Redeemed

by Margaret Peterson Haddix

  “Hey, guys,” Jordan whispered, wanting to point out the words to Jonah and Katherine.

  Just then, Katherine and Jonah both slammed back to the floor. Katherine’s hand went back over Jordan’s mouth.

  “Someone’s coming!” she hissed into his ear. “Don’t say anything else!”

  All three of them cowered, hidden behind a desk. Jordan heard a door opening at the other side of the room. He heard footsteps—had two people just entered the room? Or three or four? He almost missed the sound of the door shutting. Was it being eased together by someone who didn’t want to be overheard?

  “Are you sure this is a protected space?” a man’s voice asked. Did he have a strange accent, or was it just anxiety that made him clip his words off so abruptly? “You’re certain no one can detect our presence here?”

  “This is where Gary and Hodge came when they escaped from time prison,” a woman’s voice responded. “And the time agency never knew. So yes, we’re safe here.”

  “You have news of those two? Our top performers?” This was a different man. His deeper voice was harder to understand, but Jordan was pretty sure he was being sarcastic. “I’ve been so worried about them.”

  Was he talking about Gary and Hodge, the same men who had supposedly kidnapped Jordan and Jonah and other kids? Were these people kidnappers too? So were they maybe on the same side as that guy Second, who had taken away Jordan’s parents?

  This was even harder than figuring out what made people not-so-cool kids or losers at school.

  Jordan heard a thumping sound—maybe the woman had hit the deep-voiced man on the arm. “Stop it,” she said. “You know Interchronological Rescue would have gone bankrupt years ago if it hadn’t been for Gary and Hodge.”

  “We’re going bankrupt anyhow, if the time agency has its way,” the first man muttered.

  Jordan wasn’t going to worry about some company he’d never heard of going bankrupt. As far as he was concerned, that was one of those grown-up problems that didn’t affect him.

  “Yeah, they hate us, but do you think the time agency would actually resort to murder?” the woman asked.

  That got Jordan’s attention. It evidently stunned the two men, too—he heard one of them gasp.

  “No one from the time agency would do that,” Deep Voice argued. “It’d ruin their sense of their own perfection. And they’d have to file a lifetime’s worth of paperwork to justify it.”

  “Why are you making these wild accusations?” the first man asked. “What have you heard?”

  “Gary and Hodge have gone missing,” the woman said. “I haven’t been able to reach them in any point of time, in any dimension. They vanished completely from August fifteenth, 1932.”

  Jordan snapped his head toward Jonah. Hadn’t Jonah said that Gary and Hodge kidnapped them both from the nineteen thirties? Had Gary and Hodge vanished at the same time?

  Jonah had his brow wrinkled, like he was thinking hard. But he didn’t look nearly as worried as the woman sounded.

  “But . . . but . . . ,” This was Deep Voice again, and he was stammering. “Everything they set in motion is still progressing, right?”

  “Right,” the woman said. “Time is going to end. Soon. And unless we find Gary and Hodge, none of us have anywhere safe to escape to.”

  TEN

  Katherine’s fingers dug into Jordan’s face, the palm of her hand smashing down harder against his mouth.

  Okay, Katherine, okay! Jordan thought. I get it! You really don’t want me talking or doing anything else to give away that we’re here!

  But if the three people who worked with Gary and Hodge didn’t want all of time to end—wasn’t that something that Jordan and Katherine would agree with? If Katherine was willing to work with that Second guy to get Mom and Dad back, wouldn’t she be willing to help other bad guys save time?

  Jordan saw that Katherine was also holding Jonah’s arm, as if she didn’t trust him to keep still and silent either.

  “I’ll cover your tracks if you want to go to your source at the time agency,” Deep Voice was saying. “Do you have any theories? Any leads?”

  “The Skidmore incident has to be the key,” the woman replied. “Gary and Hodge despised those two kids.”

  The “Skidmore incident”—something connected to my family? Jordan wondered, with chills traveling down his spine. Too many strange things had happened for him to guess which “incident” they might mean. And the “two kids” they’re talking about . . . Are they Katherine and me? Jonah and me? Jonah and Katherine?

