A Chronetic Memory (The Chronography Records Book 1) by Kim K. O'Hara Read Free Book Online

chronograph, because it just displays what is going on right now. It doesn’t reach back into the past. The machine to do that is much larger—about as big as the stage up here. We’re going to let Minna and Sommy pick a spot in the room that they’d like to look at us from, then we’ll broadcast it in miniature from the projector here.”
    The two kids whispered for a few seconds “From the very tip top, please,” Minna said, pointing to the center top of the domed ceiling above them.
    Dani showed them how to use a laser pointer to set the direction and distance of the originating point. Then she helped them adjust the viewing direction and angle on the machine itself. Together, they turned on the projector, and there they all were, little tiny people gathered around a little tiny stage, no more than a foot across. They all clapped, and the tiny figures clapped with them. That made them laugh, and the tiny figures laughed too.
    While the kids were watching the hologram of themselves, Dani passed out the touch-and-color pages for the younger kids, and offered the decks of matching cards for those who wanted to come up front to get them after the presentation.
    Finally, she turned off the projector, and her audience whooped and hollered. She had won two hundred new fans for the institute and its work. It had been a good morning.
     
    Ms. Lawrence, who had been peeking into the auditorium every ten or fifteen minutes, stepped all the way inside to join in on the applause at the end. She dismissed the students to their classrooms to get ready for lunch.
    “Would you like to stay and eat with the children? I know they’d enjoy that,” she invited Dani after the students had left.
    “Oh, no, but thank you,” Dani replied. “I really need to get over to the high school to set up for my afternoon presentation.”
    But she accepted help with gathering her things and packing them back on the hovercart. She nudged the whole batch out to her helicar, loaded it up, and soon she was on her way. She spotted a food dispenser hovering along the main flyway, maneuvered next to it, selected an ergonomic wrap sandwich, and paid for it with her irisscan. She always laughed a little at the “ergonomic” part; granted, it was easier to hold the sandwich while she was driving, but what a lot of fuss for something that would be in her stomach in ten minutes!
    As she finished the last bite, Dani spotted the West Seattle High School parking lot, just outside the newly remodeled high school. She landed her helicar gently. For the high schoolers, she took a large stack of interactive question-and-answer sheets and some puzzle pages that would challenge them to determine the correct historic period from the audio and visual clues. Almost as an afterthought, she gathered some more of the holographic matching games, just in case the high schoolers wanted to try them. They were pretty easy to solve, but they still looked intriguing. She was ready.

7
Acquisition
    HUNTER’S OFFICE. 1200, Tuesday, June 6, 2215.
    Tod ay Hunter was wearing a new suit, a dark blue Rafe Zerdo with charcoal pinstripes and a red pocket square. Before leaving his office for lunch, he paused to check the drape of his pants and straighten his tie pin, making good use of the full-length mirror he had had installed for just this purpose. Satisfied, he stepped out, locked the door carefully, and noted that his executive secretary had already left. Good. He had manufactured a pretense to send him away: He required financial records, immediately. Not at some time in the distant future.
    The chronography repository would be empty at this time of day. One of the rules he had insisted on, right after the institute was opened, was that all employees must take a full hour for lunch, away from their assigned workplace. This policy gave him the reputation as a caring employer who looked out for the good of his employees, and he found that reputation useful, but his real reason was