Survivor (Rewinder Series Book 3)

by Brett Battles

  She sets her bag on the table and pulls out her deck of cards. She also removes a photograph of my chaser, smaller than the image I was shown last time, and places it on the tabletop between us. She looks through the deck, selects a few cards, and sets the remainder to the side.

  She lays the first card next to the picture of the chaser. It’s the clock again.

  “Tempus,” she says, touching it.

  Tempus, time. Not specifically clock. It could mean nothing. Perhaps she doesn’t know the Latin word for clock. I certainly can’t remember it, but of course she would have had the benefit of being able to look it up before she came here.

  Slow down. Don’t read too much into it.

  She moves her finger from the card to the photograph, says “Tempus,” and looks at me expectantly.

  My mouth has turned so dry, I’m not sure I can respond even if I want to. And I do not want to.

  From behind me, Shim says something that sounds dismissive. Dumont’s response sounds curt to my ears.

  She looks back at me, then flicks a glance at Shim. “No understand Latin.”

  Why would Dumont tell me that? Is she trying to put me at ease so I’ll tell her what the chaser is? She appears to be speaking truly but how can I gauge that? I don’t know this culture. I don’t know this woman.

  I can, however, test if she’s right about Shim.

  “Ipsa piger canis,” I say.

  It is an insult I saw in a book on Latin when I was younger, though I’m not sure I’ve said it correctly. Still, the point should get across, and if I’ve judged Shim’s character correctly, she’s not one who will tolerate being called a lazy dog.

  Dumont is trying to work out the meaning of my words. A few seconds later she chuckles, and I know she’s figured it out. Behind me, Shim hasn’t moved. Either Dumont is telling the truth, or Shim’s knowledge of Latin doesn’t extend to domesticated animals.

  Dumont points at the clock card and the chaser again. “Tempus.”

  Just because she’s using the word doesn’t mean she’s making the colossal leap that the box is a time-travel device. In fact, I see now she’s specifically pointing at the display screen that, when activated, shows the time and date. This eases my conscience enough that I decide there’s no reason not to confirm this.

  “Ita,” I say.

  She points at the box on the chaser where the location number of the destination is input. “Quid est?”

  Now is my chance to guide her away from the device’s true nature. “It’s a calculator,” I say in English. “For advanced math problems.”

  As expected, she looks at me, confused.

  I pretend to try puzzling out the correct word before saying in Latin, “Do not know how to say.”

  “Try. Please.”

  Again, I act like I’m thinking about it. After several seconds, I pantomime writing on something.

  She jams her hand into her bag and pulls out a pen and some paper.

  Before she can give them to me, though, Shim steps over and snatches the pen out of Dumont’s hand. She is clearly not happy with the idea of me having something she considers a potential weapon.

  The two women talk for several moments. When they finish, Shim reluctantly gives the pen to me, with a stern warning I take to mean she’ll break my neck if I look like I’m using it for anything but its intended purpose.

  I write out a simple mathematical formula: 2 + 3 = 5. But when Dumont reads it, she looks confused again.

  Of course. I’m an idiot. I’m forgetting about the history I studied while training to be a rewinder. The change to this timeline came in the thirteenth century. The Arabic numerals I grew up knowing had been a work in progress prior to the Mongols’ rise to power. I also have a feeling the mathematical symbols I used had not been developed then and are likely completely different here.

  To test my theory, I write out 1 through 9 and ask her if she knows what each number is. She recognizes some but not all. I put dots next to each, the number of dots equaling its representation. She gets it now. I then write down several simple formulas. The mathematical symbols are unfamiliar to her but she quickly picks up on what I’ve done. Something is still bothering her, though.

  She touches the answer to the formula. “Quid est?”

  I’ve been hoping my calculator ruse would take hold but she’s seen through that. She obviously wants to know how the box uses that answer.

  I point at the numbers in the calculation, like I’m not sure she understood how the math works.

  She shakes her head and taps the answer again. “What…now?”

  Again, I pretend not to understand.

  As she starts to repeat her question, the door opens. A guard I recognize as one of the supervisors sticks his head in and says something that gives me the impression Dumont’s time with me is ending. Whatever it is that Dumont tells him is enough to get him to leave for now.

  She reaches into her bag and pulls out a second picture, which she sets on the table. The focus of this shot is RJ’s charger. She waves her finger back and forth between the two photographs, obviously wanting to know if the two devices are meant to work together.

  The only reason they haven’t figured that out yet is, the charger’s connector doesn’t fit perfectly. RJ has/had promised/may never promise to fashion a better version next time. If the prototype’s connector is propped up just right, it’ll stay in place and juice will flow from the solar-charged battery into the chaser. If not, the connector will fall out.

  “No. Different.” I point at the picture of the charger. “For, um…” I hold a hand next to my head and pretend to talk. I’ve seen guards use communication devices somewhat similar to the cell phones in Iffy’s world, so I’m confident my gesture will be understood.

  Dumont’s eyes widen, and she points at the hand I’m using to hold the imaginary phone. “Ubi est?” she asks, wanting to know where it is.

