With a smile that seems almost hopeful, she holds the can out to RJ and says, “We only have 7-Up. Is that okay?”
“Better than nothing,” he says, taking it from her with only a quick glance.
It takes me a moment before I realize what’s going on. My fourteen-year-old sister is infatuated by Iffy’s nineteen-year-old friend. I don’t even know how to react to this. Should I be the disinterested brother or the overprotective parent?
RJ seems to barely even notice her, which is a relief and yet somehow annoying. Yes, she is way too young for him, but doesn’t he find her attractive? She has always looked older than her age, and though my opinion might be biased, I think few would disagree that she’s beautiful.
In a moment of clarity, I mentally slap myself. What am I thinking? She’s my sister. I’m glad RJ isn’t paying her attention.
I consider suggesting that she should go lie down for a bit, but I’m pretty sure she’ll just ignore me. I decide to let her have her little fantasy. As long as it stays only in her head, where’s the harm?
I force myself to focus back on what RJ is doing.
Using some melted metal — soldering, he calls it — he attaches one end of the wire to the special connector, and does the same with a different type of connector to the other end. This then is all hooked into a box about the same size as a small tin of mints, with a dial on top.
As he grabs the end of the wire with the connector that fits into the chaser, he says, “Do you know what the power level is at right now?”
I turn on the chaser’s display screen and point to the spot where the number is shown. “Forty-six point seven three percent.”
“Okay, moment of truth.”
He slots the connector into the chaser and looks at the display.
“Is that it?” I ask.
“We’ll know soon enough.”
All four of us stare at the battery level number. For nearly a minute nothing happens, then the number suddenly jumps to 47.19.
“It works!” Iffy says.
I’m numb and relieved and excited all at once.
RJ, on the other hand, looks annoyed. He keeps his gaze on the power number until it changes again, this time to 47.51, and then turns on the screen of the rectangular device at the other end of the wire chain.
Whatever he sees there increases the depth of his frown.
“You did it,” I say. “It’s working. The level’s going up.”
“Give me a moment.”
He turns the dial on the small box between the two wires, and looks back at the chaser’s display. The power number stays at 47.51 for a few more moments and then changes to 47.83. He stares at it until it changes a half minute later to 48.07.
He turns the dial again and once more watches the display. The number increases in a similar pattern to what it’s been doing to this point. Another turn of the dial doesn’t seem to change anything, including RJ’s frown.
“What’s wrong?” Iffy asks.
He unplugs the wire from the chaser. “It’s the connector. I just don’t have it right.”
“But it’s charging,” I counter.
“Yeah, but it should be doing it a lot faster. I started with a low power input, but even when I pushed it to the highest my rig can handle, it didn’t make a difference. The loose connector is making it take forever.” He picks up the rectangular device at the other end of the wire and then scoffs. “And then there’s the fact that the one and a third percent increase ate up nearly three times that from my power source. We’d have to recharge this battery again at least once just to get your chasing machine up to one hundred percent. Not very efficient.”
“But we can charge it.”
“I can do better,” he says. “This time I brought clay. I’ll make an imprint and build a better connector. Might be a couple days before I’m ready to come back.”
He disconnects everything and starts putting it all back in the suitcase.
“Hold on,” I say. “Can’t we use that in the meantime?”
“This is just a prototype. I’ll make the real thing sturdier and easier to carry around.” He thinks for a moment and then shrugs. “But you’re paying the bills, and if you want to use this until then, have at it.”
He pulls out the items that make up the prototype device and reconnects them. When he’s done he picks up the rectangular battery.
“Two ways of charging this. You can plug it into the wall with this.” He hunts around in the large suitcase and pulls out an adapter. “But I was also thinking you might find yourself someplace where conventional power’s not available. You know, when you…” He pauses and shoots a glance at Ellie, then points behind his back a few times.
It takes Iffy and me a moment to realize he means travel into the past.
“RJ, she’s Denny’s sister,” Iffy says. “His older sister. So she’s clued in on the time travel thing.”
He looks at Ellie and then at me and then back at Ellie. “How old are you?”
She looks reluctant to tell him, but finally whispers, “Fourteen.”
He turns to me. “And you?”
“Nineteen.”
He looks between us again before focusing back on me. “She’s your older sister?”
I nod. “By two years.”
“That’s messed up, man.”
He doesn’t know the half of it. “You were saying there’s another way to charge the battery?”
“Right. Uh, so this side”—he turns the battery over so we are looking at the side opposite the display screen—“is covered with small solar cells. Just set it in direct sunlight, and it’ll charge up. Not nearly as fast as plugging it in will, but when you don’t have that option, it’ll do the job for you.”
“This is genius,” I say, meaning it.
A way to charge a chaser via the sun? It’s a wonder someone at the institute hadn’t thought of that. Of course, I hadn’t even heard of solar power until I came here. While some form of that technology might have existed in my world, I never saw evidence of it at the institute, and it certainly never trickled down to us in caste Eight.
“Thanks,” RJ says, a sheepish smile on his lips. He hands me the charger. “Be careful. It’s just thrown together and not built to last.”
He puts the rest of his stuff away and takes an impression of the chaser’s power socket with a small bit of clay from his tool kit.
“I’ll let you know when I have it ready,” he says and heads for the door.
“Good-bye. Nice meeting you,” Ellie says.
RJ pauses long enough to turn and say, “Yeah. Same.” And then leaves.
Both Iffy and I turn and look at my sister, our eyebrows raised.
Her expression all innocent, Ellie says, “What?”
CHAPTER FIVE
The next morning I accompany Ellie to an appointment at the hospital while Iffy runs some errands for her mother.
It’s a quick visit, Dr. Roseth wanting to make sure she isn’t having any complications from the latest treatment she received. Like the past handful of times we’ve seen him, he’s very pleased with her progress, and while he doesn’t come out and actually say it, I get the strong sense he’s convinced she’s going to beat the disease.
This experience is completely different than when she was sick in our original time line. I was twelve when the cancer had begun to affect her, and just a year older when it had taken her life. As lowly members of caste Eight in a North America still ruled by the British, proper medical care was not an option for us. The truth is, though, I have a feeling that even if we’d been born into the nobility¸ the empire’s doctors still wouldn’t have been able to save her. There was an inertia in our old world that throttled progress, much like the dial throttles the power output on RJ’s charger, and I don’t think medicine had come anywhere near as far there as it has here.