  Why would two men Jordan had never heard of until this morning hate him?

  It looked like Katherine was about to claw through Jonah’s arm. Jordan felt as though she was trying to smash his mouth down into the floor. Along with the rest of his head.

  “All right,” the first man said. “Let’s all see what we can find out, and then meet here again this afternoon. Does five o’clock work for both of you?”

  Maybe the other two just nodded. Jordan couldn’t hear any replies.

  “We’re not telling Curtis Rathbone about any of this, right?” the woman asked.

  “Very funny,” Deep Voice said.

  And then the door opened and shut again, and Jordan was sure that all three adults had left.

  “Would you let go before you tear my face to shreds?” he hissed to Katherine. Though it sounded more like “Unh, unh, unh . . . sssss . . .” because she had such a tight grip on his mouth.

  Katherine looked down at the hand she had digging into Jordan’s face, and then the one digging into Jonah’s arm.

  “Oh, sorry,” she muttered, pulling away. But then she shot her gaze back to Jonah, as though he mattered a lot more.

  “If they were telling the truth, we’ve got to do something,” she said. “We’ve got to tell JB, or, or—”

  “Don’t you think JB already knows?” Jonah snapped. “Don’t you think that’s why he was so tense and stressed out back at our house?”

  “Wasn’t it enough to stress anyone out that Mom and Dad were the wrong ages?” Jordan asked. “And that two—no, three—dimensions were squished together?” He really wanted to say, And that this whole goofy time mess gave me a twin brother I don’t even want? But he managed to hold back that question. “Look. Why don’t we just find Mom and Dad and let them figure out what to do and who to tell?”

  For a moment it seemed like Jonah and Katherine were the identical ones: They shot Jordan the same look of utter disbelief.

  “Mom and Dad don’t know anything about time travel or Gary and Hodge or how to save time,” Katherine said.

  “But don’t you still want to save them?” Jordan asked. He hated the way he sounded: like a little kid whining, I want my mommy and daddy! Give me back my mommy and daddy!

  “Sure, but what good will it do to save them if all of time ends right after that?” Jonah asked. “We’ve got to fix everything.”

  Don’t let him make you panic, Jordan told himself. There’s no way the three of us could fix everything. Nobody could expect that. He’s just messing with you.

  Wasn’t he?

  Katherine shoved a stray strand of hair out of her eyes.

  “Why would Gary and Hodge want to end all of time?” she asked. “How does that help them? I thought they just wanted to get rich! What’s the point of being rich if everything’s just going to end?”

  “Gary and Hodge expected our dimension of time to end,” Jonah said. He cut his eyes toward Jordan, then back to Katherine. “I mean, the dimension I was in and Jordan wasn’t. Hodge told me that was going to happen regardless, because things changed too much with the plane crashing and thirty-six babies staying in a different time. And Gary and Hodge were going to escape to the dimension where nothing changed. Or nothing important, anyway.”

  He’d better not be talking about my dimension! Jordan thought. Making it sound like I’m not important . . .

  “But then you smashed all the dimensions together,
” Jordan said accusingly. He hadn’t quite followed all the time-travel hocus-pocus the others had explained to him, and he still wasn’t sure he believed any of it. Even witnessing it himself wasn’t entirely convincing. (What if this wasn’t actually the future he was sitting in right this moment? What if this was just some huge, elaborate trick?) But it kind of felt good to blame Jonah.

  Jonah shook his head. “JB said putting the dimensions back together saved time,” he insisted. “He said everything was fixed. Except for Mom and Dad and Angela and some other adults still being kids.”

  “Could that change things enough to end time forever, in all dimensions?” Katherine asked. “Could Gary and Hodge have changed their ages on purpose, trying to make sure the one dimension ended and then . . . then what they did turned out to be more powerful than they expected? So it’s going to ruin everything?”

  “Okay,” Jordan said, starting to stand up. His legs were getting stiff. “Let’s find Mom and Dad, and then let’s find those guys Gary and Hodge, and we’ll just tell them they have to make Mom and Dad the right ages again or they’ll ruin time. . . . This is easy!”

