Where were his parents?
“We all have time-traveling devices,” Riq said. “So it should be fine . . . though obviously we’ll be on our own.”
“I guess Dak and I can go fix the Breaks we were there for,” Sera said. “But what about you?”
“Russia,” Riq answered.
“Russia?”
“If this is about a race to the moon,” Riq said, “then it’s going to involve America and Russia. Right, Dak?”
Dak turned to look at Riq. “Yeah, America and Russia.”
Sera shook Dak by the arm. “That’s your cue to launch into some big rant about the space race. You know, there was that Soviet rocket scientist Sergei . . .”
“Korolev,” Dak said, distracted. “The father of practical aeronautics.”
Sera waited for him to say more, and when he didn’t, she tried to goad him into it. “Oh, yeah, and because of him, weren’t the Soviets the first to launch a satellite into orbit? And then they sent an animal into space, I think. A dog. What was its name again?”
“Laika,” he said.
“Exactly!” She stared expectantly at Dak for a few long seconds, but he wasn’t in the mood. He was too worried about his parents. And his barn. And everything else that seemed to be messed up in the present because of what he and Sera had done. Oh, and there was also the fact that a five-hundred-pound cat wanted to eat them for lunch.
“Don’t you get it?” he said. “This is bigger than the Breaks. History is shattered. And this time, it’s all our fault.”
“Hey,” Sera said, elbowing Dak in the arm. “It’s going to be okay. This isn’t our first rodeo.”
Suddenly, a huge pterosaur emerged from the trees. Dak was almost blown off the roof when it flew over them, flapping its massive wings. It squawked so loudly, it rattled Dak’s eardrums. He turned back to Sera. “Yeah, we’ve so got this,” he said sarcastically.
“Hey, cat!” someone shouted from nearby.
Dak scanned the yard from his perch. He spotted Arin, hiding behind a tree, whistling to try to divert the massive cat’s attention. She looked up at Dak, Sera, and Riq and said, “These things are all over the forest now. I’m almost too afraid to cross through it now. Almost.”
“Arin!” Riq called out.
She looked up at him. “How do you know my name?”
“I don’t,” Riq said. “I just . . . Dak here told me.”
“Dak?” Arin didn’t know him either. He watched the girl shrug and pull a slingshot out of her satchel. “Let’s see if I can’t get it off your case.”
She took aim and shouted, “Hey!” When the Smilodon cat turned around, she fired a small rock that cracked the animal right between the eyes. It ducked its head and immediately took off out of the yard, back into the forest.
Dak climbed back down the ladder, followed by Sera and Riq. “Nice shot,” he said.
She shrugged. “I do what I have to do to survive in this crazy world.”
Dak looked at her for a while, waiting for some sign of recognition. “You don’t remember me?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Why would I?”
“Guys,” Sera said, “we should really go. Like, now.” She turned to Arin and said, “Thanks so much for what you did. We were afraid we might be there all day, and we have some urgent business to tend to.”
“Oh, don’t let me keep you,” Arin said. She picked up her stack of books from the ground, and Dak tried to see what she had. It wasn’t vampires this time, it was a bunch of dystopian novels — which made sense, considering she seemed to be living in a dystopian world. Or was it apocalyptic? He could never remember the difference between the two.
“Did you guys see that dinosaur fly over the forest just now?” Arin asked.
They all nodded.
“Well, technically,” Dak pointed out, “what we just saw was a pterosaur, but . . .”
Arin looked at him like he was crazy.
Well, it was nice that some things didn’t change.
“Can you tell us what’s been happening here?” Riq asked.
Arin glanced at Dak’s fallen barn and said, “Some really freaky things. They’ve been happening all over the world, actually. Ancient pirate ships have been spotted off the coasts. Dinosaurs — the real kind — have been walking down highways in the middle of the day.” She pointed toward Dak’s barn. “This place was actually trampled by a sauropod, which, I don’t know if you know this —”
“It’s the largest dinosaur that ever lived,” Dak said, finishing her sentence. “That’s what happened to my parents’ barn? A dinosaur stepped on it?”
“Guys, we should really fix these Breaks right away,” Sera said. “Something tells me we don’t have a lot of time.”
“Do you have any idea where my parents could have gone?” Dak asked Arin. “They lived here.”
“A lot of people drove toward the mountains or are hiding out in bomb shelters.” Arin looked to Sera. “Where are you guys going anyway? Maybe I can help.”
“You can,” Riq said. “Tell us what you know about current space travel. We were looking through the encyclopedia, but we can’t find any information.”
“The Pacifists are pretty secretive,” Arin said, “but stuff leaks.”
“Any information you can give us would be a help,” Dak said.
“You know how the Pacifists established a colony on the moon in the nineties?” Arin said. When there was no recognition on any of their faces, she said, “Wait, you don’t even know about that? Have you been living under a rock?”
“Something like that,” Riq said.
“Okay, I’ll give you the CliffsNotes version,” Arin said. “The Pacifists have been living up there for over a year now, while their scientists try to create a permanent atmosphere. And it turns out they’re not as into peace as their name suggests. It’s just been reported that they’ve built nuclear weapons up there, and they’re threatening to wipe out everyone on Earth if they don’t get what they want.”
