Redeemed (33 page)

“Is everything really going to be okay with time now?” Jordan asked. “Are we done with all our time travel and people being weird ages? Done with all the adventure?”

Done with people aging into dust in the blink of an eye?

He didn't say that one out loud.

JB paused. He seemed to be watching the snowflakes gently floating down. They swirled in a way that made Jordan think the wind patterns were very odd tonight.

“Everything's fine,” JB said, in a soothing voice that Jordan didn't quite trust. “Or . . . everything will be fine. With time travel, you know, verb tenses get a little confusing.”

Jordan tilted his head, trying to figure out what JB was really saying.

“But that Elucidator I destroyed . . .” he began.

“It can never be reassembled,” JB said. “By anyone. Ever. That electronic dust you left behind? There's not even a trace of it anywhere. We looked for it with every microscopic search technique we know. But it vanished completely.”

Maybe that was meant to reassure Jordan. But somehow it just spooked him.

“And all the other changes . . .” Jordan tried again.

JB nodded, seeming more confident now.

“We released the ripple of changes from everything you were involved with—and for that matter, everything Jonah did connected to the nineteen thirties,” he said. “Second tricked me before into thinking all of that had already been resolved. Now it really is. And everything's fine. You could say that between the two of you, you and
Jonah fixed everything in the end. You two . . . and Kevin.”

Jordan squinted at JB. He didn't want to talk about Kevin yet. Or Second.

“So now if I went to the future, everyone at Interchronological Rescue would know who I am,” Jordan said. Did he sound like he wanted to brag? “I mean, they'd know I'm Jordan Skidmore from the twenty-first century, not just some pitiful kid from the nineteen thirties.”

“Yes—if there still
were
an Interchronological Rescue,” JB said with a scornful snort. “We've shut it down completely. And time agents are combing through the records so we'll know how to prevent someone like Mr. Rathbone from doing what he did ever again. Some of the agents are a little upset that Mr. Rathbone is already dead, and they can't prosecute him and send him to time prison—he broke a lot of laws.”

Jordan didn't want to talk about Mr. Rathbone's death yet either.

“I thought he said nothing could be traced back to him,” Jordan said instead.

JB shook his head, the ghost of a grin on his face.

“A CEO can't treat his employees with contempt and still expect them to take the rap for all the CEO's crimes,” he said. “Especially when he's dead and can't punish them anymore. Interchronological Rescue employees are lining
up to give us incriminating information. And some of them were smart enough to keep very good records.”

“Deep Voice, Doreen, and Tattoo Face,” Jordan guessed, trying to match JB's grin. “Will I get to see any of them again? Will we even get to see
you
ever again?”

“I still have a few loose ends to tie up,” JB said. “That's why I'm here tonight.”

He stood up and brushed snow off his backside. The front part of his coat fell open while he was twisted around, and Jordan saw that JB hadn't gained a lot of weight. Instead, he had something tucked inside a large inner pouch of his coat.

No—someone.

“You brought baby Kevin with you to the party?” Jordan asked, stunned. “You still haven't turned him back to his right age?”

“What would his right age be?” JB asked. “Thirteen, the age he was when he stole the Elucidator from Jonah? Twenty-six, like he was when Gary and Hodge
gave
him an Elucidator? Thirty-nine, like when he created his ill-fated other dimension? Thirty-nine and a half, like when he rescued me and Mr. Rathbone murdered him for it?”

JB patted the baby's back. The baby kept its eyes closed. Jordan didn't know much about babies, but he guessed this one was soundly asleep.

“Also, we've learned there are . . . complications,” JB said. “Some I need to talk to you about.”

“Me?” Jordan repeated. “Not Jonah or Katherine? Or Mom and Dad?”

“You're first,” JB said. “Because you were the only one there when Kevin gave his command to the Elucidator. The command that re-aged your parents.”

“I didn't hear what he said,” Jordan said. “So that information is gone. That's
why
I destroyed the dangerous Elucidator. I told you.”

His voice came out strong and deep and defiant, and he was kind of proud of that.

JB looked down at the sleeping baby sheltered from the cold wind by the heavy winter coat.

“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 that 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.”