Extracted

  LEX

  “How’s Stein?” I call down to Lex as he enters the room. I’m perched on top of the half-pipe, my legs dangling. Ethan is busy working with Nobel, and I’m bored. We’ve only been back in Hollow Tower a few days, but I’m already itching to get out. It’s too noisy here. Too chaotic. I find myself longing for the calm routine of the Institute.

  “She’s fine. Nobel’s salve is a lifesaver. No permanent damage, at least not physically.”

  He gets a running start and leaps up the pipe, grabbing the lip beside me and pulling himself up.

  “She still reading through that journal she stole?”

  He sits next to me and nods. “Yeah. I don’t know what’s in there or why it bothers her so much. She’s just been… distant lately. I figure she’ll tell me when she’s ready.”

  I nudge him with my shoulder. “She’ll be all right. Just give her some time.”

  He snorts. “I have plenty of that.”

  The lines around his eyes are deep. I know he’s worried, but there’s nothing I can do, so I opt to change the subject. “The new leg looks good.”

  He runs his hand down his newly repaired leg. “It’s not bad. Better than that stupid contraption Nobel built. Still sore. Nobel took a lot of the hardware out to make it lighter and replaced it with that skin stuff. That junk he made in those petri dishes is amazing.”

  For some reason, that kind of grosses me out. I think Lex can tell.

  “Did you know the skin can grow new tendons? He took the main piston out and spread that stuff all over. It works beautifully.”

  “Speaking of new and better things…” I reach behind me and pull a wad from my back pocket, thrusting it toward him.

  Grabbing it, he shakes it out with a jingle, and then stuffs the new jester’s hat on his head. He gives it a shake, and the jingle bells rattle. It’s red and yellow, with a bright green patch and blue thread stitches.

  “It’s not much. I had to use scraps of old clothes to sew it together.”

  He grins from ear to ear. “It’s perfect, thanks.”

  Below us, Gloves chugs through the room, his train chair leaving puffs of black smoke in the air.

  Lex shakes his head again, jingling. “I can’t believe how well the Dox worked. Everything is back to normal.”

  I swallow. “Not everything.”

  The Dox managed to seal off the paradox, repairing the stream from the point it was created forward. Most things went back to normal. No one here remembers the attack. It looks like only those who were in the blast radius remember the paradox at all. Everything that’s happened from the point the paradox was created until now has been rewritten, smoothed out, and put back on course.

  But Flynn is still dead. The Tesla automaton is gone. I don’t know if his brain was in that suit or if it’s still tucked away at the Institute. We’ll probably have to find out at some point. But the immediate danger is past. Now comes the really scary part.

  The future.

  “So, what are you going to do now?” Lex asks, looking away as if he’s a little scared of what I might say.

  “Well, first, I have to go pay my past self a little visit.” Absently, I reach up and touch my chin. Nobel’s salve has healed it to a faint scar. Soon, even that will fade away. “Then, Sisson and I are going to return all the keys you boys lifted. After that, who knows? Ethan thinks we should stay. Fight alongside the Hollows.”

  Lex leans back on his palms, “I knew there was a reason I liked that guy.”

  I roll my eyes. “Yeah. Right. He also wants to take me on vacation. Disneyland or something. Says we need some R and R.”

  “Also a solid plan.”

  I pause, taking a breath. “But the thing is, you don’t really fight, do you? I mean, you get into fights, but it isn’t really the same thing. I want to protect people like us. Maybe the way Tesla did things wasn’t perfect, but there has to be a better way to live than as thieves. I mean, we almost exploded the universe, Lex. And for what?”

  Lex cocks his head, looking at me thoughtfully. “Them sound like fightin’ words, Ember.”

  I just nod, looking off into the distance. The common room is quiet. It’s early. Most of the Hollows are still fast asleep.

  “I just mean, it never should have happened. This fight between Tesla and the Hollows, it’s doing too much damage. Too many people are getting caught in the crossfire.”

  Lex juts out his bottom lip. “I still think brain face deserves a little payback for what he’s done.”

  “Tesla really hasn’t done anything wrong—”

  “Except lie to you. And create a giant robot to kill you. And dump dozens of Rifters into the time stream to die.”

  I shift uncomfortably. He has a point.

  He continues, “Let me just ask you one question. What do you think he’d have done to us if we’d handed over the Dox and let him repair the paradox?”

  I clench my jaw. “He probably would have killed Stein and Ethan and taken us back to the Institute.”

  “And then?”

  I sigh. The truth is, I have no idea. Brainwash us? Experiment on us? Lock us in a dark room and throw away the key? I can’t imagine he just wants to have a tea party, that’s for sure.

  I stand, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Look, we’ll talk about it more when I get back.”

  “So you are coming back then? For sure?”

  “Of course I am. Try not to get into any trouble while I’m gone. And no more stealing. I mean it, Lex.”

  He shrugs, looking up at me with his jester’s hat dangling to the side and a big smile on his face. “No promises.”