by Chad Morris
Everyone was silent for a moment.
“This is really serious,” Rafa said, setting down the robot monkey arm he had been fiddling with before. “That future looks horrivel—horrible. That Ash is nasty business.” He paused for a second, tucking a stray strand of dark hair behind his ear. “I’m not even sure I should bring it up, but do you think maybe we should beat Muns to it? We could go into the past and set Muns off course. Maybe we could sabotage one of his first business ventures, or mess up some assignments in school, or . . .”
“Punch him in the face,” Carol interrupted. “Because I volunteer to do that.”
A laugh burst out of Rafa. “Maybe. Anything that would keep him from becoming what he is.”
Abby shook her head. “No. My grandpa warned us against that.” Abby had to admit that she had thought of it too, and it was tempting. But she knew better. She knew the catastrophic consequences it could have. “We shouldn’t try to manipulate the past. It’s too dangerous. We deal with troubles as they come.”
“This does sound like an exception,” Carol said.
“I know it sounds good,” Rafa’s mother said. “But I agree with Abby. I don’t think that’s what Oscar Cragbridge would want.”
“You’re right,” Derick agreed. “Plus we may mess something else up. What if knocking Muns off track somehow affects Grandpa and he doesn’t complete his inventions, or he never starts this school, or what if it sends him on a wrong course and it affects my dad, who never meets my mom, and then Abby and I never exist. And that’s just my family. It could mess up a lot more than that.”
“We should at least wait and talk to my grandpa about it when he wakes up,” Abby suggested, hoping to stall everyone before they did something rash.
Everyone eventually agreed, though Carol volunteered one more time to punch Muns in the face if there was ever a need.
“In the meantime,” Rafa’s mother said, raising her goggles and resting them on the top of her head, “we should warn the administrators about the Race. Have them double-check everything. Maybe even cancel it.”
Derick grimaced and Rafa frowned.
Boys. They obviously still wanted to compete in the games.
Carol raised her hand to signal that she was about to talk. “But we can’t really just say, ‘Hey, we got a message from the future, so you need to cancel your games.’”
“You’re right,” Rafa’s mother agreed. “And the Race is the most popular event all year. I know Mr. Sul was looking forward to it, to draw attention away from our last security threat.” She thought for a moment. “I’ll say I heard a rumor that something unsafe may happen in the Race. That should both protect our secrets and alert security. They’re interested in any leads of possible danger.”
“And maybe let’s tell Mr. Sul as well,” Abby suggested. “Even though I’m still not sure how well we can trust him.”
Everyone nodded.
“I just wish we could ask the girl from the future,” Derick said. “Talk to her. Get some straight answers.”
“Maybe we can,” Abby said.
The group fell into silence.
Abby continued. “I know we’ve all been thinking it ever since we learned the last secret. When we put three keys into the Bridge, we can interact with the past. When we add three spheres, we can interact with the present. What’s the logical next step?”
“The future,” Carol whispered in reverence. “Whoa. Mind blown.” She pulled her blonde hair back with her hands then fell back onto a chair.
“That is some serious stuff,” Rafa said.
“If I could see the future,” Carol said. “I’d check out my wedding day. I bet I have a gorgeous dress. Oh, and I’d want to know who the groom is.” She winked at Derick. “I bet it’ll either be Derick or that beautiful tan boy in the movie about the girl who fell in love with a troll and started an interspecies war. I think it was a sci-fi Romeo and Juliet. Or maybe Gavin from history class, or the guitarist for The Deskjob Rebellion.”
“Something tells me that if the Bridge can be used to see the future, we shouldn’t use it to see who you are going to marry,” Rafa said.
“Why not?” Carol asked. “That way I wouldn’t waste my time flirting with other boys.”
“By the way you act,” Abby said, “I’m not sure you think flirting is ever a waste of time.”
“True,” Carol said, her eyes rolling to the side as she thought about it. “But if I knew who I was going to marry, then I could walk straight up to him and tell him that one day he’ll fall madly in love with me.”