  Katherine grabbed Jordan’s arm and tugged him back down.

  “Stop being so stupid,” she said. “This isn’t easy. You don’t know where Gary and Hodge are. You don’t know what’s out there. You don’t even know where we are!”

  “I’m guessing we’re at some office building for Interchronological Rescue,” Jonah said. He sounded almost like that JB guy back home. His voice was just as tense. “Remember, Katherine? That’s the company Gary and Hodge worked for. And those people said something about Curtis Rathbone—remember, he was the head of the company, the one we saw talking on the video way back at the cave, the day we all found out the truth. . . .”

  “Oh, no. You’re right,” Katherine said, slumping back against the side of the lab desk. “That means . . .”

  “Right,” Jonah said. “We’re in enemy territory. And Second’s got to be around here somewhere too. And I bet he has Mom and Dad stashed somewhere we can’t get to.”

  “And there’s something about this room that would keep the time agency from seeing what happens here . . . so we can’t count on them for any help . . . ,” Katherine whispered.

  They were practically finishing each other’s sentences. For all Jordan could tell, maybe they were practically reading each other’s minds. It was like they were some time-traveling duo who’d worked together for years.

  And it was like they’d both forgotten Jordan was even there.

  Hello? Jordan wanted to say. Katherine’s my sister. It’s my parents we need to rescue.

  And for all their talk, what were these two even figuring out? As far as Jordan could tell, he was the only one who’d suggested actually doing anything.

  “Fine,” Jordan said, his voice a little too loud for someone who was supposed to be hiding. “If you two want to be cowards about everything, let’s just ask those magic Elucidators to show us where Gary and Hodge are right now, and where Second and Mom and Dad are. And then—”

  Both Jonah and Katherine were frowning at him.

  “I’m not sure we should trust either of these Elucidators,” Jonah said. “We know the one you took from JB wasn’t working right to begin with, and the other one has some connection to Second, so—”

  Jordan ignored him.

  “Elucidators, where are Mom and Dad right now?” he asked, dipping his head toward the cell phone–like object and the plastic card Jonah was holding. Strangely, the cell phone looked sleeker and more futuristic than it had the last time Jonah had looked at it, but that had to be his imagination.

  Words glowed in the air once more: I CAN’T ANSWER THAT.

  Jonah shot Jordan an I told you so look. Jordan ignored that, too.

  “Elucidator, where are Gary and Hodge right now?” he tried again.

  At least the words changed this time: GARY AND HODGE ARE NOT PRESENT IN THIS TIME PERIOD.

  Okay. Maybe Jordan should have expected that. He’d heard their coworkers say they’d vanished. And with time travel, that probably meant that they’d vanished from this time.

  But he wasn’t going to give up, not with Jonah glowering at him.

  “Then where—I mean, ‘when’—are they?” Jordan asked.

  HERE IS A TIMELINE SHOWING ALL MOMENTS THOSE TWO HAVE ENTERED the words glowed back at him.

  Jordan saw a glowing line in the air with dots all over the place.

  “Shut that down!” Jonah ordered. “That’s so bright someone could see it from outside!”

  The glowing line obligingly disappeared.

  “We’re wasting time,” Jonah hissed. “I already know why Gary and Hodge aren’t answering their coworkers! Charles Lindbergh used an Elucidator I gave him and turned them into babies again, so they couldn’t cause any more trouble. So—”

  “Why didn’t you tell us that before?” Jordan challenged.

  Jonah ran his hand across his forehead. Jordan recognized that motion: It was what Jordan himself did when he was frustrated.

  Except for their clothes, Jonah already looked exactly like Jordan. Having him act like Jordan too made things even creepier.

  “There hasn’t been time for me to tell!” Jonah protested. “I mean, with you grabbing things and sending us the wrong places . . . And there’s, like, more than five hundred years of stuff that happened to Katherine and me and Chip and the other missing kids that you don’t know about, so where was I supposed to start?”

