by James Riley
“Kara?” Owen whispered, sitting back in surprise. As soon as his hand left hers, though, she froze in mid–disgusted face.
What was happening? Was his power somehow transferring to her? He reached out again, grabbing her hand, and she released the prisoner, still spitting.
“Kara,” he repeated. “I opened the door, but it slowed down time everywhere in the prison, and then these two agents came in out of nowhere!”
Kara took this all in, nodding along. She leaned out past the table legs for a moment, then pulled back into hiding. “I see them, but they should be far enough away. You can still make it out the exit, if you go now.”
Owen shook his head. “They want you. They think you had something to do with this. And they said something about removing the problem, so I don’t know what they’ll do to you if you stay.”
Kara shook her head over and over. “I’m not leaving, Owen. I don’t care what they do to me. Whatever punishment they give is better than . . . what might happen if I leave.”
Owen started to say something, when both he and Kara were dragged out from under the table.
Only, instead of facing the agents, they found themselves looking up into the faces of a bald woman and a very, very angry Countess.
Turn to page 57.
We go forward as far as we can,” Kara continued. “Right to the end. Even if the Countess can track us from here, there’s no way that trail will hold up after the planet dies. We should be safe there while we figure out what to do.”
Right to the what, now? “I hate to bring this up,” Owen said, “but how exactly are we going to survive without a planet? Don’t we need air or even a place to stand? Space isn’t that great for survival, I’ve heard.”
“As long as we’re moving through time, we’ll be fine,” she said, fiddling with the symbols on the bracelet. “The device has protective qualities that keep us alive. Just make sure you don’t let go, or you’ll drop back into normal time.” She winced. “And if that’s in deep space . . . just hold tight, okay?”
“Good tip,” Owen said, grabbing her hand. She smiled sadly, then hit a button on the bracelet, and the entire world jolted.
Time began moving forward rapidly all around them. Leaves on the trees vibrated in the wind, while insects and dinosaurs zoomed past them, or even sometimes right through them. Apparently time travel made you insubstantial, which was convenient for them.
For a moment Owen wondered if that was something the author of Kara’s books had put into place, or whether real time travel actually made you ghostlike. That moment passed when he realized there wasn’t any such thing as “real” time travel, so that was sort of a silly question.
“Now that we’re a bit farther away, I’m going to speed us up,” Kara said. She pushed a symbol on the bracelet, and time began moving even faster, with animals flashing by too quickly to see, and day and night mixing into each other.
“How did you learn how to use that thing?” Owen asked her, unable to look away from the various changes in the world around them. Different dinosaurs appeared, ones from later periods, and then disappeared just as quickly. Owen could have sworn he even saw a few furry early mammals, but they passed by too fast for him to be sure.
“My older self showed me,” she said, and Owen noticed she wasn’t watching the show in front of them but was instead just staring off into space. “It’s not that hard, actually. The TSA made them pretty user-friendly.”
“Except they’re not around to make them anymore,” Owen pointed out. “And wait, if your older self showed you how to use it, then how did she learn it?”
“Because I grow up and show myself,” Kara said. “I know it doesn’t make sense, but try not to think about it too much. Remember, paradoxes don’t affect me.” She squeezed his hand. “Just part of my charm.”
He smiled at that and realized that in spite of only knowing her for a few hours, that’s not how it felt for some reason. It was almost like he’d known her for longer. Maybe not a year, like she claimed, but certainly for days at least.
Though that made sense, if they’d had to do all three challenges to get the exit code for the readers. Owen briefly wondered what he’d found out about Kara in that time. Had she shared what this terrible future thing she was going to do was? Or anything about this whole “immune to paradoxes” thing, which still made no sense? Paradoxes weren’t like the TSA agents, police that punished you for breaking a rule. They were impossibilities of logic, a broken series of events that shouldn’t and couldn’t actually happen in the way that they did. How could an impossibility not affect Kara?
Yet here they were, using a TSA time bracelet that shouldn’t exist, that Kara’s older self had taught her younger self to use, only so she could grow up and teach her younger self again. It was a circle in time with no beginning.
“You’re thinking about it,” Kara said. “I can hear your teeth grinding.”
“Fair enough,” he told her, trying to unclench his teeth but failing. At that moment a bright light filled the sky, surprising Owen to the point he almost lost his grip on Kara’s hand. She squeezed his hand automatically, as if making sure he didn’t go anywhere as she glanced at her bracelet.
“That would be the meteor that killed off the dinosaurs,” she said, then turned her head up to the sky. “And here I was hoping that it’d been aliens, preparing the world for humanity. Guess that means humans weren’t brought here from another planet!”
Owen’s eyes widened. “Is that . . . something people were worried about?”
She grinned at him, appearing to mean it this time. “I love how gullible you are. It just brings me joy.”
The dinosaurs were now completely gone, and ice passed through Owen and Kara like waves on the ocean, forming and melting with the changing seasons almost like breathing. Then abruptly the ice pulled away, migrating back in what Owen assumed was a northern direction. Or was it south? It’s not like he had any idea where they were in the world. Really, the time prison could have been anywhere.
