Survivor (Rewinder Series Book 3)

by Brett Battles

  “So what now?” I ask. “You take us outside and shoot us?” I know how to use the chaser so I’m a danger.

  “Tempting. But I think not yet.” She puts the chaser back in the protective case Langer still holds. “Tell me, Denny. Where are you from?”

  I have a choice to make. If I select the wrong path, that trip outside that ends with a gun pressed against the back of my head becomes a very real possibility. I need to stay as close to Dumont and the chaser as possible, and if that means I need to be—mostly—honest with her, then that’s what I’ll do.

  “You’re not asking the right question,” I say, paraphrasing something Marie, my rewinder instructor, once said to me.

  Dumont’s eyes narrow, but clearly she isn’t making the mental leap to replacing where with when. Time travel is new to her, and has not yet altered the way she thinks or speaks.

  She whispers something to Langer. The other woman sets the container on the table and retrieves another one from the cabinet. When she comes back, Dumont removes from it the history book I was translating.

  The professor takes a few steps closer to the glass wall and holds the book open against her chest, the pages facing me. The text is too small for me to read, but I can easily make out the two pictures. They’re from the time between the world wars, a photo of a street in New York City filled with cars, and another featuring the outside of an airplane in the process of boarding passengers.

  “Real or not real?” she says.

  Once again, she’s not asking the right question, but this time I answer. “They don’t exist.”

  “But they did.”

  “They did and they didn’t.”

  The corner of her mouth ticks up in a sly, knowing grin.

  Langer looks confused. “That doesn’t make sense. What do you—”

  “I’d like to talk with Denny alone,” Dumont says.

  Langer’s perplexed gaze transfers from me to her boss.

  Dumont nods toward the door. “I’ll call if I need you.”

  Langer bows her head and leaves the room. The professor summons the soldiers and instructs them to take Jovan back to our cell.

  “Where are you from?” she asks once we are alone.

  “I told you before, you’re not asking the right question.”

  “Then what is the right—” She stops, and I can see the light go on in her eyes. “When are you from?”

  “Two thousand fifteen.”

  This is not what she expects. “Two thousand fifteen? The past?”

  “A past.”

  “You are from a different…world?”

  “A different timeline.”

  “Timeline. Yes, that’s more precise.” She glances at the book and points at the picture of the airplane. “And this is a…rotor?”

  “They’re called airplanes. Basically the same concept.”

  “Have you ridden in one?”

  “Me? No. Not in one of those. It’s…old. And—” I stop, realizing I was about to say the only aircraft I’ve ever flown in was the one I took from New Cardiff to the Upjohn Institute. While I’ve already revealed there’s one timeline different from hers, I don’t think it’s necessary to dive into the full Gordian knot of my life.

  “And?” she asks.

  “And…no one flies them anymore.”

  As she digests this, I can’t help but glance at the chaser on the table behind her.

  She follows my gaze, and trades the book for the device. “I assume you know how to operate it?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then you lied about it belonging to your companion.”

  Interesting. I thought one of the first events she would have traveled to would be when Lidia and I arrived in this world. She would have seen Lidia with the box.

  “Not a lie. We both had our own.”

  She looks surprised. “There’s another box?”

  “The other was destroyed.”

  “You’re sure.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Nothing was found.”

  “It wasn’t destroyed…here.”

  She studies me to see if I’m telling the truth before turning her attention to the chaser’s display screens. “My proposal to you, Denny, is this: teach me how to use your chaser and you will remain alive.”

  Minus the implied death threat, it’s exactly what I’ve been hoping she’d want, but I can’t let her know that. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

  “Did you hear a question in what I said? Perhaps I need to be clearer. If you don’t cooperate, I will kill your friend. If you still refuse to help, I will kill you. We have figured out a lot already. We will eventually figure out the rest on our own, if we must.”

  I take a moment, and then say in what I hope is an appropriately defeated tone, “Okay.”

  __________

  OUR FIRST SESSION is that afternoon.

  We’re in the glass-partitioned room again, me on one side of the wall and Dumont on the other. We have pulled our chairs right up to the glass, the chaser sitting on a small table beside Dumont’s.

  “How many trips have you made?” I ask.

  “Counting today, fourteen.”

  “And how far back?”

  She raises an eyebrow. “How far back can I go?”

  “That’s a tricky question. No one knows for sure. You’ve experienced the headaches.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you’ve noticed the longer the trip, the more intense the pain.”

  “I have.”

  “At some point a jump becomes unbearable, and, theoretically, a traveler will die. But each person is different. Some can go farther than others.” While all this is true, what I don’t explain is the method used to get around this problem—taking a series of smaller jumps that allows one to travel centuries with minimal side effects. Given time, she could probably figure that out on her own, but her focus now is on absorbing my information, not analyzing it.

  “How far have you gone back?” she asks.