“And what do they want?” Riq asked.
“Absolute power.”
Dak looked up at the sky. It was still sunny out, so he couldn’t see the moon, but the thought of a nuke launching toward the Earth from space was almost incomprehensible. It snapped him out of his mood. Yes, his parents were gone — again — and he had no idea where they were, but the situation was dire for everyone, not just him. “Guys,” he said to Sera and Riq, “we need to do this now.”
“Thanks for your help,” Riq said to Arin.
“Wait. I have one last question,” Sera said. “Where are these Pacifists sending up their spacecraft from?”
“I heard it was some island in Europe,” Arin said. “Though nobody knows for sure. Like I said, they’re very secretive for security purposes.”
Sera looked at Dak and Riq. “Santorini. Should we agree to meet there on a certain day?”
Riq did a quick search on Dak’s digital encyclopedia. In a few seconds, he looked up and said, “July 16, 1969. Hey, isn’t that when America first put a man on the moon?”
Dak’s eyes lit up. “Yeah! The one small step didn’t happen until July 20. But the launch itself was July 16.”
“What are you talking about?” Arin said. “America has never put a man on the moon. Nobody else has. That’s why everyone marvels at the Pacifists. There’s a reason their rockets are lined with gold, or so the joke goes.”
Dak shook his head, remembering all the Dak and Sera duplicates they’d seen on Santorini. He wondered how many had ended up on the moon. Maybe that had something to do with his dream about being in space.
After a long stretch of silence, Arin said, “Okay, I guess I’ll leave you to it, then.”
Dak watched her walk away. She seemed to genuinely want to help, and he wondered if they could have included h
er more somehow. He turned back to Sera and Riq, who were already preparing for their respective warps. Sera was programming her Ring, and Riq was staring at his arm and taking these weird, deep yoga breaths.
“Are we ready, then?” Sera said.
Riq nodded.
“I still don’t understand how you can warp without a Ring,” Dak said.
“That makes two of us,” Riq answered.
They both turned to Sera, the science whiz, but all she did was shrug.
“Anyway,” Riq said. “I guess it’s time. Good luck to you guys.”
“Good luck,” Dak and Sera both said at the same time.
Dak programmed his own Ring.
They looked at one another for several seconds, like they didn’t want to split up now that they were finally back together. “I’m sorry I doubted you,” Dak told Sera.
“It’s my fault,” Sera responded. “I knew it couldn’t be the real you.”
Now that they were going to split up again, Dak felt his heart swell. The three of them just stared at one another for a few long seconds. Then they laughed a little, even with everything hanging over their heads. These two were like family to him now.
Sera was the first one to hit her ACTIVATE button, and in seconds she disappeared.
Riq was next. He tilted his head back and closed his eyes, and his whole body began trembling. Then, poof, he was gone, too.
Dak looked at his fallen barn one more time. His house, which no longer held his parents. And then he stared at the half-torched forest. Finally, he hit the ACTIVATE button, and the world around him began to spin — though he now knew, from watching Sera and Riq warp away without him, that the spinning happened only on the inside. The last thing Dak saw before he closed his eyes and gave himself to the warp was Arin, who was once again hiding behind a tree on his parents’ property, watching him.
And then he was gone.
22
Separate but Equal
SERA LANDED in seventeenth-century Rome, right before the trial of Galileo. She hurried up to the doors of the courtroom where she saw herself and Dak trying to get in, and the guards who barred their way.
She experienced something beyond déjà vu.
It was impossible to describe what it was like to see herself there, with Dak, looking so uncertain. She had been so naïve in that moment. But at least she’d had her no-name dog. She missed her so much. Maybe she could fix the Break she had created and get her dog back.
But first she had to concentrate on fixing her mistake.
She watched the group of AB Pacifists step up to the guards and talk to them in quiet voices, and then the guards stepped aside, letting Dak and Sera into the courtroom where Sera would testify on Galileo’s behalf. Sera followed herself inside, looking for her opportunity to replace this earlier version of herself. And then she remembered how light-headed she’d felt before getting Dak’s translation device. Her body had been fighting off the effects of the tamales. That was her opening.
She followed closely behind them, and she saw herself falter and go down on one knee, just as she remembered. Sera darted forward and touched her dupicate lightly on the ankle. Her previous self disintegrated into thin air. And so did her dog. It happened in an instant.
Sera had expected the other version of herself to fade out, just like what had happened to Dak’s duplicate at the school. Everything she knew about quantum theory suggested that the time stream hated a paradox. Two versions of the same person were not supposed to be in the same place at the same time. Given the chance, time would fix itself. But as long as she had a Ring on her, she could stay right where she was. Or when she was.
The dog was another matter. Why had she faded out again? Sera was beginning to suspect someone else’s hand at work there.
One second they were there, the next they were gone.
There was no time to wonder about it, though, because right at that second Dak spun around, ready to swap his translation device into her ear, except she wasn’t right behind him like he expected.
