Rewinder (7 page)

“We could have saved some of them,” I say as a great cloud of dust rises. “We could have saved all of them if we wanted to.”

“And if we did?” Marie asks.

I know what answer she wants me to say but I find it impossible to voice. Who cares what happens after? Who cares what changes would occur to our present? We could have
saved
them!

“Suppose we did,” she says when I don’t answer. “Perhaps we convince a worker who would have been on the seventy-sixth floor to stay home. What if, in his relief for not having been in the accident, he gets drunk and causes the death of someone who wasn’t in the tower, someone who, in our home time, was still alive when we left? Now that person is not. Babies will be born who shouldn’t have been, and others who
were
born will cease to exist. Relationships with husbands and wives and lovers and friends and enemies and business partners will all play out differently. There’s no way to predict what will happen, except to say that our time will be forever altered. All this because we save the lives of those who were already dead. As much as we all wish it were different, a Rewinder is not a god. A Rewinder is an observer, who keeps his contact with those in the time he’s visiting to a bare minimum.”

“I get it,” I say. “I just…”

“It’s human nature to want to help,” she says.

I nod. That’s it exactly.

“I feel the same way every time I watch this happen,” she says.

“How do you keep from acting?”

She’s silent for several seconds, then says something that sounds more like she’s reading it from one of the institute’s manuals than feeling it in her heart. “By doing nothing you are serving the greater good of humanity.”

I have a hard time believing that but don’t know how to respond, so I quietly watch the dust cloud grow. When I can take the tragedy no longer, I look over at the others along the lip.

“More of your students?” I ask.

“Three of them are. One is someone I haven’t met yet, but I see him here every time.”

I look at her. “You’ve seen me here, too?”

“I have.”

My brain is starting to hurt. “Everyone’s in the same position?”

She nods.

“Doing the same things?”

Another nod.

“Did you notice us having this conversation before?”

“I’m watching us right now.”

She nods past me, and I look back to see the second Marie over looking in our direction.

“What if you do something you haven’t seen before?”

She looks uncomfortable. “Like what?”

“I don’t know. What if you wave? Have you waved at the others before?”

“No, but I’m not so sure that’s a good idea.”

“You mean it’s kind of like if we tried to save those people?”

After a silent moment, she suddenly raises her hand above her head and waves at the other groups. A few respond in kind.

“Whoa,” I say, surprised. “Do you now remember seeing you do that?”

“It doesn’t work like that. My memory doesn’t change.”

“So what does that mean?”

She looks back toward the city. “What’s your understanding of what caused the Dawson Tower disaster?”

I’m actually glad she’s changing the subject, because any answer she might give would undoubtedly lead to more questions and my head is already overfilled. “Disgruntled workers sabotaged the project,” I say, following her gaze. “They were led by a guy named, uh, Wendell something, I think.”

“Wendell Barber,” she says.

“Right.”

“They were scapegoats,” she says. “He and the people who were executed with him knew nothing about what caused the disaster.”

I get the sense this conversation is turning political, and as an Eight who was taught long ago what should and shouldn’t be discussed, it’s not a comfortable direction for me.

“There was sabotage, all right, but not by disgruntled workers,” she goes on. “The building was brought down by budget skimming through the use of inferior materials and bribed inspectors. The true causes are the same ones that invade most aspects of our society—greed and corruption.”

It’s impossible to keep the discomfort from my face.

She says, “I’m telling you this because you need to know. When you go on a mission, you will come face to face with this same greed and corruption time and again.”

I say nothing.

“I know you were taught to ignore it and pretend it’s not there. But this is reality, Denny, and you’re going to be waist deep in it. It’s a part of the empire, and has been since…” She pauses. “Well, you tell me.”

For a moment, I’m at a loss, but then it comes to me. I have to fight through my fear to give her the answer. “The Home Party.”

“I knew you’d get it. After they took power, everything changed. There’ll be a lot of times you’ll need to navigate through layers of corruption to find the truths you’re assigned to uncover.” She’s quiet for a moment before adding, “One other thing. It’s something the other trainees probably won’t be told, but everyone figures it out eventually. The true histories you uncover may not be the ones we initially present to the clients.”

“Wait. Are you saying our job
isn’t
to report the truth?”

“No, that’s not what I’m saying. The institute expects you to always report the facts exactly as you’ve observed them. Records of those truths will be kept in the archives, but there will be times when the directors decide it’s better to tell a sanitized version to the family who engaged us.”

“But why?” I ask.

A flash of disapproval appears in her eyes but quickly vanishes. At first I think it’s meant for me, but when she speaks, I’m not so sure. “The truth isn’t necessarily good for all to have.” Like earlier when she spoke about the “greater good of humanity,” the words come out as if she’s said them a million times before and they’ve lost all meaning to her.

I look back along the edge of the roof and see that two of the other Maries and their students are gone.

“Time we go home,” my Marie says.

A second later, 2009 is history again.

CHAPTER
EIGHT

F
OR THE FIRST
time in several weeks, the other trainees and I are gathered together in the lecture hall. Or, I should say, some of us. Twelve—exactly half of our class—are missing.

We whisper among ourselves, asking each other if we know what’s going on. But no one seems to know anything.

At precisely eight a.m., the door at the front of the classroom opens and Lady Williams enters, followed first by Sir Gregory and Sir Wilfred, and then by Marie and the personal instructors of the other trainees present.

After greeting us, Lady Williams says, “Congratulations are in order. You are the chosen.”

We look around at each other, confused. Well, most of us. There’s a satisfied sneer on Lidia’s face, like she already knows what’s going on.

