Rewinder (11 page)

A trip of thirty-three years would typically result in nothing more than a headache that might last a few minutes. What I experience is a spike of pain more reminiscent of a hundred-year jump. It forces me to a knee as I ride out the sensation.

Once the pain has abated, I look around and see that I’m not, as is usually the case, behind a building or in an alleyway or some other hidden spot in a city. In fact, there are no buildings in sight. I’m at the edge of a forest in a grassy meadow where boulders stick out of the ground here and there like skullcaps of buried giants. The only sound I hear is a gently flowing river somewhere to the right.

It’s a perfect place for an out-of-the-way meeting.

Or ambush
, the cautious part of my brain thinks.

I choose a spot just inside the woods, use the Chaser’s calculator to refigure my arrival location, and pop to 4:30 p.m.

As soon as my eyes adjust to the tree-filtered daylight, I creep up to the edge of the meadow and look around. At first I think something must be wrong. No one’s waiting for me near the spot where I’m supposed to appear. I scan the meadow, wondering if this is someone’s idea of a joke, perhaps Lidia trying to get me into trouble. But then I spot someone sitting on one of the rocks about fifty yards away, back to me.

By the time I’m halfway there, I’m pretty sure I know who the person is, and when I’m near, I know I’m right.

“Gorgeous here, isn’t it?” Marie says.

I take a look around. “It is.”

She motions to a spot beside her. “Join me.”

The rock is easy to ascend, and within seconds I’m sitting next to my old instructor.

“If you’re hungry, I have some snacks,” she offers. “Water, too.”

“I’m fine, thanks.”

After a quiet moment, she asks, “When did you come from?”

I give her the date of my home time.

“Took you a whole week, huh?”

“When did
you
come from?” I ask.

“I put the note in your pants ten minutes before I got here.”

“Which note?”

She raises an eyebrow. “Well, I guess it would be the first one. I take it I needed to give you another.”

I nod and reach into my pocket to get the second note, but she lays a hand on my wrist.

“No. I still have to give it to you, so let me surprise myself.”

I pull my hand back out, empty.

“Since we’re not surrounded by security officers, I’m guessing you figured out how to disconnect.”

“Not on my own.”

She raises an eyebrow but says nothing.

“Are you sure we can’t be traced here?” I ask.

She nods. “It’s a hole in the system the institute’s science department hasn’t been able to plug. Any jump more than ten years, with or without a companion, doesn’t even show up on their scanners.” Her eyes narrow, assessing me. “You already knew that, too, didn’t you?”

I shrug.

“I tell you that in the second note?”

“No. You had a boy tell me on one of my missions.”

She chuckles. “Still more work you’re making me do, I see.”

I hear the cry of a bird. I look up and spot it soaring above the far end of the meadow. When it disappears in the trees, I ask, “What did you want to see me for?”

“You’ve got it backwards. You wanted to see me.”

“So you knew I was looking for you.”

“Of course I did.”

“Then why wouldn’t you see me back at the institute?”

“Because I have a feeling what you want to talk about would be best discussed elsewhere.” She gives me a sideways glance. “Was I wrong?”

“No.” She’s given me an opening but I hesitate. “You won’t report what I ask you about?”

“Would I have brought you here if I was going to do that?”

I shake my head.

The original questions I wanted to ask her were about Harlan Walker, but in the time since I first started looking for her, more important ones have surfaced. “Are we really not permitted to leave the institute in home time?”

“You’ve had the talk, huh?”

I nod.

“I’ve been with the institute for fifteen years, and can tell you that since we started using the Chaser, I’ve only set foot outside in our home time twice. Both were as part of recruiting missions such as the one that brought you to us.”

“They really should have told us that ahead of time.”

“If you’d known, would you have refused the offer?”

“I didn’t even know what I was coming to.”

“But you did know it was going to be a hell of a lot more interesting than the life you would have had otherwise.”

“You’re right,” I say after a moment. “I would’ve still come. But I don’t think Lidia would have.”

