Jordan wanted to zap her with a witty comeback that made it clear his life would have been better without her. But he’d just lost her and regained her. He’d had that moment with the line of flames between them when he’d felt certain he’d never see her again.
“Right,” he mumbled. And the way he said it, it really could have been taken two different ways: sarcastically—or as if he really couldn’t imagine his life without her.
Jordan didn’t want to watch Katherine’s face to see how she interpreted his comment. He turned to Jonah.
“So was everything we went through something that already happened to you before?” Jordan asked.
Jonah nodded.
“So why train or test you for something you’ve already lived through?” Jordan asked.
“I’m not sure,” Jonah said slowly. “Either Second’s trying to catch you up with Katherine and me, or . . . or it’s based on my fears. Maybe the training program read my mind and gave me the scenarios I would be most afraid of.”
“You’re still afraid of stuff you already survived?” Jordan asked. “Why? You survived! It’s over!”
“Nothing’s over,” Jonah muttered.
Jordan held back a shiver. After what they’d been through—all three of them—he didn’t want the others seeing that two words uttered in a spooky voice could frighten him.
“You’re talking about Second, aren’t you?” Katherine asked. She turned to Jordan to explain. “Second got everything he wanted from us the last time we had to deal with him, back in the sixteen hundreds. He outsmarted us, every time.”
“We’ve got to outsmart him this time,” Jonah murmured. He gritted his teeth. “We have to.”
He looked around the room that only moments before had seemed like a medieval castle, a battlefield, an icy sea, and Albert Einstein’s living room. Jordan followed the other boy’s gaze. The room just looked like an empty, quiet lab once again. It didn’t even seem so wildly futuristic anymore—Jordan was starting to get used to the suspended images that seemed to glow from TV screens that weren’t even there. But Jonah was pivoting his head frantically, as if he saw potential danger at every turn.
“I know what we have to do next,” he said.
Before Jordan and Katherine could respond, Jonah took off running. In three strides he was beside the door.
And then he yanked open the door and ran out into the hall.
TWENTY-ONE
“Are you nuts?” Katherine cried, scrambling after Jonah.
“You yelled at me when I did that, and now you’re . . .” Jordan realized no one was listening. “Wait for me!”
He ran after Jonah and Katherine. Both of them were halfway down the hall before Jordan caught up.
“At least give us some warning before you make sudden moves like that,” Jordan panted.
Jonah glanced quickly toward Jordan, then snapped his head back toward the front. Jordan realized the other boy was studying everything around them.
“I can’t warn you, because that warns Second, too,” Jonah said. “He spent his whole life making predictions about what people would do—so we have to be unpredictable.”
“This is unpredictable all right,” Katherine muttered. “Are you trying to get caught?”
“It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world,” Jonah said calmly.
They reached an intersection with another hallway, and Jonah plowed right on through as if it didn’t matter if anyone saw them.
“You’re nuts,” Katherine said, running a little to catch up. “Could we at least tiptoe? And whisper?”
“We have to show confidence,” Jonah said. “Fake it, anyway. That’s the only way this is going to work.”
“What is going to work?” Katherine wailed.
Jordan felt a rush of air behind him. He turned around, and saw nothing out of the ordinary. But something made him reach his hand out.
His fingers hit a solid wall, even though his eyes told him he was waving his hand through empty air.
“Oh, no,” he moaned. “Not again. Katherine, Jonah, look. Er—feel this, I mean.”
But when he turned back toward the other two, he saw that they seemed to have encountered an invisible wall ahead of them as well. Jonah bounced back from what looked like empty air; then he and Katherine put their hands out flat in the space right ahead of them.
Either both of them were very talented mimes, or Jordan, Katherine, and Jonah were all trapped inside the same kind of sometimes-invisible walls that had held Jordan prisoner back in the interrogation cubicle.
Jordan stretched his hand toward Katherine, and was relieved when he brushed the tip of her ponytail. At least each of them wasn’t trapped in an individual cubicle again.
