Redeemed

  “I’m not giving it back,” he snarled. “The note said I deserved to have it.”

  Jordan realized Second was talking about the Elucidator he’d stolen from Jonah.

  What if I lunge for it and snatch it back before this kid knows what I’m doing? Jordan wondered.

  But the teenage Second was already thinking about Jordan grabbing the Elucidator. And Jordan wasn’t even particularly good at snatching away a basketball from an opponent out on the basketball court, let alone something the size of a watch battery that another kid was clutching tightly and hiding out of Jordan’s sight. Right now Jordan couldn’t even tell if the Elucidator looked totally futuristic and tiny or older and bigger.

  And if Jordan tried to steal the Elucidator back but failed, what was there to stop the teenage Second from simply ordering it to take him someplace else? That would leave Jordan alone and useless again in the empty time hollow.

  “I’m not here to steal that back from you,” Jordan said cautiously. He was mostly just trying to get the other kid to stop staring at him so suspiciously.

  The teenage Second narrowed his eyes even more.

  “You can’t steal it ‘back,’ ” he said. “Because I didn’t steal it in the first place. The note said three kids would deliver something to me when I was in need, and it would be rightfully mine. And the note said it would be two boys who looked exactly alike, and a girl with them—and that’s what you were, right? Thanks a lot for waiting so long—I’ve been ‘in need’ my whole life!”

  He said the last part with such a bitter tone that Jordan took a step back.

  Jordan really did not have a thief’s instincts.

  “I—” Jordan began. Then he shifted tactics. “Who did this note come from? When did you get it?”

  A certain craftiness slid over the teenage Second’s expression.

  “What’s it to you?” he snarled, then pressed his lips together to make it clear he wouldn’t give a serious answer.

  Was it Mr. Rathbone? Jordan wondered. No—he wouldn’t want Second wandering around on his own, as a teenager. Mr. Rathbone just wants babies he can sell. And control.

  In his mind Jordan saw the adult Second holding the baby Mr. Rathbone—the CEO rendered powerless in the blink of an eye. Jordan held back a shiver. What if the teenage Second knew how to do that to Jordan?

  “Time travel can be a little . . . confusing,” Jordan said, pronouncing each word carefully, like someone inching forward along a dangerous cliff. “I just want to make sure that I’m doing things right. That I understand who I’m helping.”

  The teenage Second fixed him with a dead stare.

  “I don’t think it’s confusing,” he said. “If you could reach back in time and rescue yourself from being trapped, wouldn’t you do it?”

  Did Second mean that his adult self had sent him a note telling him to steal the Elucidator?

  Jordan knew almost nothing about time travel, but he kind of thought the time agency would object to something like that. He started to say, Um, aren’t you worried about messing up time?

  But just then the teenage Second twitched, and a panicked look came over his face.

  “I—I can’t get up,” he gasped. He hit his hand against his jeans. “I can’t feel my legs!”

  He lifted his right hand toward his mouth, and Jordan saw a glint of silver—the edge of the Elucidator.

  “Fix my legs!” the teenage Second demanded, shouting into the Elucidator. “Right now!”

  He twitched again, but only the top half of his body moved.

  “This has to work!” he screamed. “Fix! My! Legs!”

  Nothing changed.

  “Um, that was kind of a limited Elucidator,” Jordan said, because it was awful watching the other boy’s anguish.

  “The note told me how to unlock it and get it to do anything I want,” teenage Second said, barely looking at Jordan. He was struggling to lift his neck enough to gaze down at his unmoving legs and feet.

  “Aren’t you afraid all that trying to move might hurt you worse?” Jordan asked. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to . . .”

  He stopped, because his brain skipped ahead to the next thought. He’d been about to say, Wouldn’t it make more sense to have the Elucidator send you to some hospital in the future, where they know how to cure people like you who have fallen off cliffs? So you don’t end up in a wheelchair this time around too?

  But if the teenage Second got the Elucidator to take him to the future, that would leave Jordan alone in the time hollow again.

  Powerless again.