“Lidia?”

“She was in my group. Trained in the room next to ours.”

“Ah, right. Lidia Hampstead. She was a…placement.”

“What’s a placement?”

“Rewinders typically come from families who are Threes, Fours, and Fives. Now and then we’ll get the occasional Six.”

“I’m an Eight,” I say.

“You
were
a Eight. Yours was a…rare case. The institute’s only taken two other from that far down, but they couldn’t ignore your test scores. Still, Lady Williams had serious doubts. That’s why you were tested again and why she was personally there. And it took Sir Gregory to convince her to take you. It’s good to see his belief in you has paid off.”

I never even considered that I was the lowest caste member in my training class. That’s probably why most of the others ignored me, and a few—Lidia at the lead—did nothing to hide their contempt.

“Why would Sir Gregory do that for me?”

She looks at me as if I should already know the answer. “Why would you think?”

A potential answer comes to me, but I find it hard to believe so I say nothing.

Before the silence stretches too long, Marie continues. “There’s a certain prestige among the elite for having an offspring at the institute. Those with eighteen-year-olds who achieve a certain score level on the tests can request placement within the program. Usually these candidates come from large families who have children to spare. Per the institute’s royal charter, names of new institute members are sent to the king. By offering one of their own, a family can gain favor with the Crown and receive advantages such as tax breaks, knighthoods, and even the possibility of moving into the nobility if they aren’t there already.”

“I’m on the list?” I asked, surprised.

“Of course.”

I can barely get my head around the thought that the king has seen my name.

Marie looks at me. “Is this what you wanted to discuss?”

I push away my thoughts of the king and shake my head. “Not just that.” I tell her about Harlan Walker, the adjusted family report, his death, and the mention in the paper of the donation to the Upjohn Institute. “I wanted to get another copy of the paper so I tried to go outside. That’s how I ended up talking to Sir Gregory.” I frown. “If you don’t believe me, you could find a copy of the paper.”

“I don’t need to.”

“Hold on,” I say. “You’re the one who left the paper for me, aren’t you?”

“No.”

There’s nothing hidden by her demeanor so I’m pretty sure she’s telling the truth. “Do you know who did?”

Her shrug is less convincing than her no.

“Who do you—”

“Situations such as Mr. Walker’s happen all the time,” she says, refocusing our discussion. “Though not everyone kills themselves.”

I want to push her on the point of who left the newspaper, but I know it’d be a wasted effort so I say, “Then it
wasn’t
a heart attack.”

“I don’t know for sure,” she said. “I haven’t looked into this case, but what do you think?”

“Suicide. What I don’t understand is, why?”

“What do you think the institute really does?”

The words come automatically out of my mouth. “We trace family histories.”

“We
uncover
family histories,” she says. “The good and the bad. What the institute usually reports is only the good. The bad is kept for other things.”

“Johnston said something similar, that the bad just gets filed away.”

“That’s the company line, and Johnston is nothing if not a topflight company man,” she says, not hiding her disdain. “Let me tell you how things probably went with Walker. First, Lady Williams presented him with a clean but inaccurate family history. All smiles and thank-yous and respect. A few days later, Sir Wilfred pays Walker a follow-up visit, in which he presents the true facts, ones that could destroy the family’s social standing and spell disaster for its business. Several options will be laid out, the important part of each being a ‘sizable donation’ to the Upjohn Institute.”

“Blackmail.”

“Yes.”

“So they told Walker to kill himself?”

“I’m sure that was one of the possibilities covered. In which case, those who inherit would be brought into the discussion. It doesn’t matter to the institute which direction is chosen. Its only concerns are the size of the donation and that the institute never comes under any scrutiny.”

“So when we receive payment, the bad goes away?”

She shrugs. “Until it’s needed again.”

“That’s…” I don’t know which word to use—terrible, disgusting, unbelievable. None fully conveys the revulsion I feel. “I can’t believe the institute would do something like that.”