  “Do not know. You not have?”

  She looks past me at Shim, and says something that sounds like both a demand and a question.

  “No,” Shim says, using another of my very small collection of Mushian words.

  Dumont focuses back on me and holds her hand like she’s cradling a phone. “You have…before?” She pauses. “Where Dux Shim…find you?”

  I intended only to distract her by making her think the charger belongs to a communication device, but I might be able to use the lie to convince her the fictional phone is out there somewhere. Maybe then she’ll take me back to the hills so I can show her where.

  I can’t pass up any potential opportunity to get beyond the walls of the prison. I say, “Yes.”

  Dumont says something to Shim, who walks over to the door and lets my escorts in.

  “Thank you for your time,” Dumont says.

  “We are done?” I say, surprised.

  “Vale,” she says, and motions toward the guards.

  I almost suggest she takes me to the spot in the hills, but worry that doing so will make her realize I have an ulterior motive. The best I can hope for is Dumont returning soon and suggesting it herself.

  I rise out of my chair and bow my head. “Vale.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  FOR NEARLY TWO months, I cling to the idea that Dumont has to come back, but eventually I must admit to myself she has no further need of me and has likely forgotten I even exist. My life is an endless repetition of sleep and eat and work and eat and sleep and eat and work and eat and sleep.

  I’m sure many of my fellow prisoners are adept at turning their minds off for days, maybe weeks at a time. I’m not so blessed. The fate of a different timeline rests on my shoulders. A timeline counting on me to bring it back into existence.

  There are only a few minutes left for dinner by the time I get out of the food line. I’ve eaten what food I can—or what passes for it here—as it was put on my tray, but there’s still plenty on my plate and I need all the energy I can get to survive here.

  The tab
les are packed, and I’m thinking I’ll have to finish my meal standing up when Jovan waves me over to a seat he’s saved for me. The moment my backside hits the bench, I dig into my stew.

  “Better than yesterday,” Jovan says.

  He’s been teaching me his native tongue. Turns out—surprise—it’s not called Mushian but something like Gaulnishke, which is easier for me to think of as Gaulish. The name must come from the Gauls who ruled a portion of what became modern-day France—at least the France I know. Or maybe it came from something else entirely.

  My understanding of Gaulish has so far outpaced my ability to pronounce the words, but that’s okay. What I’ve learned has given me the ability to, more times than not, understand what the guards are saying when they order us around. Even better, my improved comprehension has earned me a spot on one of the machines in the metal shop. Granted, it’s only a small motorized hole puncher, but operating it is a giant step up from being the rubbish boy. And it’s so easy to use. Like those on other machines, the control screen is operated by touching pictogram buttons that clearly indicate the task to be performed.

  Jovan is right. The stew is better than yesterday, but it’s still awful. Calories are calories, though, so I down the meal and pretend I can’t taste anything.

  Back in our cell, Jovan and I sit on the floor next to our bunks and play chess with bits and pieces of garbage we’ve picked up around the prison. From what I can tell, there’s only one difference between chess here and chess in my world. The bishop, which I was taught could go as far as it has room to move but only in a single diagonal direction, can additionally make one ninety-degree turn here. This can be a literal game changer, and gave me nothing but fits when we first started playing. But I’ve learned how to use my bishops better now, and have also made it one of my signature tactics. Now, instead of being massacred in every game, I come close to winning two or three times a night.

  We are in the middle of our fifth game, one I’m beginning to think I have a chance of winning, when the automatic lock that bars our door pulls free. A second later the door opens, and five guards rush in holding stun rifles at the ready. Jovan and I jump up and press our backs against our bunk. Our cellmates are doing the same at their beds. It’s how we’ve been trained to respond.

  Once everything settles down, a middle-aged man I’ve never seen before enters the room. The other prisoners become even tenser than they’ve been. I’d ask Jovan to tell me who the guy is, but a guard is standing too close for me to even whisper without being heard.

  The important man—a high-ranking administrator, I’m guessing—circles the room, checking the face of each inmate, not stopping until he’s standing directly in front of me.

  “You are Denny Younger,” he says.

  It’s not a question, but I nod anyway.

  “You understand me?”

  Pronouncing the words like I know less than I actually do, I garble out, “Only little.”

  He says something else to me, a longer sentence. I catch the words you and woman and what I think is the interrogative form of what. Grammar, verb forms, tenses—these are all things I have yet to fully grasp.

  The man speaks again and once more it goes over my head. This time, Jovan responds.

  The man asks him a question. Jovan bows his head and turns to me. In a combination of Latin, hand signals, and Gaulish, he says, “He wants to know what the woman wants with you.”

  I look at him, confused. In Gaulish, I say, “What woman?”

  The administrator answers in a raised voice that Jovan translates to mean something like, “You know who I’m talking about. What does she want with you?”

  But he’s wrong. I don’t know. I don’t know anybody in this bastardized world other than Jovan. He’s the only person I’ve talked to since—

  Dumont Elaine.

  Could it be she hasn’t forgotten about me after all? If it is her the man is asking about, then the answer is she wants to know how to operate my time-traveling device. I think it’d be better if I don’t actually put it that way.

