Rewinder

CHAPTER SIX

I meet up again with my fellow Rewinders-in-training at dinner in the communal hall. The shocked look on their faces tells me that they, too, have seen the impossible.

Hard science has never been my specialty, but I didn’t leave my meeting with Marie without asking, “How does it work?”

As expected, the answer she gave was full of words I didn’t understand, and concepts that tie me up and bury me under their incomprehensible weight. I came away knowing only that the Chaser device is the key and it’ll be my passport to everywhen.

Dinner is eaten in silence, the only noise made by our forks and knives clicking against our plates. By the time I’m lying in bed in my small, private room, I can’t even recall what we were served.

I stare at the ceiling, still half convinced Marie’s demonstration was an illusion, and that there’s a logical answer that doesn’t involve trips into the past. But I can come up with no decent alternative, so my mind begins to drift from how could this be to why am I here?

Obviously, there was something on my initial test that caught the institute’s eye. But what? What answers did I give that brought them all the way across the continent to test me again?

Thirty-eight hours ago, I was just another new adult from a lowly caste, waiting to be told what society thought my life should be. If given a billion chances, I would’ve never guessed where I am now.

For the next seven days, we’re subjected to a regiment of lectures in the morning and testing in the afternoon.

During the lectures we learn that the existence of the Chaser device is known only to those working for the institute and the king himself. “This is the secret we must guard at all costs,” Sir Wilfred tells us on day two. “If a Chaser were obtained by the wrong person, the results could be catastrophic. For this reason, you are all restricted to the institute grounds until the end of your training. After, any outside travel will need special permission. And know this — it would be an extreme understatement to say the penalty is severe for exposing our secrets to outsiders. Have I made myself clear?”

On another day, he tells us this penalty is not the only threat we live under. “If, at any time, you use your Chaser for something other than institute business, you will face disciplinary actions that could result in your removal from the program.”

“So we’d be kicked out of the institute?” Lidia asks.

The look on Sir Wilfred’s face is the most serious I have ever seen. “No one ever leaves the institute. The responsibility you’re being granted is so much larger than you can even imagine. If you feel you cannot handle this, you must let your supervisor know immediately.”

I’m fairly certain these first lectures are designed to scare us, something I find unnecessary. I don’t know about the other trainees, but there are so many inherent dangers in traveling into history — disease and war, just to name a couple — that I don’t need any added threats to put the fear of God in me.

As for the afternoon tests, the best word I know to describe them would be thorough. Each exam contains hundreds of question and is focused on a different period of history. Even with all the independent studying I’ve done over the years, I’ve never been more aware that my education has been insufficient. There are questions about things I’ve never heard of, points of history so precise I wonder how anyone can even know the true answer. But then I remember Marie disappearing in front of me, and realize that every detail of the past is knowable. For every test, we’re given four hours to finish. I’m lucky if I’m able to get halfway through in that time.

When we’re not in the lecture hall or taking exams, we’re encouraged to study. There’s a grand library, three floors high and more than twice as large as the library near my father’s house. It’s located in an annex to the main building. Like several of the other trainees, I’m there as much as possible, poring through the books until my mind forces me to return to my room and drop into bed.

On the eighth day, the schedule changes, and we’re told we’ll be spending mornings with our private instructors and afternoons improving our physical health.

Lidia is opening the door to room 18 as I near my own. She glances at me and smirks. “Don’t get too comfortable in there. They’ll probably kick you out soon. I can’t even understand why they chose you. You’re out of place here and you know it.”

Over the past week, she’s said similar things to me, often in front of others. I’ve been brought up not to respond to taunts from those “better” than I so I have, to this point, kept my mouth shut.

But I can hold my tongue no longer. “They wanted me here. You probably just bought your way in.”

I pull open the door to room 17 and hurry in before she can respond.

Marie is already sitting at the table, her back to the door. In front of her are a stack of books, a closed leather sheath, and a monitor and keyboard. When I take the other seat, she opens the sheath, reads the top sheet of paper, flips it over, reads the second, and then goes through the same routine with the third.

Before she even finishes the last, she says, “I’m impressed.”

“I’m sorry?” I say.

“Your tests. You’ve done very well.”

“Right,” I say, sure she’s trying to be funny. “I’m a genius.”

She looks up. “I didn’t say that. But you are far above the average for your group. In fact, you came in first.”

Now I know she’s lying. She’s just trying to pump me up before dropping the hammer and telling me the institute has made a terrible mistake.

“Here,” she says.

She pulls one of the papers out and sets it on the table so I can read it. It’s a list of all those in my group, with a number next to each name. My number is highest, by a considerable margin.

“Believe me now?” she says.

I pick up the paper and stare at it. “There must be some kind of mistake. I didn’t even finish any of them. I—”

“No mistake. The tests are extremely difficult. No one has ever finished them.”

I lay the paper back down and allow myself to think that maybe I did do better than I thought.

“Your results will make our mornings much easier,” she tells me.

“What do you mean?”

