Redeemed (29 page)

“I didn't tell it anything extra! I swear!” Kevin screamed back as they both spun dizzily through time.

Somehow Jordan believed him.

“Then where's it taking us?” Jordan screamed. “And why? Elucidator, take us back to the time hollow! Or, no—take us to be with Mom and Dad, so we can see if they're the right ages again!”

ALL FURTHER COMMANDS FROM THE TWO OF YOU ARE SHUT OUT
the Elucidator informed him.
SORRY.

“What?” Jordan screamed. “What's it talking about? Kevin, what's going on?”

Kevin shook his head.

“I . . . feel funny,” he said.

“You don't look so good either,” Jordan snapped.

Kevin had prickles of sweat along his hairline. The only light nearby came from the glow of the Elucidator, but even that was enough to show that the color had drained from Kevin's face.

Kevin held his hand in front of his face and stared like he'd never seen it before.

“Oh,” he said. “I see. I see how this is working. It's even faster than I thought.”

“What?” Jordan demanded. “What do you see? What's faster than you thought?”

Kevin turned his head to peer directly at Jordan.

“I don't think there's time to tell you,” Kevin said. “You'll figure it out if you think hard enough. And you need to think that hard. But you should know this. I really did try to help your parents. I did what I could. Everything is up to you now. Remember your promise.”

“
Why
is everything up to me now?” Jordan asked. “You're right here with me—wherever we're going, we'll be there together. Right? We can work as a team now, can't we?”

Kevin smiled sadly.

“Keep telling yourself that,” he said.

But something had happened to his voice. It had lost its defensive huskiness—lost its low register, too. By the word “that,” Kevin's voice came out sounding as sweet and childlike as an elementary school kid's.

And . . . was Kevin actually
smaller
than he'd been a moment ago?

Jordan reached out and grabbed Kevin's arm. Jordan's fingers circled the bicep easily, with room to spare.

Was his arm so spindly before?
Jordan wondered.

Kevin's hospital gown seemed much too large all of a sudden. The top part of it started sliding off one shoulder, and he had to tug it back up. Then he had to clutch the bottom part of it to keep it from doubling over and getting tangled in his legs.

How was there suddenly so much extra cloth in the gown? Hadn't it ended right at Kevin's ankles before? Right at the top of his boots?

One of Kevin's boots slid off and fell into the darkness. Then the other one did too.

“What's happening to you?” Jordan demanded.

“Can't you tell?” Kevin asked with a sad smile that revealed huge gaps where teeth were missing.

Kevin had all his teeth a minute ago,
Jordan thought.
Didn't he?

Kevin slipped his hand into Jordan's, and it felt so small and fragile and bony that Jordan worried that it might break.

“I'm scared,” Kevin said. “What if we see the bogeyman?”

Kevin sounded like a kindergartner. Jordan lifted the Elucidator so its dim light shone more directly on Kevin's face: Kevin looked like a kindergartner too.

“You're getting younger,” Jordan gasped. “You're turning into a little kid.”

Little Kevin scowled at him in a way that made Jordan think that Kevin/Sam Chase/Second Chance had certain expressions that fit on his face no matter what age he was.

“You're stupid,” little Kevin said. “I'm not going to stop there. Watch.”

He was practically lisping. A moment later, he opened his mouth, and maybe he wasn't even capable of speaking anymore at all.

But Jordan couldn't listen to anything Kevin said anyway. Just then they hit the phase of time travel where everything sped up, and Jordan felt like his body was being torn down to its smallest particles. To the extent that Jordan's brain could function at all, he just kept thinking,
Hold . . . on to . . . Kevin's . . . hand . . .. You . . . promised . . . promised . . . like . . . family . . .

And then everything stopped. Jordan's senses began to wake up again.

What am I holding?
His brain sputtered.
Holding . . . Am I still holding on?

His brain was so pathetic. He couldn't quite remember who or what he was supposed to be holding. But he kept trying to remember, kept trying to double-check, even though his eyes were still too blurry to see anything, and the nerve endings of his fingertips were still too numb to feel.

