Rewinder by Brett Battles Page B

still have a hard time believing it.”
    “Of course you do. That sense of wonder will likely stay with you throughout your career. It does with most Rewinders. God knows, I still can’t believe it sometimes.”
    He’s quiet for a moment as he reads through another one of the sheets. When he looks back at me, he says, “I see here that you wanted to go for a walk today.”
    “I’m sorry, Sir Gregory. I forgot I needed authorization. I haven’t been out since I arrived here and I ended up with some extra time this afternoon so I thought…”
    “But you get out all the time on your assignments.”
    “You’re right, sir. I do. It’s just…” I pause, thinking quickly. “I’m always working then.”
    “Of course. I understand. Truth is, there are times when I wish I could take a walk outside.”
    “You don’t go out, either?” I ask.
    He studies me for several seconds and then sets the papers down. “This was going to happen eventually. It always does. You should feel honored. You’re the first from your class I’ve had to talk to about it.”
    “About what exactly, sir?”
    He leans back in his chair. “There was a time when members of the institute freely moved in and out of our gates. In fact, when I started as a personal historian, it was a necessity. Our work at the time meant tedious hours spent combing historical archives and records that were often not accessible via data monitors, so we traveled throughout the empire to consult and decipher the original texts. For over a hundred and sixty years, this is how the institute did its work. But then everything changed.” He pauses as if he’s given me the answer I’m looking for but he hasn’t, and my expression tells him as much. “Mr. Younger, what is the most powerful thing on Earth?”
    I say without hesitation, “The king.”
    “Yes, yes, naturally,” he says. “But I’m not talking about a person. I’m talking about a thing .”
    I shrug and say the next thing that comes to mind. “The nuclear bomb.” I’m not sure how it works—something about atoms smashing together—but everyone’s seen the destructive results in photos of the cities in China and Africa where the bombs have been dropped. One bomb can destroy miles of land, its radiation continuing to kill weeks and months and often years later.
    “An understandable choice,” he says. “But not even close.”
    I consider the question again. “Volcanoes?”
     “That’s a much better guess, but still not correct.” He opens one of the desk’s drawers and pulls out a Chaser device.
    It’s different from the one I’ve been using. It’s dinged and scuffed and has several more buttons and switches than mine.
    He admires it for a moment before setting it on the desk between us. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”
    That’s not exactly the word I’d use but I nod.
    “This is one of the early devices. Second generation. Mine, actually.”
    He flips one of the switches and I pull back, half expecting him to disappear.
    With a chuckle, he says, “The battery cell was removed long ago. I like to keep it here, though. A reminder of the whens I’ve visited and the things I’ve seen.”
    He picks it up, and without warning tosses it to me. It bounces off my hands as I’m reaching out, but I manage to snag it before it falls to the ground.
    “That, Mr. Younger, is the most powerful thing on Earth,” he says. “In the wrong hands, can you imagine the devastation one of these could cause? Someone could go back and ensure someone else is never born. Or worse.”
    Having traveled as much as I have, it’s easy to imagine the things someone could do—assassinating world leaders before they gain power, introducing technologies decades or centuries prior to their development, using knowledge of the past to increase one’s wealth in the present. I could spend hours writing a list and still not cover everything.
    “That’s why the only person living outside our walls who knows of the