Redeemed (27 page)

“Exactly,” Second said. “And so my world ended. And kept ending every time I restarted it. Just like your world—the real world—would end if I made your parents the right age again.”

Jordan shoved back a lock of hair that had fallen into his eyes. He couldn't believe Second was giving up.

“Oh, come on—this is
easy
,” he said. “You were able to change JB back to the right age without the secret
destroying the whole world, right? All you have to do is change my parents and Angela and the other messed-up adults. And then you don't ever change any other adult's age. And you don't share your secret with anyone.”

Second's expression didn't change. No, wait—it did. He looked sadder than ever.

“It's already too late for that,” he said.

“What?” Jordan asked. “No, it's not! What were you just telling me? The way you can mess around with time and adults' ages—doesn't that mean it's never too late for anything? Anything can change anytime?”

Second lowered his head.

“Certain things are final,” he said. “You should have watched every single second of what happened after I made JB the right age again. You need to know that I couldn't even manage to keep that secret.”

“What are you talking about?” Jordan demanded. “Who found out? The time agency?”

“No,” Second said. “The person who killed me.”

“
Killed
you?” Jordan repeated numbly. “But . . . you're still alive! You're sitting right in front of me! Or do you mean . . . someone is
going
to kill you? Have you seen your own future? If it hasn't happened yet, you can still stop it!”

Second shook his head mournfully.

“Jordan, you are entirely too trusting,” he said. He
reached out as if he intended to grab Jordan's hand. Jordan jerked back, but he was already trapped between Second and the wall. He decided to shove Second away instead.

Or he tried to. His hands kept going forward. They slid right through Second's cloak. Then they slid right through the middle of Second's body.

“What the—?” Jordan gasped, pulling his hands back and cowering against the wall.

Second gave him the saddest smile of all.

“See?” Second said. “Now you know the truth. I'm not actually alive. I'm just a hologram of the person who used to be Second Chance.”

Even with the wall behind him, Jordan was so shocked he fell over.

For a moment, he just lay there, too stunned to sit back up.

“Holograms can't talk,” he said. “I mean, not to answer questions and . . . have a conversation.”

“Don't you see how my responses could be pre-programmed, based on certain key words?” Second—or the hologram of Second—asked. “Words like, ‘answer questions'?”

Jordan winced. Was this why the whole conversation had felt so odd?

“Holograms are always kind of . . . see-through,” he muttered. “You can always
tell
.”

“With holograms in
your
time—the twenty-first
century—you could always tell they weren't real,” Second corrected him. “Just like you can always tell what's not real with twenty-first-century virtual-reality role-playing games. Holography and VR are still in their infancies in your time period. But—”

“But they're going to improve,” Jordan moaned. “People are going to perfect those things, so people like you can always fool time primitives like me.”

“Why do you automatically assume
I
did this?” Second asked. “How could I have set up my own hologram after I'm dead? And why are you so sure it's just a trick?”

“Because you fooled me,” Jordan said. He managed to prop himself up on his elbows. “So is it a trick, too, what you said about knowing how to help my parents?”

“A hologram of a dead man can't reveal information he never revealed in real life,” Second said, shrugging. “But remember, I did start figuring everything out when I was thirteen. When I was climbing a wall.”

“You mean, when Katherine and Jonah and I saw you fall,” Jordan said. “When you stole our Elucidator. You're saying the teenage version of you knows your secrets! The version that's still alive!”

“Yes, he knows,” Second said. “Even though he himself may not know he knows.”

Maybe it was just Jordan's imagination, but now that
he understood it was just a hologram in front of him, the man seemed to be fading slightly around the edges.

What were you supposed to do, talking to a hologram of a dead man, when a younger version of that man was still alive? Should you offer condolences?

Jordan decided that really wasn't necessary.

“So you're saying I can just go ask the younger version of you to help,” Jordan said. “And, tell him to keep his secret after that. And . . . maybe avoid whoever killed you.”

“I don't think you'll actually have to . . . go anywhere for that,” Second said, his voice going all vague and wispy. “Once I leave, the Elucidator is set up to . . .”

It wasn't Jordan's imagination that the hologram was fading away. Jordan blinked, and when he opened his eyes again, he could definitely see through Second. He could see every chink in the wall behind Second.

“Wait!” Jordan cried. “You never told me who killed you! You never told me who to watch out for! You never told me—”

Second was gone.

“Told you what?” a voice said behind Jordan.

Jordan whirled around. Kevin was standing right behind him, in the same fitted hospital gown and boots he'd been wearing the last time Jordan had seen him.

Jordan laughed in relief.

“
That's
why I didn't have to go anywhere to find you,” he said. “The Elucidator was set up to summon you here! It was all arranged for you to come help me!”

“
Help
you?” Kevin repeated. “Are you kidding? I'm here to take back the Elucidator you stole!”

And then he reached out to grab the Elucidator from Jordan's hands.

Jordan had never had quick reflexes. That had always been his problem with basketball and soccer and other sports: Even when he knew the moves he needed to make, he could never make them fast enough. But maybe he just needed to play against an opponent who had recently recovered from serious spinal injuries and traveled through time.

Jordan jerked the Elucidator back and out of Kevin's reach.

“No, you won't!” Jordan yelled.

Rather than tackling Jordan and trying to yank the Elucidator away, Kevin just started laughing.

“Are you kidding?” he said. “My IQ's, like, a hundred points higher than yours. You're not going to outsmart me. Now that I'm not in pain or paralyzed anymore, you don't have any advantages!”

“Freeze Kevin completely in place!” Jordan screamed.

Instantly Kevin stopped moving. A strand of hair swung down into his eyes, and he couldn't even shove it away.

