I am feeling particularly optimistic as Ellie and I leave the hospital and take the bus to the restaurant where we will be meeting Iffy for lunch. The two things I’ve been most worried about are both moving in positive directions — Ellie, of course, and the power situation of my chaser. The latter is currently showing a battery level of 76.44 percent after I left it hooked to RJ’s charger all night. Even if RJ isn’t able to make a better connector, the problem has been solved.
The restaurant in the Gaslamp Quarter of downtown San Diego has become a favorite of mine, and Iffy is waiting outside when we arrive.
“So?” she asks Ellie.
“He said I’m on track. I just need to keep doing what I’m doing.”
“That’s great.” Iffy hugs my sister and then me.
The hostess offers us our choice of tables, either on the front patio or inside. While Ellie wants to sit in the sunlight, I worry that the warm day will drain her too much so, much to her disappointment, we take a place in the middle of the dining area.
I can’t remember the last time I felt as relaxed as I do now. The conversation as we eat focuses mainly on things Ellie wants to do when she’s finally given a clean bill of health — places she wants to go, foods she wants to eat, and activities she wants to try. She’s obviously been doing some research of her own about this world, because it’s actually quite a list. As little as three weeks ago, I would have steered the conversation in another direction, fearing we would otherwise be tempting fate. But it appears fate has decided to give us a winning hand, and I now see no harm in letting her dream a little.
I’m feeling so good when we leave that I almost overlook the gray-suited man from the library sitting at a patio table. His presence is such a surprise that I can’t help but stare at him for a few seconds before grabbing Iffy’s arm and putting a hand on Ellie’s back so that I can hurry them out to the sidewalk.
“What’s wrong?” Iffy asks.
I say nothing until we walk around the corner and are no longer in the man’s line of sight. “It’s him.”
“Him who?” Ellie asks.
I hesitate. My sister knows nothing about the man shadowing me, and though I don’t want to unduly worry her, it would be better if she knew the truth. “A guy I think is following me.”
“What?”
Iffy asks, “Where was he?”
“Sitting outside the restaurant.”
Ellie starts to turn like she’s going to head back to the corner and take a look, but I gently grab her arm and stop her. “Why don’t you two go home?” I say. “I’m going to figure out who he is.”
Ellie looks worried. “Is that a good idea? What if he catches you?”
“He’ll never even know I’m around.”
Iffy is trying to act unconcerned, but I can’t miss the unease in her eyes. I kiss her and whisper in her ear, “It’ll be fine. I’ll be home before you are.”
“You’d better be.”
While I earlier wrote off seeing the man at the library as a coincidence, I realize now that was a mistake. His presence at the restaurant cannot merely have happened by chance. He’s tracking me.
So it’s time I return the favor.
I find a spot behind a dumpster where no one can see me and set my chaser for a backward jump of seventy minutes. When I reappear there is a slight change in the angle of the sunlight and some of the cars parked along the street are different, but otherwise everything is exactly the same as when I initiated the journey.
I make my way to a sandwich shop that sits almost directly across the road from the restaurant where we ate. I purchase a bottle of water and a bag of chips and then sit at one of the tables at the front window.
Nine minutes later, I see Iffy arrive, and four minutes after that, Ellie and the earlier version of me join her. There was a time when seeing myself like this was unnerving, but I’ve had plenty of interaction with other Dennys since then, and it doesn’t faze me anymore.
Thirty seconds later, I spot the man coming down the street from the same direction Ellie and I just did. He pauses a couple of storefronts away until the three of us go inside the restaurant and then begins walking.
I watch as he is shown to the outside table where I will later spot him. When he’s occupied giving his order to the waitress, I slip out of the sandwich shop and find another quiet spot.
This time I jump back fifteen minutes and position myself near the entrance to a liquor store, a half block from the bus stop Ellie and the earlier me will arrive at. I know the man wasn’t on the bus with us. Even in my good mood, I didn’t neglect to check my surroundings, and I’m sure I would have seen him. But he must have been following us.
If he is from the institute, he would be using rewinder techniques and could very well already be somewhere nearby waiting for our bus to get there. I carefully scan the road but see no sign of him, so as the bus finally approaches, I focus on the vehicles behind it.
There. He’s in a sedan two cars back.
As soon as the bus pulls away and reveals Ellie and me walking down the sidewalk, the sedan swerves into the spot where the bus had been and pauses. Most of the parking spots along the street are filled, but at the curb not far from where I’m watching everything, a car is pulling out. The man notices this, too, and is starting to swing his vehicle into a U-turn that will bring him over here.
I duck inside the liquor store and pretend to be interested in the magazine rack next to the window. As soon as the man parks, he jumps out and jogs across the street after my sister and the earlier me. When he reaches the corner, he stops and looks down the road toward the restaurant, just like I’d seen him do when I was in the sandwich shop. Once he disappears, I exit the store and approach his car.
Letters on the back spell out LEXUS. This is a luxury brand belonging to one of the large carmakers, but I don’t recall which.
I pause momentarily as a memory flashes in my mind. Last night, when I went out for my walk, there was something…
A car, with a man sitting in it. Right. I’d forgotten about that. His vehicle was a nice sedan. I didn’t check the brand, but an uncomfortable feeling on the back of my neck is telling me I’m looking at the same car now.
Who is this guy?
Looking through the windows, I spot three square white boxes in the backseat, and a toppled stack of loose paper in the well where a passenger’s feet would go. A gym bag and several files sit in the front passenger seat, while on the floor are several crumpled-up paper sacks from various fast-food establishments.
I try the door, but it’s locked. Unfortunate. I was hoping I could learn his name from the vehicle’s identification papers. I could time hop inside, but the car is exposed and I can’t chance someone seeing me suddenly appear in the front seat. There is another way, though, a method I’ve utilized several times on my missions to obtain more money. I use my mobile phone to take a photograph of the Lexus’s license plate and then find an empty alley.
My jump takes me into the office of Mason Evans, a supervisor at the Department of Motor Vehicles facility in the town of Oceanside. I’ve arrived in the middle of the previous night, and, as expected, am alone. Mr. Evans’s office has become my go-to destination for vehicle information. After searching around several bureaus, I’ve selected his for two reasons: the smaller town means less security than in San Diego or Los Angeles, and most importantly, Mr. Evans keeps his login password on a piece of paper taped underneath his keyboard.