Redeemed

  “Sisters,” Jordan mumbled to Jonah. And for a moment it almost did seem like they were twins, like they were thinking the same thing. Then Jonah sighed.

  “I usually mess up Elucidator commands, so I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to figure out on one of these computers,” he said.

  “I don’t even know how you’re supposed to tell which part of the table is a keyboard and which part isn’t,” Jordan agreed. He walked over to the table behind the one Doreen had stood at, and ran his hand across the smooth, dark surface. Nothing, nothing, nothing . . .

  Suddenly words glowed in the air above his hands: “Access denied. This unit unlocks only for Mikhail Hodge or Gary Payne.”

  “Figures,” Jonah said.

  Jordan shot him a sidelong glance.

  “Are you sure they’re not dead?” he asked.

  “I’m sure the time agency didn’t kill them,” Jonah said. “They wouldn’t have done that. But . . . Jordan, there were a lot of ways to die in history. And I don’t know where the time agency put the baby versions of Gary and Hodge.”

  “We don’t know where Second went either,” Jordan grumbled. “After any of the times we saw him. With Mom and Dad or without them.”

  He felt a little like sniffling, but held it back, because he didn’t want Jonah to think he was a total baby. He turned the sniff into a cough instead.

  “This day has kind of tied my brain in knots too,” Jonah said. “But . . . I think something did change, with Second stealing our Elucidator and escaping our time period when he was thirteen instead of just when he was twenty-six. Maybe that fixed something even the time agency didn’t know was broken.”

  “Second still hasn’t brought Mom and Dad back,” Katherine pointed out from across the room.

  “I didn’t say it fixed everything!” Jonah argued.

  Katherine gave him a dismissive wave without even turning around. Jordan wondered if Katherine was staring so fixedly at the screen because she didn’t want Jonah to see her being emotional about Mom and Dad either.

  “I still don’t understand,” Jordan admitted. “How could we have seen Second escape as a teenager and as a twenty-six-year-old? How could both things happen?”

  “I think it has to do with the different dimensions of time that existed before I smashed them all back together,” Jonah said. “Remember? I’m not sure the Interchronological Rescue workers understand this, but Second’s escape happened so close to the time of our plane’s crash landing. The three versions of it, I mean. I bet time split into three dimensions of what happened to Second down on that rock, too.”

  Is that why Jonah and Katherine kept giving each other those looks when Deep Voice, Tattoo Face, and Doreen were talking about Second? Jordan wondered. Because they were trying to keep the dimensions secret?

  Jordan didn’t ask, because Jonah was still explaining.

  “In one dimension,” Jonah said, “Second fell on that rock, and his so-called friends ran away and never told anyone, and Second must have died. In another, we went down to that rock, and Second stole our Elucidator and got away. In the third dimension, the FBI found Second and rescued him, but then kept him like, I don’t know, a pet or something—until Gary and Hodge helped him escape. And that would have been the worst dimension, because it would have done the most damage to time.”

  “And I guess Second had to stay in a wheelchair for thirteen years,” Jordan said.

  “Right,” Jonah said. “So maybe Second was trying to get us to replace what happened in that version of time. Or maybe he wanted there to be two of him running around even after the dimensions merged again. . . . It’s so frustrating. No matter how much I thought I was outsmarting him, he must have known that I’d end up going to Mr. Rathbone and Mr. Rathbone would send us back in time.”

  Jordan thought about all of this. He could kind of keep track of the three dimensions if he pictured the Venn diagram Katherine had drawn back in the Skidmore family kitchen.

  “So Second was in a wheelchair in your dimension of time,” Jordan asked. “What happened to him in mine?”

  Jonah tilted his head.

  “I guess it could have been either of the other two possibilities,” Jonah said. “But I’m not always so great at figuring out the ins and outs of time travel, or all the changes. I used to mostly just try not to think about it.”

  “Jonah wants you to believe that what he’s good at with time travel is the action-hero stuff,” Katherine said, turning around from all of Mr. Rathbone’s golf swings long enough to make a face at both boys.

