“C-Courtney?” Mark stammered as if his brain wouldn’t accept what his eyes were seeing.
“There’s more I haven’t told you,” Courtney said through the tears. “Bobby and I went to Third Earth. We looked back through history. Everything I said was true, Mark. Even this. Your body washed up on shore with a bullet in it. The computers didn’t know who the killer was, but I think that mystery has been solved. It looks like it was…me.”
“N-No,” Mark stuttered. “I don’t believe you’ll shoot me.”
“I love you, Mark,” Courtney said, sobbing. “But I can’t let you do this. I can’t let you change history.”
Mark stood frozen. Courtney cocked the pistol. Mark backed into the rail. There was nowhere to go.
“I love you too, Courtney,” Mark said softly. “I guess this is the way it was really meant to be.”
Courtney raised the pistol, squinting through her tears. Mark tensed up. He closed his eyes. Courtney took aim. She tightened her finger on the trigger. Nobody moved. The moment stayed frozen for an eternity. Courtney blinked, took a step to her right, and tossed the pistol overboard. It fell into the dark ocean, lost in the swirl of the ship’s wake. Mark let out a breath he had been holding for a long time. Courtney ran to him and hugged him. Both let out the rush of emotions through their tears.
“Courtney!” Dodger shouted. “What are you doing?”
“I think I’m changing history,” she answered. “Mark was killed on this ship. Now he’s safe. Maybe I just bought us some more time to make things right.” She looked at Mark and added, “I’m sorry.”
“I am too,” he said. “But I’m not going to change my mind.”
“About what?” came a woman’s voice.
Mr. and Mrs. Dimond approached the group, arm in arm.
“Is everything okay?” Mr. Dimond asked.
“Everything’s fine,” Mark said, though it didn’t sound to anybody as if he meant it.
Mr. Dimond said, “We’re still trying to understand all this, Courtney. We want to help you, and help Bobby. What can we do?”
Courtney looked at Mark. Mark looked away. She looked at Dodger, who gave her a helpless shrug. “It’s your show.”
The Dimonds huddled close to each other, waiting for Courtney to speak. Courtney had gotten to know the Dimonds once she and Mark had become acolytes. She thought they were terrific. The idea that she would want them to die, no matter how right history said that would be, was painful to Courtney. She wanted everything to be better and for the Dimonds to live their lives the way they were meant to. As she stood on the back of that ship, feeling hopelessly lost, a thought came to her.
“Maybe you can help,” she said. “Maybe you’re the only ones who can help.”
“Anything,” Mrs. Dimond said.
“You said Mark told you everything? About Halla and Saint Dane and the Travelers, right?”
“We’re still in shock,” Mrs. Dimond said.
“How much did you tell him? I mean about what happened with the flight to Florida?”
The Dimonds looked at each other with confusion.
“There isn’t much to tell,” Mr. Dimond said. “We didn’t get on the plane. If we had, we wouldn’t be here, right?”
“Yeah, but why didn’t you get on the plane?” Courtney asked, her mind racing. “Mark thinks that by coming to First Earth he set in motion a series of events that saved your lives. I want to know what that was. What stopped you from getting on that plane?”
Mr. Dimond shrugged. “It was Nevva Winter. She caught us just as we were about to board. I thought Mark knew.”
Courtney shot a look to Mark.
Mark slowly shook his head and said softly, “I didn’t know that.”
Courtney closed her eyes and smiled. It was such a feeling of relief that she wanted to fall to her knees and cry.
“Is it that important?” Mr. Dimond asked.
“It’s everything,” Courtney said. “Mark, that’s your proof. Nevva knew what was going to happen and stopped your parents from boarding. She’s from another territory. Nothing you’re going to do here will have any effect on her. Or on that plane. It’s still going to crash. Your parents are alive because Saint Dane saved them, in order to convince you to do exactly what you’re doing.”
Mark leaned back against the railing, staring at the deck but seeing nothing. Courtney desperately hoped that things would finally start to click into place.