“Intruders have been isolated,” a robotic-sounding voice intoned above them. “Intruders, do not try to escape. It is impossible. Our security forces will be by to collect you within the next twenty-four hours.”
A sudden wind that felt as strong as a tornado seemed to hit Jordan out of nowhere, tugging his clothes upward and making his hair stand on end. He had to grab the bottom of his shirt to keep it from flying up against his face. So he almost missed seeing the plastic card and fake cell phone zip past his head.
“The Elucidators!” he screamed.
He swiped his hands uselessly through the air, trying to catch the two Elucidators that had flown out of his pocket. He missed. He bent his knees and jumped and tried again, but it was too late. The Elucidators slammed against the ceiling. No—they were being sucked up through the ceiling, along with the ponytail rubber band that had been holding back Katherine’s hair.
All three items vanished completely. The wind stopped.
“We have retrieved all items that might provide you any assistance during the next twenty-four hours.” The robotic voice spoke again. “They will not be returned to you. Ever.”
Geez, what could we have figured out to do with that rubber band? Jordan wondered. And how could those three things, which are solid, pass completely through a solid ceiling?
“You just made us lose the Elucidators!” Jordan accused Jonah.
“They didn’t work right, anyway,” Jonah said defensively. “And . . . I bet Second could track everything we did with them. So it doesn’t matter.”
But his voice trembled, making him sound like he wasn’t sure.
Katherine smoothed down her freed, tangled hair, and hit the palm of her hand against one of the invisible walls.
“Didn’t you think about something like this happening?” she demanded, glaring at Jonah. “Is this what you wanted?”
Jonah rolled his bottom lip up over his top lip, a motion that Jordan recognized.
Isn’t that what I do when I want people to think I know what I’m doing but I really don’t? Jordan thought.
But Jonah cocked his head and started talking back to the ceiling. “We are in possession of information that could be crucial to the future well-being of Interchronological Rescue,” he said, and he had control of his voice again. Anyone who didn’t know him would probably think he was completely at ease. “We were on our way to see Curtis Rathbone, your CEO. It would be in your company’s best interest to take us there immediately.”
Jonah’s supposedly thirteen, just like me, Jordan thought. How can he talk like that?
It was almost as strange and impressive as when he’d talked in a medieval way with the virtual-reality monks.
Then Jonah’s words sank in, and Jordan realized what Jonah was asking.
Was Katherine right? Jordan wondered. Has Jonah totally lost it?
Katherine still looked like she thought Jonah was nuts. Her eyes were practically popping out of her head.
“You want them to take us to Curtis Rathbone?” she asked incredulously. “What exactly are you planning to tell him? Which piece of information do you think—”
“Shh,” Jonah said. “I’m sure they can hear everything we say. Don’t give anything away yet.”
&nbs
p; Katherine shot Jonah the same kind of look she usually gave Jordan, the mix of You’re an idiot and I can’t believe I’m stuck with a brother like you and It’s a good thing you’re adopted because I really would not want to share any of the same genes as you. Except maybe there was a little bit more to this look; maybe she was also thinking, I really hope you know what you’re doing, and Even if you’re a total fool, I’ve got your back.
Was it possible those extra messages had always been in the looks Katherine shot Jordan, too, and Jordan just hadn’t noticed?
“Your appeal has been duly noted, and it has been decided that you will be allowed to proceed,” the voice from the ceiling intoned, just as robotically as before.
Arrows lit up on the floor, evidently pointing toward Curtis Rathbone’s office.
Jordan waited until Jonah and Katherine took their first steps forward, through the space where the invisible wall had been moments before. He didn’t know about the other two, but he had had enough of bouncing off walls he couldn’t see.
“Do you think Interchronological Rescue only has, like, nine or ten actual human beings working here, and everything else is automated?” Katherine muttered, glancing around.
Jordan guessed that she was as creeped out as he was that invisible walls could evidently just materialize out of thin air, anywhere and anytime. So could tornado-strength winds that could suck solid objects through the solid ceiling.
“I think they want us feeling primitive and ignorant,” Jonah muttered back. “We can still outsmart them. We know stuff they don’t know.”