  Jordan thought about how Jonah had gotten them through flames and a bear attack and crushing ice. Maybe it had all been a simulation, but it had felt real. Jordan’s heart had pounded with real fear.

  Would he sound like a total suck-up if he defended Jonah to Katherine?

  Katherine had already turned back toward the screen. Then she reeled back and gasped.

  “Jonah! Jordan! Look—now!” she cried.

  Mr. Rathbone was no longer standing alone in his office, idly swinging a golf club.

  Second was standing on the carpet in front of him. And the golf club was broken between them.

  THIRTY-ONE

  Jordan and Jonah rushed over beside Katherine. All three kids leaned toward the screen.

  “Those two are working together now?” Katherine moaned.

  “I don’t think that golf club broke on its own,” Jordan told her.

  Second and Mr. Rathbone seemed to be staring each other down.

  “You,” Mr. Rathbone cried. “You—you—you’re the one who ruined everything!”

  “I think your two employees Gary and Hodge did a fine job of ruining things all by themselves,” Second observed calmly. He looked down at his hands as if he had nothing more to worry about than a possible hangnail.

  “If you had stayed at the time agency like you were supposed to, if you had followed instructions, if you had helped us—” Mr. Rathbone began.

  “If all of that had happened, we would all be so, so bored, wouldn’t we?” Second asked, waving his hand carelessly.

  “What if the time agency never reinstates our license?” Mr. Rathbone fumed. “What if they never permit the retrieval of time-rescued children again?”

  “Our lives would go on anyway,” Second said, shrugging. He cocked his head thoughtfully. “Or would they? What if too much damage has already been done? Back in the past—”

  “I don’t care about the past!” Mr. Rathbone exploded, pounding his fist on his desk.

  “And . . . that would be the problem with everything you’ve done at Interchronological Rescue,” Second said. “You don’t actually care about anything except making money. How many billions have you acquired on the backs of poor children from the past?”

  “We’ve saved hundreds of children,” Mr. Rathbone said. “We’ve rescued them from certain death. And from desperate, destitute eras. The money was only . . . a sidelight.”

  “And that’s why you started faking children’s identities,” Second said.

  Beside Jordan, Jonah made a sound deep in his throat that might have been a moan. Katherine patted his arm.

  Meanwhile, Second went on listing Mr. Rathbone’s crimes: “And that’s why you started reselling certain children more than once, when they failed to be as . . . amenable to their new families as their parents had hoped.”

  “It’s not my fault that the kind of parents who are most impressed by having, shall we say, name-brand children are not always the ones who are best at actually raising those children,” Mr. Rathbone defended himself. “Or that modern parents are more willing to help a starving child from the past if he has a famous name or a famous heritage.”

  Second gave a scornful snort.

  “You know the time agency is coming for you, don’t you?” he asked.

  Mr. Rathbone glanced around frantically.

  “You’re lying,” he said. “And anyhow, they can’t pin anything on me. What my und
erlings did—how was I to know they didn’t follow the rules?”

  Second picked up the two pieces of the broken golf club and laid them gently on Mr. Rathbone’s desk.

  “Unfortunately, you’re right that the time agency won’t be able to prove your guilt,” Second said. “You have been clever at hiding your crimes, if nothing else. But I know what you’ve done. I’ve seen the evidence. And so I will be the one to judge you. I will mete out your punishment.”

  “What?” Mr. Rathbone said, sounding jarred. “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s time,” Second said, extending his arm.

  In the next instant, both of them disappeared.

  “What was that all about?” Jordan asked. “Why’s Second so mad at Mr. Rathbone? Didn’t Mr. Rathbone kind of help Second, by sending us back to rescue him?”

