It’s several minutes before the door finally opens, and a woman in a simple gray dress with a bag over her shoulder enters. She’s shorter than I am by nearly a foot, and if she weighs more than seven and a half stones I’d be shocked. Her hair is dark, almost black, and cut so that it barely touches the tops of her ears. What I notice most, though, is the aura of confidence that moves with her. It’s not something you see in the neighborhood where I grew up.
After closing the door, she takes the other seat. “Hello, Denny,” she says, holding out her hand. “I’m Marie Jennings. Welcome to the Upjohn Institute.”
“Thank you,” I say as we shake.
“I’m to be your personal instructor during your training,” she says. “And you are to be one of our potential Rewinders.”
“Yes, um, so what exactly is a Rewinder?”
“That’s the big question, isn’t it? What do you think?”
I’ve done nothing but try to figure that out since leaving the classroom, but am no closer to an answer so I shrug and shake my head.
“The definition’s very straightforward,” she says. “A Rewinder is a verifier of personal histories.”
“Okaaay,” I say, still not understanding.
“Had you heard of the Upjohn Institute before you came here?”
“Never.”
She sets her bag on the table and removes a leather-bound sheath. After opening it, she studies one of the papers inside and then looks up. “That’s right. You were an Eight before.” There’s no judgment in her voice, which surprises me, as she clearly comes from a higher caste.
“I feel like I’m still an Eight.”
“Give it time,” she says. “Pretty soon you won’t even think about what you are or where you came from. All right, let’s talk about the institute for a moment. It was established with a singular purpose. People come to us to trace and verify their family histories. To have a history certified by the Upjohn Institute means that no one can dispute your lineage. No one. Our results are accepted by the very top of society.”
By very top, she must mean the king. Just the thought of working at a job even remotely connected to the Crown is terrifying.
“So a Rewinder does these verifications?” I ask.
“Correct.”
“How, exactly?”
“Quite simple. You will observe and report.”
“Observe?”
She reaches into her bag and pulls out a wooden box — approximately five inches by seven and an inch thick — and holds it out to me. When I take it, I find it’s not nearly as heavy as I expected, and it’s not made of wood at all but some kind of metal designed to look like wood.
“Open it,” she says.
On the top is a flap that’s latched on the wide side. I try to open it but it doesn’t budge.
“Right here,” she says, touching a smooth section next to the latch. “Touch it with your right thumb.”
I do as she says and the latch pops open.
When I look at her, she says, “It’s been keyed to you.”
I start to ask, “How?” but my attention’s drawn to the display screen and buttons that were covered by the flap.
“What is this thing?”
She holds her hand out and I give it back to her. “The engineers call it a temporal transmitter, but it’s more commonly referred to as a Chaser.” She sets it on the table.
I know temporal has something to do with time, but what would a temporal transmitter be? A radio clock?
Seeing my confusion, she says, “A little history. The Upjohn Institute received its royal charter from Queen Victoria in March of 1841.”
I blinked. Eighteen forty-one is an extremely important year in the history of the empire.
“Yes,” she says, noting my reaction. “That was only three months before she was killed. When King James III took the throne, he reconfirmed the charter, and the institute’s been here ever since, serving the upper castes of the empire.
“Until thirteen years ago, the only means we had for verifying lineages were old records. This was sufficient to a point but not always one hundred percent accurate. Records can be falsified, and whole histories can be changed to suit someone’s interests.
“In 1998, Lady Williams learned of a project being conducted at a small university in Virginia. She saw the potential immediately, so she made a sizable donation to the school in exchange for hiring Professor Clarke and moving his project to the institute. Under her guidance, the professor turned his research in a direction more useful for our needs. It took him a little over three years, but finally he did it.” She touches the Chaser.
“Did what?” I ask.
“Perhaps it’s time for a demonstration.” She picks up the Chaser. “Think of a date, sometime in the past couple years, one you know exactly where you were at a specific time.”
“A date? Why?”
“Please, just think of one.”
Without my even trying, a date comes to me.
“Ready?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“I only need to know three things. The date, the time, and the city or district you were in.”
“May 9th, 2009. Three p.m. The Shallows, New Cardiff.”
“All right. Now I’m going to ask you to stay in your chair no matter what happens. Can you do that?”
“Yes. Of course.”
She opens the Chaser’s lid and works her fingers across the buttons and screen. After a moment, she says, “I’ll be right back.”
I expect her to get up and walk out. What happens instead is that she stands up, pushes a button on the device, and disappears.
Despite my promise, my chair flies backward into the wall as I jump away from the table. I want to yell, but I can’t even take a breath. She was there, standing by her chair, and then she was…gone.
With effort, I calm myself enough so that air can flow back into my lungs.
It has to be some kind of trick. An illusion created by projections, perhaps. I’m half convinced she was never actually in the room, but then I remember that we shook hands.
I slowly approach the table again. When I reach it, I lean forward and wave my hand through the air where she was standing. Empty.
I eye the door and consider fleeing, but my curiosity is strong enough to keep me there. If this is some kind of test, the moment I step out of the room I’ll probably fail and be removed from the program.
Without turning my back on the table, I fetch my chair and take my place again. My foot taps nervously on the floor while I wait for what happens next. Several seconds pass before I feel a slight movement of air on my fingertips. A split second later Marie reappears in the same spot she was in before.
I jerk back again, but am able to keep myself from jumping to my feet this time.
“Good,” she says. “You’re still here.”
My hand rises, reaching to see if she’s really there.
She holds out her arm. “Go ahead. You have my permission.”
When my fingers touch her warm wrist, I yank my hand back.
“How did you…where…” I barely get these words out before I feel my throat tightening again.
“May 9th, 2009. Three p.m.,” she says. “The first anniversary of your sister’s death. You visited her grave. Alone.”
“You contacted my father, didn’t you?” I ask. He was supposed to go with me that day but couldn’t bring himself to do it.
“I’ve never spoken to your father.”
“Okay, maybe not you, but someone here. They were probably making the call before you…you left.”
“Would your father have seen you trace her name on the headstone? Would he have seen you take the blades of grass from above her grave and stick them in your pocket? Would he have followed you after, when you wandered through the village and stopped behind the mechanics shop and cried?”