  “I took a trip of a few hundred years that put me in a hospital for days.” Again, true. It happened when I traveled from 1775 to Iffy’s modern-day New York City. And though I haven’t actually answered the question she asked, she doesn’t seem to notice.

  “And you go from one spot to someplace else entirely?”

  I cock my head. “I’m sorry?”

  “I mean the place you arrive at. The location. It’s somewhere different than where you start?”

  She couldn’t mean what I think she means, could she? “When you go back, where do you go?”

  She hesitates. “Nowhere. I arrive at the same spot from where I left.”

  “On all your jumps, the only difference is the time.”

  “Jumps—is that what you call the trips?”

  “Um, yeah.”

  “Yes. That’s the only difference.”

  No wonder there have been no changes to the timeline. This place, whatever it is, is surrounded by miles and miles of wilderness. At most, her jumps have allowed her to watch this facility develop. Any trips made to times prior to construction would have landed her in the middle of the rain forest. She would need to hike for who knows how long to find any civilization, something I’m sure she didn’t do.

  “The first thing you will teach me is how to go other places,” she says.

  “No.”

  She stares at me, stone-faced. “Were the details of our arrangement not clear to you?”

  “I’m not saying I won’t teach you how to change locations. I’m saying it’s not the first thing.”

  “Then what is?”

  “How not to destroy everything.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  MY PLAN IS simple: gain Dumont’s confidence in hopes that one day she lets me close to the chaser again.

  We meet daily for hours, usually starting around two or three in the afternoon and going into the night. I spend a good deal of the time telling her tales about what can happ
en if a wrong move is made in the past, using examples presented to me back in my training days. The remainder of our sessions is spent giving her detailed and purposely confusing descriptions of the chaser’s various functions.

  On occasion, she will press me on where I’m from and how the technology was developed, but I only tell her I was recruited at a young age and was not part of the development process.

  One of her favorite questions is a variation on, “How many other devices are there?”

  This I answer honestly, “To my knowledge, only the one is left.”

  Of course she has a hard time believing this. But I’m consistent and sincere in my response, and over time I can see she’s beginning to think maybe I’m telling the truth.

  The information and stories I feed her keep her satisfied for nearly a week, but I can avoid talking about what she really wants to know for only so long. On the afternoon of the seventh day, I’m escorted to the room like always and take my seat in front of the glass to wait for the professor.

  I’m alone for several minutes, but this isn’t unusual. To pass the time, I take up the task I’ve recently begun doing, and go over in my head the reverse order of the horrors Lidia committed against history. As always, it starts with the Mongols. I must defeat her there, and then move up to the next event on the timeline, where I will have to defeat her again. An army of Lidias is waiting for me, and I must take down every single one of them.

  I blink at the sound of the door opening, and twist around in my chair to see Dumont and four soldiers step into the room.

  “Please stand up,” the professor says.

  There is no malice in her voice, but I can’t help but wonder if she’s decided I’m no longer useful.

  Rising, I ask, “Is there a problem?”

  “Not that I’m aware of.”

  The guards walk over and grab my arms. Dumont approaches, stopping a few feet in front of me.

  “I appreciate the education you’ve been providing me, but I think we’ve been in the classroom long enough. It’s time for some practical experience, don’t you think?”

  Could this be it? Instead of being eliminated, am I about to be allowed close to my chaser? “Of course. It’s time I showed you how to change locations.”

  “Almost time. Right now, we need to prepare you.”

  “Prepare?”

  She nods at the soldiers again.

  I’m marched into the hall, then down to a lift that takes us up one floor. My final destination is a room where several people stand near the bed in the center, all wearing masks and gloves and protective eyeglasses.

  An operating room?

  “What’s going on?” I ask.

  No one seems interested in answering me. As I look around for Dumont, one of the masked men walks up beside me and sticks a needle in my arm.

  The world disappears.

  __________

  THE BED I wake on is not the same as the one I saw in the operating room, but a softer bed in a different room. A regular bed.

  My bed, I realize.

  “Welcome back,” Jovan says. He’s sitting on a nearby chair. “How do you feel?”

  I try to sit up but immediately drop back down, wincing from the pain coming from my right bicep.

  “So not good, I guess,” he says.

  I touch the sore spot and discover a bandage wrapped around my arm. I also feel an odd pressure under the skin.

  “How long have I been here?”

  “A few hours.”

  I try to sit up again, this time using only my left arm, and manage to make it.

  “What did they do to me?” I whisper, looking at the bandage.

  Jovan reaches for my bicep but I pull away. “What are you doing?”

  “Trust me.”

  I hesitate, and then reluctantly nod.

  He gently probes the bandaged area. “This will hurt but I’ll make it quick.”

  Without giving me time to respond, he pushes down and feels around my wound. My eyes slam shut and I tilt my head back from the fire shooting up my arm.

  But true to his word, within seconds he’s done.

  When the pain finally subsides, I ask, “So?”

  “Someone’s worried about you.”

  “What does that mean?”

