Brett Battles
Rewinder
Both thanks and a dedication
to the writers who have inspired me.
There are so many more than I can name,
but here are a few (in no particular order):
Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke,
Robert Heinlein, James White,
Graham Greene, John D. MacDonald,
Alistair MacLean, Robert Ludlum,
Stephen King, Jasper Fforde,
and Haruki Murakami
Read them. Enjoy them.
CHAPTER ONE
“Where are the others?” Lidia asks, one hand wrapped around my neck, the other pressing the tip of a knife against the skin below my ear.
“The others?” I ask.
“Bernard and everyone who were with us. Where are they?”
I shrug. “I don’t know.”
I start to choke as her grip tightens. “Don’t lie to me!” she yells. “You said you knew when the break occurred and you fixed it. But that’s not true, is it? You never fixed it.”
“I…can’t…breathe.”
A few moments pass before her grip loosens to the point where I can breathe again.
“Where are they?” she repeats.
“They went home.”
“You’re lying. You obviously never changed the world back. Where are they?”
I say nothing.
Her knife presses inward, releasing a trickle of blood. “I know you know what’s going on. I could see you were lying when we all met. That’s why I only jumped into the woods. I wanted to see what you were going to do. When I saw that you waited to be last, I knew I was right. What happened to them?”
“Where’s Iffy?”
“Answer my question!”
I shake my head. “I don’t see her, you won’t learn anything.”
CHAPTER TWO
STOP.
I read somewhere that everyone is the hero of his or her own story.
Maybe that’s true for most people, but not for me.
Of all the rules we were taught before we were allowed to travel in time, one stands above alclass="underline" Don’t screw anything up.
I didn’t mean to, but, well…
Here I am, Denny Younger, destroyer of worlds.
You wouldn’t be here if not for me.
REWIND.
MY TIMELINE.
NOT YOURS.
I was born an Eight — the level of my family’s caste.
In my great-grandparents’ time, Eight was referred to as the labor class, but seventy-five years ago, Parliament converted everything to a numbered system. “To avoid confusion” is a quote used in textbooks.
The most common direction in which people change caste is downward. Rarely can one rise to a higher level — something my father often reminded me. “The best you can hope for,” he’d say, “is a fair boss and a decent roof over your head. If you have that, then you have nothing to complain about.”
My mother, on the other hand, was not of the same mind. Though she knew we were limited by our caste, she’d tell me and my sister — when my father wasn’t around — that we were different from others, and that if we worked very hard, there was a chance we could be assigned a position that wouldn’t include lugging tools between machines for the rest of our lives. I was eleven when my mother died after someone’s vehicle got stuck in front of the tram she was on.
From my devastation grew the desire to prove her right, and show my father something more was out there for me. While I always did well in school and achieved the highest marks, I began not only studying the lessons we were assigned, but reading well beyond my educational level and learning about things I would have never otherwise been taught.
History turned out to be one of my favorite subjects, becoming an obsession I couldn’t feed fast enough. At the community library three tram stops away from home, I walked the roads of ancient Greece and Rome, I witnessed the sweep of Genghis Khan’s army through Eurasia, and I experienced the growth of our mighty British Empire as it embraced territories around the world, including my own North America.
As much as possible, I would check out books and then stay up late reading them. Sometimes, after my sister Ellie became sick, I would sit in her room and read to her. I like to think it eased her pain, and she always said she enjoyed it, but who knows.
Typically, a kid from one of the lower castes such as ours enters the workforce upon reaching the age of sixteen. In my case, this would have likely meant learning machine maintenance from my father at the power plant on the western edge of New Cardiff.
But my study habits paid off, and, much to my father’s dismay, I was granted two additional years of education beyond my sixteenth birthday. This all but guaranteed I’d be able to train for a supervisory job, something that sounded a whole lot better to me than following in my father’s footsteps.
Because I knew these final two years would be the end of my formal education, I studied even harder, soaking in all I could.
Maybe that’s why the two years flew by, because before I know it, it’s time for the test.
The test is officially known as the Occupational Placement Examination, and is mandatory for all students to take at the end of their last year of formal education. The only exceptions to this are those moving on to university, but these students usually come from the middle and upper castes — Sixes and up. The students at my school are Sevens and Eights, and one girl who is a Nine. The only way one of us will ever set foot on a university campus is as a custodian or groundskeeper.
The exam is a mix of questions that we’re told were designed to help determine the best place for us within the workforce. For those who take it at sixteen, it almost always results in an assignment with one of their parents, but for those who have completed the extra two years, it will determine if we are able to break our family’s lot.
The exam’s arrival saddens me. I’m not ready to give up learning, and could easily spend years with my nose in a book. But I’m at the end of my educational options, so I reluctantly join my fellow students on the N-CAT Train to the New Cardiff Civic Testing Center overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
The facility consists of twenty identical buildings set side by side, each several times longer than they are wide. We’re taken to the one with the letter D above the door. Inside, tables abut each other, creating five rows that run the length of the structure’s single room. On both sides are chairs, many of which are already filled by students from other schools.
Over the next twenty minutes, more kids my age file in, until every seat is taken. Here and there you hear hushed conversations, but for the most part we are silent.
I can’t help spending the time thinking about Ellie. My sister died before finishing her primary education, and I know she would have been granted the additional two years in school, as she was even smarter than I. In my mind, I’m taking the test for both of us.
Unsmiling exam proctors move along the aisles behind our chairs, placing testing booklets and pens in front of us. When all the materials are handed out, the head proctor, sitting on a raised platform at the front of the room, leans into a microphone and says, “You have ninety minutes. Begin.”
The sound of flipping pages fills the air, but the booklet in front of me remains closed. I know it’s meaningless, but I want to put off the inevitable for as long as I can. I sense confused glances from some of the nearby students, but it’s the stiff hand of a proctor on my shoulder that finally ends my holdout.
“You’re wasting time,” she said. “Get to it.”
Her accent marks her as true English, not North American. While there are plenty of people on the West Coast from the isles where our kingdom began, it’s unusual to find one in such a mundane position.