The Rewind Files

by Claire Willett

  “So that he could hand the reins to Reagan, and that the two of them could get us into a war with China,” I added. “And that, if not Reagan, somebody high up in the White House knew those first bombs were coming long before they dropped.”

  “John Dean?” said Leo.

  “That’s my guess,” I said. “But we can’t be sure of that yet. He’s top of my list of suspects, though.”

  “We also know that whoever planted the Chronomaly is either still alive and has access to the General Timeline,” said Calliope, “or they have a partner who is. Not just because of the cover-up in the system, but because that rumor was calculated and deliberate. It didn’t just take the whole Bureau out of commission; it discredited everyone with any knowledge of Gemstone as a traitor.”

  “All right,” I said, as Leo poured me the last of the coffee and then took the pot back to the kitchen to refill it. “What do we not know? The identities of our planetary friends, obviously.”

  “Is there anything helpful in the code names?” asked Carter. “I mean anything about Mars and Saturn that could lead to their identities? Maybe they’re not just random planets, maybe they mean something.”

  “I never took astronomy in school,” I said.

  “Neither did I. One has rings and one has an eye – I know that much, but that’s it.”

  Calliope pulled out her handheld and tapped away.

  “Mars is the second smallest and fourth from the sun,” she said. “Terrestrial. Saturn is a gas giant; sixth from the sun and second largest.”

  “Okay, so in order from the sun they’re 4 and 6,” said Carter, “and in order of size they’re . . . 2 and 7? Does that mean anything?”

  “Badge numbers?” suggested Calliope. “Chain of command? Ranking order?”

  “Ring and eye,” I said, more to myself than anyone else, turning the words over and over in my mind. “Two and seven. Four and six.”

  “War and time,” said Leo absently as he set the coffee down in front of us, and we all stared at him. “Mars and Saturn,” he explained. “The Roman gods.”

  “Holy shit,” I said. “The names aren’t planets.”

  “Saturn is the Roman name for Chronos,” said Leo. “The god of time. And Mars was Ares.”

  “God of war,” I said softly, feeling a chill down the back of my spine.

  “That’s it,” said Calliope. “That’s what the names mean. Mars is the ringleader, the one who started the war in the first place. Saturn is the one manipulating time to cover it up.”

  “That means—” Carter began, then stopped.

  “No,” I said. “Say it. We need to get used to saying it.”

  “I really want to be wrong,” he said.

  “I know,” I said. “But I don’t think you are. Saturn works for the Time Travel Bureau. Saturn is one of us.”

  Calliope and Carter looked uncomfortable. The room was suddenly full of things nobody wanted to say.

  “The Sharpeville transcripts,” I said suddenly. “He said it. Carstairs said it. He tried to tell her.”

  “What are you talking about?” asked Leo.

  “Carstairs lost his signal in Sharpeville,” I said, “but his Comm still worked. He couldn’t connect to the Slipstream, but he could still record. He left an emergency transmission for Mom. She saved a copy for herself, without telling the Bureau, before she returned all of his tech. The Bureau classified it.”

  “How do you know about it, then?”

  “She showed it to me,” I said. “I asked her once why she hated Congressman Holmes so much. She told me that there was evidence – clear evidence – that something serious had gone wrong in Sharpeville and that instead of doing his job, Holmes had let Daisey get away with murder.”

  Calliope tapped on her handheld screen a few times to pull up the hearing transcripts.

  “She does say the word ‘sabotage,’” she said. “She says that’s what Carstairs thought happened.”

  “I don’t think I ever took it that seriously,” I said. “When I read the hearing transcripts for the first time, I just thought – you know, she was grieving, she was pregnant, the special prosecutor was kind of a dick—”

  “You thought she kind of just went Katie Bellows on him,” Leo said.

  “Yeah,” I said, “but what if she didn’t? Jenkins mentions the trucks – Carstairs was looking at the trucks, he said there was something not right about them. He mentions it in the transmission. Something felt off to him about the second wave of police officers.”