“Sera?” he called out.
Sera ripped out her own translation device, shoved it in her pocket, and sprinted over to him, saying, “I’m right here.” The dog sniffed her suspiciously, but seemed content. Sera smelled like Sera despite the swap.
“Come on,” Dak said anxiously. “They’re just about to issue their verdict.” He stopped her near the back row of chairs and transferred the translation device from his ear into Sera’s — which was still gross — just as one of the cardinals slammed his gavel against the table.
“We have our verdict,” the man announced.
Everything was happening just like she remembered it. Only now she understood what the outcome of her defense would be. Galileo, this man who was her idol, who had advanced science in so many profound ways, would turn his back on his work because of his newfound popularity. She looked at him now.
She had to save him by not saving him.
“By majority vote,” the cardinal went on, “we find the defendant, Galileo Galilei —”
“Wait!” Dak said, leaping out from behind the last row of chairs. Everyone spun around to look at him. “My friend here, Sera Froste . . . she has something to say. Right, Sera?”
The fake Dak leaned in close to her and said, “What are you waiting for? Do it now.”
The man pounded his gavel again and said, “The court does not appreciate interruptions such as this. Guards, have them removed immediately.”
“Let her have her say,” the cardinal with the gold-trimmed robe called out. “We must have all evidence in order to make the proper decision.”
The first cardinal turned to Sera, clearly angry, and said, “Well?”
Could Sera really do this? Could she give incorrect testimony in order to make sure Galileo was punished? Because that was what she’d have to do in order to keep him on track to becoming the scientific giant he was supposed to become. But could she really lie in court?
Sera stepped forward and announced, “Galileo is wrong about the heliocentric theory, and I can prove it!”
There was a buzz in the courtroom.
The cardinal in the gold-trimmed robe stepped up and said, “Throw her out of court immediately! She has no right to speak!”
The other cardinals disagreed, though. “Let the girl speak!” one of them insisted.
“She should be allowed to have her say,” said another. “Just like you pointed out a second ago.”
The first cardinal pounded his gavel especially hard to quiet the crowd. “The floor is yours, young woman, but be quick about it.”
Sera took a deep breath and let it out slow. She looked at Galileo, then at her dog. Then she turned back to the cardinals and began speaking out against her idol.
Riq was no history buff, but something he read in Dak’s electronic encyclopedia had really struck him. According to the section he read about the space race, the USSR had never accomplished much. The encyclopedia entry said that they were making progress at first, along with America and the AB Pacifists, until a particular launch went horribly wrong. They had tried launching a dog named Laika into space in an attempt to determine whether space travel was safe for living things. But Laika’s spacecraft exploded into a million pieces long before it left Earth’s atmosphere, and the entire Russian space program was dismantled as a result. According to the encyclopedia entry, Russia’s top scientists and rocket engineers were ordered to never look toward space again.
But Riq knew this was all wrong. He didn’t know how the Pacifists had rigged it, but he knew he had to warp back to the launch of that dog. He trusted that he’d be able to figure out something.
He landed as close to the launch site as he dared. Even if he didn’t have Pacifists to worry about, Soviet security was bound to be intense. He had to be ready for anything.
W
hat he wasn’t ready for was the dog. It came out of nowhere: a cute, energetic mutt running straight for him. Before he could react, the dog ran circles around him, sniffing at his feet and yipping excitedly.
It was the same dog his men had managed to lose in Anatolia. “What in the world are you doing here?” he said.
“She’s with us,” a woman’s voice answered.
Riq tensed. The dog ran away from him and heeled beside an older couple, a man and a woman with smatterings of gray in their jet-black hair.
The man smiled. “Riq, right?”
Riq pointed at himself. “Me? Yeah, I’m Riq. Who are you?”
This time the woman spoke up. “We’re Sera Froste’s parents.”
Riq’s stomach dropped. He didn’t know much about these people, but from what he’d gathered, they couldn’t be trusted. He scanned their outfits for gold, but saw none.
“Don’t worry,” Sera’s father said. “Everything’s taken care of here. The launch will go as planned and the Soviet space program will proceed.”
“Well, with one small alteration,” Sera’s mother said, patting the dog on the head.
“And I’m supposed to just take your word for it?” Riq said.
“We’re on your side, Riq,” Mr. Froste said. “Tilda came to us. She wanted to blackmail us into helping her rebuild her empire. But we saw an opportunity to thwart her plans from the inside.”
“We let our daughter believe we had crossed back over to the SQ,” Mrs. Froste added. “We had to do it. To protect her.”
“To protect her?” Riq said. “Do you know what she’s doing right now? She’s warping through time, risking her life. Again!”
Mr. Froste lowered his head, like this hit him hard.
“Our little girl is quite capable,” Mrs. Froste said. “So capable that we had to sabotage her experiments until everything was in place.”
Riq shot daggers at her. “I can’t believe you put her through all that. Your daughter is the smartest, most loyal person I’ve ever met. But you wouldn’t know that because you’re never around. And you let her think you were actually her enemies? That you didn’t care about her?”
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