“Now we know for sure that you shouldn’t use the Bridge to see who you marry,” Derick said. “Nothing would scare a guy more.”
“The problem is that Grandpa is unconscious,” Abby said, bringing them back on topic. “He can’t answer our questions or give us anything that might lead to the answer.” He had given them a locket to discover the secret of the past and a black box that gave them clues to the present.
“True,” Derick said. He bit his lip.
“Well, I guess we should focus on stopping whatever crazy thing is supposed to happen during the Race,” Carol said.
“Concordo,” Rafa agreed. “And if we are invited, I believe we should even participate in it. That may give us a better perspective of what is happening.”
If they were invited. Abby didn’t like that if.
“If the Race is dangerous, I’m not sure I want you to participate,” Rafa’s mother confessed.
Rafa pulled another stray stand of dark hair behind his ear that had fallen out of his ponytail. “But if you and other adults are watching the competition really closely, we need people on the inside,” he argued. “The more eyes, the more we might be able to catch on to what Muns may have planned.”
“I’ll think about it,” Rafa’s mother said. She didn’t seem in any hurry to let her son do anything that might be remotely dangerous.
“We still don’t know what we’re looking for,” Abby pointed out. “It could be that unless we can see into the future, we’ll never know if we’ve stopped that terrible future from happening.”
Abby looked over at her brother, who looked away.
• • •
“5:32. That’s a whole two minutes late,” the nurse said. She stood in the white, sterilized lobby, a hall containing several doors stretching away behind her. “I was beginning to wonder if you were going to come.”
“I had a meeting,” Abby explained.
“I’m teasing you.” The nurse laughed and gave Abby a hug. She was really touchy-feely like that. Abby didn’t mind though. She was grateful to have someone so loving taking care of those in the med unit. “They’re waiting for you.” The nurse gestured toward the hall behind her.
“Any changes?” Abby asked, moving toward the hall. She could always hope.
“Nope. Sorry. They’re still waiting for just the right moment.”
“I hope it’s soon,” Abby said as she passed the nurse. She walked down the hall, passing two rooms she had been in before—rooms that held other teachers she knew. She visited them at times, but it was the last door on the right she opened most often. She always had to steel herself for what she was about to see. Abby took a deep breath and stepped in.
There were three beds in the room. Not just any kind of bed, but beds that rotated. They were designed to move those who were in them, to keep them from getting bedsores and to help them heal.
Abby looked at both her parents and her grandfather. All of them were hooked up to tubes that kept them hydrated and nourished while their bodies were comatose. They had been unconscious since Katarina had attacked them with tranquilizers.
“Hey, everyone,” Abby said, hoping they could hear her. “I’m back.” She walked over and held her mother’s hand. The nurse kept her hair combed and her clothes cleaned, but there was no life, no laugh, nothing. “I miss you.” She glanced at her dad, who was usually so quick to tease and fast to flash a smile; now he lay dull
and motionless. Her grandpa, whose mustache and beard made him look like a safari hunter ready for an adventure, looked cold and nearly fake—like a mannequin someone had made to remember the great inventor. “All three of you.” She swallowed a few times. “I really hope you’ll wake up soon, because . . .” She looked around to make sure she had closed the door and the nurse was nowhere around to overhear. She spoke softer. She told them all about Derick’s saturn and the message. Then she waited. She was hoping for one of them to twitch, to raise a finger, anything. Maybe if they knew they were needed it could bring them back to consciousness. She sat in silence for several minutes.
“I mean, the nurse says you’ll be fine.” Abby brushed away a tear. “It’s just a matter of time. But if we don’t stop Muns, then Derick . . .” Her voice trailed off. She couldn’t think about it for too long. Plus, if the message was right and who knows how many people would be stricken with the Ash, Derick wasn’t the only one in danger. Who knew if any of the Cragbridges would survive?
