Survivor (Rewinder Series Book 3)

by Brett Battles

  Dumont opens it, stands back, and waves us inside.

  The soldiers help me over the threshold into what appears to be the living room of an apartment. In addition to a seating area, there’s a place with a table for eating. No kitchen, though. Through an open door on the other side of the room, I see part of a bed. There are two other doors, but my angle doesn’t allow me to see much beyond them besides a slice of floor and a wall.

  “Like it?” Dumont asks in Latin.

  “What is this place?” I ask.

  She answers in Gaulish, and Jovan says, “It’s our new home, apparently. She apologizes that we’re going to have to share. Says they were only planning for you.”

  The apartment is at least three times larger than the cell Jovan and I lived in with several others. Neither of us will have a problem with this living arrangement.

  “I think it best if you get some rest now,” Dumont says.

  She barks an order, and the soldiers lead Jovan and me through separate doors in the back. My destination turns out to be a bedroom, and I assume Jovan has been taken someplace similar.

  A hundred times faster than I would be able to do on my own, I’m stripped of my clothes and laid on the bed. The conscious world is drifting away, but before I completely slip under, someone approaches and touches and pokes me all over.

  When my head is lifted from the pillow, I pry my eyes open enough to see a small cup of liquid rising toward my lips. A moment later, the contents are poured into my mouth.

  Within seconds, I’m asleep.

  __________

  AUTOMATICALLY UPON WAKING, I recite the words before I do anything else. “Find the chaser. Extract my blood. Dry it. Rekey the chaser. Make things right.” There’s a power to them that centers me and helps me focus.

  When I open my eyes, sunlight is streaming into the room. I don’t know how long I’ve been asleep but I’m sure it’s been more than a few hours, because my back aches in the way it only does when I lie too long in the same position. I also feel stronger. Not one hundred percent, but considerably better than when I was brought here.

  Tentatively I climb from the bed, and am relieved when my legs don’t slip out from under me. Now that I’m not half dead, I see there’s more than just a bed in the room. A dresser sits across from the foot of the bed, and a small desk is under the only window. I shuffle to the desk and use it to prop myself up while I pull back the curtain.

  Turns out I have a room with a view. Before me is the ocean, vast and wide and gray. A wall of clouds delineates the horizon, the marine layer waiting for the opportunity to return to land. Almost directly below me is a thirty-foot cliff face that ends at a rocky beach.

  A quick check of the window reveals it’s not designed to open. But even if it were, it doesn’t matter. If I’m in need of an escape route, I’m sure I can find something better than one that would require me to scale the side of the building and deal with the cliff.

  Besides, Dumont is here, and by all indications she knows where the chaser is.

  In my search for clothes, I open a door I think leads to a closet, but instead it opens onto a large bathroom. I take my time in the shower, letting the hot water work out the kinks in my back, and by the time I’m through, much of the rust in my mind has also washed away.

  I find an odd-looking razor in a drawer, and use it and some soap to shave. My mouth still feels mucky, so I look around for something I can use to clean my teeth. I find a bottle to which someone has attached a handwritten note that says in Latin: FOR MOUTH.

  I sniff it first, and then test a drop on my tongue. It has no taste at all and I think it must be drinking water. I lift it to my lips, but the moment the first splash enters my mouth, the liquid begins to foam. I start to spit it out, but then realize the parts of my mouth where the foam has touched feel clean. I take some more in, careful not to swallow it, and slosh it around. The foaming is unnerving but I let it be. When it eventually subsides, I spit it out. Whatever the substance is, it has made my mouth feel as refreshed as the rest of me.

  A cabinet within the bathroom contains several changes of clothes in my size. Once I’m dressed, I head into the main area of the apartment. It’s unoccupied but there is food on a table—fruit, crackers, nuts, and what appears to be cheeses and cut meats under a clear cover. My stomach growls at the sight and I greedily bite into an apple.

  “You’re up.”

  I turn around and see Jovan standing in the open doorway to one of the other rooms.

  Forgetting the apple, I hurry as best I can over to him. “Are you all right?”

  He snickers. “Why wouldn’t I be? This is a lot better than where we were.”

  He could not be more right about that.

  “Have you eaten?” I motion to the table. “There’s food.”

  “Breakfast was a couple hours ago. That’s just snacks.”

  “You didn’t wake me?”

  His eyes narrow. “How long do you think you’ve been asleep?”

  “Must have been a whole day.”

  “Try four.”

  “Four?”

  “They tell me you had some kind of infection, and they thought it better if you rested.”

  I’m getting a heavy dose of déjà vu. My initial arrival in Iffy’s world. Damaged and blinded by the pain pounding in my head, I passed out in front of a house in New York City and woke up days later in a hospital. Different place, different circumstances, but similar result.

  “And you’ve been locked in here with me the whole time?”

  “Locked in here? Not at all. As long as I stay out of the other buildings, Dumont has given me permission to go wherever I want within the compound.”

