That surprised me. “You can definitely change the world. And with time travel, you can really change it.”
“Oh yeah? What are you going to change first?”
“I’m going to save the ocean.”
“From what?”
“Pollution! Undo global warming and un-decimate the coral reefs.”
Jazz rolled his head to look at me and smiled. “Well that is very cute.”
“Cute?” I snapped. “It isn’t cute. It’s epic!”
“I’m sorry; sorry,” said Jazz. “I didn’t mean to sound condescending. I just—I don’t know. You’d need a lot more than a time machine to accomplish something that major, no?”
“That’s what my foundation will be for,” I said. “To work out the details.”
Jazz went back to ceiling-gazing and foot-wagging. “Did you ever see that movie where the guy goes back in time and his mother falls in love with him instead of his father, and he’s grossed out and almost un-born?”
“I love that movie,” I said.
“Do you think it’s possible to be un-born?” he asked.
I shrugged. “No less impossible than being fourteen for ten years.”
“You think so?”
“Sure. Being un-born seems illogical, but I believe it’s mathematically possible. You just have to embrace the idea of multiple universes.”
“I definitely don’t,” said Jazz. “It’s too convenient. Like, Yeah, in some other universe, I’m sure my life would be way better…I don’t believe that.”
“You don’t?”
He shook his head. “You get one life. Some parts of it suck. There’s nothing you can do but make the best of it and keep going.”
I watched Jeremiah lying there, looking like he almost always looked. Fine. Good. The word “unshakable” came to mind. Keep going. That’s exactly what he’d done. He’d hopped on a bus alone, not knowing what would happen when he got off. It was brave.
Lately, I’d been daydreaming about taking Jazz with me back in time. He didn’t have much to lose. His parents had given him up. He was living with some cousin he wouldn’t even let me meet, which probably meant she was horrible. I was imagining sharing romantic time-travel adventures with him, adventures that featured plenty of sweaty bodice-ripping, when he said, “Guess what I did last night?”
“You read a book of poetry,” I said, imagining us floating down a canal in turn-of-the-century Venice, a poetry book perched on his bare knee, which poked through the tear in his burgundy pantaloons….
“Actually, I wrote a poem, but that’s unrelated. I had a powerful revelation.”
“Because you learned to do a backflip,” I said, envisioning Jazz performing gymnastics for me on a beach from a faded postcard—Coney Island, perhaps, in New York City….
“I read a book about coding.”
Coding? Woof. I had no romantic historical visual to pair with that one. “Why?” I asked.
“Because we never talk about coding. You never lend me any books about it.”
That was true. “Other than some AI stuff, I hate coding books. Reading about programming is boring. But do you think that as a self-taught programmer I might be missing something basic? Like an I-forgot-to-plug-it-in type of thing? Chicago used to tease me about that.”
“You mean your best friend, the black-and-white photograph?”
I looked for something to throw at him and found an origami star.
It hit him in the head. His laugh was low and rich, like something delicious. A heart-shaped box of chocolates. If I’d had one of those, I’d have thrown it at him, too.
“I love that you’re friends with a piece of art,” he said. “I used to think I had a personal relationship with Kermit the Frog.”
“Can you stop?” I asked.
“Seriously, Fi, you’ve come this far without reading Time-Travel Code for Dummies. You can probably live without it. But I’m gonna learn to code. I’ve been avoiding it, but I need to learn anyway before college. Maybe I’ll catch something you missed.”
College.
Jazz would go to college.
Jealousy soaked up all my other feelings like a power mop. Why would I try to convince Jazz to go back in time with me? Unlike me, he wasn’t a freak of nature. If I left him alone, he could live a normal life. Go to college, meet someone who was perfect for him, fall in love and forget I ever existed.
The music was still bouncy, but I felt like a rag doll. I stretched out on the floor facedown. It smelled dusty and lemony, like wood polish.
Jazz kept talking. “You taught Dirk Angus to predict what choices you’d make in any given situation using artificial intelligence. The set of all possible Nepheles. Since then, you’ve been trying to teach it to predict the choices the universe would make in any given situation—the set of all possible universes. What did you call that?”
“The universal wave function,” I mumbled into the floor.
“Right. Once you untie the knots and fold time in a new way, I think it will work. Remember what Archimedes said. ‘Give me a place to stand and with a lever I will move the whole world.’ And he was one of the greatest mathematicians ever.”
“How do you know about Archimedes?”
“Listen, Fi, I have to make myself valuable to you somehow. Or you’ll realize you don’t need me.”
“Jeremiah, we both know I need you. Nothing could be more obvious.”
We shared a look that instantly went from neutral to It’s-imperative-that-we-kiss.
I forced myself to sit up and redo my bun. I heard Jazz cracking joints. Finally, he said, “Maybe we should teach Dirk Angus to repair itself.”
“Why didn’t I think of that?” I said.
When I looked back at Jeremiah he was smiling, and I saw an arrow shooting straight toward me, but I couldn’t move because I was staring at that one jagged tooth, hoping he never, ever got it fixed.
