Survivor (Rewinder Series Book 3)

by Brett Battles

  Jovan has told me few businesses in this era are equipped with alarms. There is the possibility of a night guard, so we are very careful when we jump inside. A quick check of the store reveals we are alone and there are no alarms.

  We select backpacks, sleeping bags, a tent, a cooking stove, hunting knife, two lanterns, several flashlights, matches, pots and pans, and a few other items we may need. Nothing is as high tech as I’d like it to be, but I have no intention of traveling back into the future to steal better gear.

  Once everything is loaded into the bags, we jump directly into the pharmacy, where we procure antiseptic, pain pills, thread, needles, gauze and other materials for making bandages. Next stop, the market.

  As we materialize inside, we’re welcomed by a scream.

  “What is…what…what?” The sputtered words are followed by a crash of something knocking into a shelf.

  I whip around and discover a guard has staggered back into one of the displays. We must have arrived nearly on top of him.

  Hand shaking, he reaches for the gun hanging from his belt, but Jovan knocks him to the ground and wrestles the weapon away.

  Pointing it at the man, Jovan says, “Do I need to pull the trigger?”

  “No! Please. I-I-I—”

  “Then you’ll do as we say, yes?”

  “Yes. Whatever you want.”

  The guard is not much more than a kid. Eighteen, nineteen if he’s lucky. And he is scared to death.

  “Is there anyone else here with you?” Jovan asks.

  “No. Just me.”

  Jovan raises an eyebrow and makes sure the guard remembers who has the gun.

  “Just me,” the guard croaks. “I swear. No one else.”

  He’s probably too frightened to lie, but it’s best to check anyway. I take off my pack and say to Jovan, “I’ll be right back.”

  I hurry through the main part of the store and check the stock rooms and offices in back. The guard is telling the truth.

  We take him to one of the offices and tie him to a chair.

  “Don’t try to get free,” Jovan tells him. “We’re going to have a look around, and when we come back, if it looks like you’ve attempted anything, we’ll be forced to do something about it. Understand?”

  The man nods.

  As we walk to the door, the guard regains his voice. “How did you…I mean…where did you, you know, c-c-c-come from?”

  Jovan looks back at him and grins. “We’re time travelers. We’ve come to save humanity.”

  “What?”

  Jovan and I head back into the store before the kid can ask anything else.

  “‘We’re time travelers’?” I say.

  He shrugs. “He saw us pop out of thin air. Telling him the truth’s not going to hurt anything, is it?”

  “I guess not.”

  We collect enough food to last more than a week, keep the guard’s gun, and jump again.

  __________

  WE CAMP IN a meadow in the Sierra Nevada Mountains—or whatever the range is called in this timeline—in the early summer of 1550, when the weather should be good. Iffy talked about camping trips she, her mom, and her stepdad took to these very mountains. I don’t know exactly where, but in my mind it’s someplace like this, and being here makes me feel connected to her again, however thin the thread.

  While Jovan gets to work setting up our camping gear, I take several jumps around the area to make sure no other people are around. I go as far as fifty miles and find no sign of anyone.

  “I don’t mind going first,” Jovan says when I return and we have a campfire burning.

  I pull off my shirt. “Let’s just get it over with.”

  He sterilizes the hunting knife in the fire and, while it’s cooling, he uses the remote I stole from Dumont to disable both persuaders. He then cuts open my arm. I clench my jaw and fight through the pain as he digs around for the device. Once the thing is out, he washes the wound with antiseptic and sews me up.

  As soon as my pain reaches a tolerable level, I return the favor.

  For the next two days, when I’m not sleeping, I’m sitting by the fire, mostly staring into the flames. This is the first time I’ve had for any real rest since Dumont, Langer, and I escaped the attack on the compound on our way to kill Shim’s family.