“The tests are designed to reveal the gaps in your knowledge. And our sessions are, in part, meant to fill those gaps.”

Perhaps I’ve done well by their standards, but there’s no question my gaps are considerable. “How long will that take?”

“As long as necessary.” She returns the paper to her sheath and pulls the keyboard toward her. “I thought we’d start with something recent — the late twentieth century. We’ll focus first on our alliance with the Russian Empire and the Mediterranean conflict of the 1960s.”

These morning sessions are mentally draining but I love every minute of them. The afternoons, however, I could do without.

“Stamina is the key,” we are told, so our physical training sessions always begin with a run. At first, it’s “only” a mile, but within a week we’re doing two and then three and then four. The rest of our time is spent building our strength. One day is chest and arms, and then abs, backs, and legs before the cycle starts over again.

By the time I finish dinner each evening and drag myself to my room, all I want to do is sleep, but every day Marie gives me something I need to read before the next session, so it’s always several more hours before I can finally lay my head down.

Marie and I work backward through the twentieth century as the British Empire continued its expansion, annexing the whole of Central America and much of South America after the victorious Spanish War of 1903. From there, we move into the nineteenth century and the rise of the industrial world, led by Britain and fed by the vast resources of its American territories.

While much of what I learn touches on areas I’ve studied in the past, what Marie presents is a full version, what she calls raw history. It’s not long before I realize that the past I thought I knew, the one all regular students are taught, has been sanitized and dressed up to serve the interest of the realm.

Case in point — the slave industry here in North America. I, and everyone I know, think that when King James III abolished slavery in 1841, those who had been in servitude were offered the choice of assimilation into British society here in America or a voyage back to Africa, where their ancestors were from. The truth, according to what Marie tells me, is quite different. The choice was offered only to a select few. Most were forced onto boats and shipped across the ocean, where they were dumped in a land they did not know with a language they did not speak. Localized wars broke out near many of these reintegration sites, and more than half of the former slaves were slaughtered. Of those who survived, another third died from hunger and disease.

This is not the history we were taught.

“What do you know of Queen Victoria?” Marie asks.

“She became queen upon the death of her uncle, King William…” I pause, closing my eyes to remember. “…the Fourth, in the late 1830s.”

“Eighteen thirty-seven,” she says.

“She was queen for three years until her assassination by Edward Oxford.”

“The date?”

Every student knows this one. “June 4^th, 1840.”

Oxford lay in wait for the queen and her husband, Prince Albert, to ride by in their open carriage. The first bullet took her life, while the second ripped through the prince’s shoulder, puncturing his lung. He lived, but only for a few more months. Officially his death was caused by infection from the wound, but the popular story was that he died from a broken heart.

“And the succession?” she asks.

“James the Third took the throne.”

She cocks her head. “Surely you were taught more than that.”

From a young age we’re expected to memorize the order of royalty. Any kid older than eight can recite it, up to at least the early eighteenth century: The four Georges (I, II, III, IV), William IV, Victoria, James III, James IV, John II, Catherine, James V, and, the current king, Phillip II. But she’s right. I do know more.

“There was something about one of her uncles,” I say as I dig into my memory. “The king of…Hanover. Right?”

“Correct. Ernest Augustus. The queen had produced an heir the year before she died, a daughter. But since she was still a baby, he claimed the throne should be his.”

“But that didn’t happen,” I say. “He died before he could be crowned. So did the child.”

“Correct, again. And how did they die?”

“Some kind of disease.”

“Pneumonia? Is that what you’re looking for?”

“Yes. Right. Pneumonia.”

“Then you’ll be surprised to learn the king of Hanover was poisoned.”

“Is that true?”

“It is.”

“What about the girl?” I ask.

“Suffocated.”

Though the revelations are unexpected, they occurred nearly a hundred and seventy-five years ago, so I don’t feel the need to get too worked up over them. Still, I’m curious enough to ask, “Why?”

“Why would you think?”

I shrug. “I guess someone didn’t want either to take the throne. Would it have been that bad if one of them had?”

“It wasn’t a matter of good or bad,” she says. “Let’s say you’re member of a group that’s not happy with the direction the empire is heading in, and you want to do something about it. Say, in the wake of the queen’s death, confidence in Parliament plummets and a special election is quickly held.”

I know this isn’t conjecture. It’s what happened in the aftermath of Queen Victoria’s assassination.

“Now,” she continues, “say that your group is able to secure a majority of seats in the lower house, and at the same time gain influence over a large number of those in the House of Lords.”

She looks at me, waiting.

“You would control the government,” I reply.

“Completely?”

“Not completely.” By that point in history, much of the power of the British Empire was held by Parliament, but it didn’t control everything.

“If you wanted it all, what would you need?” she asks

“You’d need to control both Parliament and the Crown.”

“Exactly.”

It takes me a second, but then I get it. “The Home Party,” I say.

The Home Party has controlled the empire without a break since right after Queen Victoria’s death. While other political parties do exist, none ever gain enough seats to make a dent in the Home Party’s rule.

Marie smiles again. “Then you have your answer.”