  Neither Jordan nor Katherine answered. Both of them were staring past the screen, which had gone dark. Jordan had to crane his neck to see what they were looking at. For a moment Jordan thought the screen had just reactivated in a different spot. Then he realized what had actually happened: Second was now standing right in the lab with them. And he was holding a long swath of ivory cloth that looked suspiciously like the robe that Mr. Rathbone had been wearing only a second ago.

  “Did you . . . vaporize Mr. Rathbone?” Jordan asked, his voice breaking.

  “No, look, there’s something moving inside that robe,” Katherine said. “Did Second just shrink him or something?”

  It was Jonah who figured it out.

  “You turned Mr. Rathbone back into a baby too?” he asked.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Um, okay, I know everyone keeps saying it’s possible to turn someone back into a baby, Jordan thought. I know Jonah said it happened with Gary and Hodge. But . . . Second is just tricking us again, right? Right?

  Jonah and Katherine didn’t look like they thought this was a trick.

  “Why?” Jonah asked Second. “You could have killed him, doing that! You could have given him brain damage, or, or—”

  “Or given him a chance to grow up this time as a better person?” Second asked. “This is no more than he’s been doing to other people.”

  “You mean because all the rescued children from history were turned back into babies before they traveled through time?” Jordan asked. He moved just close enough to Second to see that there was indeed a baby nestled inside all that ivory cloth. The baby had silky reddish hair and chubby cheeks. He didn’t look like he would grow up to be a CEO.

  But then, what baby did?

  “Rathbone has started supplementing his baby-smuggling income with selling his un-aging expertise,” Second said, shrugging. “Rich parents who have, say, an unruly thirteen-year-old have been paying Rathbone’s company to un-age the kid back to whatever age he supposedly went off the rails. There’s been a rash of ‘new babies’ in families where teenagers have vanished. . . . Oh, it’s always explained perfectly well, so no official ever gets suspicious. Sometimes there’s an accident that no one witnesses, sometimes the kid supposedly runs away and can’t be found . . . I’m sure you can imagine some of the more creative excuses.”

  “Then he should be arrested,” Katherine said. “Not . . . this.”

  She gestured toward the baby and made a horrified face.

  “Oh, yuck,” she said, wrinkling up her nose even more. “Don’t they have deodorizer diapers in the future? Or . . . didn’t you let him have a diaper?”

  Second put the baby Mr. Rathbone down on the floor, which at least put more distance between Jordan’s nose and the stench.

  “I’m insulted,” Second said as he stood back up. “I thought you would be glad that I’d eliminated Rathbone as a threat. And . . . I thought you’d be honored that I’m coming to the three of you to decide what should happen to this baby next.”

  “Seriously?” Jonah asked. He looked as disgusted as Katherine. “Now you’re going to act like you’re giving us a choice about anything?”

  “I am,” Second said. “Tell me what to do with this baby and that’s what will happen.”

  Jordan watched Second’s face. The man seemed perfectly calm, his expression placid.

  If we said, “Kill him!” would Second actually do that? Jordan wondered.

  His stomach twisted. He didn’t say anything.

  Katherine and Jonah glanced quickly at each other.

  “Send this baby to a time hollow,” Jonah said. “Until everything else is straightened out.”

  “Done,” Second said, snapping his fingers.

  Jordan looked down at the baby again, but he was too late—the infant version of Mr. Rathbone had already vanished.

  “Of course,” Second said thoughtfully, “you may have just condemned that child to be stuck in a time hollow forever. Because when in life do we ever have everything straightened out? When do we have every little thing resolved, every problem solved?”

  “You know what I meant!” Jonah protested. “I was talking about just until we have our parents back, and they’re the right age, and time is safe again, and—”

  “And why won’t you just help us instead of playing all these games?” Katherine asked. Her voice had that tone it always got right before she started crying. “Why do you have to be so mean?”

  “You said you wanted to fix time, not ruin things all over again,” Jonah agreed. “Just give us our parents back and let us get in touch with the time agency again and—”

  “The two of you have become so tiresome,” Second complained. He shook his head. “You know what? I find myself not wanting to listen to your whining anymore. Adios!”