  When I feel up to it, I fill Jovan in on what caused me to come for him the night I did. It disturbs him when I tell him there’s a version of him that exists farther in time than he has lived, one who very well may have been killed in that last attack. But if he’s coming with me, he deserves to know the truth about everything.

  On the third day, I begin my studies.

  I find dates in the textbook that match up with the log of Lidia’s jumps, and am able to finally learn the full scope of what she’s done. Allowing the Mongols to invade Europe unchecked and facilitating the death of Abraham Lincoln’s still adolescent father are just two of her seven deeds, any of which on its own would cause huge ripples through the timeline.

  Unfortunately, neither the textbook nor the log tells me exactly what actions she took, so I’ll have to spy on her at each stop to learn the details before I act. You see, I may have killed Lidia in 2018, but there will be a very live version of her on the other side of every jump. If she can get the advantage over me even once, I’m doomed. But I have the advantage of time, and the ability to study her every move.

  Does that mean I’ll have to kill Lidia again?

  If yes, so be it, but I’d rather avoid it if possible. I spend a whole day ruminating on the problem before I come up with what might be the perfect solution.

  That night, while Jovan sleeps, I take a series of jumps to see if my idea is viable.

  To my great relief, it is.

  After I gather all the information I need, I return to our camp seconds after I left, my friend never knowing I was gone.

  By the evening of the eighth day, I’m as prepared as I’ll ever be. After a hearty meal, I settle into my bed, knowing tonight might be my last good rest in a while.

  __________

  AS HELPFUL AS Jovan might be in dealing with Lidia, I can’t risk him unintentionally getting in the way, so I employ the tactic I used with Iffy back when I stole money from crime lords and drug dealers. I leave him in a quiet spot in 1239, three years prior to the earliest event I’ll be dealing with. This way, if something goes wrong, any changes I might cause will affect the forward timeline only and won’t erase my friend.

  To say he’s not particularly pleased with this arrangement would be an understatement. But I make it clear he won’t be able to talk me out of it. While he sulks by the campfire, I unslave the chaser he’s been using, set it to administrative training mode, and deactivate the jump function. I gather the few items I think I’ll need and walk back over to Jovan.

  “You’ll barely notice I’m gone,” I tell him.

  He frowns, but steps over and hugs me like I’m not coming back. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

  “Not planning on it.”

  I open my chaser.

  “Good luck,” he says.

  “Thanks.”

  I push the go button and make the short jump to 1242 to start the grand unraveling.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  I’VE SEEN THE view before me so many times that I know it as well as I know any place I’ve ever been. It’s filled my sleep for over a year, first as a recurring nightmare of what happened here, and then as a hopeful dream as I imagined what I must do.

  I’m on a forested slope above a mountain valley that I’ve seen empty and untouched and full of soldiers and horses grinding the terrain to mud. It’s the former state now, the Mongol army that will defile it still two months from finding its way here.

  In exactly four calendar days, Lidia will bring me and the version of me I think of as Scout to this place. I’ve come early to have an undisturbed look around.

  The coordinates recorded in my chaser’s log tell me exactly where Lidia will
appear. I study the spot and the area surrounding it for a full day, committing every bush and change in the terrain to memory. I then choose the optimal hiding spot and, once I’m in place, jump to the night Lidia will show up, ten minutes before her arrival.

  After I scan the area to make sure nothing has changed, I monitor the chaser’s clock. Thirty seconds shy of the mark, I look back at the small clearing.

  One moment, it’s unoccupied; the next, there stands Lidia. I note which way she’s facing as she crouches and checks to make sure no one is nearby.

  Rising back to her feet, she looks at her chaser and smiles. She must be confirming her arrival at her desired destination. She then taps at the screen, changing the readout, but I can’t see what she’s doing from where I am.

  According to the log, it should be only another minute before she jumps again to daylight.

  When she jerks up and looks in my direction, I know something is wrong.

  There’s no way she can see me behind the bush in the dark, yet she takes a step toward me.

