Redeemed (11 page)

I wouldn't die of old age here,
Jordan realized, looking around at the tiny, blank space around him.
I'd starve, or
die of thirst, or . . . or maybe there isn't even enough air in here . . .

He had to gasp for breath, but maybe that was just because he was thinking about suffocating. He did know there wasn't any food around, and this was clearly not a time hollow, because he was getting really hungry. Hungry and thirsty, and he kind of needed to go to the bathroom, too. . . .

Katherine would make fun of me thinking about bathrooms at a time like this,
Jordan thought despairingly.

Was Katherine maybe stuck in a doorless cubicle of her own, thinking she was going to die? Was she going to die being furious with him, because it was his fault both of them were stuck?

She could be so annoying sometimes. But she was still his sister, and he really didn't want her to die hating him. He didn't want her to die at all.

And Mom, and Dad . . . It's pretty much my fault that they're stuck wherever they are too.

“I was trying to help,” he said aloud. “Really I was.”

But had he been? Or had he been trying to show up Jonah and Katherine?

Jordan didn't like the thoughts in his head. It was no fun sitting around thinking when every thought led back to something he'd done wrong.

Just to distract himself, he began running his hands slowly along the walls, trying to figure out how they
worked. Would he be able to feel any difference between the part of the wall that had seemed solid all along, and the section that Deep Voice had walked through?

All the walls felt exactly the same.

Jordan switched to feeling along the floor. Then he climbed onto the table and felt along the ceiling, looking for an exit there.

Nothing.

He went back to the walls again.

Deep Voice got through,
he told himself stubbornly.

Maybe the walls recognized Deep Voice's molecular structure, and they didn't recognize Jordan's. Maybe even walls were that individualized in the future.

Why make things so complicated?
Jordan wondered.

He sounded like his grandparents, who complained about their cell phones being confusing.

He sat down at the table. He hadn't run his hand over every inch of the table and chairs yet, so he did that, too.

Nothing, nothing, nothing . . .

He had his hand under the chair Deep Voice had sat in, when he felt a little ridge. It was probably just a rough spot in the wood—or plastic, or whatever the chair was made of. But, just in case, he flipped the chair over.

Words glowed up at him from the underside of the chair:
TO EXIT, PRESS HERE.

Jordan pressed.

Instantly three of the cubicle walls vanished, and he was staring out at the lab, which was much darker than it had been before. He couldn't even make out the two cubicles on the other side of the room where Jonah and Katherine had been taken.

Maybe I figured out how to get out before they did,
he thought.
And I can rescue them, and that will make up for getting them stuck in the cubicles in the first place.

Or maybe they'd figured out how to escape hours ago, and hadn't bothered coming to rescue him.

Jonah probably wouldn't care, but Katherine would have rescued me, if she could. Wouldn't she?

Jordan took a step forward, stepping into a spot where there'd been a wall only moments before. So now he
was
out. This wasn't just another illusion.

Jordan's step forward also enabled him to see a figure sitting in the darkness, back by the desk where Jordan, Katherine, and Jonah had hidden earlier in the day. Whoever it was wasn't enormous enough to be Deep Voice. Jordan didn't think it was Doreen or Tattoo Face, either.

“Katherine?” Jordan whispered hopefully. “Mom? Dad?”

“Guess again,” a voice called back.

It was Second.

“You—You—” Jordan sputtered. “You've just been playing tricks on us, haven't you?”

“Maybe,” Second admitted.

Jordan rushed toward him, his hands out. He hadn't quite decided yet if he was going to grab Second by the shoulders and shake him, or if he was going to go straight into punching mode.

It didn't matter. Jordan felt himself completely immobilized in running pose, his feet inches off the floor, his outstretched hands a full yard away from Second's shoulders and face.

“Now, now,” Second scolded him. “That hot temper of yours isn't going to help.”