Abby stood up and paced for a moment, then stopped in front of her grandfather. “I wish you were awake to help. To help me know what to do.” Still no movement. No sign.
She kissed her grandfather’s forehead. “I wish I could ask you whether or not the Bridge could show us the future.” She smiled to keep from crying. “Of course, you’d just dodge my question and tell me I had to earn the answer.” She looked at him—so pale and, for one of the few times in his life, not wearing his blazer. He wore it all the time. Abby used to think it was because he was an eccentric inventor, but had discovered that the blazer was where he kept a sphere he needed with him constantly, a sphere that could allow him to see the present, anywhere in the world. She wondered where he kept his key that allowed him to interact with the past. Wait. A sphere. A key. If the Bridge could show the future, it would probably come with something physical that Grandpa would carry with him all the time.
Abby walked over to the closet in the medical unit wall and opened its doors. She began to thumb through the clothing Grandpa had been wearing when he was tranquilized. It had all been stored here. Abby felt the blazer, covering every inch. She had no idea where something might be hidden. Of course the sphere wasn’t there; Abby had kept it to make sure it was safe. She repeated the same drill with the trousers in the drawer and his shoes. She even brought them over to Grandpa and pressed his fingers along every surface. She knew he had built shoes, belts, and other clothes with fingerprint-activated secret compartments.
Nothing.
She examined her grandfather’s rings. Had they been programmed to do something? She looked back at the man on the bed. Maybe he kept something in what little hair he had—or in his beard. That didn’t seem likely. It would be something very precious and keeping something there seemed easy for someone else to notice or discover.
Nothing.
She couldn’t think of anything else until, as she was closing the closet doors, she noticed something leaning in the corner of the room. Something that wouldn’t fit in the drawer. Grandpa’s cane.
The Cane
The cane had an ornate handle but a simple wooden shaft. Abby tapped on it every few inches all the way down to the rubber end. She was listening for a hollow compartment somewhere. It sounded firm.
She inspected it closely, looking for breaks in the grain that might signal that it had been pieced together and held something inside. The body appeared to be crafted from a single piece of oak. At least that was Abby’s best guess. She wasn’t exactly a wood expert.
No clues. At all. But if there was something else physical to control the Bridge, this had to be it. Didn’t it? She couldn’t think of anything else that her grandfather always carried with him.
She grabbed the handle and tried to twist it. It wouldn’t give. She gripped the shaft with one hand and the handle with the other and pulled. Surprisingly, the cane lengthened. Not by much, but the handle slid back a few inches, exposing a metal band around the wood. Abby touched the metal. When she pulled back, she could see her fingerprint on the band. Then the band shifted into the handle, revealing a small screen beneath it. Words scrolled across it:
Bring this key, not to my 89 Liberty Street, but something closer to Foote Avenue and Kiowa Street.
It was a message from her grandfather. Abby’s pulse quickened just knowing she was on the right trail. But she had no idea what the message meant. That was nothing new. Her grandpa always made her work for her answers.
• • •
The four friends passed a pair of teachers griping about the tardy policy. Derick, Abby, Carol, and Rafa slowed their pace so the teachers would be out of sight as they approached the door.
“Why are we here again?” Carol asked.
“The clue was a reference to different laboratories of Nikola Tesla,” Abby explained.
“That is a crazy name,” Carol said. “I love it.”
“It took me a little while to figure it out,” Abby admitted. “Tesla was an inventor, and Liberty Street and Foote Avenue were places he had laboratories. The message meant that we shouldn’t go to his first laboratory, but to one he worked in after he was more established and had financial backing. So if we compare that to Grandpa, this would be a laboratory he had after he was established.”
Abby raised her hand and could feel it being scanned, but the light didn’t turn green. The door was still locked.
“He said to bring the key,” Rafa reminded. “It looks like we need it.”
“The message said, ‘Bring this key,’” Derick corrected. “And it was on the cane, so do you think he means the cane is also some sort of key?”