  “Don’t—” Jonah and Katherine both cried. And Jordan couldn’t tell if they were going to say, Don’t kill us! or Don’t leave us here! or Don’t be such a jerk! Before either of them could say another word, both of them vanished.

  And Jordan was left alone with Second.

  THIRTY-THREE

  Did Second keep me here because I wasn’t talking? Jordan wondered. Just because I was too scared to say or do anything?

  He felt even more frozen now.

  Second chuckled. “Oh, don’t look so terrified,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I didn’t hurt them. I just sent them to a time hollow. And it was even a different time hollow from that reeking baby, so there could be no charges of cruel and unusual punishment.”

  Would stinky babies keep stinking in a time hollow? Jordan wondered nonsensically. Why was his brain working so badly?

  Was it because he was alone with a psychopath?

  “Did you send Katherine and Jonah to be with Mom and Dad?” Jordan asked, his voice coming out in a squeak.

  Second laughed again.

  “The fate of all time hangs in the balance, and that’s what you ask about?” he said. “Are you jealous? Or just worried that everything will end for you, and Jonah will get to keep the family you thought was yours?”

  “I—” Jordan began.

  He couldn’t defend himself. He was afraid of losing his family. He was afraid of never seeing Mom, Dad, or Katherine again. And somehow it would be even worse if Jonah got to keep what Jordan had lost.

  “Jonah and Katherine aren’t with your parents,” Second said.

  “Then send me to be with Mom and Dad,” Jordan whimpered, as pathetic as a little kid crying, I want my mommy. I want my daddy.

  “Ennh,” Second said, making the same kind of Wrong answer! buzzer noise he’d used before on Jonah. “Try again.”

  Should Jordan be encouraged that Second seemed to be trying to give Jordan a choice now, too?

  “Then . . . send me to be with Katherine and Jonah,” Jordan said.

  Katherine and Jonah at least had a lot more experience than Jordan did with all this time-travel craziness.

  But Second made the “ennh” noise again.

  “Think,” he said. “Jonah and Katherine are in time-out. Your parents are clueless. Why would you ask to be put out of commission as well? Why would y
ou want to be powerless?”

  Aren’t I powerless now? Jordan wanted to protest. I’m a kid. I’m from the twenty-first century and I don’t even understand the computers in this room. I’m standing beside a man who can turn people back into babies—and he might do that to me if I annoy him.

  “Well?” Second said.

  Powerless, Jordan thought. Clueless.

  But Second seemed to be offering Jordan some sort of power, some sort of control over what happened next. Was he offering Jordan a clue or two as well?

  “Send me . . . ,” Jordan began. “Send me . . . someplace I can make a difference.”

  “Bingo,” Second said.

  In the next instant Second disappeared, and Jordan was sailing through time. When he landed again, he blinked furiously, trying to figure out where he was.

  Blank, bland walls . . . , he thought dizzily. Nondescript floor . . . Is this another time hollow?

  He looked around for the baby version of Mr. Rathbone or—though he didn’t think it was likely—Katherine or Jonah or Mom or Dad or just about anybody he’d ever known in his life. But the room around him was empty.

  Yeah, right, I can make a difference here, Jordan thought bitterly.

  Then there was a thud behind him.

  Jordan turned, squinting, trying to get his eyes to focus.

  Messy blond hair . . . torn shirt . . .

  It was Second again. But it wasn’t the adult Second lying on the floor before him.

  It was the teenage Second who’d stolen the Elucidator from Jonah.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  “You?” Jordan cried.

  The teenage Second blinked up at Jordan.

  “You left after me but got here first?” the boy asked. “Is that proof—or evidence anyway—that time travel really is possible? Like the note said?”

  Was the teenage Second delirious or just suffering from timesickness?

  Or am I just too stupid to understand what he’s talking about? Jordan wondered.

  The teenage Second squeezed his right hand tightly shut and pressed it into his armpit, as if he was trying to hide something from Jordan.