  “I didn’t know about Gary and Hodge turning back into babies either,” Katherine said quietly. And this was not like her. Katherine was never quiet. “Did you leave them in 1932? Or—”

  “I don’t know!” Jonah said, as if he were annoyed with Katherine, too. “JB took care of them. All I was thinking about was getting home and getting my normal life back. . . .”

  The look he shot Jordan then was so disgusted he might as well have said out loud, I wanted to get back to my life where you didn’t exist.

  “So for all you know, JB might have killed those two babies,” Jordan said, jumping to the most extreme example to get back at Jonah.

  “JB wouldn’t have done that,” Jonah protested.

  “How do you know?” Jordan asked. “What if you’re not even right about who the good guys are and who the bad guys are?”

  “Stop it!” Katherine interrupted. “You two are, like, almost shouting at each other. Someone’s going to find us!”

  For some reason, Jordan felt angry with her right now too.

  “You know, if I weren’t here, I bet the two of you would just sit around saying, ‘Ooh, we’re so scared, we’re so scared, what will we do if someone finds us?’ ” Jordan accused. He tried making his voice a little quieter, but it rose as he went on. “You think you know so much more than me—what good is all that knowledge if it just makes you scared? What are you ever going to do?”

  “We’re going to . . . to . . . ,” Katherine sputtered.

  “We’re going to skip ahead in time to five o’clock today, so we can hear what Gary and Hodge’s coworkers say when they get back together,” Jonah finished for her.

  “Could you do that for us, Elucidators?” Jordan asked mockingly.

  He expected the Elucidators to tell him all over again what they couldn’t do. But only one word glowed beside Jonah’s hands:

  YES.

  ELEVEN

  Jordan’s anger evaporated.

  “Oh, wow,” he breathed. “That’s so cool. Think how time travel could work with school—you could skip the whole boring day . . .”

  “People would notice you were missing,” Katherine said. “You wouldn’t get away with it.”

  But she sounded more amused than annoyed now. Then she ruined it by turning to Jonah.

  “Remember how amazed we were the first time we traveled through time?” she asked. “We made so many mistakes back in the fourteen hundreds . . . Jordan, just wait until the first time
you turn invisible. That’s really bizarre too!”

  “Shouldn’t we turn invisible before we skip ahead in time?” Jordan asked. He was proud of himself for thinking of this.

  And Jonah and Katherine think I don’t know anything. . . .

  Neither of them looked impressed.

  “I guess so, but it probably won’t do any good,” Katherine said. “I bet everyone at Interchronological Rescue has traveled through time. That means they’d be able to see us anyhow.”

  Jordan squinted at her blankly. Had he just then accidentally skipped ahead in time, and missed hearing something about traveling through time and being able to see invisible people?

  “Katherine, remember, he doesn’t know anything about the rules of time travel,” Jonah said impatiently. He turned toward Jordan, and slowed down his voice like he was talking to a little kid. A really stupid little kid. “See, Jordan, invisibility only fools time natives. Anyone who’s ever traveled through time can see invisible people. It looks like they’re made out of glass or something, but they’re still visible.”

  Jordan was not going to ask what a “time native” was. He could guess that one. Wouldn’t it be someone native to a particular time? Someone who belonged in that moment?

  “You’ll see,” Katherine said. “It really is freaky. Elucidator, make us invisible.”

  Nothing changed about Jonah, Katherine, or—Jordan looked down—Jordan himself. But when Jordan glanced back up, he saw glowing words again near the Elucidators in Jonah’s hands: INVISIBILITY IS NOT A FUNCTION I CAN ACCOMPLISH AT THIS TIME AND IN THIS PLACE.

  Jonah winced. “There is something really weird going on with these Elucidators,” he said. “Maybe we shouldn’t use them anymore until we know what it is.”

  “What, you want to just sit around waiting until five o’clock?” Jordan complained. He had no idea what time it was now, or how far away five o’clock was. Gary and Hodge’s coworkers had made it sound like it might be hours before they met again—enough time to contact “sources” at the time agency and cover for someone’s spying. But even if it was just five minutes, Jordan didn’t want to wait. He could feel himself getting antsy, like he did during the last five minutes of science class, when it seemed like time stopped and the boring teacher was going to ramble on forever.