  What’s going on? How can she—

  When I realize the answer, I hit the emergency escape combination.

  Lidia blinks out, and the clearing is once more empty.

  How could I have been so stupid? In all my preparation, I overlooked a crucial detail. Lidia can track other chasers on her device. She was obviously checking to make sure the version of me she’d been dragging along via a slaved chaser had also arrived, but in addition to seeing the marker for his device, she would have seen another dot representing my chaser.

  I wonder if powering it down will keep it from being detected. There’s no way to know without testing it. Which, I realize, is something I can do using Jovan’s chaser. I just need to jump back to where I left him and—

  I sense a change in my surroundings. I look out at the clearing and see Lidia standing there, considerably closer to my position than she was before.

  Clearly she’s also hit her emergency escape combination on the chance the person she’s tracking also did that.

  I reach for the button that powers down my device, but there is no time. Lidia is already navigating to her tracking screen, and I still don’t know if turning mine off will even work.

  I hit my emergency escape function again. And again, Lidia disappears.

  Though I’m pretty sure I made the leap before her tracking screen was up, I hit the combination two more times to cover my tracks. Then I take a moment to input a trip back to Jovan.

  She can’t follow me there.

  My friend is standing only a few feet from where I left him, looking surprised by my sudden reappearance.

  “You weren’t joking about being gone for just a moment,” he says, smiling. He sees my expression and loses the grin. “Did everything go all right?”

  “I haven’t even started yet.”

  “What? But I thought…”

  I hurry over to the backpack containing the other chaser, pull it out, and return to Jovan.

  “Open it,” I say, holding the device out to him.

  Jovan touches the lock and the lid releases. I kneel on the ground, set the two devices side by side, and bring up the tracking screen on mine. For a second I think it’s not working, but then I realize the chasers are too close to each other.

  I hand Jovan his and point at a tree about a dozen feet away. “Take it over there.”

  “Are we going somewhere?”

  “No. I’m just checking something. Go!”

  There is no real need to hurry, but I can’t lose the feeling Lidia is breathing down my neck.

  He’s not even halfway to the tree when a second dot appears on my screen.

  Okay, good. But now for the real test.

  I jog over to where Jovan has stopped, and while he holds his chaser, I bring up the power screen then turn the device off.

  “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

  “Please,” I say. “Just…give me a moment.”

  I return to the other chaser and check the screen. The dot representing Jovan’s device is gone. I sigh in relief. I’m not thrilled about the prospect of being in a dangerous situation with a powered-down chaser, but at least I’ll be able to keep Lidia from knowing I’m present.

  “Turn it back on,” I say. I want to see how quickly the device shows up on mine.

  “How do I do that?”

  “The GO button. Hold it down and then press the locator reset once.”

  He looks at his machine, taking a moment to figure out what’s what. When I’m sure he understands what to do, I return my attention to the tracking screen.

  “Is it on yet?” I ask.

  “Yes. The screen just lit up.”

  I begin counting. By the time the dot reappears, seventeen seconds have passed. I’m not sure if that’ll buy me anything, but who knows?

  “Close it up and put it away,” I say. “And don’t touch it until I come back.”

  “Hold on. You haven’t told me what happened.”

  “I forgot about something, but it’s not going to be a problem now.” This doesn’t come close to mollifying him, so I add, “I promise, I’ll tell you everything later.”

  I adjust my jump parameters and press go.

  __________

  I’M BACK IN the mountain pass, arriving eleven minutes before Lidia is due. I turn off my chaser and move to the side a few feet.

  No more than thirty seconds pass before another Denny appears in front of me. This is the version of me whose chaser Lidia detected last time.

  I have positioned myself directly in front of him. I figure this is better than scaring him with a tap on the shoulder. Even so, he jerks in surprise.

  But he quickly regains his composure and says, “What happened?”

  “Lidia’s tracking screen.”