“Oh, Denny,” she says. “You’ve spent nearly your whole life hovering just above the bottom of society. Surely you realized long ago that everything in the empire is corrupt.”

We’re taught from a very young age that to degrade the empire is to degrade the king, so saying the words out loud is treasonous. But she’s right. I’ve seen my share of corruption and learned early on to turn a blind eye to it. The difference here is that this is on a scale much grander than the daily graft I’ve been exposed to.

“You’re saying our job is to feed the corruption,” I whisper.

“Only if you always follow regulations.”

I look at her, apprehensive. “What are you talking about?”

“You and I have spent a lot of time together. I could tell early on you know the difference between right and wrong. We wouldn’t be having this discussion otherwise. All I’m saying is that sometimes it’s okay to ignore what you’ve been taught. Maybe you come across something you think the institute might use in ways you’re not comfortable with. You can choose not to report it. As you get a sense of those you’re tracing, you can decide how much or how little the institute learns.”

These words are treason on a slightly smaller, institute-related scale, and would certainly result in her being locked up in some deep, dark dungeon at Upjohn Hall.

She must be reading my mind, because she says, half smiling, “You’re free to turn me in if you want, but I would appreciate it if you don’t. At the very least, give me some warning.”

“Of course I won’t turn you in.” How can I when everything she says makes sense?

“All I’m really trying to tell you is that when you’re unsure of a situation, you should take however long you need and then do what you think is right. If you’re not true to yourself, this job will kill you.”

The part of me that remembers growing up as the son of a laborer—constantly reminded to “know your place” and “don’t make waves” and “do as you’re told”—is waging an all-out war with the part of my mind that wants to embrace the path Marie is offering me.

“I’m only telling you to do what you think is right,” she says.

“Is that what you’ve been doing?”

She looks across the meadow, whatever’s left of her smile disappearing. “Not as much as I should.”

“How am I supposed to know what’s right?”

“You’ll know.”

Will I?

As the sun nears the mountains to our west, the temperature drops noticeably. Marie rubs her arms. “Is there anything else you wanted to know?”

A million things
, I think, but what she’s already told me has overloaded my mind. “Not right now.”

“Then you should head back.”

“What about you?” I ask.

“In a bit. Go on. I’ll be fine.”

Once I’m off the rock, I ask, “If I have more questions, can we meet again?”

“We’ll see.”

It’s not exactly the answer I’m hoping for but at least she doesn’t say no. I turn, intending to put a little distance between us before I travel home.

“It’s Roger, by the way,” she says.

I pause and look back. “I’m sorry?”

“The student I hadn’t met yet who watched Dawson Tower go down. His name’s Roger. I’m training him now.”

“Is he your last?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. Haven’t planned on stopping.”

“Maybe you can take future students somewhere else. The roof
is
getting a bit crowded.”

“Maybe.”

I detect her uncertainty and wonder what she’s thinking.

“Go home, Denny,” she says before I can ask. “You’ll do fine.”

CHAPTER
TWELVE

A
S WINTER BECOMES
spring, Johnston assigns me more and more responsibility on each of our projects. Sometimes it feels like I’m doing all the work while he finds a place to get a drink and wait until I’m done, but I’m not complaining.

I enjoy the work. I enjoy the places we go and the things we see.

So far, I’ve been lucky in that I haven’t found myself needing to decide whether or not I should cover up something. I know I will at some point. When that time comes, I hope I’m not too scared to do what Marie has suggested.

The first time Johnston leaves me completely alone, we’re in London, England, 1893, tracking the maternal great-grandfather of a minor industrialist from northern Virginia. According to what we’ve been able to piece together, today is the day the man will meet his future wife for the first time. This isn’t a critical item, exactly, but clients love to know these small details. Our job today is to verify the meeting.

“You ready?” Johnston asks.

“Of course.” I assume he’s about to go in search of a pub, so I ask, “Where are we meeting up?”

Johnston shakes his head. “No meeting. I have things to do back at the institute. Return when you’re done.”