Redeemed (21 page)

“And why won't you just
help
us instead of playing all these games?” Katherine asked. Her voice had that tone it always got right before she started crying. “Why do you have to be so mean?”

“You said you wanted to fix time, not ruin things all over again,” Jonah agreed. “Just give us our parents back and let us get in touch with the time agency again and—”

“The two of you have become so tiresome,” Second complained. He shook his head. “You know what? I find myself not wanting to listen to your whining anymore. Adios!”

“Don't—” Jonah and Katherine both cried. And Jordan couldn't tell if they were going to say,
Don't kill us!
or
Don't leave us here!
or
Don't be such a jerk!
Before either of them could say another word, both of them vanished.

And Jordan was left alone with Second.

Did Second keep me here because I wasn't talking?
Jordan wondered.
Just because I was too scared to say or do anything?

He felt even more frozen now.

Second chuckled. “Oh, don't look so terrified,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I didn't
hurt
them. I just sent them to a time hollow. And it was even a different time hollow from that reeking baby, so there could be no charges of cruel and unusual punishment.”

Would stinky babies keep stinking in a time hollow?
Jordan wondered nonsensically. Why was his brain working so badly?

Was it because he was alone with a psychopath?

“Did you send Katherine and Jonah to be with Mom and Dad?” Jordan asked, his voice coming out in a squeak.

Second laughed again.

“The fate of all time hangs in the balance, and
that's
what you ask about?” he said. “Are you jealous? Or just worried that everything will end for you, and Jonah will get to keep the family you thought was yours?”

“I—” Jordan began.

He couldn't defend himself. He was afraid of losing his family. He was afraid of never seeing Mom, Dad, or Katherine again. And somehow it would be even worse if Jonah got to keep what Jordan had lost.

“Jonah and Katherine aren't with your parents,” Second said.

“Then send me to be with Mom and Dad,” Jordan whimpered, as pathetic as a little kid crying,
I want my mommy. I want my daddy.

“Ennh,” Second said, making the same kind of
Wrong answer!
buzzer noise he'd used before on Jonah. “Try again.”

Should Jordan be encouraged that Second seemed to be trying to give Jordan a choice now, too?

“Then . . . send me to be with Katherine and Jonah,” Jordan said.

Katherine and Jonah at least had a lot more experience than Jordan did with all this time-travel craziness.

But Second made the “ennh” noise again.

“Think,” he said. “Jonah and Katherine are in time-out. Your parents are clueless. Why would you ask to be put
out of commission as well? Why would you want to be powerless?”

Aren't I powerless now?
Jordan wanted to protest.
I'm a kid. I'm from the twenty-first century and I don't even understand the computers in this room. I'm standing beside a man who can turn people back into babies—and he might do that to me if I annoy him.

“Well?” Second said.

Powerless,
Jordan thought.
Clueless.

But Second seemed to be offering Jordan some sort of power, some sort of control over what happened next. Was he offering Jordan a clue or two as well?

“Send me . . . ,” Jordan began. “Send me . . . someplace I can make a difference.”

“Bingo,” Second said.

In the next instant Second disappeared, and Jordan was sailing through time. When he landed again, he blinked furiously, trying to figure out where he was.

Blank, bland walls . . . ,
he thought dizzily.
Nondescript floor . . . Is this another time hollow?

He looked around for the baby version of Mr. Rathbone or—though he didn't think it was likely—Katherine or Jonah or Mom or Dad or just about anybody he'd ever known in his life. But the room around him was empty.

Yeah, right, I can make a difference here,
Jordan thought bitterly.

Then there was a thud behind him.

Jordan turned, squinting, trying to get his eyes to focus.

Messy blond hair . . . torn shirt . . .

It was Second again. But it wasn't the adult Second lying on the floor before him.

It was the teenage Second who'd stolen the Elucidator from Jonah.

“You?” Jordan cried.