* * *
—
It wasn’t until Jazz left to babysit his cousin’s son, Mo, that I remembered he left something on my desk.
It was a piece of notebook paper folded in half. On the front was a scribbly drawing of a redwood tree and a girl running into it. Inside, in Jazz’s scratchy, all-capital-letter handwriting, it said:
VALENTINE’S DAY IS STUPID.
I AM STUPID.
YOU ARE NOT STUPID.
EXCEPT FOR THAT ONE TIME.
I AM VERY GLAD ABOUT THAT ONE TIME.
P.S. KEEP THIS VALENTINE.
WHEN WE GET MARRIED, WE’LL GIVE IT TO BORGAR AND VONEY.
LOVE YA
J.J.
I read it three times.
Love ya.
The paper was rattling. I sat on my bed, clutching my stomach. Happy and terrified, terrified and happy, and terrified.
From a distance, the apartment building on the cliffs where Airika and Rex live looks like a space station, or a place where the government keeps files on the citizens while a demon gives orders from the plumbing. The exterior walls are reflective, so the sky and ocean are projected onto them like a mural or a nature film. It looks like it’s wearing a costume, trying to blend in. When the place was under construction, traffic on Highway 1 was awful, and bookshop customers complained about the constant noise. Dad called the place “soulless digs for tech billionaires.” But I’d decided that the apartments weren’t entirely soulless. Not as long as Airika and Rex lived there.
I was standing inside the all-glass lobby beside the sign that said, Luxury Loft Living! Spaces available starting from the low three millions.
Three weeks had passed since the valentine. I had stopped thinking about it for approximately zero instants since.
When I saw Jazz ride into the parking lot on his Frankenstein bike, I got the sensation I alway
s got when I first glimpsed him. My heart morphed into a million baby butterflies. And then all the butterflies landed on me and I felt very still and alive, like a living statue.
I felt like a lunatic, is what I’m saying—yet oddly attractive.
Jazz walked into the lobby and we repeated the same banter as always.
“The low three millions,” said Jazz as he unbuckled his bike helmet.
I said, “What a dump.”
“When we get married,” he said, “let’s live somewhere nice.”
When we get married.
Love ya.
We stepped into the elevator that was large enough to hold a family of elephants. Would it be fun to get kissed in an elevator? Yes. It would. I thought this every time the doors closed.
Except there was a security camera, a single eye staring at us. So probably no. I thought this every time, too.
We got off on the top floor and Airika threw open the door of the loft.
The loft is like a basketball court with unreal natural lighting. One wall is floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the ocean. From up there, the ocean is so vast it looks vertical. Even though I’d spent my entire exceptionally long childhood in Redwood Cove, I’d never seen the ocean from this perspective until I first went to visit Airika and Rex. It made me think about power. The power of the ocean and the power of money. Maybe the building wasn’t evil, but it did feel strange to me that a tiny handful of people got this exclusive perspective just because they could afford it. An exclusive view of the earth’s…majesty, I guess.
Of course, Dirk Angus had given me power, too, to see things other people couldn’t see. And soon, my timeship would be so powerful that people with all sorts of motivations would want to use it. Since Jazz had mentioned it, I’d been thinking about that a lot. Sure, I intended for time travel to be used for good, but good intentions weren’t everything, as I’d already discovered. Did that make all powerful things bad, though? I mean, gravity was powerful. Was it evil? Of course not. Or the ocean. Yes, it could kill you, but humanity couldn’t live without it. Maybe power wasn’t inherently good or bad. It was simply a force to be reckoned with. To be surfed, maybe.
Airika walked underneath the crystal chandelier that hangs in the center of the room like a UFO. Under the loft’s high ceilings, her extreme tallness didn’t even register. Airika would probably be a pro at wielding power. Airika, who, incidentally, had stopped roller skating when she’d taken up surfing, and as far as I could tell had never looked back.
She stopped beside Rex and a bicycle. A pink-and-black monster of a bunch of bikes chopped and screwed into one. It was wrapped in a giant white bow.
“Madame,” said Jazz, gesturing like a valet, “may we present you with your wheels.”
“Happy birthday, Fi!” said Airika.
I sucked in air, fast and sharp. Yes, it was March 11—but I did not tell anyone it was my birthday. Who had told them?
Dad. Jazz spent almost as much time hanging out with Dad at the bookshop as he did in the Lab with me.
I felt uneasy. Celebrating my birthday was not something I did. The fact that I even had a birthday made me feel incredibly deceptive. It underlined the most selfish parts of my experiment. Hadn’t it occurred to anyone that Horace and Maddy Weather were too old to be my parents? Everyone just slid around the topic like they weren’t fully human. On my birthday there was no doubt I was Death’s henchwoman. The evil scientist with the leopard-print lingerie and the seventeen different passports for smuggling her team’s research to international warlords—the irredeemable semi-immortal, coaxing her friends to drink the Lie.
Actually, there was nothing inherently evil about leopard-print lingerie. I bet they sold that at the mall. It might be fun to get some.
