A Chronetic Memory (The Chronography Records Book 1) (2 page)

For
all the secrecy that shrouded the institute, most of its electronic documentation would have been unintelligible to anyone who gained unauthorized access. But Dani glanced over her first two tasks and deciphered them easily.

MORNING SCHEDULE—Lab D, station 3

1. Ob:103192 19940606:131500-131520/FC El+47.5 Rec:V Samp/Routine

2. Ob:103192 19940606:133000-133020/FC +47.5 Rec:V Samp/Routine

She sighed. More tedium. Routine sampling of object 103192 at her usual scanning station, beginning where she left off yesterday, at 1:15 P.M. on June 6, 1994, for twenty-second durations every fifteen minutes. Full circle visual recordings at a 47.5-degree angle of elevation. Because all the visual recordings used a 95-degree angle of view, 47.5 degrees ensured that everything would be captured from the horizon up, with a ten-degree overlap directly overhead. Those settings provided a full upper hemisphere of visual data. She skimmed ahead. The rest of the morning was filled with more of the same, jobs for an intern, no creativity required.

Ah—here was something more interesting. Actually, it was a little astonishing to see it on her task list.

AFTERNOON SCHEDULE—Lab D, station 3

1. Ob:097113 22060917:114417-114441/N36W±10 El-15. Rec:VAO Inv/Hist-Comm

A historical investigation! And commissioned, no less. Normally, investigations were “Inv/Event-Potential,” where someone (with a title way above hers, she thought wryly) spotted a conversation or encounter from an earlier sample that should be recorded with audio for later analysis. But a commissioned investigation meant that an outside agency had brought in a specific object and wanted a recording to study a genuine piece of history, one that was meaningful to the client. These would require that all the recording devices—visual, audio, and olfactory—be engaged.

The barest touch of her childhood sense of wonder brushed her consciousness. Perhaps today wouldn’t be so bad after all.

She turned
left
down the corridor toward the chronolab. The marble walls reflected the muted glow from the recessed lighting. Four framed images displayed scenes from history alongside the objects that had revealed them. These were the famous promotional images that had first heralded the invention, twelve years earlier.

First on the right was a signed baseball in a clear protective case, in front of an image of the fast-approaching outfielder’s glove from the 2089 World Series, just before the game-ending catch. The cheering crowd in the background captured the triumphant moment, and bold lettering above the image proclaimed, “FRESH PERSPECTIVES.”

A few steps farther, on the left, was the photo of an old fiddler in the Appalachian mountains in 1934, taken from below, and the tile fragment that used to be part of his floor. Dani read the title, “HERITAGE RECLAIMED,” and remembered how the whole song had been played on the viewwalls at school. It had inspired a resurgence of fiddlers and fiddle music.

Dani moved more quickly past the next display on the right. Even though she understood its importance, it was a little too gruesome for her tastes. She already knew what was there. Under the title, “CRIMES SOLVED,” there was the famous axehead. The photograph from the morning of August 4, 1892, was of a blood-spattered Lizzie Borden calmly washing her hands, thus forever putting to rest the mystery of who killed her father and stepmother. Although she knew there was value in solving such things, Dani didn’t see the point of displaying it so prominently. She shuddered and moved on.

She loved the last photograph on the left, of Chef Solveig Rendahl, from July 2146. She lingered to absorb a bit of the chef’s contagious joy at creating a perfect pound cake, smothered in simmered summer blueberries. Her image was displayed next to the whisk that sourced the shot. Chef Solveig’s sugary confections were still considered the crème de la crème of desserts for special occasions, and the exhibit was the delight of schoolchildren, not just because they got to see and hear the famous chef, but because when they sniffed the air, they could actually smell her creation. The photograph displayed under the title, “AUTHENTIC ATMOSPHERES,” didn’t include scents, of course. Scents were “played back” using chemicals blended according to the specs on digital recordings.

Back before the controversies started, these photos were part of a traveling exhibit and the main spark for Dani’s fascination with the new technology. Again she wondered: How could that excitement have faded so quickly?