“Probably,” Abby said. She pulled out the cane from her backpack. It had been too long to fit in entirely, so the rubber bottom stuck out, but she would have felt weirder holding a cane as she walked the halls. Abby lifted the cane to the lock. She couldn’t exactly thread it into a keyhole. She was hoping that just bringing it close to the lock would do something.
Nothing happened.
Again, Abby pulled on the cane and exposed the metal band beneath. She touched it, and the cane vibrated. She saw numbers automatically appear on the security lock near the door, and the door popped open.
They quickly stepped inside and closed the door. The walls were filled with bookshelves, screens with blueprints, several locked cabinets, and a few booths. One portion of the room held a Chair, a metal plate on its back bent up, wires flaring out from beneath. Another part of the office had controls to the Bridge. A machine that Abby didn’t recognize stood in a corner. It looked like a small table with a console, a round container on the side, and a large, thick safe-like compartment beneath.
“We use machines like this in metal shop,” Rafa said, looking at the same mechanism. “It’s used for the small stuff.” Abby hadn’t thought about it before, but that made sense. Grandpa used lockets and keys and black boxes to teach about his secrets. Someone had to make them, and Grandpa couldn’t trust just anyone with the secret messages they contained. So he made them himself. It was a wonder her grandpa found time for it all.
A large desk stood in the middle of the lab with a chaotic mess of machinery scattered across its top.
An image of Grandpa appeared, this one full-size. As always, he wore his loafers, casual khaki pants, a button-up shirt, and his blue blazer. He rubbed his bald head, then smoothed his fluffy white mustache. “Welcome to my office.” He spread his arms wide, his cane hanging on his wrist. “Have a seat.” The image of Grandpa motioned toward the plush chair behind his desk.
Abby’s heart swelled and hurt at the same time. She was listening to her grandfather again, but she knew his real body lay in the medical unit, still unconscious.
“Go ahead, Abby,” Derick said, nodding toward the chair. “You’re the one who started figuring all this out.”
“What a gentleman,” Carol gushed.
As soon as Abby sat, screens lowered from the ceiling. They covered the bookshelves and cases
and drawings. It was like theater in the round.
“Unless I’m wrong,” the image of Grandpa said, “you have come here wondering if the Bridge can show you even more than you have yet discovered.” He smiled, wrinkles bunching up at the corners of his mouth.
“I admit to having another secret or two. By the data related to your fingerprint, you already know the Bridge can show the past and present. Perhaps you wonder if it can also show the future.” His white eyebrows raised. “Before we answer that question, I believe you have to consider other questions. For example, if it can show you the future, should you look?” He pointed toward Abby in the seat with his cane.
Abby sat there a moment, thinking about the question. Under normal conditions she wasn’t sure about the answer. In this case, it seemed more important. Her brother’s life depended on it. In fact, hundreds, thousands, or even millions of lives that would get the Ash also depended on it.
“We live in a world where we cannot naturally see the future. I believe that has many benefits.” The image of Grandpa paced the laboratory. “For example, there are some things about Nikola Tesla that I have always admired.” A slender, mustached man in a suit appeared on the screens. “He is the inventor that changed and improved motors, radio, and the channeling of electricity.” The image on the screens changed to show the inventor sitting in a chair while a large coil three times his size shot bolts of electricity in every direction. It was like a concentrated lightning storm.
“Tesla idolized Thomas Edison,” Grandpa continued, “but the two became bitter enemies. Tesla fought for his idea of providing electricity through alternating current. Edison fought back, claiming direct current was better.” Screens showed Edison speaking about the dangers of his opponent’s electricity and even threatening to show what it would do to animals. “But alternating current was the stronger idea and eventually won out.”
Abby hadn’t really heard of Tesla before her grandfather’s first clue. If Tesla’s idea was better than Edison’s, why wasn’t he more famous? “Tesla even had the idea of providing free electricity.” An image appeared of a large tower under construction. “And his work was well under way until the businessman who was supposed to be financing his work pulled the plug and ruined Tesla’s reputation.”