“Mark,” Courtney said boldly. “You can put things right, and your parents don’t have to die. Please. Help Bobby.”
Mark shot a pained look to Courtney and asked a simple, poignant question. “What have I done?”
“Nothing,” Courtney said quickly. “Not yet, anyway.”
Mark left the rail and pushed past the others, heading forward.
“Where are you going?” Mr. Dimond asked.
Without stopping, Mark said, “To destroy Forge.”
FIRST EARTH
“There they are!” shouted Andy Mitchell from above.
He was at the railing of the Promenade Deck, looking down on the Main Deck, where Mark had just left the others. With him were Nevva and two ship’s officers.
“Go!” Courtney shouted.
Mark started running. Courtney and Dodger took off after him.
“Slow them down,” Courtney ordered the Dimonds.
Mark disappeared inside the ship’s structure, followed right behind by Courtney and Dodger. Andy led the officers down the outside stairs in pursuit, only to run into the Dimonds, who blocked his way at the bottom of the stairs.
“Hi, Andy,” Mr. Dimond said jovially.
“Get out of the way!” Andy ordered.
The Dimonds held their ground. “I think you’ve got some explaining to do,” Mrs. Dimond scolded.
Andy gave her a cold look that nearly knocked her off her feet. For a brief moment his eyes flashed blue with anger. Mrs. Dimond gasped. Andy reared back as if to hit someone, but the ship’s officer arrived behind him.
“Here now,” the officer commanded. “No need for that. They’re on a ship. They can’t hide for long.”
Andy spun to the officer, ready to lash at him. He saw Nevva standing on top of the stairs behind the officers and motioned for her to go back the other way. Andy pushed past the officer, headed back up the stairs.
Mrs. Dimond looked to her husband and said, “Can life get any stranger?”
Mark sprinted down the passageway of the Main Deck. He didn’t double back or take a route that was hard to follow. It was all about speed. Courtney and Dodger were right behind him. They no longer cared about being seen. Spending the rest of the voyage locked up no longer mattered. It had come down to this. A race. They had to get back to Mark’s suite before anyone else. Before Andy or Nevva. It was the final leg of their mission.
They had to destroy Forge.
Up ahead of them, a group of elegantly dressed passengers strolled out of the dining room, laughing and singing.
“Get out of the way!” Mark screamed.
He didn’t wait for them to obey. He ran straight at them. Men dove away, women scattered. Courtney would have laughed if she weren’t about to hit them herself. Just as the passengers gathered their wits, Courtney arrived at full speed.
“Get out of the way!” she yelled as the surprised passengers flung themselves to the walls. Courtney and Dodger flew past with no apologies.
Mark sprinted down a long passageway that was lined with elegant, white doors. He slowed down enough to focus on the door numbers, which allowed Courtney and Dodger to catch up.
“Is this it?” Courtney yelled. “Is this where your suite is?”
“Yeah,” Mark answered, gulping air while digging in his pocket for keys.
“Fast is our friend,” Courtney cautioned.
“Going as fast as I can,” Mark snapped back.
He stopped at a door and worked to get the key in the lock.
“Mark, stop!” came
a screaming voice from behind them. Andy Mitchell appeared at the far end of the passageway.
“Gotta hurry, chum,” Dodger implored.
Mark fumbled with the key.
“I’m too f-freaking nervous!” Mark shouted. “There!”
He twisted the key and threw the door open. All three jumped inside. Dodger closed the door behind them and locked it. Mark dove for the small wooden dresser and yanked the top drawer open, digging through socks.
Dodger turned around and whistled. “Wow, nice digs.” He plopped himself down on a couch and put his arms behind his head. “Might as well enjoy it, seeing as we’ll be spending the rest of the trip in irons.”
Courtney stood behind Mark, watching nervously. “Tell me it’s still there,” she begged.
“Got it!” Mark announced.
