Talia was looking at me. “Drunks are indiscreet,” she said. “As I’m sure you’re aware, if you’ve ever thought about the question for more than five minutes, sending someone back in time inevitably changes history. The traveler’s presence itself is a disruption, that’s the phrase I remember my dad using. There’s no way to go back, engage with the past, and leave the time line perfectly unchanged.”
“Right,” I said. I wasn’t sure what she was getting at, but listening to her made me so uneasy that I couldn’t meet her eyes.
“Sometimes the Time Institute goes back in time and undoes the damage, ensures that the traveler doesn’t do the thing that changes history. You know, the little thing, like you hold open the door for the woman who goes on to create a civilization-ending algorithm or whatever. Sometimes they go back and undo the damage, but not always. Do you want to know how they make that decision?”
“That sounds extremely classified,” I said.
“Oh, it is, Gaspery, but I like you and also I’ve developed a reckless streak in my old age, so I’m going to tell you anyway.” （She was, what, thirty-five? In that moment, I found her thrillingly jaded.） “Here’s the metric: they only go back and undo the damage if the damage affects the Time Institute. What am I, Gaspery? How would you describe me?”
This felt like a trap. “I…”
“It’s okay,” she said, “you can say it. I’m a bureaucrat. HR is bureaucracy.”
“Okay.”
“As is the Time Institute. The premier research university on the moon, possessor of the only working time machine in existence, intimately enmeshed in government and in law enforcement. Even one of those things would imply a formidable bureaucracy, don’t you think? What you have to understand is that bureaucracy is an organism, and the prime goal of every organism is self-protection. Bureaucracy exists to protect itself.” She was gazing across the river again. “We lived on the third floor,” she said, pointing. “The balcony with the vines and rosebushes.”
“It’s nice,” I said.
“Isn’t it? Look, I understand why you’d want to work with the Time Institute,” she said. “It must seem like an exciting opportunity. It’s not like you’ve got much of a career path at the hotel. But just know that when the Institute is done with you, they’ll throw you away.” She spoke so casually that I wasn’t sure if I’d heard her correctly. “I have a meeting,” she said. “You should probably start your shift in the next hour or so.” She turned and left me there.
I looked back at the apartment building. I’d been to one of those apartments once, years ago, for a party, and I’d been fairly drunk at the time, but I remembered vaulted ceilings and spacious rooms. What I was thinking was that if anything went wrong with the Time Institute, I would never be able to say I hadn’t been warned.
But I felt such impatience with my life. I turned back to the hotel, and found that I couldn’t go in. The hotel was the past. I wanted the future. I called Ephrem.
“Could I start early?” I asked. “I know the plan was to give the hotel two weeks’ notice, but could I just start the training now? Tonight?”
“Sure,” he said. “Could you be here in an hour?”
8
“Would you like some tea?” Ephrem asked.
“Please.”
He typed something into his device, and we sat together at the meeting table. A sudden memory: drinking chai tea with Ephrem and Ephrem’s mother after school one day at Ephrem’s apartment, which was nicer than mine. Ephrem’s mother had a job she could do from home, I remembered; she’d been staring at a screen. Ephrem and I were both studying, so it must have been just before an exam, during a period when I’d been experimenting with （a） tea and （b） being a good student. I was about to bring up this moment—Do you remember?—when there was a soft chime at the door, and a young man came in with a tray, which he left on the table with a nod. Chai tea is real, I told myself, and then I realized: Ephrem must remember that long-ago moment too, because he’d only ever served me chai when I’d come here.
“Here you are.” Ephrem passed me a steaming mug.
“Why didn’t Zoey want me to work here?”
He sighed. “She had a bad experience a few years back. I don’t know the details.”
“Yes, you do.”
“Yes, I do. Look, this is just a rumor, but I heard she was in love with a traveler, then the traveler went rogue and got lost in time. That’s literally all I know.”