“I’m not criticizing anything you did,” JB said. “You saved us all. It was necessary. But . . . I’m trying to understand all the ramifications. The Sam Chase I knew was incredibly skilled at predicting what people would do. He would have known what to expect of both you and Mr. Rathbone. And . . . he would have known that Elucidators are practically indestructible under normal circumstances.”
Jordan did a double take. This wasn’t what he’d expected JB to say.
“Wait, you mean Kevin was able to tell the Elucidator something that re-aged Mom and Dad and everyone else and made the Elucidator self-destruct when I pulled it down to the floor? And then let me pound it into dust and nothingness after it killed Mr. Rathbone?” Jordan asked. He felt like JB was taking something away from him. Anger surged inside him. “You really think Kevin could have done all that in the three seconds he had to say anything? After I’d told the Elucidator not to follow any orders except to help Mom and Dad?”
Before JB had a chance to answer, Jordan thought of something else to ask: “And if Kevin could do all that—and kill Mr. Rathbone, too—then why didn’t he stop the Elucidator from turning him back into a baby?”
JB gazed steadily back at Jordan.
“Maybe,” JB said softly, “he was okay with being a baby again. As long as you kept your promise.”
For perhaps the millionth time in the past three weeks, Jordan remembered what Kevin had made him promise, and the way Kevin had looked, saying the words. It was almost like Jordan had PTSD or something.
It’s bad enough I have nightmares about watching Mr. Rathbone die and disappear, Jordan told himself. Why does my mind also keep playing back Kevin’s words: “Would you help me like you’d help your own family?”
Had there been some kind of trick behind those words? Some trick that Jordan’s brain was trying to tell him he’d missed?
“But—” Jordan began.
JB held up his hand, signaling for Jordan to wait.
“Most time hollows have . . . well, I guess you could consider them a type of recording apparatus,” JB said. “That’s a good enough explanation for now. All you really need to know is that we are able to figure out what Kevin said into that Elucidator.”
“So the secret’s out!” Jordan cried.
“No,” JB said, shaking his head. “It’s not. Kevin said nothing but ‘Yes. I authorize the planned changes.’ ”
Jordan jerked his head back so hard he clunked it against the pillar.
“What?” Jordan asked. “But Mom and Dad and all the other adults changed back! How did they do that without Kevin providing the cure?”
“It’s useful to look at where an Elucidator comes from,” JB said. “And though Mr. Rathbone clearly believed that that Elucidator was a standard-issue Interchronological Rescue model, for him to program as he wished, its actual background was a bit more suspicious. It appears that Second Chance did the original programming on that Elucidator before he died. And somewhere in all that programming, he had a section that only his thirteen-year-old self was able to access.”
“So . . . Kevin really did receive a message from his older self,” Jordan said.
JB nodded. “Probably,” he agreed. “And part of that message must have been a warning for Kevin about what Mr. Rathbone wanted from him. And . . . the Elucidator provided a way for Kevin—and you—to escape Mr. Rathbone without giving him what he wanted.”
“But . . . but . . . that meant Second Chance knew I would grab Kevin away from Mr. Rathbone,” Jordan stammered. “And that I would pull the Elucidator off the desk. And . . . probably that I would go back and get everyone else to help me. And that Mr. Rathbone would put the Elucidator back together, and it would kill him. And then I would destroy it.”
JB shrugged. “Like I said, Second Chance was very good at predictions. He was good at knowing what holograms of himself to leave behind, too. To prepare you.”
Jordan took a moment to absorb all of this. He thought about the many, many questions Second Chance had never answered. That was because Jordan had never seen the man as a real, living human being, in real time. Jordan had only ever seen him as a hologram—a hologram that Second Chance had set up before his own death. Even though he’d let Mr. Rathbone think that Mr. Rathbone controlled the holograms.
“Second talked to me about how he’d been tempted by the Tree of Knowledge and Pandora’s box,” Jordan said. “But it’s like Second wanted me to know enough to keep Mr. Rathbone from destroying the whole world with his own Pandora’s box.”