  This isn’t exactly what he says. He uses an honorific when referring to Dumont that I’m unfamiliar with, so I ask him to explain it to me. The word closest to what he describes is professor. He’s confirmed this is an educational facility, focused on scientific research of one kind or another. It’s good to know that even in my weakened state, my instincts were on target.

  The name of the place is apparently Trinity Education Outpost No. 5. My interpretation of what it’s called might be a little off, but it’s a mouthful in whichever language it’s said in.

  “So you’ve just walked around?” I ask.

  “It’s peaceful here. I like to sit above the cliff and look at the water. It makes me…” He falls silent, lost momentarily in a memory. “I never thought I’d ever enter”—he speaks a name I don’t know.

  I try repeating the word. “Skearonsom? What’s that?”

  “Skiron Sum. It’s the district we are in.” He gives me a sideways glance. “You really aren’t from here, are you?”

  It’s what I told him in prison, but no one believes anyone there, even friends.

  “How about you show me around,” I suggest.

  “You sure you’re ready for that?”

  I might not last long out there, but the idea of breathing some fresh air is suddenly all I can think about. “I’ll be fine.”

  __________

  THE WALK TO the elevator turns out to be the hardest part. After that, instead of getting weaker, my strength slowly returns, and by the time we exit the building, I’m no longer concerned about passing out on the spot.

  I stop, take in a deep breath, and smile. It’s one of those pleasant beach days when the sky is blue and the temperature hovers around seventy degrees Fahrenheit. A breeze blows through the trees in the fields surrounding Trinity, but the facility’s walls keep it mostly away from us.

  A couple of dozen people are walking between buildings. As I noted before, most are about my age.

  Jovan leads me north along a path that separates a parking area from the wide strip of grass that fronts several buildings.

  “You haven’t been inside any of them?” I ask.

  “Are you kidding? This is as close as I let myself get to them. The last thing I want is to give the professor a reason to send me away.” He grin
s. “Thanks, by the way.”

  “For what?”

  “Getting me out.”

  I smile but say nothing. The truth is, I’m still not sure I’ve done him any favors. Yes, this is better than where we were, but what happens when Dumont decides he’s not necessary? Will she send him back? Or will she have one of her soldiers take him outside the walls and shoot him? My plea to bring Jovan with us was made purely on instinct, but I know almost nothing about how things are done in this world. I hope I haven’t made a mistake.

  Jovan takes me to some benches along the bluff, on the large expanse of grass between the second-to-last building and the observatory.

  “Sure beats staring at bars,” he says as he sits.

  Instead of joining him, I move as close to the cliff’s edge as I can safely get and look over the side.

  “Careful,” Jovan says. “That’s not a fall you want to take.”

  There is no fence to prevent someone from walking off the edge and landing in the rocks on the beach. No one would survive that.

  I look along the bluff in both directions, hoping to spot an easier way down to the beach. Again, it’s not that I want to escape right at this moment, but once I either have the chaser or know where it is, I will go, so figuring out as many potential escape routes as possible is at the top of my to-do list.

  The only thing I see that might work is along the back of one of the buildings, a beam or pipe that travels down the side of the cliff almost to the bottom. If I can figure out how to get to it, I’m pretty sure I could use it to climb down. It appears to be attached to a catwalk that runs along a building not that different from the one where we’re staying. But the only way to the catwalk is through the building. Which, according to Jovan, is off limits.

  I turn back to the bench but don’t sit. “We’ve got company.”

  Jovan twists around to see what I’m talking about and grimaces when he sees Dumont walking across the grass toward us.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “I was supposed to let her know when you woke.”

  She stops at the end of the bench closest to me, and says something Jovan translates as, “I’m happy to see that you’re up. How are you feeling?”

  “Better than before. Thank you.”

  The next thing she asks, Jovan answers directly in what sounds like a contrite tone. It must have to do with his failure to report my condition. Thankfully she appears to let it pass and returns her attention to me.

  “Are you up to having a conversation?” she asks me through Jovan.

  Though I’m tired from my exertion, I don’t want to miss any chance of getting closer to the chaser, so I smile and say, “Sure.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  DUMONT LEADS US into a building near the middle of the campus. Unfortunately it’s not the one with the attached catwalk behind it, but it’s close. We head down a series of halls to a door closer to the rear of the building than the front. She pulls a disc out of her pocket and waves it across a pad on the door to unlock it.

  The room we enter is about thirty feet square, with a shiny metal table in the center. Standing near the table are three people.

  “This is Langer Min and Madani Gregor,” Dumont says, gesturing at the woman and man who can’t be more than a few years older than me. “And you already know Dux Shim.”

  Shim’s expression is as dour as ever. What I note now, though—because I didn’t have the knowledge to notice it before—is that her uniform does not match those worn by Dumont’s soldiers. And it’s not simply because she is of a different rank. The designs and colors—Shim’s is a green so dark it’s almost black—are not even close. I’m not sure what this means.

  Dumont guides us to the table.

  I barely have time to process the surface is glass with some type of black material underneath, before the professor touches a corner and the top comes to life like a giant computer screen. There are buttons I assume can be touched and boxes of text I cannot read.