  After I confirm through Jovan it is indeed Dumont the man is talking about, I convey I don’t know why she would be interested in me, and that I don’t expect to hear from her ever again.

  “Before, when she came, what did you talk about?”

  I answer not much, and tell Jovan to say I knew even less of the man’s language when she was here.

  The man eyes me up and down as the right side of his upper lip rises in a snarl. “You are lying.”

  This is a phrase the guards use with prisoners all the time so I have no problem understanding it, and am shaking my head and saying no the moment the words are out of his mouth. “Talk true. Not lie.” I look at Jovan. “I’m not lying. You know that. Please, make him understand that.”

  Jovan tries to do this, but immediately receives a backhand to the cheek. The man moves forward until his face is inches from mine. I can feel his breath on my face, and know he recently ate something even more odorous than the stew we were given. “You lie.”

  I start to plead my case again, but one of the nearby guards rams a rifle butt into my stomach.

  I double over and am on my way to the floor when Jovan catches me.

  The man hisses a phrase that sounds like, “Slaben duloo.” I have heard these words on occasion before, though not together. Duloo is a form of two—maybe more like couple or both. And while I don’t know exactly what slaben means, I know what it refers to.

  The solo cells.

  According to Jovan, these are the cells where troublemakers are sent. He has strongly suggested I never do anything that would put me there.

  Two guards grab me and hustle me toward the door. As we exit, I glance back and see a couple of their colleagues are bringing Jovan. Now I know why the man used the word duloo.

  We are taken down several sets of stairs. I argue the whole way that my friend has done nothing, but no one pays me any attention. We’re three floors below ground when we stop at a large barred doorway.

  When the administrator walks up to it, I try to plead Jovan’s case one more time, but a rifle slamming into my back shuts me up.

  The administrator presses a button next to the bars and speaks into a small panel. With the pop of an electric lock, the gate opens.

  Glaring lights illuminate our way down a series of corridors. Our journey ends in a rectangular room that must be fifty feet long and about fifteen wide. Along the walls to the left and right are heavy metal doors no more than three feet apart.

  Scattered throughout the room are several more guards. One, whose uniform is a bit more decorated than his companions’, stands just inside the entrance, facing us.

  He bows to the administrator and recites the numbers sixteen and nineteen—at least I think he does. The teen numbers are the ones I’m having the most problem with because they don’t seem to have a logical pattern.

  My escorts take me to a door almost halfway into the room. Another electronic buzz and the door swings open.

  Oh, God.

  A better name for the solo cell would be vertical coffin. It’s barely large enough for me to stand in, and there’s no way I’d be able to sit. And the smell, oh god the smell. Putrid would be a kind description.

  The final feature is not apparent until I’m shoved inside and the door is closed behind me.

  The darkness.

  The complete and total darkness.

  __________

  I MUST HAVE stayed awake most of the night before my eyes finally closed.

  I’m not sure what followed was sleep, however. Whatever it was, I did it on my feet, leaning against the wall.

  I ache in places I’ve never ached in my life. And that’s before I take into consideration the bruises from the rifle butts.

  On top of all that, the growl in my stomach tells me I’ve missed a meal. But that’s something I’m okay with. Eating would mean having to use the hole between my feet as a toilet again. Once was more than e
nough.

  I place my ear against the door but hear nothing. Not a hum or footstep or voice.

  I lean back.

  It’s obvious why I’ve been put here. We’ve been put here. I can’t forget Jovan, though his only crime is his association with me. My “crime” is my connection to Dumont—why else would the administrator want to know the reason she’s interested in me? Which also must mean she’s been trying to see me again, right?

  But why has it been two months? Has she been trying to make progress with the chaser and hit a snag? Or did she think leaving me in prison a little while longer would make me more amenable to assisting her? I have to say, given my current living conditions, that’s an angle that might work.

  With nothing else to do, my mind creates dozens of possibilities about what’s going on, with increasing levels of ridiculousness until I realize I’m wasting valuable time and force myself to stop.

  At some point, the administrator is going to return. I need to come up with a way to get Jovan and me released, and if not both of us, at least my friend.

  I concentrate on this for…an hour? Two? Who knows? I don’t have a watch, and even if I did, I wouldn’t be able to see it.

  In a way, there is no time where I am. There is only consciousness and unconsciousness. Time will only intervene again when the door reopens. It’s kind of like that box with the cat in it I read about in Iffy’s world. Something about the cat being both alive and dead at the same time while the box is sealed. It is only after it’s opened that the exact nature of the animal becomes real. My situation is simply the reverse. I’m the cat, and the world outside my box-like cell is both there and not there at the same time.

  I might be starting to lose it.

  I haven’t been in this cell for more than twenty-four hours—I think—and my mind is already equating me to a cat.

  I need to stay sharp. I can’t let my brain drift like that.

  “The plan,” I whisper. “Never forget the plan. Find the chaser. Extract my blood. Dry it. Rekey the chaser. Make things right. Find the chaser. Extract my blood. Dry it. Rekey the chaser. Make things right. Get out…”