“That’s not a contradiction,” JB said. “Knowledge isn’t evil, in and of itself. It’s what people choose to do with their knowledge that makes the difference. I think it matters what you want knowledge for. And what you’re willing to sacrifice to get it. There are trade-offs.”
Jordan thought about how Jonah had told him that JB always talked to him about God and destiny and fate and free will. Was this all that JB was going to tell Jordan? Would Jordan have to figure out everything else on his own?
Jordan still had questions.
“But then . . . if Second could predict and arrange all that . . . why didn’t he know Mr. Rathbone was going to kill him?” he asked. “Why didn’t Second stop that?”
JB looked out toward the snow, which was thicker than ever.
“The time-agency experts say there’s only one interpretation possible,” he said. “Second wanted to rescue me more than he wanted to save his own life. He was loyal, in the end. And he thought he had to stop Mr. Rathbone once and for all, to save time.”
“So Second was a good guy, after all,” Jordan mumbled. “A good guy who had to kill Mr. Rathbone.”
There. He’d touched on the one issue he hadn’t let himself think about in three weeks.
JB kept staring out into the snow.
“I’ve been debating with myself about how much of this to tell you,” he said.
“Well, you have to tell me now!” Jordan said.
That could have been taken as a joke, but JB didn’t laugh. He turned to face Jordan.
“The best projectionists at the time agency have examined everything Second did, and everything he and Kevin set you up to do, from every angle,” JB began, in a slow, hypnotic voice. “They say that, indeed, Rathbone had to die to save time.”
It was amazing how relieved Jordan felt hearing that.
“But . . . ,” JB went on. He swallowed hard. “It turns out there was one other way Second could have set things up that still would have saved time. He . . . he could have made it so you were the one who killed Mr. Rathbone.”
Two thoughts exploded in Jordan’s head at the same time. One was I could have been the hero! Second stole that from me! Didn’t he trust me to really do it?
The other was I could have been a killer! Second protected me!
Would Jordan have wanted to live the rest of his life knowing he’d taken somebody’s life? Even if it was somebody who needed to die?
Wouldn’t Jordan have wondered forever if maybe, just maybe, there’d been some other way?
His nightmares about Mr. Rathbone’s death would have been so much worse if Jordan knew he’d caused it.
“I . . . I think Second did the right thing,” Jordan said.
“You do?” JB asked, almost as if he were surprised.
“Yes,” Jordan said, and his voice was full of certainty now. “Except . . . would Kevin be a baby right now if Second had chosen the other scenario?”
JB bit his lip.
“No,” he said. “He could have saved himself that. It appears that he thought paving the way for his younger version to have a good life was a reasonable trade for everything else.”
Jordan looked down at the baby tucked inside JB’s coat.
“But Kevin—I mean baby Kevin, now—the way things turned out, he doesn’t have any control over his life,” Jordan said. “He can’t even control who changes his diaper!”
“Oh, but he exerted a lot of control over t
hat before he un-aged,” JB said. “He got an honorable person to promise to take care of him the same way he’d take care of his own family. The way he knew his whole family would take care of Kevin.”
Jordan squinted at JB. JB stared steadily back. Then the man began nodding slowly.
“Yes,” JB said. “He knew what you would do. And the rest of your family, too. How you’d take him in.”
Jordan recoiled.
“Are you saying Kevin wanted my family to adopt him?” Jordan asked, his voice squeaking with surprise. “He wants Mom and Dad to have three thirteen-year-old sons, only one of them won’t look like the other two?”
“No, we think Kevin wanted your family to adopt him as a baby,” JB said in an even tone. “So he’ll always be thirteen years younger than you and Jonah, and nearly twelve years younger than Katherine.”
Jordan blinked.
“Second embedded an extra command into the Elucidator,” JB said. “It appears to have been very precisely layered. And it seems that once your parents and the others were their proper ages again, it disabled every Elucidator in the world from ever un-aging or re-aging anyone. Even children. Even baby Kevin. That’s a pretty clear message.”
