“But Fuller stayed hostile even after we broke his machine. How do we know they’ll be back to normal by morning?” asked Tim.
“It doesn’t matter, our personas have been compromised and people know who we are, plus I have no idea how we would convince them to turn their backs on the Emperors before the mind-control wears off anyway. Hopefully it happens soon. They wouldn’t use it every night if it lasted for super-long. We just have to go and hope for the best,” stated Julie with an air of finality.
“Okay, let’s go, then,” Rose agreed. “Billy’s bleeding profusely here, so there’s not really time for debate.”
“Yeah. How are you doing, there, Billy?” asked Julie.
“My arm hurts like crazy, and I’m losing a lot blood. But I’m hanging in,” Billy said. Tim could see tears trailing down Billy’s face, but figured he’d be much less stoic himself if he’d been shot.
“I can’t imagine how much that would hurt,” Rose said.
“I dislocated my knee once in a basketball game… It’s not much worse than that,” said Billy, although this still didn’t sound to Tim like a ringing endorsement.
“Okay,” Rose said. “Let’s all hold hands. We’ve got all four Domini, but we only need one. What are we going to use to take us back?” Each of the teens had an object on them that had existed in their own time, so that they could get back to their own time in a pinch.
“Um, I’ve got a coat button that can get us back to my bedroom in our time,” said Julie.
“Good enough,” Tim said. “Let’s go.”
They held hands and materialized into Julie’s bedroom.
Sunlight was flowing in through the window, and a look at Julie’s alarm clock told them it was one o’ clock. It was the middle of the day then, which hopefully meant they had the house to themselves, since Julie’s parents worked and her brother was in school. Of course, it might be the weekend, since Tim couldn’t remember what day they would be jumping into. They would have lost as much time in their own time as they had spent in others, but he hadn’t done the mental math on how long they were gone, nor did he really remember what day they left.
“All right, we’ve got to get him to a hospital right now,” Rose said.
“Ah… wait,” said Tim. “I just thought of something! The Emperors probably already know who we were impersonating in 1854, right? And they probably could have found out Billy was shot, if they had a way of monitoring their people… So wouldn’t they be looking for someone who looks like Billy’s Cooper character to show up in our time with a gunshot wound and look for treatment?”
Billy swore. “He’s right. We can’t let them capture us.”
“Well what else are we going to do?” Rose asked frantically. “Raid July’s parents’ medicine cabinets for band-aids and aspirin?”
“Julie, let me use your computer fast, would you?” Tim asked.
“Sure,” she answered as he sat down in front of it.
“Just going to see if the Emperors have changed the timeline again yet. If Hopkins has managed to collect all the Domini since we changed the timeline back… assuming we actually did manage to change the timeline back… then maybe we don’t need to worry about the Emperors anymore.”
“So if the timeline’s the way it should be, then we can take him to the hospital?” Julie asked. “Do you remember enough about the timeline we’re trying to get to to know?”
“Yeah… I kind of memorized who the presidents were supposed to be,” said Tim, who was now sitting at the computer. After a moment of working with the computer, he continued, “Hey, look, wikipedia exists in this timeline, too.”
“Yeah, fascinating,” Rose said with an eyeroll. She was sitting on the floor next to Billy.
“All right, working on it, working on it…” Tim said quickly. “All right-- wait… American President isn’t coming up with any hits… um… let’s see… George Washington? Oh boy… Nope, things aren’t back to normal.”
“Billy’s just passed out!” Rose yelled. “He’s unconscious! He’s… yes he’s still got a pulse, but he’s unconscious.”
“Well, we can’t take him to a hospital here… I just found out George Washington was a general in the American Rebellion- an unsuccessful rebellion against the British Empire. And look at this, I just got a pop-up ad that shows Cooper’s face and says he’s a wanted fugitive, claiming he’s unstable and dangerous.”
Doing some fast logical calculations in his head, Tim realized that this meant they had been successful in changing the previous timeline. If the previous timeline had still worked for the Emperors, they wouldn’t have changed it by nixing the American Revolution. They’d had another successful mission, but Hopkins still hadn’t managed to collect all the Domini. There would need to be at least one more mission.
“Okay, wait, I’ve got an idea!” said Julie, heading over toward her dresser. “Look, this is weird, but my parents saved a blanket… this blanket… from the hospital when I was born. So we jump back there, and they won’t be expecting us back then, right?”
“We’ll give it a try,” Rose said. “Quickly.”
So they grasped hands, Julie and Rose grasping Billy’s even though he couldn’t grip back, ready to jump back in time to a hospital in the late 1990s.
Fugitives of Time: Sequel to Emperors of Time Page 17