I don’t, Jordan wanted to say. But Deep Voice, Tattoo Face, and Doreen had acted like Curtis Rathbone didn’t know Gary and Hodge were missing. Maybe the CEO also didn’t know about Second or Jordan’s parents or Charles Lindbergh or the different dimensions or . . .
What good does knowing about all that stuff do when I don’t understand any of it? Jordan wondered.
“Come on, Jordan,” Katherine said, turning back to face him for a moment.
Jordan realized he’d let the other two get way ahead of him. It was amazing how good he felt that Katherine had noticed and didn’t want to leave him behind.
He scrambled to catch up.
“What—” he began.
This time both Katherine and Jonah turned to him with fingers over their lips and hissed, “Shh!”
The three of them continued on in silence, following lit-up red arrows that vanished the instant the kids passed by.
What if it’s all just a trap? Jonah wondered. What if it’s another elaborate virtual-reality setup by Second?
Why would anybody bother to lead them into a trap when they’d already been imprisoned and released twice?
Maybe that’s not the best thing to think about, since it doesn’t do any good anyway, Jordan thought.
To distract himself, he tried to study the hallways they passed through. They had to be full of all sorts of sensors and speakers and robotic capabilities. But the hallways didn’t look that odd. Jordan had seen the office buildings where his parents worked; these hallways were just as nondescript, with taupe flooring and beige walls.
So maybe we’re not that crazy far into the future, Jordan thought. Maybe it’s not much past the twenty-first century.
Or maybe these hallways were so advanced he didn’t even know what he was seeing.
Then he started noticing the artwork on the walls. First there’d be a photograph that looked like it came straight from some history book: a child crying in the ruins of a bombed-out city, parents clutching bundled-up babies and running from scenes labeled THE GREAT FIRE OF LONDON, 1666 or INDIAN OCEAN TSUNAMI, 2004, or simply HIROSHIMA, 1945. Then, right after the historical artwork, there’d be a photo of some happy kid grinning ear to ear in the midst of playing what must be futuristic versions of soccer or Monopoly or video games.
Oh, Jordan realized. It’s always the same kid in each pair of pictures. First in miserable history, then in the happy future. Before and after.
“Are there pictures like these somewhere of you and me?” Jordan asked Jonah.
Jonah squinted like he hadn’t been paying attention, and Jordan pointed at the nearest set of pictures: a toddler crying in what seemed to be a deserted Asian palace, then the same child joyously hugging a man with the same kind of beaded hair as Deep Voice.
Jonah snorted.
“Interchronological Rescue wouldn’t hold up either you or me as a success story,” he said bitterly.
“This is all just . . . propaganda,” Katherine muttered, sweeping her arms toward the artwork. “Like we studied in language arts. They’re trying to make people think that Interchronological Rescue is like a charity or something, when really they’re kidnappers and baby sellers and . . .”
“Katherine, they can hear you, remember?” Jordan interrupted.
“I don’t care,” Katherine said. “I’m not going to lie about this. Gary and Hodge wanted to steal Jonah away from our family, and they sent Charles Lindbergh to steal me away, and . . . the whole company needs to know we won’t let anything like that happen ever again!”
Jordan expected Jonah to shush Katherine once again, but Jonah didn’t seem to be listening. He’d stopped in front of a huge wooden door framed by actual pillars.
Okay, that is kind of different from Mom’s and Dad’s offices, Jordan thought.
But then, neither of his parents was a CEO.
It took Jordan a moment to realize that the entire floor was lit up with arrows now—all pointing toward the elaborate door.
“Katherine,” Jonah said, under his breath. “I know it’s hard for you to be quiet, but could you let me do the talking in there?”
Katherine fixed him with a steady gaze.
“Do you have a really good plan?” she asked. “Have you thought it through?”
“I think so,” Jonah said. “It’s the best I could come up with.”
“Okay, then,” Katherine agreed.
Jordan gaped. Was this the real Katherine standing in front of him? He’d never once seen his sister agree to let someone else do all the talking.
