Brett Battles
Destroyer
To DeeDee Li, Derek Rogers, Christine Buckhout, and Gar Haywood. Thank you for keeping me sane(ish).
CHAPTER ONE
I live in fear.
Fear of my past.
Fear for our future.
Fear that I’ve paid too high a price to save my sister’s life.
Fear that I will be held accountable for altering mankind’s destiny.
Don’t think destinies can’t be altered. I’ve done it more than once.
The first incident was an error, but not the second.
Time travel. It can be… problematic. Even the smallest of errors can result in, well, a place like this.
Don’t thank me, though. What I’ve done carries with it the guilt of millions of erased lives. Maybe billions.
Believe me or not, but the truth is the truth.
My name is Denny Younger, and I am a rewinder.
JUMP.
CHAPTER TWO
This is not the first time I’ve seen the man in the gray suit, but it takes me a moment before I place him.
Ruby’s Coffee Shop.
The café is near my apartment, and I often go there for an early coffee while my sister is still sleeping, so I’ve come to recognize many of the regular customers. The man is one of them, though I’m pretty sure he’s only started coming around in the last couple of weeks or so.
The thing is, I’m nowhere near Ruby’s right now. I’m downtown walking toward the San Diego Central Library. It’s a place I go to expand my knowledge about this time line. Though, as my girlfriend, Iffy, has shown me, I can do a lot of my research on the worldwide Internet, physical books are what I’m used to.
The man is standing off to the side of the open glass wall that serves as the building’s entrance. He’s holding a brochure as if studying it, but he’s not. He’s watching me approach. When I glance in his direction, he looks back at his pamphlet, suddenly interested in it again.
It’s possible he’s having the same “I’ve seen this guy before” moment that I just had, but the tingle I feel at the back of my neck makes me think otherwise. I see no hint of surprise or even confusion in his eyes. He’s interested in me.
Acting like I haven’t noticed anything special about him, I causally walk into the library’s large lobby, but casual is not how I feel. The desire to hurry to someplace private where I can slip my hand into my satchel, press the go button on my chaser, and make a time jump away from here is nearly overwhelming. Only that’s not an option. The device’s battery strength continues to decline with every trip I make. Until I have a way to recharge it, I decided to limit my jumps to only those that are necessary, and have left the chaser in my safe at home. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Now, I’m not so sure.
I take the escalator up to the second floor, where I position myself so that I can discreetly watch the entrance below. A few moments pass before the man finally saunters inside. By the way he hesitates near the base of the escalator I know he’s aware of where I have gone. Instead of following me, though, he heads deeper into the first floor where I can no longer see him.
I frown in annoyance. I’d been hoping he’d come up so that I could sneak around him and make my way out of the building unseen. But now I assume that if I try, he’ll spot me. So, for the moment, I’m trapped.
Two months ago while Iffy and I were walking around Coronado Island, I saw someone I swore I knew — a veteran rewinder named Carla Manning. She was walking in front of us and hadn’t seen me yet, so we followed her all the way to a restaurant. Through the glass door we watched as two teenagers greeted her, their features clearly indicating they were her children. With much relief, I realized it wasn’t Carla at all. Or, at least, not the version of Carla from my world.
I’m feeling the same panic now that I felt then. It’s the cost of living in fear of being discovered. Some days I can almost pretend I’m like everyone else here, that this is the world I was born into.
But it’s not.
I have no idea if anyone else from my old world survived the change, but if they did, they’ll be looking for me. What I can’t figure out is if the man is one of them. Though there’s something familiar about him, I’m positive that prior to the first time I noticed him at Ruby’s, I’d never seen him before. That doesn’t mean he’s not from my former life, though. There were, after all, many rewinders I never met.
I retreat to a table from where I can keep an eye on most of the second floor, pull out my laptop, and pretend to work on it. Nearly twenty minutes pass before the man rides the escalator up. I tense the moment I see him, but stay my urge to get up and run. He walks into the area where I am sitting and chooses the open table farthest from mine.
Once more I really wish I’d brought my chaser. Who cares about the miniscule power drain a quick jump would cause? Yes, perhaps the man is harmless, but why take the chance?
I close my computer and shove it back in my satchel. There’s no reason to put off my departure any longer. If he’s here to take me, I’m already lost.
As I rise, I innocently glance around the room and once more catch him looking in my direction. With a sense of calm I don’t feel, I return to the escalator and head down to the lobby.
The entrance area is considerably more crowded now than when I first arrived, and I have to weave through a mass of patrons to get to the exit. This actually allows me to shoot a quick look back. I expect to see the man descending the escalator or at least standing at the top, but he is nowhere in sight.
Does this mean he’s used his own chaser and is already waiting for me outside?
I head back into the daylight, my body tense in the anticipation of someone grabbing my arm, but I make it to the sidewalk without any interference. Looking around, I don’t see the man anywhere.
What I do see, however, is a city bus moving toward the nearby stop. It’s not heading in the direction I want to go, but I don’t care. I run over and jump on just before the doors close. Taking a seat a few rows back, I watch the library as we pull away, but once more see no sign of the man in the gray suit. Just to be sure, I scan the other passengers in case he is already here, but he’s not.
As I slump against the window, I tell myself it’s just a coincidence. He’s not after me. He’s not a rewinder.
For the most part, I believe it.
When I arrive home, I find Iffy sitting at the dining table. I don’t like to leave my sister alone in the apartment if I’m going to be gone for more than thirty minutes, but while Iffy doesn’t officially live with Ellie and me, she’s here more often than not and is able to play guardian when I need to get away.
“How is she?” I ask as I pull off my satchel and set it on the dining table.
“Still asleep.” Iffy tilts her chin up and we kiss. “How did the research go?”
“It didn’t.” I tell her about the encounter with the man in the suit.
“Are you sure he wasn’t one of them?”
“If he was, I doubt I would have made it home.”
She looks unconvinced, which is understandable given her own encounter with one of my fellow institute members back in early April. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to leave the chaser here when you go out.”
Though I’ve been feeling the same, I say, “You know why I can’t take it.”
She’s silent for a moment, and when she speaks, I know what’s coming. “Please, let me call RJ.”
She has been pushing her friend on me for a while. Raymond Johnson is someone she grew up with, who is now attending one of the local universities, UC San Diego, where he is studying something called information technologies. She has repeatedly told me he can help with the chaser’s power problem.