  “Give me that,” said Carter suddenly. He reached over to Calliope and grabbed her handheld.

  “Don’t get fingerprints all over the screen,” she snapped. Calliope hated it when people touched her stuff. Carter ignored her.

  “Here,” he said. “This is what I was looking for.”

  “What?”

  “CARSTAIRS: ‘Sir, someone did this. This was deliberate. These people were manipulated,’” he read. My blood went cold.

  “CARSTAIRS: ‘I think there’s another agent in the field, sir.’”

  “CARSTAIRS: ‘Due respect, sir, something is off here. I’m in a Flexible Timeline and somebody is messing with it. Someone is trying to turn a peaceable protest into a mob and I want to know who, and why.’”

  “Another agent,” said Calliope softly. “Leo Carstairs was killed by someone from the Bureau.”

  I got up to pour myself a glass of water, suddenly unable to keep still or to bear their eyes on me. The room was silent for a long time.

  “What about Mars?” asked Calliope suddenly. “If we follow the same logic, that Saturn is someone inside the Bureau manipulating time, then the question is: Who’s the one manipulating the war?”

  “Well, who benefited the most from the war?” asked Carter. “Who gained from it? That’s the part I can’t quite put my finger on. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “There’s a lot about this war that doesn’t make sense,” said Calliope gloomily.

  “Like why they didn’t use nukes,” said Leo absently, reaching across the table for the sugar bowl.

  I stared at him.

  “Say that again,” I said quietly.

  “What?”

  “What you just said.”

  “Oh,” he said. “It’s not anything important. It’s just one of those things they never teach you in regular-person history class, and I always wondered. Do you know?”

  “Know what?” asked Calliope.

  “Why neither side used nuclear weapons. It always seemed weird to me. We both had them, for Christ’s sake, why not use them? Or threaten to, at the very least? Isn’t that way easier? I mean, either side could have sent over a couple fighter jets loaded with nukes, then called the other one and said, ‘Hey, look up in the sky! See that? All right, let’s talk.’ They’d get anything they wanted, no bloodshed required. But fifty-six million people? All those cities firebombed and leveled to the ground? I mean, it’s not just sick and sad, it’s . . . bad strategy.”

  Finally he noticed us staring at him. “What?” he asked, in genuine bafflement. “What did I say?”

  “Hang on,” I said. “Nobody say anything. Nobody move. It’s coming to me.” I closed my eyes. Breathe, Reggie, I told myself sternly. Think. Don’t push. The answer will come.

  I repeated it over and over in my head.

  Why didn’t they use nuclear weapons?

  Why had I never asked myself this before?

  Mars, god of war, I said to myself. Who is the god of war? Not in Greece, not in Rome, but here. 22nd-century America. Who is Mars here?

  And then I knew.

  “What’s the biggest difference,” I said slowly, “between a city that’s been bombed by nuclear weapons and a city that’s been bombed by regular explosives?”

  “Given the same blast radius, same degree of force?” asked Carter.

  “Yes.”

  “Radiation, obviously,” said Calliope. “If City A is mined and City B is nuked, they’
ll both be crushed to rubble but City A won’t be poisoned.”

  “So why would you destroy a city, and kill all the inhabitants, the slow and tedious way, just to prevent irradiating the area? Who gains by that?” asked Leo.

  “Whoever rebuilds the city,” I said, and the others stared at me. “I know who started this war,” I said. “I know who flogged Calliope and I know who planted the Chronomaly and I know who is guarding the Bureau and I know why they didn’t use nuclear weapons,”

  I was breathless with excitement. “I don’t know how we’ll ever prove it,” I said. “I don’t know if this helps at all. I still don’t know their faces. But I’m right. I know I’m right.”

  “For God’s sake, Reggie, just tell us.”