As she passed through the doors at the end of the hallway, she got the barest nod from the three scientists clustered near the diagramwall. Before she had ever met them, their names were familiar to her. She had seen them on the spines of her college textbooks, scanned for them in scholarly journals. They were the authorities in her chosen field. Calegari. Brant. Tasman.

When he spotted her, Dr. Nikoli Calegari frowned a little and moved his ample body sideways to hide his scribbles from her view. Not that she could read them anyway—his handwriting was notoriously illegible.

Dr. Marielle Brant’s soft eyes flitted in her direction without focusing. Dani liked the dark-haired doctor, with her gentle nature and easy laugh. She had, in fact, long admired her as one of the early pioneers of the new science. Dr. Brant had been an assistant to Dr. Mitchum Seebak and Dr. Elena Howe when they had first invented the process. The only names more well-known than Calegari, Brant, and Tasman were those of Seebak and Howe.

Dr. Howe had been a bright star, the warm voice that convinced the multitudes that new worlds awaited discovery. She had taken the photos that Dani passed every day in the entry hall. Hers were the video, audio, and olfactory tracks recorded and played for potential investors and schoolchildren. But a helicar accident one frozen morning in late January 2205 had put her in a coma and claimed her life twenty-eight months later. She had never awakened.

Just a few months after the accident, while Dr. Howe was unconscious, her longtime partner had been discredited and dismissed, for reasons that had never been explained, even to insiders. Dr. Seebak’s abrupt departure left a void that Dr. Brant stepped into reluctantly. In Dani’s studies, she had learned that the other researchers in those early years had enormous respect for Dr. Brant’s scientific expertise. A few protested that at twenty-five years old she didn’t have the maturity, but there was no doubt that she knew the technology. She continued in the paths of her predecessors, with work that was both innovative and revelatory. It soon became obvious, however, that she was no Elena Howe. She disliked crowds and avoided public appearances.

The resulting lack of good publicity had left room for others with less favorable opinions to step into the spotlight. Pundits and commentators had started putting into words what everyone was thinking: What would be the fruits of unbridled access to the past? Politicians took up the cause. Who among them didn’t have some dirty laundry? Those who lived on the shady side of honor feared the freedom given the scientists and campaigned to limit viewing windows to a hundred years or more in the past. Even those with nothing to hide
objected
to the invasion of privacy.

Dani shook her head. Now that she was involved with the project, she realized that the likelihood of happening upon an indiscretion while scanning an object was so tiny as to be almost nonexistent. But the honeymoon had ended with Dr. Howe’s accident, and the project was now in the dark phase of its existence where researchers were relegated to the bottom of the “most respected professions” lists, just above used helicar salesmen and just below lawyers.

Scientists at the institute still held Dr. Brant in high regard, of course. But Dr. Brant was no more social than she had been in those early years. When Dani had first arrived, she had made two attempts at casual conversation with the doctor, but she got only brief nods in return. Dani had never seen her acknowledging any of the other interns either. Her mind was probably so occupied with planning and analyzing, she reasoned, she had little time available for human interaction. On rare occasions, scientists and interns mingled at social gatherings, and Dani had not seen any evidence that the doctor even knew which interns were hers.

Dani realized she was still standing near the researchers. Now who was being unfocused and oblivious to her surroundings?

Dr. Dural Tasman, in contrast to Dr. Brant, had piercing blue eyes that missed nothing. He always made her nervous, and now she’d been caught hovering. Any moment now, he’d be asking her where she should be.

“Where should you be, Ms. Adams?” he asked her, with the voice of one scolding a wayward child.

“I’m scheduled for the chronolab,” she replied, blushing, grateful that she had taken the time to read over her schedule in the lobby.

He waved his hand in that general direction, dismissing her brusquely, and turned back to his fellow researchers. As she picked up her pace and headed for the lab, she sighed. These people were supposed to be her mentors, and she couldn’t get more than a few words from any of them. How was she supposed to learn?