The teenage Second blinked up at Jordan.

“You left after me but got here first?” the boy asked. “Is that proof—or evidence anyway—that time travel really is possible? Like the note said?”

Was the teenage Second delirious or just suffering from timesickness?

Or am I just too stupid to understand what he's talking about?
Jordan wondered.

The teenage Second squeezed his right hand tightly shut and pressed it into his armpit, as if he was trying to hide something from Jordan.

“I'm not giving it back,” he snarled. “The note said I deserved to have it.”

Jordan realized Second was talking about the Elucidator he'd stolen from Jonah.

What if I lunge for it and snatch it back before this kid knows what I'm doing?
Jordan wondered.

But the teenage Second was already thinking about Jordan grabbing the Elucidator. And Jordan wasn't even particularly good at snatching away a basketball from an opponent out on the basketball court, let alone something the size of a watch battery that another kid was clutching tightly and hiding out of Jordan's sight. Right now Jordan couldn't even tell if the Elucidator looked totally futuristic and tiny or older and bigger.

And if Jordan tried to steal the Elucidator back but failed, what was there to stop the teenage Second from simply ordering it to take him someplace else? That would leave Jordan alone and useless again in the empty time hollow.

“I'm not here to steal that back from you,” Jordan said cautiously. He was mostly just trying to get the other kid to stop staring at him so suspiciously.

The teenage Second narrowed his eyes even more.

“You can't steal it ‘back,' ” he said. “Because I didn't steal it in the first place. The note said three kids would deliver something to me when I was in need, and it would be rightfully mine. And the note said it would be two boys who looked exactly alike, and a girl with them—and that's what you were, right? Thanks a lot for waiting so long—I've been ‘in need' my whole life!”

He said the last part with such a bitter tone that Jordan took a step back.

Jordan really did not have a thief's instincts.

“I—” Jordan began. Then he shifted tactics. “Who did this note come from? When did you get it?”

A certain craftiness slid over the teenage Second's expression.

“What's it to you?” he snarled, then pressed his lips together to make it clear he wouldn't give a serious answer.

Was it Mr. Rathbone?
Jordan wondered.
No—he wouldn't want Second wandering around on his own, as a teenager. Mr. Rathbone just wants babies he can sell. And control.

In his mind Jordan saw the adult Second holding the baby Mr. Rathbone—the CEO rendered powerless in the blink of an eye. Jordan held back a shiver. What if the teenage Second knew how to do that to Jordan?

“Time travel can be a little . . . confusing,” Jordan said, pronouncing each word carefully, like someone inching forward along a dangerous cliff. “I just want to make sure that I'm doing things right. That I understand who I'm helping.”

The teenage Second fixed him with a dead stare.

“I don't think it's confusing,” he said. “If
you
could reach back in time and rescue yourself from being trapped, wouldn't you do it?”

Did Second mean that his adult self had sent him a note telling him to steal the Elucidator?

Jordan knew almost nothing about time travel, but he kind of thought the time agency would object to something like that. He started to say,
Um, aren't you worried about messing up time?

But just then the teenage Second twitched, and a panicked look came over his face.

“I—I can't get up,” he gasped. He hit his hand against his jeans. “I can't feel my legs!”

He lifted his right hand toward his mouth, and Jordan saw a glint of silver—the edge of the Elucidator.

“Fix my legs!” the teenage Second demanded, shouting into the Elucidator. “Right now!”

He twitched again, but only the top half of his body moved.

“This has to work!” he screamed. “Fix! My! Legs!”

Nothing changed.

“Um, that was kind of a limited Elucidator,” Jordan said, because it was awful watching the other boy's anguish.

“The note told me how to unlock it and get it to do anything I want,” teenage Second said, barely looking at Jordan. He was struggling to lift his neck enough to gaze down at his unmoving legs and feet.

“Aren't you afraid all that trying to move might hurt you worse?” Jordan asked. “Wouldn't it make more sense to . . .”