  “It’s so simple,” I said. “Who built the new cities in China on top of the ruins of the old ones after we annexed the country? Who owns half the members of the Congressional Time Travel Committee and a third of the Senate besides? Who has access to every piece of security equipment owned by the Bureau and runs their own under-the-table, unregulated private militia? Who sold us all those subdermal trackers, for Christ’s sake?”

  “Oh my God,” said Carter.

  “Oh no,” whispered Calliope. “No, no, no.”

  “Yes,” I said. “The person with the most to gain by artificially creating this war wasn’t a person at all. It was United Enterprises.”

  * * *

  Once we knew what we were looking for, suddenly we could spot signposts everywhere. United Enterprises was founded in the mid-20th century as a small Georgetown family business that ostensibly specialized in electronics repair but actually did a brisk side business in manufacturing surveillance equipment.

  They were notoriously secretive, and public records on the company were vague and difficult to find, but Calliope was the best in the business for a reason. She sat us down an hour and a half later and took us to school on the origins of the U.E. corporate empire.

  “They started out running the manufacturing end out of a back room, dealing mostly with private investigators, criminals and the kind of clients who tended to pay in cash,” she said, reading to us from her piles of notes.

  She went on. “Then in the seventies, there’s some inference that they may have come to the attention of somebody in the federal government, and the company just exploded, seemingly overnight. They billed themselves as sort of an all-purpose security service for high-end private clients, providing everything from personal guards with military-grade training to sophisticated alarm systems to wiretaps.”

  “And, eventually, weapons. Not manufacturing, not to start out with, but sales. And they just kept growing. By the end of Nixon’s second term, they were juggling multi-million-dollar government contracts, handling everything from eavesdropping devices for the CIA to security personnel for embassies.”

  “What about after the war?” asked Carter.

  “They took a hit financially,” said Calliope, “like everyone did – but it was a remarkably small one, considering. They were an odd choice for the Chinese rebuilding projects. They didn’t have any real expertise in construction – I imagine they subcontracted most of it out – but the funding went through them, and they managed it.”

  “So within like thirty-odd years,” I said, “these guys went from building wiretaps out of tinfoil to basically owning every building in occupied China.”

  “And it just kept growing from there,” she said. “They invested early in helping build the Time Travel Bureau, and they’ve always got at least one retired agent on their Board of Directors. It’s a symbiotic relationship at this point. Practically every piece of tech you own was made by them. Which means much of it is, or can be, controlled by them.”

  “If we can prove that United Enterprises was connected to the Watergate break-in,” I said, “It links them to Gemstone and to the cover-up, which links them to the war.”

  “A war they profited from to an alarming degree,” said Leo.

  “Exactly,” I said. “Saturn is the Bureau. Mars is United Enterprises.”

  “We have to get our hands on those police photos,” Carter said. “If we could prove that U.E. manufactured wiretaps and provided them to the Watergate burglars for the purposes of sabotaging the 1972 election, that’s the ballgame. We win.”

  “But prove it to who?” I said. “Who would believe us? U.E. has taken over that whole building. They’ve shut the Bureau down. The Director is gone, the agents are gone. They’re all under house arrest and being investigated as criminals.”

  “Not all of them,” said Calliope, a sudden realization dawning on her face. We all stopped and stared at her.

  “You said every agent in the building was arrested,” I reminded her, puzzled. She grinned at me.

  “Every agent in the building was,” she said, and I stared at her for a second before the penny dropped, and I laughed in delight.

  “Of course,” I said. “Grove.”

  “He was out on medical leave the whole time,” she said, “so he was in the clear. They may have asked him some questions about your parents as part of the investigation, but they knew he could never have been in contact with you or your mother because he never came back to the office. That means he’s the only agent who was never a suspect. If Harold Grove went public with proof that the war was a Chronomaly started by United Enterprises, everyone would believe him.”

  “I can’t believe I didn’t think of that,” I said.

  Calliope laughed. “I can’t believe I didn’t,” she said. “I was warned not to make contact with him, so I stayed away. He was at Sweethaven when your mom went on the run, and as far as I know, he’s still there.”