“You're just manipulating me!” Jordan accused. “You've been manipulating all of us all along, haven't
you?” His mind started putting things together. “Were you manipulating the Elucidators, too? And Deep Voice didn't get out of that cubicle by pressing a button on his chair, did he?”

“Deep Voice?” Second asked blankly. Then he chuckled. “Oh, you mean Interchronological Rescue employee Markiel Katun? ‘Deep Voice' really isn't a bad name for him. Though you also could have gone with ‘Bigfoot' or ‘Mount Human' or—”

“Stop joking around!” Jordan demanded. “Tell me the truth! Was all this some big setup? Do those people who captured us even work with Gary and Hodge, or was that a lie too?”

“Now you're thinking,” Second congratulated him.

Jordan felt himself land on his feet again. He moved his arms forward and back, experimentally. He wasn't frozen anymore. But he figured it could happen again if he took another step toward Second.

He stayed where he was.

“Ah, and now you're showing some self-restraint. Good for you!” Second continued.

Jordan still felt like punching him. He went back to asking questions instead.

“Well? What's really going on? What did you do with Mom and Dad? What are you trying to manipulate Jonah
and Katherine and me into doing? Why are you being so mean?”

Second held up his hand.

“I assure you, there is a point to everything I'm doing,” he said. “I worry about you, little Jordan.”

Jordan thought about telling him that absolutely no thirteen-year-old in the universe liked being called “little.” But he held himself back.

“You see,” Second went on, “you're so
callow
. Oh dear, have I maybe used a word that you don't even know?”

Of course Jordan was not going to admit that he'd never heard of the word “callow.”

“That means inexperienced,” Second said. “Immature. Naturally, you are just thirteen, but you've also led such a sheltered life. Those parents of yours—”

“Don't you say anything bad about my parents!” Jordan muttered.

“Ah, yes, loyalty—what a good trait!” Second cooed. “I'm just saying that they've made the choice that many of their time and place do: In their attempts to raise you wisely and well, they've perhaps kept you too ignorant of what we might call the seamier side of human existence.”

Jordan had no desire to discuss how his parents had raised him.

“That has nothing to do with time travel or your lies or anything that matters right now!” he complained.

If he slid forward so gradually that Second didn't notice, could he perhaps grab a real, working Elucidator from Second and make Second freeze and then force the man to tell Jordan where his parents were and how Jordan could rescue them?

No—that would require Jordan actually being able to recognize a real, working Elucidator.

“Tell me the truth!” Jordan demanded.

Second sighed. “This is not all an elaborate setup,” he said. “Just . . . partially. I did place that button in your cubicle. For your benefit, I might add. But Markiel Katun, Doreen Smith, and Liam Gonzalez really do work for Interchronological Rescue, the, shall we say, erstwhile employer of your unreasonably detested Gary and Hodge. I mean, contemptible as they are, those two really did save you and your twin from starving to death during the depths of the Great Depression—”

“Stop trying to change the subject!” Jordan said. “I don't care about ancient history—just tell me about what affects now.”

“Ah, but is any history really all that ancient?” Second asked. “Doesn't every moment from the past affect the present?”

This man was more annoying than any history teacher Jordan had ever had.

“I just want my parents back,” Jordan said. “I just want my family back, and my regular life. . . . And okay, if there's some danger that all of time is going to end, I'd like to help stop it, if I can. . . .”

“Naiveté,” Second said. “Such a combination of blessing and curse.”

Did this man do anything but speak in riddles? And mess with people's minds?

Second smiled, almost as if he knew what Jordan was thinking.

“Lucky for you,” Second said, “I'm going to let you have one other family member help you achieve the tasks ahead of you. Which would you choose?”

“Dad,” Jordan said instantly. Then he reconsidered. “Though, I guess if it's their kid versions, maybe it should be Mom. Or really, even Katherine would be all right.”

He wasn't going to admit that Katherine might be more useful than either of his parents right now.

“Ennnhhh,” Second said, making a sound like a buzzer signaling a mistake. “You're missing the obvious choice. Look over there.”

