I nod and reach into my pocket to get the second note, but she lays a hand on my wrist.
“No. I still have to give it to you, so let me surprise myself.”
I pull my hand back out, empty.
“Since we’re not surrounded by security officers, I’m guessing you figured out how to disconnect.”
“Not on my own.”
She raises an eyebrow but says nothing.
“Are you sure we can’t be traced here?” I ask.
She nods. “It’s a hole in the system the institute’s science department hasn’t been able to plug. Any jump more than ten years, with or without a companion, doesn’t even show up on their scanners.” Her eyes narrow, assessing me. “You already knew that, too, didn’t you?”
I shrug.
“I tell you that in the second note?”
“No. You had a boy tell me on one of my missions.”
She chuckles. “Still more work you’re making me do, I see.”
I hear the cry of a bird. I look up and spot it soaring above the far end of the meadow. When it disappears in the trees, I ask, “What did you want to see me for?”
“You’ve got it backwards. You wanted to see me.”
“So you knew I was looking for you.”
“Of course I did.”
“Then why wouldn’t you see me back at the institute?”
“Because I have a feeling what you want to talk about would be best discussed elsewhere.” She gives me a sideways glance. “Was I wrong?”
“No.” She’s given me an opening but I hesitate. “You won’t report what I ask you about?”
“Would I have brought you here if I was going to do that?”
I shake my head.
The original questions I wanted to ask her were about Harlan Walker, but in the time since I first started looking for her, more important ones have surfaced. “Are we really not permitted to leave the institute in home time?”
“You’ve had the talk, huh?”
I nod.
“I’ve been with the institute for fifteen years, and can tell you that since we started using the Chaser, I’ve only set foot outside in our home time twice. Both were as part of recruiting missions such as the one that brought you to us.”
“They really should have told us that ahead of time.”
“If you’d known, would you have refused the offer?”
“I didn’t even know what I was coming to.”
“But you did know it was going to be a hell of a lot more interesting than the life you would have had otherwise.”
“You’re right,” I say after a moment. “I would’ve still come. But I don’t think Lidia would have.”
“Lidia?”
“She was in my group. Trained in the room next to ours.”
“Ah, right. Lidia Hampstead. She was a…placement.”
“What’s a placement?”
“Rewinders typically come from families who are Threes, Fours, and Fives. Now and then we’ll get the occasional Six.”
“I’m an Eight,” I say.
“You were a Eight. Yours was a…rare case. The institute’s only taken two other from that far down, but they couldn’t ignore your test scores. Still, Lady Williams had serious doubts. That’s why you were tested again and why she was personally there. And it took Sir Gregory to convince her to take you. It’s good to see his belief in you has paid off.”
I never even considered that I was the lowest caste member in my training class. That’s probably why most of the others ignored me, and a few — Lidia at the lead — did nothing to hide their contempt.
“Why would Sir Gregory do that for me?”
She looks at me as if I should already know the answer. “Why would you think?”
A potential answer comes to me, but I find it hard to believe so I say nothing.
Before the silence stretches too long, Marie continues. “There’s a certain prestige among the elite for having an offspring at the institute. Those with eighteen-year-olds who achieve a certain score level on the tests can request placement within the program. Usually these candidates come from large families who have children to spare. Per the institute’s royal charter, names of new institute members are sent to the king. By offering one of their own, a family can gain favor with the Crown and receive advantages such as tax breaks, knighthoods, and even the possibility of moving into the nobility if they aren’t there already.”
“I’m on the list?” I asked, surprised.
“Of course.”
I can barely get my head around the thought that the king has seen my name.
Marie looks at me. “Is this what you wanted to discuss?”
I push away my thoughts of the king and shake my head. “Not just that.” I tell her about Harlan Walker, the adjusted family report, his death, and the mention in the paper of the donation to the Upjohn Institute. “I wanted to get another copy of the paper so I tried to go outside. That’s how I ended up talking to Sir Gregory.” I frown. “If you don’t believe me, you could find a copy of the paper.”
“I don’t need to.”
“Hold on,” I say. “You’re the one who left the paper for me, aren’t you?”
“No.”
There’s nothing hidden by her demeanor so I’m pretty sure she’s telling the truth. “Do you know who did?”
Her shrug is less convincing than her no.
“Who do you—”
“Situations such as Mr. Walker’s happen all the time,” she says, refocusing our discussion. “Though not everyone kills themselves.”
I want to push her on the point of who left the newspaper, but I know it’d be a wasted effort so I say, “Then it wasn’t a heart attack.”
“I don’t know for sure,” she said. “I haven’t looked into this case, but what do you think?”
“Suicide. What I don’t understand is, why?”
“What do you think the institute really does?”
The words come automatically out of my mouth. “We trace family histories.”
“We uncover family histories,” she says. “The good and the bad. What the institute usually reports is only the good. The bad is kept for other things.”
“Johnston said something similar, that the bad just gets filed away.”
“That’s the company line, and Johnston is nothing if not a topflight company man,” she says, not hiding her disdain. “Let me tell you how things probably went with Walker. First, Lady Williams presented him with a clean but inaccurate family history. All smiles and thank-yous and respect. A few days later, Sir Wilfred pays Walker a follow-up visit, in which he presents the true facts, ones that could destroy the family’s social standing and spell disaster for its business. Several options will be laid out, the important part of each being a ‘sizable donation’ to the Upjohn Institute.”
“Blackmail.”
“Yes.”
“So they told Walker to kill himself?”
“I’m sure that was one of the possibilities covered. In which case, those who inherit would be brought into the discussion. It doesn’t matter to the institute which direction is chosen. Its only concerns are the size of the donation and that the institute never comes under any scrutiny.”
“So when we receive payment, the bad goes away?”
She shrugs. “Until it’s needed again.”
“That’s…” I don’t know which word to use — terrible, disgusting, unbelievable. None fully conveys the revulsion I feel. “I can’t believe the institute would do something like that.”
“Oh, Denny,” she says. “You’ve spent nearly your whole life hovering just above the bottom of society. Surely you realized long ago that everything in the empire is corrupt.”
We’re taught from a very young age that to degrade the empire is to degrade the king, so saying the words out loud is treasonous. But she’s right. I’ve seen my share of corruption and learned early on to turn a blind eye to it. The difference here is that this is on a scale much grander than the daily graft I’ve been exposed to.