  At a command from Dumont, the man—Madani—touches one of the digital buttons. A full three-dimensional relief of my chaser with its lid open rises from the center of the table. At first it’s ghostlike—blueish gray and transparent—but as soon as it starts hovering half a foot in the air, it turns solid and looks so real it’s as if I could reach out and grab it.

  “Where is it?” I ask, and look at Jovan. “The real one. Where is it?”

  “You want me to ask her this?”

  “Yes.”

  Jovan does.

  “Somewhere safe.”

  “You haven’t shut the lid, have you?”

  “The lid? Why?”

  “The lock is-is broken. If you shut it, we can’t open it again without damaging the box.”

  She listens to the translations, and then asks, “What does the box do?”

  “Is the lid still open?”

  There’s a pause before she says, “It’s still open.”

  I let out a breath. “Thank you.”

  “Tell me what this thing does.”

  I almost say, “I won’t tell her anything more without seeing the actual box,” but I still have enough of my wits about me to know the best chance of getting the box back is to appear cooperative.

  “Tell her…” I pause. The best lies are those closest to the truth. “Tell her it’s a navigational device.”

  Navigational is not a word that has come up between us, and Jovan and I must go back and forth several times for him to understand what I mean.

  After he finally conveys my response, Dumont asks, “Navigation for what?”

  If I take more than a second or two to answer, she’ll assume I am lying, so I say the first idea that comes to mind. “An experimental craft.” As an off-the-cuff reply, it’s not bad. It’s both plausible and vague enough to give me a lot of room to work with. Plus, in a way, it’s also the truth.

  “Where is this craft?”

  “In the hills. The ones where my friend and I were found.”

  “Friend?” Jovan asks before he translates my answer.

  Solemnly I say, “She’s dead.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.”

  His sympathy is so genuine I feel guilty for misleading him. Thankfully, he turns to Dumont and tells her what I said before he can see the guilt on my face.

  “Where in the hills?” she asks.

  “Where? Um…well, I don’t know exactly. We were…” I act out being disoriented but Jovan looks confused, so I say, “…not well. We walked for at least a day looking for help. Maybe more.”

  “From which direction?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Would you know which way if you are taken there?”

  “I think so.” Though I keep my expression neutral, inwardly I’m smiling. Dumont has just presented me with another escape opportunity.

  When she asks her next question, Jovan’s eyes widen and his expression turns wary as he looks at me. “She wants to know why you kill your friend?”

  If Lidia just left me alone after I’d taken the chaser from her, I wouldn’t have had to drive the knife into her chest.

  “It was an accident. She started to become…” I use a similar pantomime to the one for disoriented, adding a more aggressive tone that I hope translates as delusional. “She attacked me with her knife. We struggled and…I had no choice. It was either her or me.”

  Again, it is essentially the truth, but it sounds so false that I’m sure Jovan will not believe me. But almost immediately sympathy returns to his face.

  After he translates my response, Dumont says nothing for an uncomfortably long time. When she finally speaks again, Jovan says, “She wants to know where are you from?”

  If I’d seen a map of this world and could read it, maybe I’d be able to name a random place to satisfy Dumont, but the only thing I have to work with is creating confusion.

  In English, I say, “San Diego, California.”

  Naturally, Jovan is unable to translate this.<
br />
  “Where is that?” he asks.

  “That’s a bit harder to explain.” I look at Dumont and say in a combination of Latin and English, “My home is in San Diego, California.”

  Frowning, she tells Jovan to have me clarify.

  “United States of America,” I say.

  I’m not trying to be provocative. My hope is she’ll bring up a map on her computer table and have me point to where it is. Getting a sense of the geopolitical landscape would be immensely helpful, and I could pick out someplace as far away from here as possible.

  But she walks over to a door along the back of the room and leaves.

  Jovan and I look at each other. Are we done? Was that our cue to go back to the apartment?

  I glance at the hallway exit. Shim is standing between us and the door. Apparently we are not dismissed yet.

  Madani and Langer smile nervously at me. They’ve not uttered a word since our arrival, which makes me believe they’re students, here to watch their mentor work.

  Several moments later, Dumont reenters, carrying a hard-sided container about the size of a large cereal box. Instead of coming back around to our side of the table, she stops across from me and Jovan and says something to her two silent watchers. Madani touches the table and the image of the chaser sinks back into the surface.

  Even though I know it was just a projection, I feel a moment of despair when it disappears.

  Dumont sets the box on the table, pulls on a pair of thin cloth gloves, and opens the lid. I hold my breath, sure she’s going to pull out my chaser. But it’s not the device; it’s a black-covered book.

  Langer removes a cloth from the box and waits until Madani has moved the container out of the way before laying the cloth over the center of the table. Dumont sets the book on the cloth and looks at me expectantly.

  I don’t know what she wants. There’s nothing special about the book that I can see, and the front cover is blank.

  I say one of the first phrases Jovan taught me in Gaulish, “No understand.”

  She turns the book so that the spine is facing upward. Something is printed there but I haven’t learned how to read Gaul—