that he was, then got up and followed Dave. He didn't have the slightest idea who Steve was and why he was waiting for them in a car. He really needed to make a checklist and never leave his room before having at least some basic information about the universe he was going to dig into. He encouraged himself at the thought this one could not be that different, after all. The band existed, they were probably on tour, and Richie was still dead. If the circles didn't mind the cities, chances were they didn't mind his hair either. It was a soothing thought.

Once in the car, Steve started talking as soon as they closed the doors. They were not even moving and the guy had already presented half of that day's schedule and details about the upcoming show he should have known but he didn't. So Steve was the tour manager.

Apparently the circles didn't care much for those either because Jon had never seen that man in his life. However, the tour was indeed THINFS. And they had a show that night, a thing that made Jon mentally roll his eyes. He would have totally preferred to have landed on a two days break, but if this circle looked anything like the previous ones, such a break probably didn't exist.

"Jon, your wife called me last night," Steve interrupted his thoughts.

"She what?" Jon startledly asked. Luckily, his voice came out more as a whisper than a proper stunned exclamation.

"She didn't want to bother you at that hour and she wanted to let me know too about the change of plans.... Anyway, she can't make it tonight, so I guess after the concert you'll fly to Rome like everybody else and you'll meet her directly in Verona for the weekend, right?"

Jon mumbled something completely unintelligible to any other human, but Steve took that as a yes. The singer calmed himself at the thought that it was possible for Dorothea and the kids to be in Europe, enjoying a vacation without him and only meeting in certain cities. Not very probable, but possible. It was just that Verona was an odd choice.