Redeemed

  But Mom and Dad looked at each other and laughed joyously. And then they hugged each other.

  “Shall I go on?” Mr. Rathbone asked, his finger hovering over the Elucidator. “Shall I let them keep aging—until they’re ancient and infirm and struggling with dementia and incontinence and arthritic joints? Shall I take them to the brink of death from old age?”

  “No!” Jordan shouted. “Don’t do that!”

  He squeezed baby Kevin too tightly once again. Even sedated, the baby let out a soft whimper of complaint.

  Mr. Rathbone laughed again.

  “It’s so easy to torture you,” he said. “It would be so much fun to keep you here, and keep showing you images that make you scream.”

  Would that be better or worse than dying? Jordan wondered.

  It kind of seemed like, as long as he was alive, there was still hope that he could fix things.

  “You . . . ,” Jordan began, trying to figure out how to work that out.

  “Oh, stop,” Mr. Rathbone said, his voice thick with disgust. “Think. Remember all the revelations you witnessed back in the time hollow. Much as I would like to keep you here to torture, there are certain requirements for keeping time alive.”

  Jordan looked at him blankly once again. Mr. Rathbone saying “think” and “remember” only reminded Jordan of what Kevin had said, spinning through time: You’ll figure it out if you think hard enough. . . . I really did try to help your parents. I did what I could. Everything is up to you now. Remember your promise.

  How could Kevin have thought anything could still be up to Jordan? Or that it should be? Kevin was a genius. He’d figured out how to outsmart an Elucidator the first time he’d touched one. How had he failed to figure out that Mr. Rathbone was going to turn him back into a baby?

  Wait—what if he did know? Jordan wondered. What if he couldn’t stop it, but thought I would rescue him?

  Jordan was so stunned at that thought that he barely noticed Mr. Rathbone easing baby Kevin out of Jordan’s arms.

  But now Jordan’s arms were empty.

  Kevin would have known not to count on me for anything, Jordan thought. Wouldn’t he?

  Mr. Rathbone held baby Kevin carelessly in one arm. The baby’s head lolled awkwardly, and he seemed about to fall. Maybe Mr. Rathbone wasn’t used to holding babies. Maybe he was trying to taunt Jordan that there was nothing Jordan could do.

  “It’s exhausting to be around someone as stupid as you,” Mr. Rathbone said, turning back toward the desk again. “But I’ll be kind. I’ll tell you you’re actually going to get everything you wanted. Well, almost everything. Your brother saved time by melding his dimension and yours, remember?”

  So Mr. Rathbone did know about the different dimensions all along, Jordan thought. Or—at least he does now.

  How could Jordan still be so confused?

  He forced himself to pay attention to what else Mr. Rathbone was saying.

  “Because of the blended dimensions, I have to send you and your parents and siblings back to the twenty-first century,” he added. “Just so time continues normally, and so I get to have everything I want in my time.”

  Mr. Rathbone leaned over the Elucidator on his desk.

  “Carry out the rest of my plan,” he said. “Do it—”

  Remember your promise pounded in Jordan’s head. Remember your promise.

  Jordan was usually terrible at multitasking, and not much better at thinking and acting fast. He didn’t know if he had time for anything. But he was going to try. With one hand he lashed out at the Elucidator on the desk, trying to knock it to the floor.

  With the other he grabbed for baby Kevin.

  “—now,” Mr. Rathbone finished.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  It felt like Jordan floated through time forever before he could tell if he’d succeeded at anything.

  Without an Elucidator, he couldn’t see a thing. But he frantically flexed his hands and pressed his arms closer against his body. . . .

  Something was clutched in his hands and tucked between his arms and his body. It really was a baby. It really was baby Kevin. Jordan really had managed to grab him away from Mr. Rathbone.

  Mr. Rathbone’s just going to pull me back to his time, Jordan told himself. I’ve just delayed this fight. I’ve just made him madder. I’ve got to plan my next step. . . .

  Jordan and the sedated baby Kevin kept floating through time.

  Maybe the other part of what I did worked too, Jordan thought. Maybe I managed to destroy that Elucidator, and it hit the ground right after Mr. Rathbone said his last word. Maybe right now Mr. Rathbone’s huddled over a pile of broken Elucidator pieces on the floor of his office, and it’s going to take him a minute or two to look for another Elucidator to yank me back. . . .