“Who's got the advantage now?” Jordan couldn't help gloating. “Maybe you're smarter than me, but I've got more experience with Elucidators and time travel.”

Kevin didn't reply. It took Jordan a moment to realize that that was because Kevin's mouth was frozen, too.

Should I keep Kevin like this until I've had a chance to talk him into helping me?
Jordan wondered.

Even without moving, Kevin's eyes were taking on a glaze of rage.

I'm just going to make him mad if I don't let him talk or ask questions or brag about how brilliant he is,
Jordan decided. He remembered how Second had dealt with the entire Skidmore family in a different time hollow.

“Okay, let Kevin move his head,” Jordan said aloud, to the Elucidator. “Just not any other part of his body.”

“Wow, aren't you nice,” Kevin exploded sarcastically.

“Look, I'm not doing this to be mean or anything,” Jordan said. His voice came out as pleadingly as if he were the one frozen and Kevin were the one in control.

Which, if you think about it, is true,
Jordan thought.
Because he's the one who knows how to help Mom and Dad.

“I promise, I'll set you free as soon as I've explained everything and gotten your help,” he continued.

“Right,” Kevin sneered. “Why don't you just make me your slave, while you're at it?”

“That's not what I . . . ,” Jordan began. One look at Kevin's face made him give up explaining. Kevin would never just decide to trust Jordan. Not without seeing some things for himself.

“Don't you want to know who killed you in a different version of time?” Jordan asked instead. “So you know who to watch out for?”

Kevin didn't say yes. But he didn't say no, either.

“Elucidator, show us both what happened to Second when he, um, died,” Jordan said.

He looked back at the wall where he'd seen his parents and Katherine and Jonah. Nothing happened.

“Stupid, all the action's over there,” Kevin said, pointing with his chin.

The Elucidator was projecting a scene on the wall facing Kevin.

Oh, the Elucidator's being nice to Kevin, so he doesn't have to watch the whole time with his head turned all the way to the right,
Jordan realized.

He turned his body so he was also watching from the most comfortable position.

In the image on the wall, the grown-up Second was standing beside JB and the car again. JB looked awestruck as he peered down at his hands, newly restored to adult size. Second was turning away from JB and the car. But somehow the camera angle was ever so slightly different this time. The camera focused in tightly on Second's face and neck, following his every move. This time Jordan saw something small and metallic fly past the folds of Second's cloak and jam into Second's neck, right at the jugular. Second winced—a wince Jordan hadn't noticed the last time. Then his face smoothed out.

The last time Jordan had seen this scene, all he could think was,
That's Second! Second was the one who helped JB! So Second could help my parents!
Jordan had been too stunned to notice anything else. But this time he wondered at the slackness of Second's expression, the way his jaw drooped and his eyelids lowered.

Then, just like before, Second vanished.

“Was that it?” Jordan asked. “Did we just see Second die, right before he disappeared? Because of that silver thing on his neck?”

He looked down at the Elucidator he was still holding. The word
YES
glowed red on its screen.

“But where did the silver thing come from?” Jordan asked. “Who sent it? And why?”

The Elucidator projected its words onto the wall this time:
IT WAS AN UNTRACEABLE ASSASSIN DRONE. SO YOU CAN'T SEE WHO SENT IT OR WHY.

“It could have come from any time or any place or any person,” Kevin snarled. His face was red and furious. “It could have come from you, for all I know. I could be watching my own future!”

“No, no, this is a different version of you, from a different dimension . . . ,” Jordan started trying to explain. Kevin didn't look the least bit comforted. Jordan tried a different tack. “I promise, I've never killed anyone. I don't
want
to kill anyone.”

“But that doesn't mean that you won't kill anyone in the future,” Kevin said. “You froze me in place. You could do anything to me!”

“Can't we just work as a team?” Jordan was ashamed of how much he sounded like he was begging. “You help me, I help you—everything's good?”

Kevin gave his head an angry shake. Jordan had the feeling that if the boy could move the rest of his body right now, he'd beat Jordan up.

“You just showed me proof that someone wants me dead,” Kevin said. “And it could be anyone from any time or place. And you think that's going to make me want to trust
you
?”

“I took you to the hospital when you passed out,” Jordan said. “I didn't have to do that. I—”

He'd been thinking about asking the Elucidator to show them Second's last moments again, or to show where his body vanished to, or something like that. But if it wasn't possible to see who had sent the attack on Second, none of that would do any good. And watching the murder again would hardly put Second into a more trusting mood.

“What do
you
want the Elucidator to show us?” Jordan asked.

Kevin narrowed his eyes into slits.

“Everything connected to you or me that afternoon I fell,” he said. “Or those other two kids who were with you. Starting—I don't know—let's say five minutes before I climbed that fence.”

“Okay,” Jordan said.

Instantly the wall glowed with multiple images. It was like watching a bank of security videos. At first, the only action was in a scene where Kevin stood with a group of guys in hoodies and jeans.

“Yeah, sure, we look like people who fly on airplanes,” one of the boys mocked the others. “You think the security guards are going to let any of us pick up a suitcase?”

Jordan got distracted because suddenly something happened in one of the other scenes: He, Katherine, and
Jonah appeared sprawled out on the ground, cowering beneath an airplane coming in to land. Katherine and Jonah blinked back the effects of time travel and started looking cautiously around as soon as possible; Jordan on the screen seemed groggy and dazed, barely able to move.

“It's really easy to tell you and your brother apart,” Kevin taunted.

“Hey, he had hundreds of years more experience with time travel than I did,” Jordan said.

Kevin ignored him and went back to watching intently.

On the screen, Jordan finally sat up.

“How about we just grab whatever kid we're supposed to grab and get out of here?” Jordan heard himself ask.