  He nods at my wound. “I believe it’s referred to as a persuader. If you do the wrong thing, one touch of a button and…” He mimes an explosion with his hands.

  “Hold on. There’s a bomb in my arm?”

  “I don’t know for sure, but that’s what it feels like to me.”

  I stare at my bicep. “How powerful?”

  He grimaces. “Well, I wouldn’t want to be standing anywhere near you when it goes off.”

  I get to my feet and look around the room for something sharp.

  “What are you doing?” Jovan asks.

  I find a metal rod inside the toilet and yank it out. It’ll rip me up, but I’d rather that than have a bomb in my arm.

  I hold it out to Jovan. “Help me dig it out.”

  “You want to die fast?”

  “Please!”

  I try shoving it into his hand but he’s having none of it.

  “Unless the remote’s deactivated it, the moment that thing hits the air, it goes off.”

  “What?” I look at him, hoping I’ve misheard him. But I can see I haven’t. “Why would they do this?”

  “It is called a persuader for a reason. It makes people helpful.”

  “I’m already helping.”

  Our door opens, and the four soldiers from before enter, accompanied by two additional men.

  “Come,” one says.

  Given the addition to my arm, I’m feeling the need to cooperate without delay.

  “Both of you,” the soldier says.

  I look back at Jovan, confused, but there’s a sense of resignation on his face as he nods and joins me.

  We’re led back to the operating room.

  “What are we doing here?” I ask.

  “This way,” my other escort says.

  He and a companion hustle me farther down the hall. I glance over my shoulder, hoping Jovan is right behind me, but he’s being led into the operating room.

  “Someone tell me what’s going on,” I say. “Please!”

  A guard opens the first door we come to, and I’m ushered inside what turns out to be a stairwell. We go up to a narrow loft-like area that has several chairs facing a windowed wall angled downward. Below the window is the operating room where Jovan, already unconscious, is being put on the table.

  “Do sit down, Denny.”

  I glance at the far end of the viewing area. Dumont is in one of the chairs, and she motions at the seat next to her.

  Jovan was right. Having a bomb embedded in my body ensures my cooperation.

  As I take my chair, Dumont says, “How are you feeling?”

  I know I should hold in my anger but I can’t. “Why did you do this to me? I’ve been nothing but helpful! You didn’t—”

  A soft beep comes from a speaker above the window. “We’re ready, Professor.”

  Dumont says to me, “Hold that thought,” and touches a button on the arm of her chair. “Proceed.” She looks at me again. “You should watch.”

  Below us, one of the medical staff standing by Jovan picks an object off a tray and uses it to slice into my friend’s bicep. Clamps pry the skin and muscle apart. From a different tray, another staffer retrieves an object about the size of a roll of Lifesavers.

  “This is the important part,” Dumont whispers.

  Gripping the arms of my chair to keep from reacting, I watch as the object is inserted into Jovan’s arm. What I’m seeing is a replay of what happened to me only a few hours before.

  The medical staff tinkers with the object for a bit before the wound is closed and bandaged and Jovan is carted away. All told, the procedure took no more than fifteen minutes.

  “Do you know what we’ve put in your and Jovan
’s arms?” Dumont asks.

  Without looking at her, I say, “He told me it’s called a persuader. That all you have to do is push a button and it will rip us to pieces.”

  She laughs in genuine surprise. “I haven’t heard that name in a while. I guess he’s right, in a way, but what we’ve given you is not so crude. A bomb would be unnecessarily final, don’t you think?”

  I glare at her. “If it’s not a bomb, what is it?”

  She raises her hand, holding a thin, rectangular device not much bigger than a business card. The side facing me is glass, and a virtual button is lit up in the middle.

  “How about a demonstration?” she asks.

  “Wait! Wait! You don’t need—”

  My whole body goes rigid as electricity races through every inch of my being. I want to scream but nothing is cooperating. Then, as suddenly as it began, the sensation disappears and I fall back in my chair, panting.

  “I’m sure you’re glad to know your persuader isn’t going to explode. What it does, though, is interact with your nervous system. In case you’re curious, that was the low setting. There are several levels above that, and I can also increase the duration. Whether I do any of those things will be up to you. And if you’re thinking of removing it without authorization, it’ll set off a wave of pain that will consume you until you die.” She cocks her head. “But that won’t be an issue, will it?”

  Still reeling from the assault, my voice cracks. “Why?”

  “Why? So that you don’t get out of hand when we go on our adventures.”

  “Adventures?”

  She smiles again, and stands. “Why don’t you return to your room and get some rest? Tomorrow may be a long day.”

  The soldiers are at my side again, hauling me up before I have a chance to stand on my own.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  THE NEXT MORNING I’m taken to a room with a gray floor, a gray ceiling, and gray walls. With the exception of a pedestal in the very center of the room, there’s no furniture.

  I’m there a good twenty minutes before a door on the left wall opens and Dumont enters.

  “Join me,” she says as she walks to the pedestal.