  Jordan kept speeding forward. Lights rushed at him, and he braced himself for the feeling of being torn apart. He held on to baby Kevin as tightly as he could.

  And then when you come out of the time travel, you’re going to have to react as quickly as possible, he told himself. None of this blinking and not being able to see or hear or feel . . .

  His mind blanked out. The next thing he knew, several people were leaning over him and exclaiming in such loud voices that Jordan’s ears hurt.

  “. . . and now Jordan’s back, too!”

  “But what happened? How did it all work out?”

  “And who’s the baby?”

  “How—?”

  “Why—?”

  Jordan struggled up to see three kids peering at him—Katherine, Jonah, and Chip—as well as four adults: JB, Angela, Mom, and Dad. So what Mr. Rathbone had shown Jordan was true. All the adults were the right age now.

  The Skidmore family kitchen loomed behind them as Jordan’s vision reeled in and out of focus.

  “Hey, take it easy, sport,” Dad said. “We’re all okay now. You’ve got time to recover before you tell us anything.”

  “No, I don’t!” Jordan exclaimed.

  Did he have more than an instant? Could he possibly have a full minute? Or two?

  “Grab on to me!” Jordan screamed. “Everybody grab on!”

  A split second later, Jordan was floating through time again.

  FORTY-NINE

  “Ahhhhh!” someone screamed, so Jordan knew at least one person had managed to follow his instructions. It was too dark to see who it was, and Jordan was still too numb from the fast turnaround of time travel to be able to tell how many hands were clutching him.

  “Mom? Dad?” Jordan called. “Katherine? Jonah?”

  There was too much screaming for anyone to hear Jordan. He raised his voice.

  “Everybody shut up and listen!” he screamed, louder than anyone. “In a minute we’re going to be back in Mr. Rathbone’s office. We have to overpower him. And he’s got an Elucidator and we don’t. . . .”

  “Tell us what happened,” someone said, and Jordan recognized the voice as JB’s. That was good. It would help to have someone with time-agency training.

  “I don’t think there’s time to tell anything,” Jordan said. “But we’ve got to protect this baby. . . .”

  He glanced around frantically. His eyes adjusted a little to the darkness, and now he could see at least shapes of other people around him. Were there five people around him? Six? Seven?

  He squinted hard, trying to make out faces.

  “Mr. Rathbone is going to expect me to be holding Kevin,” Jordan said. “It’ll be safer for the baby if he’s in someone else’s arms. . . .”

  He looked for Mom and Dad. Both of them were great at dealing with babies. Jordan had seen that clearly, watching his and Jonah’s and Katherine’s early years.

  But Kevin’s going to need someone who’s used to taking care of babies in the midst of danger, Jordan thought.

  He thrust baby Kevin into Jonah’s arms.

  “Jordan, you and Jonah look exactly alike!” someone squealed—was it Mom? Katherine? Maybe it was both of them at once. “
That’s not going to change anything!”

  “Mr. Rathbone can tell us apart,” Jordan said stubbornly. “He knows what clothes we’re wearing.”

  There wasn’t time to explain the rest of Jordan’s reasons.

  “Who is this?” Jonah asked.

  “Your worst enemy,” Jordan said. “But take care of him anyway.”

  The rushing of time ripped the words from his mouth, and Jordan wasn’t sure how much Jonah heard. Jordan wondered what else he should have said, what instructions he should have given. They were all going to be so numb when they landed. They would have to react so quickly. . . .

  Jordan stopped being able to think. Flipping back and forth through time so quickly was evidently a bad idea. He didn’t just feel as though he was being ripped to shreds; he also felt as though he was being pummeled down to nothingness. No—he was being reduced to less than nothing.

  Then he was back in Mr. Rathbone’s office, facing Mr. Rathbone.

  Mr. Rathbone had a stunned look on his face. But he also had something in his hands. Something that had to be an Elucidator.

  Was it a different Elucidator? Jordan desperately hoped so. He desperately hoped he’d managed to break the one holding Kevin’s secret.