Mammals began running past and through them now, with new species appearing almost every second. “Are we close to human civilization?” Owen asked.
Kara checked the bracelet. “Still a few million years short. You’ll have to watch for it, ’cause it does fly by.”
“What do you mean, ‘fly by’?” he asked, his blood running cold. “Do we not have long? Does another meteor come? What happens?”
She grinned at him again, and the smile seemed to come more easily. “You never learn, do you?”
“Ha-ha,” he said, glaring at her. Still, why had he been so worried? This wasn’t the nonfictional world, it was a book. The future here wasn’t his future.
Though it might be, if he didn’t find a way back to Bethany.
A few Neanderthals showed up for the briefest of instances before disappearing, replaced by very early human beings. Those humans advanced quickly from primitive tools to spears and onward, and soon canvas dwellings began to spring up that looked familiar. Were those Native Americans? Apparently they had been in North America all along.
Not long after that a wagon train zoomed by, and soon roads sprang up all around them, and eventually, so did wooden signposts. The signs didn’t last long at first, but after turning to metal, they stayed in place long enough to read.
“Mount Rushmore?” Owen said, pointing at the closest sign as time flew by. Apparently they were in South Dakota, and far off in the distance the mountain monument rose into the air.
“Coming up on the twenty-first century,” Kara said as she fiddled with the bracelet’s speed. The world around them began to slow down a bit, now only moving a few months or so a second instead of years, decades, or centuries.
“Shouldn’t we stop here?” Owen asked, turning away from the view. This was where he needed to be, after all. Or maybe a few days earlier, so he could rescue Bethany before she was even in danger. That would be perfect, and make him feel much less guilty about ho
w much time he’d potentially wasted getting out of the time prison!
“I don’t know that it’s safe,” Kara said, giving him a worried look. “The Countess would come looking for us here first, since she must know this is my proper time. We should probably make sure we’ve lost her by passing our time, then turning around and coming back from the future. That way we’ll see any trap after it’s sprung and be able to deal with it.”
Owen nodded, trying not to think too hard about the logic of what she’d just said. Mostly, he just wanted to jump off the time travel ride in the present and get on with finding his friend. Bethany, I hope you’re okay . . .
Kara clicked the symbols on her bracelet, and they began to slide forward faster again, a few years at a time . . . only for Kara to abruptly smack the bracelet hard, immediately dropping them back into normal time. The time travel stopped so quickly, Owen almost felt whiplash, even though they hadn’t actually been moving at all.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, shaking off the confusion.
Kara didn’t speak, but dropped his hand and took a step forward, staring into the distance. Owen moved to follow, then looked up to see what she was looking at.
Mount Rushmore.
All four heads were the Countess.
Kara strode in silence to the sign marking the entrance to the park. “ ‘In honor of our Supreme Queen,’ ” she read.
Owen moved up beside her and continued reading. “ ‘May her enemies suffer eternal punishment for their crimes.’ ”
“So, um, right,” Kara said, turning to look at him with panic spreading over her face. “We might have a problem.”
NO, THIS IS TOO MUCH OF A CLICHÉ. LET’S FORGET ABOUT THIS AND GO BACK TO THE BEGINNING OF TIME INSTEAD.
Turn to page 341.
LET’S FIND OUT HOW THIS HAPPENED!
Turn to page 296.
If we can find some way across this ravine, we might be safe on the other side,” Kara said, pointing over the yawning abyss before them. “It’s too far to jump, but these trees look springy enough that we might be able to cross by bending them.”
Okay, right. Because bending trees over a ravine never went wrong. Still, the ground was shaking with T. rex footfalls again, so it must have finished off the other dinosaur.
Either that, or they were teaming up.
“Trees it is!” Owen said, pulling Kara to the nearest one. The trunk was ridged in a way that provided easy hand- and footholds, which helped, considering they’d have to hold hands the entire way. Even still, the climb took way too long, considering what was rumbling toward them.
Around ten feet up, the tree began to bend out over the ravine, and they quickened their climb, even as Owen tried to ignore how much nothingness was below them now. The ravine was so dark, there was no way to see the bottom, but what he could see would already be way too long a fall. It wouldn’t take much to send them plummeting, either; the tree’s springiness made them pretty unstable even when the shaking ground wasn’t bouncing the tree. At least the T. rex hadn’t arrived yet—
The monster exploded into view and let out an enormous roar as it located its prey. Owen shouted in warning, and they began sidling forward on the tree as it bent horizontally out over the ravine. If this could be timed right, maybe they could drop off the tree onto the other side, then let it spring back up and hit the T. rex’s face? Cartoons did that sort of thing often enough, so how hard could it be?
Except as Owen got closer to the top of the tree, the trunk began dropping even farther, quickly falling almost past the edge of the ravine. And that’s when he realized they’d made a really unfortunate mistake: This particular tree wasn’t tall enough to make it to the other side.
“We’re going to have to jump!” he told Kara. “Can you stand?”
“I think so,” she said, and tried to push to her feet.
But it was already too late. The T. rex roared again, then came crashing straight for them, plowing into the trunk. The tree yanked out of the ground entirely and tumbled straight into the ravine, with the dinosaur right behind it.
