Fighting bitter memories, he plucked the twenty-dollar bill from Jury’s wallet and sniffed it deeply. Ah, the green, green cash of home. Funny how he’d hated his Earth so much when he lived there and now he missed it terribly. Sadly, his rewind talent stopped at the canned goods section of Nico’s store. He couldn’t jump back any further. Home was forever just a few seconds out of reach.
Now here at the start of his fifty-fifth play-through, his fifty-fifth trip through the same half decade, Evan Rander was not a fan of his adopted Earth. He knew there was only one escape from his carousel hell, and yet he couldn’t find the nerve to end himself. What else could he do then but keep on spinning? What better way to fill his endless days than by punishing the sisters and Silvers who’d wronged him?
As the Salgado van pulled away from the curb, Evan stood up and straightened his shirt. He whistled a happy tune on the way back to the fire ladder. He didn’t know where he’d heard the song before. He wasn’t even sure which Earth it came from.
TEN
Sunday was a day of rest for the Silvers. Though the physicists attended to their needs like conscientious butlers, the guests were left to wallow and mingle amongst themselves. Amanda learned that Mia harbored authorly ambitions, and had earned an academic award for the fifty-page biography she wrote about her grandmother. Hannah learned that David was a fellow stage performer, one who’d danced and crooned at high schools all around the world. His bare rendition of “Johanna” from Sweeney Todd was gorgeous enough to melt her. She spent the rest of the day uncomfortably aroused.
Zack, meanwhile, discovered that plastic was called bresin in this neck of the multiverse. He also learned that he could bend time.
He remained tensely withdrawn in the wake of his revelation, sketching tiny shapes in the corner of his pad and then erasing them with the sheer act of thought. By his thirtieth undoodling, he finally saw the prudence of Amanda’s argument. It was too much to deal with, too soon.
On Monday, the work began. The group was ushered through an eight-hour gauntlet of medical tests. To Quint’s surprise, Zack remained perfectly docile through all the pokings and proddings. This time it was David who caused the trouble. The boy refused to submit to a single examination until the scientists gave him back his heirloom wristwatch. The moment they complied, his cordial smile returned and he became fully cooperative.
On Tuesday, the guests were ushered to individual rooms and asked to recount the awful events of Saturday morning. They relayed their tales with varying degrees of detail and tears, Hannah winning readily on both counts. She was also the only one brave enough to divulge her weirdness, her strange attack of acceleration at the downtown marina. The news triggered an avalanche of chatter among the physicists, forcing Quint to send a staff bitmail.
People, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We need to understand the basics before we get to the unusuals.
The interviews continued throughout the week, question after question about the Earth that no longer was. The Silvers were asked to name the U.S. presidents in reverse order, a task that four of them botched after Franklin Roosevelt. Only Mia, six weeks fresh from her eighth-grade history final, was able to rattle off names without pause. Her interviewers stopped her at William McKinley.
By Friday, the queries had turned from vague to specific to suspiciously pointed. One in particular had the group talking at dinner.
“‘Do you know of any historical event that occurred on October 5, 1912?’”
“Yeah, they asked me that one.”
“Me too.”
“What did you say?”
“Titanic.”
“I said Titanic.”
“That happened in April.”
“Really? Damn. I was so sure I got that.”
“Don’t feel bad,” David told Hannah. “I think they got the answer they were looking for.”
“What do you mean?”
“They’re cataloging the differences between their history and ours. Trying to pinpoint the first major event that happened on one world but not the other. Given the fact that none of us know the significance of October 5th, 1912, I’d say they found it.”
While the table fell silent in heady dither, Zack scribbled furiously into his sketchbook. “This is bullshit. Quint promised us a two-way exchange of information. He hasn’t told us a thing.”
He pressed the pad to his cheek and aimed it at the ceiling camera. A large and angry word balloon pointed to his mouth. WE WANT INFO!
One floor up, Quint leveled an icy stare at his monitor. He dialed Czerny from his desk phone.
“I think our guests are in need of entertainment.”
The next day, physicists installed a sleek device in the lounge: a dark gray console the size of a pizza box. Above it, a five-foot pane of smoky black glass rested on metal stands.