  “You dared to defy me! Fool!” Mr. Rathbone roared at Jordan. “And you thought it would do any good to bring back this pack of other worthless, ineffectual people? Freeze in place for interrogation! All of you!”

  If Mr. Rathbone had started with the order, instead of taunting Jordan first, there would have been no hope. All of them would have been stuck where they landed.

  But by the time Mr. Rathbone hissed his command and the Elucidator followed it, just about everybody was already lunging for Mr. Rathbone, ready to rip the Elucidator from his hand. Jordan felt his body go stiff as he leaned forward, at a forty-five degree angle with the floor. Because he couldn’t bring his leg around to support himself, he just kept falling.

  Falling toward Mr. Rathbone.

  Jordan couldn’t have said who hit Mr. Rathbone first: Angela or JB or Jordan’s dad. But it was like a giant pileup of a tackle in a football game. And it was such a hard tackle that it caused a fumble: Out of the corner of his eye, Jordan saw the small, silvery Elucidator fly out of Mr. Rathbone’s hands and slide across the floor.

  Jordan landed on the top of the heap, with Chip’s elbow in his ear and Mom’s knee in his eye.

  “Get off me!” Mr. Rathbone screamed from the bottom of the pile of stiff bodies. “Get off!”

  “That’s not really possible, when you’ve immobilized us,” JB said. This was Jordan’s first clue that Mr. Rathbone had left them the ability to talk. That must have been what the “for interrogation” part of the order was about. So . . . had he frozen them only from the neck down? Would Jordan be able to turn his head?

  Before Jordan had a chance to try this out, Mr. Rathbone started demanding, “Elucidator, move all the interlopers’ bodies to—”

  “Scream!” Jordan interrupted. “Drown out Mr. Rathbone’s words so the Elucidator can’t hear them! AHHHH!”

  He couldn’t hear what Mr. Rathbone said next. Too many voices echoed in his ears: Mom’s and Katherine’s and Angela’s, Dad’s and Jonah’s and JB’s. Was Chip’s in there too? And maybe baby Kevin, screaming as well?

  There was a bass rumble from far below Jordan, probably Mr. Rathbone complaining about everyone screaming. And then the bodies beneath Jordan’s began to shift. Mr. Rathbone seemed to have decided just to fight his way out.

  Jordan slid left and right. Then he began slipping down the pile. He had no control over how his body fell. He hit the floor so hard he bounced.

  And then his cheek came to rest on something small and round.

  The Elucidator.

  FIFTY

  In the next instant Jordan saw Mr. Rathbone’s flushed face staring at him from the bottom edge of the pile of bodies.

  “Don’t even think about it, Jordan,” Mr. Rathbone said. Jordan kind of thought he was lip-reading more than actually hearing the man’s words. Everyone was still screaming, and the sound was overpowering. “You’re not going to be able to tell that Elucidator anything. You’re, um, completely locked out.”

  He’s lying, Jordan thought. Why else would he be watching me so carefully?

  “Freeze Mr. Rathbone in place!” Jordan yelled.

  Mr. Rathbone kept struggling out from the bottom of the pile.

  “Give up,” Mr. Rathbone said, his eyes boring into Jordan’s. “There’s nothing you can do.”

  But Mr. Rathbone is still wiggling toward me, Jordan thought. He’s acting like he thinks there’s something I can do. Otherwise he’d be rushing off to find baby Kevin.

  Jordan could just barely see that Jonah was still holding on to baby Kevin. The two of them were frozen behind the pile of bodies. Jonah hadn’t dived onto the pile to attack Mr. Rathbone. Jonah had protected Kevin, just as Jordan asked.

  I’ve got to protect Kevin too, Jordan thought. I promised.

  “Send all of us back to safety!” Jordan screamed. “Send us to . . . time-agency headquarters!”

  That should be safe, shouldn’t it?

  Nothing happened.

  Mr. Rathbone laughed as he dislodged his shoulder from under Dad’s elbow.

  “Jordan, you’re never going to be able to figure out anything that would work,” he taunted.

  “Make it so JB is over here with his face on the Elucidator!” Jordan cried. “Let him give the commands!”

  Mr. Rathbone seemed to be laughing so hard at that one that for a moment he stopped struggling forward.

