Rewinder (25 page)

That chair sits at the other table, facing the two institute leaders. There are two empty chairs side by side. Perhaps Sir Gregory is to sit next to me.

My security escort walks me over to the empty chairs, and one of the men indicates I’m to take the chair to the right. As I do, Sir Gregory heads over to join his two colleagues.

After we are all settled, all lights but the ones aimed at my table dim.

The three lean together and whisper among themselves, making me feel as if they’ve forgotten I’m here, and I think if not for the guards standing a few feet behind me, I could just get up and leave.

I’m entertaining this fantasy when Lady Williams says, “Denny Younger. You have been with us for just under eleven months, is that correct?”

My mouth is suddenly dry. “Correct, Lady Williams.” My voice sounds like it’s been dragged across the desert and stomped on by a thousand feet.

“You are from…” She looks at a paper in front of her. “New Cardiff.”

I nod, not sure I can get another word out.

“An Eight.” It’s hard to see, but I think she shoots a quick look at Sir Gregory.

I nod again.

She studies the paper some more. “You had a remarkable test score. One of the best we’ve ever seen.”

In any other circumstances, I would feel proud, but not here. Not now.

“And your training reports—stellar also.”

I remain silent.

“Mr. Johnston reports that your fieldwork has been all we could hope for, and only a week ago submitted the forms requesting you be promoted from junior status and allowed to work on your own.” She leans back. “From all of this, I would assume you’re familiar with institute procedure and policies. Am I wrong to think that?”

I spread what saliva I have around my mouth and say, “No, you’re not wrong. I’m very familiar.”

“Then tell me, why were you outside the walls of the institute?”

“I, uh, I…”

Sir Wilfred leans forward. “Was there a problem with your Chaser?”

“Um…”

“Were you traveling unlinked?” he asks.

“No. No, I wasn’t,” I reply truthfully.

“So why didn’t your companion home you in here?”

The only thing I can think to do is shake my head.

“Could it be because your companion’s attention was divided?”

They know the answer so there’s no reason for me to reply.

Sir Wilfred motions to one of the men behind me. I hear the door open and more people enter. When they’re almost to the table, I look over and see three guards and one prisoner.

Me.

I’m not shocked, but my other self clearly is. He freezes next to the empty chair and stares at me. He finally tears his gaze away and looks toward the other table.

“What’s going on?” he asks. “What is this?”

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” Sir Wilfred says. “Mr. Younger, please take a seat.”

As Other Me sits, he keeps glancing in my direction as if I’m a ghost.

“To avoid any confusion,” Lady Williams says, “we will refer to you as Younger A.” She looks at me, then turns her gaze on Other Me. “And you as Younger B. So which of you wants to tell me why there are two of you here?”

“I have no idea,” Other Me says. “I…um, there’s no—”

He must realize I’m the Denny who stopped him outside the Three Swans Tavern and sent him back here. I poke his thigh and hold my hand out flat where only he can see, hoping to shut him up. It seems to do the job. For the moment.

My life might be sacrificed but I still have the chance to save his. It’s a long shot, but if he can play the dummy, he might be able to ride it out and I will have survived. Not the me that knows Iffy and her world, but a version of me nonetheless. That seems worth fighting for.

“I’m waiting,” Lady Williams says.

Sir Wilfred growls, “If you don’t want to voluntarily tell us what happened, we
will
find out another way.”

From the looks on their faces, I can tell they have no idea what occurred. Which means none of the others have returned yet. I can use this to my advantage.

“He doesn’t know anything,” I say, nodding to my double. “It’s my fault. I’m the one who shouldn’t be here. I created a break but was able to fix it without him knowing.”

Other Me’s right leg begins to bounce softly. It’s a nervous tick I get sometimes when I’m stressed.

Just hang on
.
I’ll get you out of this.

“Is that right?” Sir Wilfred says. “And what was this
break
?”

I need to be careful. The only power I have is the information in my head, and until I’m sure Other Me will be okay, I need to be judicious about how much I share. “I unintentionally affected the timeline of a subject I was observing.”