  “What’s Sweethaven?” asked Leo.

  “It’s a very posh sort of convalescent facility for Bureau agents,” I said. “Like a combination rest home, hospital and retirement center. They specialize in time travel-related illness and injuries –Slipstream radiation poisoning, that kind of thing.”

  “It has two very strong points in its favor,” said Calliope. “One, it’s only a few hours’ drive from here. And two—”

  “Oh my God,” I said, realizing what she was about to say before she said it. “Sweethaven has its own transport lab.”

  “That’s right,” she said. “If we can get in to see Grove, we can get back to 1972 to get the proof we need.”

  “But for who?” said Carter. “The Congressional Time Travel Committee was disbanded when the Bureau was. They’re all under suspicion too.”

  “Benjamin Holmes,” I said suddenly, and they all stared at me.

  “As in Congressman Benjamin Holmes of the Sharpeville Hearings?” said Carter incredulously. “That Benjamin Holmes? The one who let Colin Daisey get away with the death of your dad?”

  “He was there,” I said. “He was in the meeting with Mom and Gray, when we realized the war was a Chronomaly. He believed it. I don’t think he and Mom like each other at all, but I think he trusts her. And, most importantly, he was never on the Time Travel Committee. He’s House Intelligence.”

  “And anyway, we know now that the results of that hearing weren’t his fault. Of course he didn’t find anything on Daisey. U.E. made sure that he wouldn’t. No, I think if we went to Congressman Holmes with the truth about what really happened to Leo Carstairs – if we had Grove’s backing, if we could prove it – I think he’d be more than happy to take the case on. Hell, I think he’d shut down United Enterprises himself.”

  “So let me get this straight,” said Leo. “We need to break into a highly-secured government medical facility, convince the only agent who hasn’t been dragged into this investigation to dive into it voluntarily, then hack into their transport lab to send one of you back to 1972 to pick up some police evidence that you hope – but don’t know – will implicate the largest and most powerful corporation in the world, and pray that Grove can get it in front of the House of Representatives before they find him and have him shot.”

  I
looked at Carter. Carter looked at Calliope. Calliope looked at me. We all nodded.

  “Oh,” said Leo, “well, if that’s all . . .” And he looked like he might have been about to pass out.

  “First things first,” I said to him. “We’ll figure out a plan for all of this, but breakfast was hours ago and I’m starving. Leo, you’ll feel calmer after you’ve cooked something. Carter, keep him from losing it, will you? Calliope, we need a Comm link. I have to be able to contact Detective Barlow from here.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to make another pot of coffee,” I said, “and figure out how I’m going to get into Sweethaven without, you know, getting shot on sight.”

  “Good plan,” said Carter. “Come on, Leo, let’s make omelettes. You’ll feel better after we make omelette.” He put his arm around Leo and led him to the kitchen.

  After half an hour or so, bored with watching Calliope tinker around on her handheld, I made my way over to the kitchen where the boys were cooking and watched them work while I drank my five hundredth cup of coffee.

  Carter minced shallots with a brisk gracefulness, then passed the cutting board to Leo so he could scrape them into a sizzling pan. There was bacon in another pan, chopped up small and cooked to dark crunchy bits, and as I watched, Carter pulled a bowl of pale green rings out of the sink, where it had been draining, and passed it to Leo.

  “What’s that?”

  “They’re leeks,” said Leo. “For omelettes.”

  “Leeks?” I said. “When did we become fancy people who eat leeks?”

  “Fancy? You mean civilized?”

  “Where the hell did you even find—”

  “What the hell is your problem with leeks?”

  “Where the hell did you even find leeks in Bailey’s Crossroads, Virginia?”

  “I’m sorry, I know you’d be happier if we were all just standing around in our underwear eating protein bars over the sink, but some of us —”

  “Everybody shut up, I got it,” called Calliope from the living room, and we all shut up.

  “Got what?” I asked, moving over closer to the couch so I could see her handheld screen over her shoulder.