  “You think there’d be anything JB could do on that Elucidator?” Mr. Rathbone asked incredulously. “That’s not the Elucidator you were using before. That’s my personal Interchronological Rescue Elucidator. Naturally, anyone from the time agency would be shut out. Anyhow”—he turned his head mockingly—“JB’s too busy screaming to do anything else.”

  Wasn’t it a good thing that the Elucidator wasn’t the same one Jordan had used before—and wasn’t the same one that Kevin had entrusted with his secret? Did that mean that Jordan really had succeeded in destroying that Elucidator?

  Jordan realized he didn’t have time to figure out any of that. Because Mr. Rathbone was close enough now that Jordan was hearing his actual words, not just lip-reading them.

  Which meant that Mr. Rathbone was close enough that the Elucidator could hear him too.

  How much time did Jordan have before Mr. Rathbone figured that out? How much time did Jordan have before Mr. Rathbone just grabbed the Elucidator from beneath Jordan’s face and shut off any chance for Jordan to do anything?

  There’s something about me touching the Elucidator that worries Mr. Rathbone, Jordan thought. This is Mr. Rathbone’s personal Elucidator—maybe there’s some sort of emergency function it can follow even for someone who’s not Mr. Rathbone. Is that what Mr. Rathbone’s afraid of?

  Then Jordan knew what to try next.

  “Can you summon Mr. Rathbone’s employees into the office?” he asked the Elucidator. He didn’t hear or see an answer, but he forged ahead anyway: “Bring Deep Voice and Tattoo Face and Doreen in to help!”

  The words “I don’t recognize those names as Interchronological Rescue employees” sounded in his ear. “I need first and last names.”

  Did that mean the Elucidator could bring them in if Jordan remembered the right names?

  Mr. Rathbone had pulled his entire body except for his right leg out from under the pile of people. Now he was jerking his leg out too.

  “Bring in, uh, Markiel Katun!” Jordan screamed. He couldn’t remember Doreen’s last name, or any part of Tattoo Face’s. He hoped this would be enough.

  Suddenly Deep Voice was standing over Jordan. But he just looked around in confusion. And Mr. Rathbone was away from the pile of all the other people. He lurched toward Jordan.

  “Help!” Jordan screamed. “Stop Mr. Rathbone!”

&nb
sp; Deep Voice swung his fist at Mr. Rathbone. But just then Mr. Rathbone screamed, “Freeze the intruder! The employee who’s assaulting me!”

  So Mr. Rathbone doesn’t even remember his own employee’s name? Jordan wondered. Does that mean—?

  It didn’t matter. Deep Voice froze in place, his fist a good three inches from Mr. Rathbone’s jaw.

  Mr. Rathbone spat in Deep Voice’s face.

  “You’re fired,” Mr. Rathbone said. A slow smile spread over his face. “Freeze the vocal cords of everyone in this room except me,” he added.

  Jordan opened his mouth to protest, but no sound came out. He could still move his head and face, but what good did that do?

  Mr. Rathbone took a step back, putting even more distance between himself and Deep Voice’s fists. He kicked Jordan’s chest, shoving him away from the Elucidator that had been hiding under his cheek. Jordan’s face came to rest on a cold, hard, marble section of the floor, but there was nothing he could do about it.

  Mr. Rathbone bent down, picked up the Elucidator from the floor, and casually slid it into his pocket. Then he spun around, the only one able to move in the roomful of frozen bodies.

  He seemed to be admiring everything he had done.

  “I defeated all of you,” he said. He peered at the pile of Skidmores, JB, Angela, and Chip. Then his eyes flicked toward Deep Voice and toward Jonah, standing helplessly with baby Kevin in his arms. Finally Mr. Rathbone’s gaze came to rest on Jordan, helplessly sprawled on the floor. “It was nine against one, and I still came out ahead. Nine and a half against one, if you count the baby.”

  Jordan darted his eyes toward Mr. Rathbone’s desk—at least he could still move his eyes.

  And, from his new position on the marble tile, now Jordan could see that the Elucidator he’d pulled from Mr. Rathbone’s desk was lying in pieces on the floor.

  At least Jordan had managed to accomplish that.