“That’s amazingly vague,” Sir Wilfred says. “How about you fill in the details?”

“I will, but only under certain conditions,” I say with far more confidence than I feel.

“Conditions? This isn’t a negotiation. You are in no position to—”

“Sir Wilfred, I’m very clear about my position. I will never leave this level alive.” I stare at them, daring them to contradict me, but no one does. “Here are my conditions. One”—I gesture toward Other Me—“he’s immediately released. Two, he is in no way to be punished for my actions. He knows absolutely nothing about this and should not pay for something he didn’t do. And three, he’s given the free choice to either stay here and continue as a Rewinder or return to New Cardiff and be placed in a position appropriate for his status as a Five.”

For the first time since he retrieved me from my cell, Sir Gregory speaks, his voice surprisingly calm. “You understand, Denny, um, A, that we can’t just take your word that he wasn’t involved.”

“Sir Gregory, those are my conditions. Once they’re met, I’ll tell you absolutely everything.”

“I find your attempt to save what amounts to your own skin comical,” Sir Wilfred scoffs. “What you have to tell us will unlikely be worth giving you anything.”

I lean back in my chair and look each of them in the eye. “All right. Fair enough. I’ll tell you this much. For a while, this world vanished. No empire, no institute, no time travel, nothing you know. And then I brought it back. I could make it happen again, too. Good enough for you?” I push my chair back and stand, defiant. “Let him go, and I’ll tell you the rest.”

Sir Wilfred’s face turns red. “You are a prisoner here. You don’t tell
us
what—”

Lady Williams places a hand on his arm. “Sir Wilfred, if I may.”

“Of course,” he says quickly.

When she looks at me, I can see she’s trying very hard to hold back whatever it is she’s feeling. It’s not anger, though, more like…excitement. “Younger A, we’d like to discuss the matter among ourselves. If you don’t mind, I think it would be best if we pick up this conversation later.”

“You’re in control,” I say.

The corner of her mouth ticks up. “I wonder if that’s true.”

__________

O
THER ME AND
I are escorted back to the cellblock. As we walk, he whispers a question only I can hear. “It was you at the tavern, wasn’t it?”

I see no reason to reply. He knows the answer, just like he knows I’m the key to his survival.

I spend the rest of the day alone in my cell, pacing. Every minute could be the one when Lidia and the others return, ruining everything. When I finish with my dinner, I lie on my mattress, hoping to fall asleep, but it’s impossible. I can’t stop thinking. Ways on how to ensure that Other Me lives mingle with my now ruined plans. These, in turn, wrap themselves around memories of Iffy and my mother and Ellie and my time as a Rewinder before it all went bad.

If I were coming at this fresh, if I were at that tavern and the twelve errant seconds occur, given the choice of fixing it right then or doing what I’ve done, which would I choose?

I’m surprised the answer comes so quickly: exactly what I’ve done.

The only thing I regret since creating the mistake is being caught. Iffy’s world, even with all its faults, is so much better than this.

I don’t know how long I’ve been lying here when a voice whispers in my ear, “Don’t move.”

When I jerk in surprise, a hand touches my chest, not pressing down to confine me but lying softly, comforting me.

“Put your arms around me,” the voice says.

Perhaps I should be scared, but I’m not. I wrap my arms around my visitor and find a small body, a woman’s shape.

Gray mist, then dim light.

 I’m no longer in my cell but in a room three times as large.

My visitor peels my arms off her back and pulls away.

Marie.

“Stay here,” she says. “I’ll be right back.”

She vanishes, and returns a few seconds later with someone else in her arms. Other Me, also still wearing the clothes he had on during the interrogation.

After giving each of us a quick look up and down, she focuses on me. “Well, seems like you’ve been having fun.”

“What’s going on?” I ask.

“Yeah, what are we doing here?” Other Me says.

She raises an eyebrow. “Dealing with one of you was hard enough. I’m not sure I like this.”

“I wasn’t that—” I stop, realizing Other Me has been saying the exact same words I am. We look at each other.

“That was kind of creepy,” he says.

“Agreed,” I reply.

Marie focuses on me again. “Tell me what happened.”