Second pointed across the room, toward the corner cubicle farthest from Jordan. The walls of the cubicle
began to glow slightly. Then they became see-through. Then, rapidly, they went dark and disappeared, but not before Jordan had seen who was sitting calmly inside that cubicle. It was the person Second had chosen to work with Jordan.

Jonah.

“He's not part of my family!” Jordan protested.

“Think again,” Second said, narrowing his eyes disapprovingly. “And be careful. You wouldn't want to hurt his feelings.”

Jordan squinted, catching just enough movement from the other side of the room to figure out that Jonah was edging along the main wall of the lab, inching toward the only cubicle left—the one that probably still held Katherine inside.

“Let Katherine help too,” Jordan argued. “It's not fair to leave her stuck in that awful cubicle while Jonah and I are out free.”

“Ah, but who is that situation unfair to?” Second asked. “Katherine, or you and Jonah? Who would be advantaged and who would be disadvantaged?”

Was talking to Second always this infuriating?

“You know what I mean,” Jordan mumbled. Then he felt his stomach twist, as if it had caught on faster than his brain had. “Er . . . do you mean that Katherine's safer in that cubicle than she would be with Jonah and me? Or than Jonah and I are going to be?”

Second shrugged. “I'll give you this hint,” he said. “There
is
a way for you and Jonah to free her. And to rescue your mom and dad. But you and Jonah are going to have to figure it out.”

He took a step back and raised his arm melodramatically, and the gesture seemed familiar.

Because—wasn't that what Second did right before he disappeared from the time hollow?
Jordan wondered.

This time Second didn't disappear immediately.

“Oh, wait,” he said. “Just for fun, let's make this a little more challenging. Look.”

He pointed behind Jordan.

Jordan wasn't going to fall for that trick.

“Oh, no, you don't,” he said, starting to step forward, toward Second.

But Second was already gone. Jordan swiped his hands uselessly through the air anyway, touching nothing. But then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw something glowing behind him. He whirled around, and the glow grew.

A long line of flames stretched across the floor, crackling up toward the ceiling and cutting Jordan off completely from Katherine's cubicle, from Jonah—and from the door.

For a moment, Jordan could do nothing but stare. How could those flames have appeared out of nowhere, so quickly? How had there been time for someone to dump a line of gasoline across the floor and set it on fire? And then for that fire to reach all the way to the ceiling . . .

Jordan realized Jonah was screaming at him. “Jordan! Get the Elucidators!”

Jordan whipped his head back and forth, looking toward the table where Deep Voice had left the plastic card and the cell phone. That table was on Jordan's side of the flames.

It figured—Jonah got the door on his side, and Jordan got the worthless junk.

“Those don't work!” Jordan yelled back at Jonah.

“I know!” Jonah yelled back. “But sometimes they work—please, we have to try—”

Jordan ran for the table. As soon as he had his hands around the phone and the plastic card, he heard Jonah yell over the crackling flames, “Now say, ‘Get all three of us out of here! Take us someplace safe!' ”

“Why don't I just say, ‘Put out the fire'?” Jordan screamed back. “Put out the fire!”

Instantly a line of sprinklers opened in the ceiling, right above the flames. Water poured down onto the flames, and in seconds nothing remained of them but a little trail of leftover smoke.

“Okay, that worked too,” Jonah admitted, grinning.

It was the first time Jonah had actually worn a pleasant expression looking toward Jordan.

“How did you know the Elucidators would still work?” Jordan asked. “The guy who interrogated me said they were just fakes or totally broken, or something like that.”

“I had this theory, and then I just came out and asked the guy who interrogated me, and he said . . .” Jonah's voice trailed off. His gaze shifted away from Jordan, toward something just past Jordan's right shoulder. Jonah's eyes got big.

“Jordan,” he whispered. “Step closer to me. Stay in the shadows. No—tell the Elucidators to make us invisible. . . .”