He held up the innocuous little device that was about to change history. Courtney remembered it all too well. To her it looked like a small ball of Silly Putty. Inside was a complex skeleton that was controlled by an advanced computer of Mark’s design that changed shape in response to voice commands. The plastic skin Saint Dane had stolen from Third Earth. The computer technology was all Mark’s. He called it “Forge.” It was the brainchild of the Dimond Alpha Digital Organization. It was a little ball of clay. It was the grandfather of the dados.
“Kill it,” Courtney commanded.
Mark held his invention up and stared at it like a loving parent. Dodger jumped up and put his ear to the door.
“They’re coming,” he said calmly. “Now would be good.”
“I’m sorry, Courtney,” Mark said softly. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”
“We’ll have all the time in Halla to talk about it later. Do it!”
The anguish on Mark’s face was obvious. He dropped the high-tech ball onto the deck, closed his eyes, and stamped his foot down. Courtney heard the satisfying crack and crumble, as Forge was crushed into history. At the exact instant Mark’s foot destroyed Forge…
Courtney’s ring came to life. She held it up for the others to see.
“Does this mean things have changed back?” Mark asked.
“I think we’re about to find out,” Courtney answered.
She took the ring off and placed it on the deck.
Dodger kept his ear to the door. “I don’t hear them coming anymore. Do you think they know?”
“I guarantee they know,” Courtney replied.
Mark twisted his foot into the carpet, making sure every last bit was pulverized. He scooped up the remains and tossed them out the porthole. Forge was no more.
The ring grew as light flashed through the room. Dodger joined the other two and watched the show. Moments later the ring returned to normal. Next to it was a rolled parchment.
“That didn’t take long,” Courtney said nervously.
“Time flies when you’re flying through time,” Dodger said.
Courtney picked up the pages and clutched them to her chest. “I guess we’ll read this in the brig. I’m proud of you, Mark.”
She leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek. Mark stared at the floor.
“You did the right thing, chum,” Dodger said. “Sorry for, you know, nearly shooting you before. I didn’t want to.”
Mark didn’t react. He kept staring at the floor.
“Are you okay?” Courtney asked.
“I don’t know,” Mark answered. “I won’t know until I find out if my parents are still alive.”
JOURNAL #32
IBARA
This is my last journal.
I know I’ve written words like that before, but it was always out of fear that something might prevent me from writing. That’s not the case here. Nothing is going to happen to me. Not anymore. I made sure of that. As I write this journal, I feel safe for the first time since I left home to become a Traveler. It wasn’t easy getting to this place. In fact, it was a nightmare. But it’s over now. Sort of. I’m going to have to relive it in these pages. Part of me wants to skip writing it all down, because it’s too painful. That wouldn’t be fair. Not to you, Courtney. Not to the other Travelers. Not to Uncle Press. I have to finish what I started, just as I did here on Ibara. After looking back on all that’s happened since I wrote my last journal, there is one thing I can say with absolute certainty. The battle for Halla is over. How that happened will be related to you here, in my final journal. I hope I can find the right words to paint the picture as it happened. As I saw it. As it was meant to be.
When we returned to the island of Ibara with the tak, we dressed Alder in local clothes and hurried out of the newly dug tunnel, headed for Tribunal Mountain. Not a single quig-bee bothered us. The poison must have killed them all. When we reached the village, the people were milling around nervously. Many cried. Others consoled them. There was an air of foreboding.
“It’s like we never left,” Siry said to me in wonder.
“I told you. The flume puts us where we need to be, when we need to be there. It looks like the Flighters attacked the pilgrims only a few hours ago.”
“Amazing,” Siry whispered in awe.
I didn’t think it was amazing at all. The amazing thing was that I didn’t question it. As we hurried through the village, I saw that Alder was taking it all in. Analyzing our chances. He didn’t have anything good to say.
“Where is the army?” he asked.
“There is no army” was my sober answer.
“Then who will fight the dados?”
