“But I didn’t have a companion when we went back.” I pause. “Did I?”
“You were slaved to my device, so my companion served both of us. Since we weren’t going back too far, it wasn’t difficult for her. All right, so now let’s say you go two hundred years into the past, taking it in a single jump. Your head would pound and you’d likely be sick to your stomach, and it’d be an hour or so before you feel normal again. Your companion, however, would be consumed by a migraine and muscle spasms that could last all day, if not longer. If you didn’t have him, all that pain would be on you, and you’d arrive unable to function at all, meaning the chances of you being discovered skyrocket.”
“So we don’t make trips without companions,” I say.
“Technically, it’s possible, but I wouldn’t try it if I were you. Especially since your companion serves the second and perhaps even more important role of being your beacon home. The farther you have to travel to get back here, the less accurate you become. Not in time. You’ll always get the time right. What I mean is physical location. A jump of a few hours or even a couple of days, and you can land precisely where you want without any help. Even a week or two will get you within a few feet of your desired location. But when you stretch that to years — again, like two hundred — no matter what location you’ve entered into your device, you could end up hundreds of miles away without your companion. Which, on a bad day, might put you in the middle of the ocean. The Chaser is able to use the companion’s gene signature — which is what the devices use to bind together — to deliver you directly into the arrival hall here at Upjohn Hall.”
I feel as if I’ve fallen through a magic hole into a dreamland where nothing is real. And yet I’ve traveled through time myself, so is this really that much more to accept?
Someone taps on the door and then opens it. It’s one of the data monitors.
“We have a departure in a couple minutes,” he says.
“Ah, good. Thank you,” Marie tells him. She turns back to me. “This is what we came to see.”
I peek over the shoulder of the attendant, careful not to get in the way of Lidia or the other two trainees who have joined us. On the video screen is an alternate spectrum shot of a female companion lying on her bed. The colors of the image range from white-blue to dark blue to black. After a few seconds go by, another person enters the room and connects some wires to the reclining woman’s head and upper chest, then straps her arms and legs into padded restraints.
“Those are for monitoring her vital signs,” the data attendant says, then points at the other monitor. The graph on it was flat when we arrived but now has sprung to life.
I look at it for a moment but can’t even pretend to understand what the lines mean, so I focus back on the other monitor.
“And the restraints?” David, one of the other trainees, asks.
“Just watch,” his instructor tells him.
A small square opens on the lower left portion of the main monitor, displaying another camera feed, this one originating from what I recognize as the departure hall. It’s focused on a man probably twice my age standing on one of the platforms.
After the man gives a hand signal, the data attendant leans forward and says into a microphone, “Stand by.”
The person in the companion’s room checks the restraints. When he waves at the camera, the data operator touches a button and says into his mic, “Taylor, clear.”
On the departure-hall feed, the Rewinder nods and lifts a Chaser.
The very instant he disappears, the companion arches on her bed as if shot through by a jolt of electricity. She then drops back down and writhes on the mattress, her hands clenching and unclenching as her arms jerk against the restraints. This only lasts a few seconds before she arches again.
The process plays out four times before she lands back on the bed and stays there. With skill and speed, the room attendant plunges a syringe into her arm. After a moment, her tremors begin to subside and she falls back, either asleep or unconscious.
Marie steps forward. “Can you play back the event please?”
The data attendant does so, and it’s no less disturbing the second time around.
“There are two stages to each jump,” Marie tells us. “Pre-arrival and post-arrival.”
The attendant runs the video once more, this time pausing on a frame in which the companion is arching her back.
“Pre-arrival,” Marie says. “The GO button has been pushed and the Rewinder is in transit. We call this the journey arc.”
She nods at the attendant and the video moves forward, pausing again when the woman is twisting on the bed.
“Post-arrival. The shot she was given helps mitigate the pain and allows her to rest.”
“Why wasn’t it given to her before the jump?” I ask.
“Because that would reduce her ability to deflect the pain,” the attendant says.
“Idiot,” Lidia whispers in my ear.
“You saw four journey arches,” Marie says. “This is because the Rewinder is going quite a distance back, and has used the automated controls to make the journey in smaller hops. This helps alleviate much of the pain he would feel upon arriving at this destination if he did it all in one jump.”
“How far did he go back?” I ask the attendant.
“One hundred and fifty-three years.”
Incredible—1861.
“So a short trip wouldn’t be so bad on a companion, right?” Kimberly, one of the other trainees, asks.
“The post-arrival phase would be less painful,” Marie says. “But for the journey arc, the pain is consistent no matter the span of time traveled.”
“Even just five years?” I ask, thinking about our trip to Chicago.
“Even just five years.”
Marie and I witness two more departures before we leave the companion-monitoring center.
Once we’re alone, I ask, “Do the companions have to stay in those rooms all the time?”
She shakes her head. “If their Rewinder isn’t traveling, their time is their own.”
I’m relieved to hear this.
“Who will my companion be?” I ask.
“One will be assigned at the end of training. You’ll find out then.”
I was kind of hoping she’d say I would never find out. I’m not looking forward to knowing who it is I’ll be putting through agony every time I jump.
CHAPTER NINE
From the beginning we were told training would last three months. What wasn’t made clear to us was that this only meant three months in 2014. The reality is that the final three weeks of practical experience last as long as one’s instructor feels is necessary. When you go back in time, you can stay there as long as you want and still return minutes after you left. So, for those who are still plodding away in my home time, three and a half weeks for them could be four months for me.
I’m not complaining. The time I spend with Marie traveling into the past is nothing short of amazing. Our first “case” is to trace the family lineage of an institute patron named Sir Lionel Mason. We move slowly, rewinding first Sir Mason’s own life, witnessing snippets of his successes and failures, making sure to note everything. We then move on to his parents, and then his parents’ parents, and so on, each step back expanding the number of people we must track. We’re on the job for nearly three weeks of real time — living and breathing time — before Marie is satisfied with my work and allows us to return to the very day we left.