“I’m sure you are wondering why several members of your group are missing,” Lady Williams says. “That’s because the twelve of you have excelled at your studies and have shown us that you will make the best personal historians. The other twelve have not left the institute. In fact, they will play a very pivotal role in your coming career. They will become your Chaser companions, and each of your devices will be permanently linked to one of theirs.”

I have no idea what a Chaser companion is. I was under the impression that, with the exception of the first nine months when we’d be working with supervisors, we would each be traveling alone. Having someone accompany us would double the chances of something going wrong.

“Starting tomorrow,” Lady Williams goes on, “and every day from now until your training ends, you’ll be traveling with your trainer, putting to practical use the lessons they have taught you by rewinding family histories that are already known to us. This will allow us to better judge and focus your efforts when need be.”

She continues, rehashing some of the things Marie has already taught me, and then wraps up with the warning that if our performance fails to meet expectations, we can still be removed from the program. “But I’m certain you will all do just fine. You are on the cusp of a great adventure, and for that I envy you. You’ll be seeing what no others can. You’ll be witnessing
history
. It’s an honor so very few will ever have. Never forget that.”

With that, she turns and walks out the door, followed by Sir Wilfred.

We sit silently for a moment before Sir Gregory moves up to the lectern. “As I call your name, please join your instructor. Hayden Adams.”

Hayden, sitting in the row in front of me, gets up and heads down the stairs to the front of the room. When he reaches his trainer, they exit through the same door Lady Williams and Sir Wilfred used.

One by one, the process repeats until I’m the only one left.

“Denny Younger,” Sir Gregory says. As I walk by him to where Marie waits, he smiles and pats me on the shoulder. “I’m very impressed with your work, Denny. I knew you would do well.”

“T-t-thank you, sir.” I’m caught off guard by the compliment.

As soon as Marie guides me out of the room, I ask, “What are we doing?”

“You’ll see” is all she tells me.

We turn down several halls and descend a flight of stairs to a level I have never visited before. We soon come to a set of double doors that cuts off the hallway.

As Marie opens one side, I can see that the room beyond is small and unlit. “Step in but don’t go any farther,” she says.

I do as told. When she joins me and shuts the door, we’re plunged into complete darkness.

Marie moves past me and I hear a handle turn. Dim light streams in from another room.

“This way,” she says.

Worried that I might trip on something, I carefully follow her shadowy form through the doorway and into what turns out to be a large, rectangular room. Doors line all the walls but the one at our end. Their close proximity to each other reminds me of our trainee instruction room, only these doors are constructed mostly of glass.

Down the center of the room are two long, parallel counters divided into dozens of data stations, all but a few occupied by individuals wearing headphones and staring at their screens. I also spot a couple of fellow trainees and their instructors standing behind the data operators.

“This is the companion center,” Marie says. “One of four at the institute.”

My brow furrows.

“Come.”

She leads me behind one of the manned data stations. I can now see that the user has two monitors in front of him. One is displaying moving digital graphs, while the other is showing an alternate spectrum shot of someone lying on a bed.

Marie whispers, “This man’s job is to monitor one of the companions.”

“What—” The word comes out louder than I intended, and a few people sitting nearby glare at me. “Sorry,” I whisper, then look back at Marie. “What exactly are companions?”

She motions for me to follow her again, and we head over to one of the glass doors. Though it’s dark on the other side, there’s enough light bleeding in that I can make out a narrow, occupied bed.

Marie moves to the next door. After checking through the window, she opens it and ushers me inside. The room is exactly like the one before, only the bed is empty.

“Was that a companion?” I ask, more confused than ever.

“Yes.”

“What was he doing? Sleeping?”

“Basically.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s what his job requires.” She sits on the bed and urges me to do the same. Once I’m beside her, she says, “We’ve talked about the pain of time travel.”

I nod. She’s told me the longer the trip through time, the more pain a Rewinder will experience.

“The effect is considerably worse without a companion. When it’s paired with another Chaser, the device deflects onto the companion a considerable amount of the pain its Rewinder would otherwise experience.” She sees I’m having a hard time following her and says, “Let’s say you travel back five years, like we did the other day. You experience, at most, a minor headache. Your companion, resting here in one of these rooms, will have a headache, too, only a much stronger one.”

“But I didn’t have a companion when we went back.” I pause. “Did I?”

“You were slaved to my device, so my companion served both of us. Since we weren’t going back too far, it wasn’t difficult for her. All right, so now let’s say you go two hundred years into the past, taking it in a single jump. Your head would pound and you’d likely be sick to your stomach, and it’d be an hour or so before you feel normal again. Your companion, however, would be consumed by a migraine and muscle spasms that could last all day, if not longer. If you didn’t have him, all that pain would be on you, and you’d arrive unable to function at all, meaning the chances of you being discovered skyrocket.”

“So we don’t make trips without companions,” I say.

“Technically, it’s possible, but I wouldn’t try it if I were you. Especially since your companion serves the second and perhaps even more important role of being your beacon home. The farther you have to travel to get back here, the less accurate you become. Not in time. You’ll always get the time right. What I mean is physical location. A jump of a few hours or even a couple of days, and you can land precisely where you want without any help. Even a week or two will get you within a few feet of your desired location. But when you stretch that to years—again, like two hundred—no matter what location you’ve entered into your device, you could end up hundreds of miles away without your companion. Which, on a bad day, might put you in the middle of the ocean. The Chaser is able to use the companion’s gene signature—which is what the devices use to bind together—to deliver you directly into the arrival hall here at Upjohn Hall.”

I feel as if I’ve fallen through a magic hole into a dreamland where nothing is real. And yet I’ve traveled through time myself, so is this really that much more to accept?

Someone taps on the door and then opens it. It’s one of the data monitors.

“We have a departure in a couple minutes,” he says.