Then Katherine slugged Jordan in the arm, which made her seem more normal.
“Don’t you ruin things either,” she hissed.
“But, I—” Jordan began.
Jonah was already reaching for the doorknob, and Jordan shut up.
As soon as Jonah’s finger’s brushed the huge brass knob, the door completely vanished. It didn’t creak open, it didn’t slide to the side—it just disappeared.
“I could live in this time period a million years and I would never get used to that,” Jordan muttered.
“Shh,” Katherine whispered.
Jonah was already stepping across the threshold. He seemed to be very deliberately easing his feet forward on the lustrous carpet, almost as if he expected a trapdoor to open beneath him.
Jordan had to resist the urge to huddle close to Katherine. Or to cower down behind Jonah and hope nobody saw him.
A man was waiting for them behind a desk that seemed as enormous as a yacht. The man—Curtis Rathbone?—was wearing an ivory robe rather than a business suit, but Jordan thought it was probably a really, really expensive ivory robe, intended to let everyone around him know, I’m powerful. Don’t mess with me. Probably the president of the United States had one just like it—if there was still a president of the United States.
Mr. Rathbone raised one eyebrow, as if to say, Don’t waste my time. I know who you are. Get to the point.
Jonah stopped so abruptly that Jordan and Katherine almost ran into him.
Is Jonah secretly carrying some weapon I don’t know about? Jordan wondered. Something the wind didn’t pull away? Is he going to threaten this guy? Does he think he has time to do anything before invisible walls fall around us and trap us once more?
Jonah cleared his throat.
“Your employees are afraid to tell you that your top performers, Gary and Hodge, have vanished,” Jon
ah said. His voice trembled only a little. “But I know where they are. I’ll make you a deal. You give us a working Elucidator, and we’ll help you out. We’ll rescue Gary and Hodge.”
TWENTY-TWO
Jonah’s switching sides? Jordan thought. He was so stunned his brain could barely keep up. Jonah hates Gary and Hodge, but now he wants to rescue them? He wants to work for their company and fight the time agency?
It took him a ridiculous amount of time to figure out, Oh. No. Jonah’s lying. He’s just trying to trick this guy into giving us a good Elucidator. One that has no connection to Second.
Would it work?
Jordan glanced back at Mr. Rathbone. The man’s expression hadn’t changed. Did he know Jonah was lying?
“Jonah Skidmore,” Mr. Rathbone said in a booming voice. “I finally get to meet the famous Jonah Skidmore. And this is your sister, Katherine?”
So he’s just going to ignore Jonah’s offer? Jordan wondered.
Jordan was really bad at figuring out people’s motives when they didn’t just come out and say what they wanted, or what they planned to do. That was probably part of the reason he never had any hope of being one of the cool kids at school, but would be doing well to just stay a not-so-cool kid, not a total loser. But he could tell that Mr. Rathbone was one of those people that Jordan’s dad always called “a real operator.”
He’s playing some kind of game, Jordan thought. We’re going to have to be really careful, or he’ll outsmart us.
But Jordan’s next thought was, Hey, why does he recognize Jonah and Katherine, but he’s acting like I don’t even exist?
Jordan forgot that he’d been trying to hide behind Jonah. He inched to the right a little, so Mr. Rathbone had to see him.
Mr. Rathbone tilted his head slightly and squinted at Jordan curiously. But Jordan couldn’t tell if he was actually surprised, or if he was just pretending.
“Why, Jonah,” Mr. Rathbone said, peering back at Jonah. “I see that you went back to the nineteen thirties and rescued your doomed twin. Should I applaud your humanitarian instincts, so similar to the ones that inspired me to found Interchronological Rescue? Or should I remind you that the time agency thoroughly discourages such blatant meddling, unless it can be absolutely proved that the removal of the child will have no effect on time? Did you do all the necessary impact studies? Did you fill out all the necessary paperwork, and file it the necessary six months in advance of any rescue trip, so the agency had ample time to review all the plans and mount any possible objections? Did you—”