Jordan gaped at JB for a long moment. Then he thought of a loophole.
“Someone could always go back in time and steal an Elucidator that still works to re-age him,” he said.
“Theoretically,” JB said. “Except that, after tonight, the time agency is sealing off all time travel. We’ll be able to watch the past and learn from it, but nothing more.”
“But—” Jordan began.
“Time travel took us to the brink of total destruction multiple times,” JB said. “It’s like when the people of your time decided nuclear energy was too dangerous to . . . oh, wait, that hasn’t happened quite yet. Sorry. There, I have given you one tidbit of information from the future.”
Jordan’s brain was reeling. He realized that he’d kind of thought that, now that the danger from Mr. Rathbone was past, he and Jonah and Katherine—and maybe some of their friends—could just zip off through time whenever they wanted. They could just play around with time travel, rather than having it always be something risky.
Instead it sounded like JB expected them to stay in the twenty-first century with a new baby brother who would be smarter than any of them when he grew up. And maybe he’d be dangerous, too.
“How do you know Mom and Dad even want another kid?” Jordan asked, shifting to the more immediate problem.
“Because they already offered,” JB said. “That night in Mr. Rathbone’s office. They were both worried about what would happen to Kevin. And of course we told them he wasn’t going to stay a baby, because we didn’t know everything else.”
“Oh,” Jordan said numbly.
“Everything worked out so, so precisely right,” JB said. “Even when I saw you in the hospital and I thought you were Jonah—do you know how many problems and paradoxes it would have created if I’d known who you really were?”
Jordan didn’t answer that question. He didn’t want to think about how close they’d been to disaster.
“And I thought you were giving me a warning about the missing children, when you were really talking about your family,” JB went on. “And that set up Angela and me being nearby when Charles Lindbergh kidnapped Katherine . . . and then that helped Jonah save time, and set up everything for you and Kevin to stop Mr. Rathbone. . . . Everything that worked out just right so far makes us think that this is just right too.”
Jordan felt frozen in a way that had nothing to do with the snow swirling around him.
“Here,” JB said, slipping baby Kevin into Jordan’s arms. “You take him on in to your parents. Would you send Jonah and Katherine out to talk to me?”
The baby was surprisingly light in Jordan’s arms as he carried him in through the front door. Instantly a group of girls clustered around.
“Oooh! He’s so cute!” one of them cooed.
Maybe having a baby brother wouldn’t be such a terrible thing.
“Who is he?” one of the other girls asked.
Jordan realized this was an important moment. Should he tell them everything?
No, he thought. Isn’t that kind of the point of Second getting to be a baby all over again? So he really does get another chance?
“This is Kevin,” Jordan said. “My parents are adopting him.”
Jordan had underestimated what the girls did and didn’t know. Their eyes widened and they looked shocked. But then one of the girls—whose name, Jordan remembered, was Emily—reached out her hand and patted the baby’s head.
“He’s a lucky kid,” she said. “He’ll have the whole family watching out for him.”
“Yeah, but this means Katherine won’t be the baby of the family anymore,” Jordan said.
He didn’t realize Katherine had come up right behind him.
“I had my birthday last week, remember?” she said airily. “I’m twelve now. I’m not a baby anymore, no matter what.”
“Hey, everybody, let’s sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to Katherine,” one of the other girls, Daniella, shouted.
Jordan remembered that Daniella had been Russian royalty in original time. Maybe bossing people around was in her blood: She was really good at getting everybody to join in singing. Jordan used the cover of the song to whisper to Jonah and Katherine that JB wanted to see them. Then he took baby Kevin on into the kitchen, where Mom was putting another tray of pizza rolls in the oven and Dad was refilling the ice bucket.
“Jordan, could you—” Mom began without turning around.
But Dad was staring at Jordan.