Owen’s heart began beating crazily as he, Kara, the tree, and the dinosaur all fell. Everything around him slowed, and he wondered if this was what dying was like. Was his entire life going to flash before his eyes, or just the worst parts? And would those parts be an endless repeat of him picking the wrong tree?
“Are you doing this?” Kara asked him at normal speed, and Owen realized it wasn’t just him that had slowed down. Wait, had he done this, sped up their time even more? He put his hand over his heart and gasped; it was beating so fast it felt like one solid buzzing, like a hummingbird’s wings. This must be adrenaline or something kicking in. Good thing his heart was robotic, because there was no way a normal heart could have taken this!
Time slowed even more, and the T. rex froze in midair, as did the tree. Spots began to pop in Owen’s sight, and darkness started creeping in around the edges of his vision, but at least they’d stopped falling.
Kara helped Owen to his feet on the tree trunk, which felt as solid as a rock below them now, in the slowed time. Together, they waited for the top of the tree to fall just short of the other side, which as fast as it was going in real time, still just took a few seconds. That was good, because Owen wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep this going.
“Now!” Kara shouted, and half pulled, half led Owen in a run toward the end of the trunk. Just as they reached the giant palm fronds jutting out of the tree, they both leaped as far as they could, off into nothingness.
Owen slammed into the side of the ravine at his chest, and the impact forced Kara’s hand from his. He frantically grabbed at the edge to keep from falling backward as a wave of dizziness passed over him and weakness took his arms. But somehow he managed to grab ahold of a root, slowing himself enough to at least see that Kara had made it okay. In fact, she looked fine in every way except that she was floating in midair, frozen in time.
The dizziness got worse, and it felt like the ravine was moving beneath him as the root slipped in his hand. “Help?” Owen said quietly, reaching out for another handhold, anything that could help him up over the edge. But there was nothing. His vision grew even darker, and he suddenly couldn’t stay awake, no matter how hard he tried. Everything went black . . .
From a distance, he felt something grab his arm. “Owen!” someone shouted from miles away, and then dragged him up and over onto the other side. A sharp slap struck his cheek, and the darkness opened enough for Owen to make out Kara’s terrified face.
“Hello?” he said.
“Are you okay?” she shouted, then gently patted his cheek a few times. “Owen? Stay with me. You almost fell!”
This seemed odd. Hadn’t she been frozen a moment ago? “How did . . .”
“I think your power gave out,” she said. “We’re both moving at normal speed again. Listen.”
He concentrated hard and heard nothing but the buzzing squeaks and short blips he’d heard back in the air lock. Fear took over, and he struggled to sit up. “The dinosaur—”
“He’s at the bottom of the ravine,” Kara said, glancing past Owen. “The tree, too, I assume. But we made it. And nothing’s attacked us over here, so I’m hoping we’re safe!” She hugged him tightly, and he weakly patted her with one hand before his strength gave out and it dropped back to the ground.
“So . . . tired,” he told her. “Very, very.”
“I know,” she said, and smiled gently. “You sleep, okay? I’ll watch over you.”
He nodded at that, barely able to even think anymore. “I sleep.”
And with that, he did.
What could have been hours or days later, Owen opened his eyes to what looked like a full moon and stars in the sky. He immediately sat up, his entire body crying out in pain, like he’d run a marathon or something. “Kara?” he said.
“Right here,” came a voice from behind him, and Owen twisted to find Kara lying on the ground as well, s
taring up at the stars. “I was just about to try to wake you, actually. It’s got to be close to midnight.”
Owen let out a relieved breath, then looked all around them. “So no more dinosaurs?”
“Nope, all clear,” Kara told him. “I guess the prison designers figured that if you can get this far, why not give you a break?”
“What about the exit code?” Owen asked. “Did you find it anywhere?”
Kara turned over and smiled at him. “Look up.”
Owen frowned but turned his gaze to the sky. “What, the moon?”
Kara crawled over next to him, then grabbed his head and turned it slightly, aiming his gaze toward the stars to the left of the moon. “They did a great job making this look like the outside world,” Kara said. “But I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen a constellation like that.”
Right over the spot where the air lock was, Owen saw an enormous numeral “2” made out of stars.
Above. The. Air lock. Were they kidding?! “We could have stayed in the air lock until dark, then come out just long enough to see it!” he shouted, then winced in pain as his body screamed back at him. “Was this all just to torture us?”
“We’d never have known it was there,” Kara said. “And honestly, I bet you can’t see it unless you’re pretty far out here anyway. Plus, you’d still have to be able to survive outside long enough to find it.”
That was true. “Still, though. We almost got eaten by dinosaurs, all just for a big number two.” He looked around in the darkness. “At least we don’t have to go back. I’m not sure I’ve got it in me for a return trip anyway.”
She nodded. “Just don’t forget to use whatever nonfictional trick you’re going to do, so we remember the code.”
Right! Owen concentrated hard. Don’t forget, readers. The first digit is two. Write it down or something. Two is the first number in the exit code. Two is—
And then midnight hit, and everything reversed a day.
Turn back to page 1 . . . or cheat a bit and skip ahead to the decisions on page 259.