He stopped, because his brain skipped ahead to the
next thought. He'd been about to say,
Wouldn't it make more sense to have the Elucidator send you to some hospital in the future, where they know how to cure people like you who have fallen off cliffs? So you don't end up in a wheelchair this time around too?

But if the teenage Second got the Elucidator to take him to the future, that would leave Jordan alone in the time hollow again.

Powerless again.

The other boy's eyes widened, and Jordan guessed that he'd just figured out exactly what Jordan was about to say. The teenage Second put his right hand even closer to his mouth and hunched over, like he didn't want Jordan to hear what he was going to say into the Elucidator.

Jordan dived for the other boy and grabbed for his arm.

A split second later, everything in the time hollow vanished.

I did it!
Jordan wanted to scream.
I outsmarted Second and made him take me with him!

But there was already someone screaming a hundred times louder than Jordan could have. It was actually a little surprising that Jordan could hear his own thoughts.

“Shh,” Jordan said, which was crazy, of course, because there was no one to hear him except the teenage Second, and he was the one screaming at the top of his lungs.

“The pain!” Second screamed. “The pain!”

And then, even as Jordan clutched the other boy's arm, Second slumped over in what seemed to be a dead faint.

The darkness of time travel zoomed past them in utter silence.

Is he still alive?
Jordan wondered. He reached over and felt for Second's pulse at his neck—it was faint but definitely there.

He passed out from the pain,
Jordan realized. And yet the boy hadn't seemed to be in pain at all in the time hollow.
Oh, right, because people don't feel hunger or thirst or pain or anything like that in a time hollow. But coming out of it just shredded him.

Jordan reached over and eased the Elucidator out of Second's grasp.

“Now who's the genius?” Jordan said aloud, gloating.

The Elucidator gleamed at him as he held it up. Oh, wait, it was actually gleaming
words
at him:
YOU WOULD LIKE TO SEE A LIST OF ALL CERTIFIED GENIUSES SINCE THE BEGINNING OF TIME? YES OR NO?

“No, no, I don't need that,” Jordan said quickly. “I was just . . . thinking out loud.”

A REMINDER: I AM SET ON VOICE COMMANDS AND WILL FOLLOW YOUR ORDERS ACCORDINGLY
appeared above the Elucidator screen now.
PLEASE BE CLEAR IN YOUR INSTRUCTIONS.

“Right,” Jordan said.

Why couldn't he enjoy even one moment of gloating before somebody—or, well, in this case, some
thing
—was telling him off?

The emptiness around him seemed to zoom by at an even faster rate.

Um, maybe I don't have time for gloating anyway?
he thought.

He held an unlocked Elucidator in his hand, which, as
far as he knew, would be able to whisk him off to any time or place he wanted. He could go find Mom and Dad on his own; he could be the hero who rescued Katherine and Jonah.

But his other hand was holding on to the arm of a limp, unconscious teenager who had apparently broken his back and leg.

He's just going to turn into that nasty Second when he grows up!
Jordan's brain screamed at him.
Or he already did grow up into Second, or he will or he could or—whatever! He's not my problem!

But Jordan didn't let go of the teenage Second's arm. He could see in his mind the way his parents would look at him if he told them he'd abandoned some hurt, unconscious kid in the middle of nowhere—even if Jordan felt he had to do that to rescue them. The corners of his mother's mouth would sag, and his dad would avoid Jordan's eyes, and maybe they wouldn't actually say,
We're so disappointed in you; that's not how we raised you,
but he would feel it.

“But he tried to abandon me back at the time hollow,” Jordan protested aloud, as if he needed to defend himself.

TIME HOLLOW? DO YOU WISH TO RETURN TO THE TIME HOLLOW?
the Elucidator glowed up at him.

“No!” Jordan cried quickly, because what if the Elucidator turned them around and the teenage Second woke up again in the time hollow?