  The other boy’s eyes widened, and Jordan guessed that he’d just figured out exactly what Jordan was about to say. The teenage Second put his right hand even closer to his mouth and hunched over, like he didn’t want Jordan to hear what he was going to say into the Elucidator.

  Jordan dived for the other boy and grabbed for his arm.

  A split second later, everything in the time hollow vanished.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  I did it! Jordan wanted to scream. I outsmarted Second and made him take me with him!

  But there was already someone screaming a hundred times louder than Jordan could have. It was actually a little surprising that Jordan could hear his own thoughts.

  “Shh,” Jordan said, which was crazy, of course, because there was no one to hear him except the teenage Second, and he was the one screaming at the top of his lungs.

  “The pain!” Second screamed. “The pain!”

  And then, even as Jordan clutched the other boy’s arm, Second slumped over in what seemed to be a dead faint.

  The darkness of time travel zoomed past them in utter silence.

  Is he still alive? Jordan wondered. He reached over and felt for Second’s pulse at his neck—it was faint but definitely there.

  He passed out from the pain, Jordan realized. And yet the boy hadn’t seemed to be in pain at all in the time hollow. Oh, right, because people don’t feel hunger or thirst or pain or anything like that in a time hollow. But coming out of it just shredded him.

  Jordan reached over and eased the Elucidator out of Second’s grasp.

  “Now who’s the genius?” Jordan said aloud, gloating.

  The Elucidator gleamed at him as he held it up. Oh, wait, it was actually gleaming words at him: YOU WOULD LIKE TO SEE A LIST OF ALL CERTIFIED GENIUSES SINCE THE BEGINNING OF TIME? YES OR NO?

  “No, no, I don’t need that,” Jordan said quickly. “I was just . . . thinking out loud.”

  A REMINDER: I AM SET ON VOICE COMMANDS AND WILL FOLLOW YOUR ORDERS ACCORDINGLY appeared above the Elucidator screen now. PLEASE BE CLEAR IN YOUR INSTRUCTIONS.

  “Right,” Jordan said.

  Why couldn’t he enjoy even one moment of gloating before somebody—or, well, in this case, something—was telling him off?

  The emptiness around him seemed to zoom by at an even faster rate.

  Um, maybe I don’t have time for gloating anyway? he thought.

  He held an unlocked Elucidator in his hand, which, as far as he knew, would be able to whisk him off to any time or place he wanted. He could go find Mom and Dad on his own; he could be the hero who rescued Katherine and Jonah.

  But his other hand was holding on to the arm of a limp, unconscious teenager who had apparently broken his back and leg.

  He’s just going to turn into that nasty Second when he grows up! Jordan’s brain screamed at him. Or he already did grow up into Second, or he will or he could or—whatever! He’s not my problem!

  But Jordan didn’t let go of the teenage Second’s arm. He could see in his mind the way his parents would look at him if he told them he’d abandoned some hurt, unconscious kid in the middle of nowhere—even if Jordan felt he had to do that to rescue them. The corners of his mother’s mouth would sag, and his dad would avoid Jordan’s eyes, and maybe they wouldn’t actually say, We’re so disappointed in you; that’s not how we raised you, but he would feel it.

  “But he tried
to abandon me back at the time hollow,” Jordan protested aloud, as if he needed to defend himself.

  TIME HOLLOW? DO YOU WISH TO RETURN TO THE TIME HOLLOW? the Elucidator glowed up at him.

  “No!” Jordan cried quickly, because what if the Elucidator turned them around and the teenage Second woke up again in the time hollow?

  If he did, he’d probably figure out a way to outsmart me this time around, Jordan thought.

  And would that be a good enough reason to abandon Second?

  No, Jordan thought.

  He sighed. “I have to take care of teenage Second before I go anywhere else,” Jordan told the Elucidator. “Where exactly did he tell you to take him?”

  HIS INSTRUCTIONS WERE IMPRECISE the Elucidator spelled out in glowing letters. HE SAID, ‘TAKE ME WHERE I CAN BE CURED.’ SO I’M TAKING BOTH OF YOU TO THE NEAREST HOSPITAL IN THE NEAREST TIME PERIOD AFTER 2035, WHICH IS WHEN MEDICAL EXPERTS FIGURED OUT HOW TO HEAL THE KIND OF SPINAL INJURIES HE HAS.

