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

own right. His brown eyes held a friendly look.
    “I’m Ronny.” He had an engaging grin that took a little of the sting out of his next words. “Lora said exactly what I think, but there’s more. You may be a really nice person, and chronography may be this exciting new science, but I don’t think the people you work for are either nice people or pioneers. My grandfather is a detective, and he always says, ‘Follow the money if you want to know what’s going on.’ I want to know how the Institute gets its money. It’s privately held, and nobody seems to know who is financing it.”
    Dani cleared her throat. Where should she start?
    Ms. Harris must have noticed her hesitation, because she spoke up. “I think most of our concerns center around the privacy issue. Would you like to address that first?” A murmur of agreement gave Dani the floor.
    “You’ve all seen the four posters, I suspect?” she asked. They nodded. “Fresh perspectives. Reclaimed heritage. Solved crimes. Authentic atmospheres. Those slogans, along with the idea of our recordings being PastPerfect because we can see, hear, and smell them, form the public face of RIACH. But there’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes, and if you were there for most of it, you’d find it to be really, really boring.
    “Earlier today, you heard a little bit about how we sample a time period to try to find something of value. Let’s imagine we were looking back on today from several hundred years in the future. Perhaps this discussion we’re having now will end up being the long awaited catalyst that produces new laws. People from the future want to know what we said here. Is anybody recording this?”
    They all shook their heads at her. “Neither am I. And for most historic events, that’s the case. So a team of researchers from the future will have to use chronography if they want to know anything about what happens here. They may or may not know that we had our discussion at West Seattle High. They may or may not know that it was in June. They probably have no idea what room it occurred in. Also, most of the objects in this room will have been replaced or moved by the time they get interested. Look around. Do any of you see an object that would still be here in two hundred years?”
    “The chairs?” suggested Meredin.
    “They’re mostly made of biodegradable plastic,” said Beck.
    “The metal parts, then?” asked Lora.
    “Possibly, if the chairs are still intact, this research team might know that they came from this high school. But think of all the chairs in all the rooms. Should they sample all of them to try to find one that was in here?” Dani could tell they were beginning to understand the immensity of the TimeSearch project. “Also, if they’ve been damaged, they will have gone to a recycling station, and there will be no way of tracing them back here.”
    Other suggestions came in. The flag. The clock. A piece of carpeting. In each case, Dani explained the difficulties. She summarized, “This is why we don’t worry very much about privacy issues. The things we find, we just happen on, and it’s not usually because we’re looking for them.”
    Jazz hadn’t said anything for a while, but now she spoke up. “If you’re not worried, you’re wrong not to be.” They all turned in her direction. “The fact is, we’re not worried about whether people two hundred years from now can find out what we did or said. We’re worried about whether people today can find out. And any one of us could borrow a chair or even take our own clothing—natural fabrics work, right?—and take it in for analysis. Can you tell us truthfully that this is never done?”
    Dani flashed back to the object she had investigated the day before. She didn’t know why they had scheduled a recent object, and after seeing Marak, she hadn’t really paid attention to the particulars of the images from the five minutes she recorded. She shook her head slowly. “I