“Linda,” Dad whispered. “I think . . . I think it’s really going to happen.”
Then Mom turned around. Her jaw dropped. And then she began laughing and crying all at once.
Suddenly Jordan realized why JB had wanted him to deliver Kevin to his parents. Jonah had gotten to give them the baby version of Jordan, and now Jordan was getting the same kind of experience.
“You don’t know how he’s going to grow up this time around,” Jordan warned, even as Mom and Dad circled him and Kevin and started hugging them both.
“Silly, we didn’t know how you and Jonah were going to grow up either,” Mom said. “Or Katherine. We just hoped, and prayed . . . and loved you . . .”
“We brought Christmas cookies!” someone called behind them, and Jordan was glad of the interruption.
He turned around to see the adult version of Angela and the bearded time agent that Jordan recognized as her boyfriend, Hadley Correo. But something really odd was going on tonight, because Angela and Hadley weren’t just holding giant tins of cookies—they were also each holding a baby.
Jordan looked a little more closely. He’d seen those babies before . . . in a snippet of 1932 he’d watched from the time hollow with Kevin.
“You brought the baby versions of Gary and Hodge to the party?” Jordan asked incredulously.
“We’re going to call them Gregory and Henry,” Angela said evenly.
“It came through?” Mom asked eagerly. “The time agency accepted your proposal?”
Angela nodded. “We solved a lot of their problems,” she said. “Gary and Hodge were kind of . . . orphaned by time and circumstances, and Second didn’t do anything to re-age them, so . . . how do you prosecute babies for crimes they did as adults, in a totally different life? Hadley and I made the case that they deserved another chance. We’re hoping growing up in a different time and place will make them different people.”
She was looking at Jordan like she desperately wanted him to agree. He shrugged.
“Hey, Gary and Hodge helped me,” Jordan said. “It was kind of by accident, and what they were really trying to do was torture Jonah with my existence, but . . . maybe this time around you’ll get them to do good things on purpose!”
“Let’s hope so,” Hadley chimed in. He looked grateful—evidently he and Angela were a
lready thinking of the babies as their own.
“The time agency was always worried that one of the things the plane crash interrupted was my intended future as the mother of five,” Angela told Jordan. “Time travel sort of already gave me two, since I took in Leonid Sednev and Maria Romanova when they escaped from 1918. I figure, we’ll add these two and go from there.”
“And the time agency approved my request to stay in the twenty-first century, to keep an eye on this pivotal era,” Hadley added. “So . . . Angela and I are getting married next week!”
This made Mom hug Angela and Hadley—and all three babies. Jordan decided he didn’t need to stay in the kitchen any longer.
But walking back out into the cluster of kids felt different now. Maybe he was seeing everyone from the perspective of being Kevin’s older brother, rather than as the outsider. He knew these kids, even if they didn’t really know him. He’d have to make sure nobody treated Kevin badly because of what they knew about Second. Or he’d have to make sure that they knew the good things about Second as well. Or . . .
Jordan bumped into Katherine, who was apparently back from talking to JB outside.
“Watch,” Katherine whispered to him.
“Huh? Oh . . .”
He followed her gaze. She was staring at Andrea, the girl who had come in looking for Jonah. Now Jonah was standing right beside her.
“I’ve been trying all night to figure out how to say this,” Andrea was telling Jonah. “And I kept chickening out. But I think . . . I think I’ve recovered. I told Aunt Patty everything, and she didn’t think I was crazy, and now she’s going to let my grandfather come celebrate Christmas with us. . . .”
“That’s her grandfather from the sixteen hundreds!” Katherine muttered. “The one who came to live in our time because Andrea wouldn’t leave the past without him.”
Jordan nodded, because he knew this story as well as she did.
“But, anyhow,” Andrea continued telling Jonah, “maybe I waited too long, maybe you’re not interested anymore. But—”
“You’re willing to be my girlfriend now?” Jonah finished for her.
Andrea nodded, and the whole roomful of kids broke out in applause.