  “That sounds okay for Second,” Jordan said.

  All Jordan would have to do was leave the teenage Second on the doorstep of some hospital, and he’d be taken care of. And then Jordan could go wherever he needed to go.

  But Jordan’s stomach twisted. If he were Second, would he really want to be treated in the first year they knew how to handle his type of injuries? And . . . what was that thing Jonah and Katherine had talked about, saying people couldn’t be duplicated in time without creating serious problems? What if Second was already supposed to be alive in 2035?

  Forget Second—wouldn’t I be alive myself in 2035? Assuming I get back from all this time travel safely? Jordan wondered.

  “Wait, no—don’t send us there,” Jordan told the Elucidator. “Take us to a time period where doctors know how to solve Second’s problems, but after any time when Second and I might already be alive. I mean, if we survive this trip.”

  SO BE IT the Elucidator glowed back at Jordan.

  Jordan liked an Elucidator giving him that kind of answer. He slipped it into his back pocket and held his hand over it so there was no danger he’d lose it traveling through time.

  They seemed to speed up instantly, zooming toward lights far off in the distance. Jordan’s thoughts became jumbled: Mom . . . Dad . . . Katherine . . . fix time . . . make Mom and Dad the right ages . . . Then he hit the moment of time travel where he couldn’t think.

  The next thing he was aware of, he and the teenage Second were tangled together on a soft carpeted floor. Someone was screaming above him, “Time travelers! Unauthorized time travelers! You’re under arrest!”

  THIRTY-SIX

  Jordan actually thought, What would Jonah do?

  All those time-travel disasters Jordan and Jonah had dealt with back in the futuristic lab—hadn’t Jonah navigated each of them almost perfectly?

  Because they were all disasters he’d already lived through, Jordan thought. And maybe even he didn’t do so well the first time around. . . .

  But thinking about Jonah made him want to at least not shame himself too badly. Even though his head swam and his vision and hearing still swung in and out of focus, he forced himself to sit up. This made the teenage Second slump down even lower against the floor. He was still unconscious; his eyelids didn’t even flutter.

  Jordan realized that the person screaming “You’re under arrest!” was not some sort of police officer or other law enforcement expert—not unless those officials in the future wore uniforms that looked like candy-striper volunteers in twenty-first-century hospitals.

  The person glaring at Jordan looked to be, at most, high-school age. She had pigtails hanging down on either side of her face.

  “I’ll have you know, I am a time traveler authorized by the Interchronological Rescue agency,” Jordan said, trying for the same confident tone that Jonah had used with the medieval monks back in the lab at Interchronological Rescue. And it wasn’t like he was even lying—Mr. Rathbone had authorized him and Jonah and Katherine to rescue the teenage Second. This was just . . . a detour.

  What if Interchronological Rescue has been shut down in this time period? Jordan wondered. What if those time-agency rules about not bringing anyone back from the past are already in effect here?

  Jordan decided to ignore his own brain.

  “What kind of a hospital is this, where you’re more concerned about yelling at people than treating seriously injured patients?” he asked. “We’ve just escaped from, uh, extreme danger in the past. This boy has a spine injury. Aren’t you going to help him before he dies?”

  The girl jumped.

  “Oh! Oh—of course,” she said. “I’m so sorry. Of course patient care is our first priority.”

  She glanced anxiously toward a corner of the room—toward some sort of video camera, maybe? Could it be that everything was going to be recorded in the future? And maybe people at hospitals were punished for any mistake?

  She lifted her wrist toward her mouth.

  “Stretchers!” she called out. “Emergency personnel! Stat! Spinal injury in the lobby!”

  Would people in the future have microphones imbedded in their wrists, so they could call anyone they wanted, anytime they wanted?

  Jordan decided that must be the case. Before he even had a chance to blink away the last of his blurry vision, people in scrubs and face masks were swarming around him and Second. Voices went in and out:

  “. . . located site of damage . . .”

  “. . . into spinal-reconstruction surgery immediately . . .”

  “Are you injured too?”