I’ve always been able to trust Marie, but maybe it’s my confinement that makes me say, “Why? So you can go back and tell Lady Williams?”

“Do you really think I would do that?”

I don’t, but my defense is still up. “Why do you want to know?”

“Because maybe I can help.”

“I’m already taking care of it,” I say.

“Yeah, by sacrificing yourself to save me,” Other Me says.

“I’d love it if I were in the position to save myself, but I don’t think that’s an option,” I tell him.

Other Me looks around. “Well, we’re not in our cells now, so it seems to me all options are on the table.”

He’s right. I turn to Marie. “Where are we? Can we leave? Is there any way I can get my Chaser?” Maybe I can actually finish my plan, but I’ll need my device to do that. All my location coordinates are stored in it.

“Relax,” she says. “We should be safe here. This is a storeroom that hasn’t been used in years, out by the stables.”

Instead of calming me, this increases my anxiety. “We’re still on institute grounds?”

“If I try to take you beyond the walls, chances are greater we’d be discovered. Here, I can unlink and hop without anyone knowing. Besides, no one’s looking for you yet. We’re three days in the past.”

“So we
can
leave,” Other Me says.

“I want to know what happened first,” she says, her eyes on mine. “I’m your friend, Denny. I’m not going to use this information for anything other than helping you. And the last people I would ever tell are Lady Williams and Sir Wilfred.”

I believe her, but am still not sure I should say anything.

“I know about the offer you gave them,” she says after a few moments. “I know you’ve said that whatever happened created a whole new history.”

“How do you know that?” I ask.

She starts to open her mouth but the answer comes from behind us.

“Because I told her.”

Both Other Me and I turn as Sir Gregory steps out from behind a stack of boxes near the far corner.

Whipping back around to Marie, I say, “You
did
sell me out.”

“She did nothing of the kind,” Sir Gregory counters as he joins us. “Your little tidbit of replacing this world with another is probably something you should have kept to yourself.  They’re curious now.”

“Don’t you mean
you’re
curious?” I say.

“Of course I am,” he says, “but not for the same reasons Lady Williams and Sir Wilfred are. Don’t you see the potential of what you’ve handed them? If what you say is true, then you’ve found a switch. Turn it on and our world is gone, turn it off and it comes back, fully intact.” He pauses. “It is intact, isn’t it?”

“It’s the same,” I say. “It has to be.”

“So you
have
found a switch.”

I don’t reply, but the description is accurate.

“Do you see the power that controlling this switch would give someone? He could steal whatever he wants from one world and bring it to the other and be the richest person in both. And you have just planted that seed in the minds of two of the greediest people in the empire. I can’t let them have it.”

“But you’re part of the institute, too,” I say. “You’re one of the leaders.”

“Denny,” Marie says.

Sir Gregory raises his hand a few inches. “Your point is taken, Denny. If I’d known the full extent of what they’ve been doing, I would have never accepted the position.”

“And you’d still be in your cells,” Marie says.

“I have a question for you,” Sir Gregory says to me. He returns to the boxes he was hiding behind and picks something up off the floor. When he comes back, he’s carrying my satchel. “What happens if I give this back to you?”

“Is my Chaser in there?”

“It is.”

I take a few steps toward him and hold out my hand, but he keeps my bag out of my reach.

“Answer my question first.”

There’s no reason for me to lie. “I’ll erase this world and never bring it back.”

“I thought as much,” he says, still keeping my satchel out of reach. “Is this other place so much better than here?”

“It’s not perfect. But, yes, it’s better than here.”

Sir Gregory tosses the satchel to me.

I look inside. Everything is there. My Chaser, my clothes, some money, even the newspaper I pulled out of the bin.

“I think it might be better if we don’t know when and where the switch is,” Sir Gregory says. “That’s something you should always keep to yourself.”

“You know what it means if I go,” I say.

“I do.”

“But why would you—”

“Humanity’s been on a downward spiral for over a hundred years,” he says. “I and a few others have been fighting as best we can, but we’ll never turn the tide. You, though, have found the answer I’ve been hoping for.”