“You’re not coming?”
“You’re more than ready for a solo.”
As far as I know, none of the others from my training group have gone solo yet, so the idea of my being the first causes my stomach to flip a few times and threaten to give back my breakfast. “O-okay,” I say.
I grasp my Chaser in both hands and tell myself, Just go through the protocol.
I check the settings and make sure the location number and date and time match those from the briefing.
I turn to the raised dais where the departure officer sits overlooking the platforms. When he turns in my direction, I give him the ready signal — flat palm forward, then curled into a fist.
Over the speaker above my platform comes the voice of Palmer’s data observer in the companion center. “Stand by.”
Several seconds pass, then the voice says, “Benson, clear.”
Trying to project an aura of confidence I don’t feel, I raise my finger and depress the button.
There is no reason to have gotten so worked up. The job is the easiest I’ve had since finishing training — a half hour spent in an abandoned graveyard and another walking through a quiet neighborhood verifying addresses — which was probably why it was chosen for my first solo mission.
Onward I go alone, day after day, each mission taken with less fear but more difficult than the last.
I’ve got this. I’m truly a Rewinder now.
I can do whatever they give me.
I can do it all.
One morning, after I’ve been taking trips on my own for about three weeks, Johnston says, “How are you feeling?”
“Fine,” I say.
“Not your health, jackass,” he says. “I mean about the job.”
I give him the same answer.
“Administration wants to know if you’re ready to be cut free,” he informs me. “What do you think?”
I have to catch myself from blurting out, “Yes, absolutely,” and instead ask, “What did you tell them?”
“That you’re close. Another week should do it.”
I feel a smile grow on my face before I can stop it. That’s still a whole three months before my supervised period is supposed to last. “Yeah, a week sounds right.”
“You ready for today’s mission?”
“Yes.” The job today will be challenging — there will be following over physical distance and observation of several locations. It should be interesting, though, because unlike most of our missions, it revolves around a tiny bit of history.
“Then let’s get to it.”
We walk side by side to the departure hall. As always, several of the platforms are in use. We are on number seven this time. As I take the short staircase up, I spot Lidia on platform one with her supervisor. Though I’ve seen her several times since the conversation we had in the dining hall months ago, we’ve never talked again. When she notices I’m standing on my platform alone, she gawks for a moment before turning away, tight lipped, then she and her supervisor, Bernard Swanson, disappear into the past. I can’t deny her annoyance gives me pleasure, but I unfortunately don’t have any time to enjoy it.
I take my position, check the settings, and give the departure officer the signal. When I receive the “clear” announcement, I press the button.
Since I’m going nearly two hundred and fifty years back, I’m using the hop method. For most of the journey, everything seems fine—2015 fades, the gray mist appears, and 1963 winks in for a second before the next jump initiates. Back I go, through the early twentieth century and across the nineteenth. Every time I’m in the gray mist, I feel the connection with Palmer and sense the same hint of jealousy I’ve picked up each time since I started going solo.
It’s on the final hop, though, when everything changes. As I leave 1839, the gray once more surrounds me, but then suddenly it’s like someone has started flipping a switch back and forth, the gray turning black then gray then black before settling on gray again. And that’s not the only weirdness. I don’t feel Palmer at all.
Finally, I’m deposited into the dark of night as a splitting headache doubles me over.
Nearly thirty minutes pass before I feel well enough to function again. I check my Chaser screen first to verify I’ve arrived in 1775. I then take a look around and find that I am, as planned, in a farm field, standing between rows of some kind of grain.
I’ve made it, and now it’s time to go to work.
I reset my Chaser for sixteen hours in the future and jump.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I do what I was trained to do.
First, I witness the event from afar, in this case from a copse of trees across the dusty road from the Three Swans Tavern near Cambridge, Massachusetts. Tied to the rail in front of the establishment are several horses, while in the field next to the building two wagons sit waiting. Lantern light flickers in the windows and I can hear voices now and then. Calls for more drink and food, I assume.
Carefully, I record arrivals and departures, describing each man — they’re all men — by the clothes they wear, their height, and whatever else makes them stand out. At fourteen minutes and fifty-three seconds after eight p.m., I watch myself walk into the tavern. This I also enter into the log as I make a mental note that I could use a haircut.
The person I’m most interested in arrives six minutes later. Young Richard Cahill. I know it’s him because I’ve seen him when he’s older, on the trip I made the day before. He’s considerably thinner here but the eyes and nose and mouth are the same.
I celebrate the moment by drawing a box around his name and time of arrival. My job isn’t done, though. It’s only beginning. I remain where I am until Cahill leaves the tavern at 8:47 p.m. and 21 seconds. After I witness my own departure at 8:51 and 11 seconds, there’s no more reason for me to stay.
The hop I make is not a long one, merely thirty minutes back in time and a half mile east into the woods where no one else is. There I refresh myself with a food bar from my satchel as I study my notes. When I’ve committed all the necessary times and descriptions to memory, I hop forward again, arriving near the empty wagons beside the Three Swans. I reach the tavern’s door at 8:14 and 53 seconds.
The room is lit by several lanterns and large enough for three long tables but not much else. Seven men are scattered around, most with enough space between them to indicate they’re alone. Only two men are obviously together. They sit opposite one another and are leaning forward so they can talk in low voices.
I have a quick choice to make. Somewhere in this room is the person Cahill will meet with, and though I’ll be using my directional recorder to pick up the conversation, I’d like to be close enough to hear it for myself. It’s the way Marie taught me.
The patrons are largely weary farmers or businessmen who only want to eat their meal and be on their way. So, after writing most of them off, I settle on two possibilities for the person Cahill will meet — the man who’s looked at me twice as if wondering whether or not I’m someone he should know, or one of the two men who are together.
Not wanting to narrow it down further, I take a spot midway between my targets. Moments after I sit, the back door opens and a thin woman who looks older than she probably is enters carrying two bowls of something steaming. She acknowledges my presence with the barest of nods before setting the bowls in front of the two men who are together.
“You’re eating,” she says to me a moment later.
“Yes, please.”
Without another word, she turns and exits the way she came in.
The things that always surprise me when I travel are the smells. It doesn’t matter how far I go back — a decade, a century, or the nearly two and a half I went this time — the smells are unique. Spices and sweat and sewage and perfumes and God only knows what else. Some make me cock my head in wonder, while others cause the bile in my stomach to rise to my throat.