  Jordan realized this last question was directed at him.

  “No, no,” he said quickly. He didn’t think he could manage standing yet, but he made himself sit up a little straighter. “I’m fine. Just bringing, uh, Kevin there in for treatment.”

  He thought “Second” or that other name Jonah and Katherine had said—Sam Chase?—might be recognized. And thanks to Gary and Hodge, Jordan knew that Second really had been called “Kevin” as a teenager.

  “Let me show you to a private waiting room, then,” someone replied. Jordan realized it was the candy-striper girl. “It will probably be about fifteen minutes before your friend is back on his feet.”

  Fifteen minutes! Jordan thought. That’s all?

  He guessed that meant they were far into the future, long past the time when doctors had first figured out how to fix spinal injuries like Second’s. Er—Kevin’s.

  Jordan decided to just start thinking of the other boy as “Kevin.” It made him seem less scary. And less likely to hunt Jordan down when Jordan left him behind.

  “Here’s a detox suit, so you’re not bringing in any germs from the past on your clothes,” the girl said, handing him a thick wad of rubbery material. It didn’t seem to have any openings in it.

  Oh, great, Jordan thought. How would somebody put this on? She’s going to know I’m lying when I can’t figure it out!

  But it was like the detox suit had a mind of its own: It unfurled and then slipped around Jordan’s body, somehow covering his T-shirt, sweatpants, and tennis shoes completely.

  “Don’t worry—that’s one of the newer models that just breathes up an area of sterile air around your head,” the girl said. “It won’t cover your face like the old models used to.”

  Jordan nodded, pretending he understood. He tried not to show panic at the thought of thick rubber covering his face. But she was right: The detox suit stopped at his neck. He glanced around quickly. He didn’t see anyone else wearing this kind of dark rubber suit, but maybe that just meant that he was the only person here who’d just traveled through time.

  The only other person besides “Kevin.”

  “This model works faster too,” the girl said. “It will finish and completely disintegrate by the time the other boy is out of surgery. Of course, his clothes will have to be detoxed separately. . . . Does your friend work for Interchronological Rescue too?”

  “Oh, no,” Jordan said, thin
king of the older Second in Mr. Rathbone’s office, the broken golf club between them. And then—Second turning Mr. Rathbone back into a baby. “Kevin is . . . a kid rescued from the past.”

  That seemed like the easiest story to use. And it was sort of true. Even if Kevin had mostly just rescued himself.

  But the girl’s eyes widened, gazing at Jordan with even more interest.

  “Which famous historical kid is he?” she asked. “The tsarevitch from Russia, maybe? Though I heard rumors about some problem rescuing him—”

  “You wouldn’t have heard of Kevin’s original identity,” Jordan said quickly. “It’s not like he’s famous here.”

  Jordan hoped that was true.

  And . . . have I done enough now to take care of Kevin? Now can I just zap my way out of here and go rescue the rest of my family? Even with this stupid detox suit on?

  Could he just say, Get me out of here! to the Elucidator, and then give better directions as he was floating through time?

  Before Jordan had a chance to do that, the girl wrapped her hand around Jordan’s arm and tugged him to his feet. If Jordan said, Get me out of here! now, the girl would end up going with him.

  Jordan tried to shake her hand off his arm.

  “No, no, I’ve heard that time travelers get timesickness sometimes, and may have trouble walking,” the girl said. “Let me help you.”

  “Um, I need to go to the bathroom,” Jordan said.

  Surely she wouldn’t follow him there.

  “Don’t worry,” she said, still holding on tightly. “There’s one in the waiting room. You can’t use the restroom until the detox suit’s done anyhow.”

  Jordan remembered how she’d yelled, “You’re under arrest!” just a few moments earlier. Maybe he needed to play along with all this just to keep from attracting even more attention, and having the time agency come after him for real. He wouldn’t mind being a little steadier on his feet before he made any dramatic moves. He could walk into that waiting room she was talking about, then go to the bathroom and disappear from there.

  Jordan let the girl pull him down a hallway and into an elevator. It didn’t seem to move at all, but a split second later the door opened and a cheerful-sounding voice said, “Twenty-third floor.”