He fought harder against the timesickness than he ever had, trying to come out of it as soon as possible.

Right hand?
He thought.
Right hand holding . . .

It was something small and smooth. The Elucidator?

Okay, I'll think about that later. If it won't take commands from me or Kevin, it's not going to do me much good. Left hand?

His left hand seemed to be empty, the fingers extended. But there was something soft pressed against his left wrist and the inside of his left elbow. No—he was cradling something.

Jordan summoned the energy to lift his head and look.

He was cradling a baby wrapped in an oversize hospital gown against his left arm.

Jordan had managed to hold on to Kevin. But Kevin had turned all the way back into a baby.

“So what do you think you're going to do now?” a voice asked above him.

Jordan blinked frantically, trying to get his eyes to see beyond the baby cradled in his arms.

“Who's there?” Jordan asked.

Someone chuckled just outside his range of vision. All he could see was a blur.

“You should be able to recognize me by now,” the voice said. Whoever it was made a
tsk-tsk
noise. “It appears you're prone to lengthy spells of timesickness. So you're not a very good time traveler.”

The voice was familiar. Jordan had the feeling he would have recognized it if it hadn't seemed to be coming from a million miles away.

The blurry shape came closer. A face loomed above him.

“Mr. Rathbone?” Jordan cried.

The face swung in and out of focus. The chuckle came again.

“Shouldn't that be ‘Mr. Rathbone, I presume'?” the voice asked. “Oh, well, never mind. I'm sure you don't get the reference.”

“Someone looking for a lost explorer in Africa a long time ago . . . ,” Jordan mumbled. “ ‘Dr. Livingston, I presume . . .' My mom likes talking about stuff like that in history. . . .” He didn't want to talk about his mom in front of Mr. Rathbone. “But I don't understand. Why are you here? I thought Second . . .”

Maybe it wasn't too smart to talk about what he'd seen Second do to Mr. Rathbone. Maybe that hadn't happened yet.

Mr. Rathbone chuckled once more. The man seemed much happier than he'd been the last time Jordan had encountered him.

Jordan didn't like that.

“You thought Second . . . what? Completed his betrayal of Interchronological Rescue by turning me back into a baby?” Mr. Rathbone asked. “And then by allowing you and your puerile siblings to decide where my baby self should be stowed?”

His chuckle turned into a full-on laugh. It was a horrible sound, triumphant and gloating.

“You actually fell for that?” Mr. Rathbone asked. “Even after you found out that Second was a hologram in the time hollow, you never once thought,
Could he have been a hologram the last time I saw him too?
”

“He . . . he touched things,” Jordan said. “He carried . . .”

“A hologram version of me as a baby?” Mr. Rathbone said scornfully. “A hologram man can carry a hologram baby. Neither has any substance.”

Jordan wanted to keep protesting:
But Second broke your golf club! He pressed buttons on the wall of the time hollow! He made my family vanish! He said he put a button in a cubicle for me to push!

But all of those could have been more illusions. Illusions or tricks or lies—or things that Mr. Rathbone himself had arranged.

Maybe Second had been a hologram every single time Jordan had seen him. It wasn't like
any
conversation with the man had ever seemed normal.

Mr. Rathbone was still talking, using his words like a club to beat up Jordan even more.

“You actually chose to believe that Second defeated me?” Mr. Rathbone ranted. “Me—the CEO of Interchronological Rescue? When, actually, I had a plan that would get me everything I ever wanted?”

Jordan's vision seemed to be totally back now. He could see every line of the gloating expression on Mr. Rathbone's
face. Jordan sat up woozily and darted his eyes around, trying to look past Mr. Rathbone.

Big desk, long walls . . .

It appeared that Jordan and baby Kevin had landed back in Mr. Rathbone's office at the Interchronological Rescue headquarters.

Is this where Kevin told the Elucidator to take us?
Jordan wondered.
And did he
want
to be a baby again?

That seemed ridiculous. And Jordan had done his best to shut out Kevin from commanding the Elucidator to do anything but help Jordan's parents.