“You’re looking at them,” I answered.
“These people are not prepared for war,” he declared. “They are not trained. How do you plan to fight off an army of machines with fishermen?”
“Now you see why we need the tak” was my answer.
As we got closer to the mountain, I saw that Genj had done what I’d asked. A crowd had formed at the mountain’s base. The security force was rounding up every person in the village who was willing and able to fight. Seeing this crowd of frightened villagers made me realize just how right Alder was. These people had no chance of defending their island.
The tribunal was waiting for us in their cavern room. Telleo was there too. The security guys waved us right in. Man, things had changed. We were no longer outlaws.
“This is Alder,” I announced. “He is a warrior. He can help us.”
When Genj saw us, he frowned. “You went for help and returned with a single man?”
Genj looked skeptical. So did Moman and Drea. Telleo didn’t look so thrilled either. That was okay. They didn’t know Alder.
“There’s no way to know how long we have,” I said. “We need to form our defense now.”
“I don’t understand,” Moman said. “The Flighters have already attacked. The pilgrim ships are destroyed. Why would they attack again?”
“It’s not the Flighters we have to worry about,” I explained. “There is an army gathered on Rubic City that is going to invade Ibara. They are worse than Flighters. They’re machines.”
Genj and the others stared at me as if I were from Neptune. Or wherever it was crazy people came from on Veelox.
“I’ve seen it,” Siry added. “They’re going to come here on small ships. Thousands of them.”
Genj asked, “And who is this person who controls the army? The man who killed Remudi?”
“He’s the leader of the Flighters,” I answered. It was only a small lie. He was leading the Flighters. Of course, he had bigger plans than that, but I didn’t want to go there just then. Or ever. The tribunal exchanged looks. They still needed convincing.
“Look,” I said sharply. “Either let us help you, or everything you’ve worked for, everything your ancestors worked to build, everything Aja Killian envisioned for Ibara is going to be destroyed. The choice is yours.”
That stung them.
“I believe Pendragon,” Telleo said. “The Flighters have destroyed our future. Why do we doubt they’ll stop there?”
“We aren’
t warriors,” Genj declared.
“I know,” I said. “We’ve got to be smart…and lucky.”
It was time to prepare for the defense of Ibara. My idea of bringing tak was to use it as a weapon against the dados. My thoughts didn’t go much beyond that. Having Alder around suddenly seemed like a brilliant idea. He knew tactics. He was part of an army. Okay, it was an army of knights, but it was still an army. We spread out the maps of Ibara that Aja had given me on the tribunal’s table and huddled around.
“Where did you get these?” Genj asked in surprise.
“Rubic City” was my simple answer. I didn’t mention that it was Rubic City a few hundred years before, and that they were handed to me by Aja Killian. That would have made his brain melt.
Scanning the map, I immediately recognized the large bay where Rayne was constructed. Alder leaned in close, surveying the details of the island.
“There is only one place on the island where a large invasion can land,” Alder concluded. “Here in the bay.”
“That’s why Rayne was built here,” Genj explained. “It is the only workable port. The rest of the island is ringed by rocky cliffs and treacherous beaches.”
“Then we know where to put our defenses,” Alder said. He pointed to several red squares that were positioned in the water just outside the bay. “And what are these?”
Moman answered, “They are the guns the military installed generations ago. They are positioned to defend the entrance to the bay.”
Alder looked to me. He wasn’t familiar with guns.
“They fire automatically?” I asked.
“No,” Genj answered. “They are controlled and maintained by our security force from here in the mountain.”
“We’ll need to see how they work,” I said.
Genj shook his head. He didn’t like something. “This is difficult for us. From the time Ibara was settled, the tribunals have kept the military workings of this island a secret from the population. The guns have rarely been used, and then only at night for training.”
“Genj,” I said, trying to sound patient. “Do you seriously believe, after what happened to the pilgrims, that there is a single person left in Rayne who doesn’t know about those guns?”