  It takes a moment before he puts it together. He groans and tilts his head back. “I didn’t even—”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “Do I need to leave?”

  “No. Just shut your chaser down and don’t let her see you.”

  As he starts navigating to the power screen, he asks, “Are you sure that will work?”

  “Yes.”

  He powers down. “Is there anything else I can do?”

  “No.”

  He takes a beat before he nods. “Okay.”

  Another me who’s realized he’s no longer part of the main timeline. I hope I never experience that.

  He holds out his hand, we shake, and he hurries off to a point where he can watch the clearing from a bit farther back.

  I hide behind the same bush as before. Without my chaser on, I don’t know exactly when she’ll show up so I keep my eyes fixed on the clearing.

  Soon enough, she appears, crouches, and checks her tracking screen just as she did earlier. This time the only dot she sees belongs to the earlier me carrying the chaser slaved to hers. She spends a moment looking down at the valley, and disappears again.

  I turn on my machine, walk out into the clearing, and find where the grass was crushed by her feet. I enter the information in my chaser, and when I’m ready, I glance back at the other me. He gives me a wave.

  I wave back then hit the button.

  __________

  THE CLEARING AGAIN, one minute before Lidia is due to arrive.

  I’m standing a couple of feet from where she will appear. I arrange the chaser so I can operate it with one hand, and then watch the seconds count down.

  I feel a slight shift in the air as Lidia displaces the molecules that occupied the space where she now stands. She barely has time to realize the jump has ended when I wrap my free arm around her, pinning her arms to her sides.

  “Wh—”

  I hit go.

  __________

  WE TAKE THREE jumps, never stopping for more than a second before the next kicks in. The first two jumps are one hundred years each, and the last seventy-eight, taking us to 1520.

  Rain pours down on us th
e moment we materialize. Before Lidia has the chance to finish the question she’s started to ask, I rip the chaser out of her hands and shove her away from me. She stumbles forward, and then whips around and stares.

  “You,” she snarls.

  “I hate to tell you this, but you’re finished.” I shift her chaser beneath mine.

  “Like hell I am.”

  As she lunges, I press the escape combination and she is gone.

  I lean forward and rest my arms on my thighs as I hyperventilate. What I did was not particularly physical, but the realization I’ve completed the first step in bringing Iffy and Ellie back is overwhelming.

  When my breathing finally returns to normal, I stand back up.

  The grass-covered plateau I’m on—where Lidia will soon be left—has a beautiful view of the ocean when the weather isn’t stormy. I know because I checked many different days here that night I left Jovan sleeping at our camp.

  The island we are on sits between Tasmania and Australia. According to my chaser’s map, it’s called King Island.

  This is my alternative to killing Lidia. She can live out her life here, where she will have no chance of ever doing any harm. There’s plenty of material to build a shelter. There’s food. There’s water.

  I know from my studies at the institute that it will be almost a hundred years before Europeans first set eyes on Australia, and nearly two hundred more before Captain Reed lands on this island in 1799. And because 1520 is prior to any of the other fixes I will be undertaking, there’s no chance she will be erased.

  Perhaps it’s cruel to abandon her here, but for her actions she deserves extreme punishment.

  Besides, she won’t have to endure it alone.

  I look at the chaser and realize if I stay much longer, I chance being here when my earlier self brings Lidia to the island.

  I jump to a random year where I can obtain some dry clothes, then choose the next destination from the list and reenter the mist.

  __________

  TWELVE FORTY-TWO once more. I haven’t arrived, however, on the same day or at the same spot as before.

  I’m farther along the valley, on a slope very close to the western pass, the Mongol army spread out below me.

  This is another moment I’ve witnessed previously. Lidia brought me to a spot not too far from here, via my slaved chaser when she was doing her reconnaissance. Afterward, she went on to kill the messengers sent from the Mongol homeland before they could reach the army to report the news of the Khan’s death and order everyone back to the steppes.