But this Elucidator came from Mr. Rathbone from the very start,
Jordan remembered.
Did Mr. Rathbone have it programmed to ultimately turn Kevin back into a baby and bring us here?

Mr. Rathbone had probably also sent Kevin the message Kevin thought was from his older self. It was that message that had made Kevin grab the Elucidator from Jonah.

Jordan's brain hurt, trying to figure everything out. And he could hardly think past the bigger question looming in his mind:
Regardless of what Mr. Rathbone planned or didn't plan . . . how do I get out of here?

Mr. Rathbone watched Jordan's eyes dart about. It felt like he was watching Jordan's thoughts, too.

“Don't even think you could escape,” Mr. Rathbone said
with a snort. “Interchronological Rescue has a top-notch security system. All automated, of course. I control it all. I can see everything going on in the entire headquarters.”

“Really?” Jordan taunted, just because Mr. Rathbone was so annoying. “But there are parts of the headquarters away from the security cameras. You didn't know when Katherine, Jonah, and I landed in the lab that Gary and Hodge used.”

Scorn flickered in Mr. Rathbone's eye.

“Actually I did know about that,” Mr. Rathbone said. “I just didn't choose to let you know that I knew.”

Is he lying?
Jordan wondered.
Did he know anything about Deep Voice and Doreen and Tattoo Face helping us?

There was no way Jordan could ask without giving everything away.

“Perhaps my employees gave you a different impression?” Mr. Rathbone sneered. “Not that I think someone like
you
would ever be a CEO, but I'll give you a little hint. Sometimes it's helpful to let your worthless underlings think you're a little more ignorant than you really are. So you can see who might deceive you, given the chance. Or what they think is a chance.”

Okay, Mr. Rathbone knew all along what Deep Voice, Doreen and Tattoo Face were doing,
Jordan thought.
He knew about the camera Doreen put on him. He knew . . .

Mr. Rathbone gave a slow, evil smile.

“You're finally figuring it out, aren't you?” he asked. “I won. I won everything. Nobody can touch me now.”

Jordan struggled to hold baby Kevin up a little. The baby whimpered at the change.

“You won one more stinking baby from the past to sell to some rich family,” Jordan said. “So what? You're already rich. What does it matter if this baby makes you very, very rich? Who cares?”

Mr. Rathbone started shaking his head.

“You really aren't very bright, are you?” he asked. “You still don't know what you're talking about. I bet your brother and sister would have understood by now.”

“Why didn't you set up my brother or sister to be the stork delivering your baby, then?” Jordan asked. He tried to sound like he didn't care.

Mr. Rathbone laughed as if he was genuinely amused.

“Maybe I thought I needed someone ignorant and stupid like you,” he said. “So Second—or, should I say, Kevin?—wouldn't worry about anyone outsmarting him.”

Jordan could tell that Mr. Rathbone meant this conversation to hurt him. Probably he meant it to make Jordan's brain shut down in shame.

Maybe he doesn't know how many people have already called me ignorant and stupid so far today,
Jordan thought.
It's not like I'm not used to it.

He had been kind of ignorant and stupid both, that morning he'd walked down the stairs in his own house, back in the twenty-first century, the last time he'd thought of himself as someone absolutely ordinary, with one ordinary mom, one ordinary dad, and one ordinary sister.

With no brother at all, and no secret background involving time travel and life-or-death decisions.

But he'd seen a lot since then. He'd learned a lot.

And really, now I've seen and heard and learned everything Jonah or Katherine saw or heard or learned,
Jordan thought.
Because of watching everything in the time hollow, I've witnessed everything they did. No—I've witnessed more, because I had the extra time with Kevin. . . .

“Pay attention,” Mr. Rathbone snapped, and Jordan saw how much the man hated being ignored.

Mr. Rathbone shoved his face closer to Jordan's.

“I'll explain, because I don't want to waste any more time on you,” Mr. Rathbone said. “You brought me two payoffs. One was that Elucidator that contains the secret for re-aging adults. The secret to completely separating time from aging, as it were. And life from its consequences.”