At the lab, she started the chronoimager. It would take its usual four or five minutes to run through the daily checks and set up backup files. She checked to make sure the storage rod still had room for the morning images, and glanced at the small copy of her schedule on her eyescreen to remind herself of the object number before going to the library to retrieve it.

“Object 103192…103192…103192,” she muttered to herself as she walked down the long aisle, past row upon row of movable cases. Case 103 contained the newest acquisitions, but in a month’s time they would be identified, scanned, and cataloged. She would move on to case 104, then 105. There seemed to be no end to the objects.

Ah, there it was. Dani reached up to retrieve a long iron rod with a handle on one end and two curvy points on the other end. “Object 103192: Fireplace poker, manufactured c. 1991,” read the sign. She carried it back to the imaging chamber where she placed it carefully to match the orientation from the day before, closed the airtight doors, and checked the sensors. All was in order.

She stepped into the observation box and waited while it integrated seamlessly and silently with her synapses. Her next motions would have been a blur to an observer. In five seconds from start to finish, her right forefinger pulled up the settings screen, her other fingers scrolled through the available dates and times with precise movements until they bracketed the requested time frame: June 6, 1994, at 1:15:00 P.M. Duration, twenty seconds. Angle of elevation, 47.5 degrees.

As she set the full circle scan, Dani shook her head at the waste. She had discovered yesterday that the fireplace tools had been kept against a brick fireplace in June of 1994, and for 160 degrees of the full circle rotation that brick was the only thing in the viewing field. For a good part of the rest, other iron tools partially blocked the view. Once such blockages were identified, wouldn’t it make sense to narrow the scan to just those parts of the rotation that would yield good results? It would be so simple to make adjustments as she watched with the integrated sensory input.

For that matter, wouldn’t it make more sense to just pick objects that were in the center of the action and get views all around, like the baseball in the famous photo she passed every day? But such decisions were reserved for fellows and research scientists, and above the pay grade of a mere intern, no matter how intelligent or capable that intern might be.

Dani worked efficiently, using interval settings to record visual scans. After the first few minutes, she had settled into a rhythm: Set, scan, adjust. Set, scan, adjust. She kept half an eye on the images flashing past at an accelerated rate. In the four hours she had before lunch, she was able to gather seven days of readings at the requested intervals. She was the quickest chronop in the building, which would have felt pretty good if she had had even the slightest hope that she was doing something remotely useful.

She shrugged. She had wanted a career; this was just a job. Then she chided herself. At least it
was
a job. And this afternoon held something more interesting, possibly even significant, if her schedule didn’t change while she was at lunch with Kat. By the time she had saved the backups, and returned Object 103192 to its shelf in Case 103, she had begun to feel better. She left the lab humming a cheerful fiddle tune that had hit the top of the charts just the month before.

HUNTER’S OFFICE. 1200, Monday, June 5, 2215.

The
connexion icon on the viewwall buzzed. The tall, impeccably-dressed man turned abruptly and waved his hand at the icon, which expanded to become a hologram of the caller.

“Right on time, Ms. Lowe,” he commended her.

“Hunter.” She acknowledged him with a look of resignation. Her posture was proper and professional. He could read her expression easily: Make this a business transaction. Let it be over quickly.

After months of these meetings, her initial fiery defiance had succumbed to fear, and the fear had turned to surrender. She had seen the futility of resistance, and her acquiescence made it easier to control her, but he missed the terror he had inspired in their early meetings.

Sometimes, he toyed with the idea of exposing her husband’s real background to the world despite the payments she had made so regularly. It would destroy her family, he knew. Lowe would be imprisoned, the company he had built from the ground up would fail, and their finances would crumble. He thought of the children, still in elementary school. They idolized their father. He scowled. He hated their smug trust. He wanted to see them suffer as he had suffered, living in a shabby studio apartment in the worst part of town. He wanted to see them cry. He wanted the man to watch his family be reduced to abject poverty, knowing he was powerless to help. The more he thought about it, the more difficult it was to restrain himself. It would be so easy to leak the news.