I was so nervous, my brain was babbling.
“She’s speechless,” said Rex. His upper lip curled like he was proud.
I looked at Jeremiah. “You built this for me?”
His smile was shy. “Rex and I built it together. Whatever we couldn’t find in a dumpster—well.”
“I get a major allowance,” said Rex.
I ran my hands over the bike. Its frame was streamlined; its curves were gradual and perfect. The metal felt clean and eager beneath my fingertips.
Airika pointed at another bike, white and yellow with a straw basket and huge handlebars, leaning against a wall. “They built me one, too.”
“Let’s go for a ride!” said Jazz, and Rex grabbed helmets.
* * *
—
Riding through the redwoods in my combat boots on my own custom-built bike, I felt a bit better. I was propelling myself forward on a simple, elegant machine with the energy I generated from my own two legs. Wherever this experiment was going, it was important that I get there, and I would. My mind wandered to my old friend who never went anywhere: Chicago.
I didn’t feel guilty about not having visited her much lately. After all, she was only a photograph—probably. But I wondered why I rarely had the urge. When I went back in time for real, Chicago would be the only one I could talk to. I needed to check in with her this week.
Then I thought about someone else I hadn’t consulted lately: Oona Gold. Her, I didn’t miss. I wasn’t even sure where Time Travel for Love & Profit was anymore. A desk drawer or my closet, probably.
Streaks of sunlight slashed through the green-and-black forest as we rode, and I thought about one person I did miss. Serrafin. I still missed Mrs. Saint Johnabelle a lot. But I’d been content lately, sitting in her classroom with Wylie Buford Zuluti—that felt right to me, too. And I had an amazing new lab partner. Anyway, if all went well, I’d see Serrafin again soon.
Jazz and Rex were walking their bikes toward the remnants of a building on the cliff. It used to be a military lookout; now it’s basically a cement platform. Airika and I followed, and we all climbed up.
Far below us, sea lions were playing on rock formations jutting from the water near the shore. When Airika took off her helmet, her blond shag whipped in the wind. “What are you two working on in the Lab anyway? Besides—” She made a kissing face. Rex flicked her.
I gave her a sarcastic Thank-you-very-much-for-that face, and she gave me a Hey-just-stating-the-obvious face, and we all sat on the hard concrete. Jazz sat next to me and gave me a little smile. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed his bare knees, poking through the holes in his jeans. How could knees be so attractive?
Jazz said, “If you must know, Airika, we’re working on fractals.”
“What are those?” asked Rex.
“Think about the coast of California,” said Jazz. “How would you measure it?”
“With a satellite,” said Airika.
“Yes,” Jazz said, “but how much detail would you get from a satellite photo?”
“Enough,” said Rex.
“That depends,” said Jazz. “What if you wanted to make your measurement as precise as possible? To trace every nook and cranny. The edge of every pebble.”
Everybody looked at the shoreline curving around the cove.
“You’d have to start tracing smaller and smaller stuff,” said Airika. “Not just every pebble, but every grain of sand.”
“And the nicks in every grain of sand,” said Jazz. “And the nicks inside those nicks.”
“You’d need a microscope, not a satellite,” said Airika.
“The coast of California would go on forever. Dude,” said Rex, “that’s math?”
“The length of the coast of California is equal to infinity. That, my young friends, is fractals.” The light reflecting off the ocean made Jeremiah’s indigo eyes even brighter. “Right, Fi?” he said.
As I nodded, I admired his blowing black curls and that beautiful scar. It was my tenth fifteenth birthday and I’d finally made friends. Real friends I’d r
emember as long as I’d remembered Vera. Longer. I had everything I’d ever wanted except a functioning timeship and a kiss. But soon I’d have a functioning timeship. And a kiss served no purpose at all.
This was the speech I gave myself when Jeremiah was so close to me I felt like he was made of magnets and I was about to get sucked into the ultimate black hole.
* * *
—
We were collecting our bikes to ride home when the feeling of Jazz’s lips brushing my earlobe made my neck tingle. “I had a major breakthrough,” he whispered.
“You did?”
“Let’s talk. Not here.”
* * *
—
After we said goodbye to Airika and Rex, Jazz and I rode up the twisty trail between the cypress trees. When we reached a clearing, we parked. It was deep green-black with pools of light, and silent, like a theater, except for the wind rustling the leaves and the distant booms and crashes of the ocean.
“What is it?” I asked. “I’m dying!”
Jazz swooped his arm like he was throwing a handful of candy to a crowd. “Not long ago, an oracle declared that the next science chick who rolled into Redwood Cove on a slammin’ pink bicycle would be that town’s new queen. In a galaxy far away, a California condor landed on the sweet ride of a science chick who’d been wandering the coast, living off burritos and an acorn full of hope for ten years. ‘Is this a sign?’ said the peasant science chick. ‘A sign of my fortune?’ ”
“Um, okay. The peasant’s voice is super girly,” I said. “And she hates being called a chick.”
“Sure enough, the peasant science lass soon entered the town where the prophecy was spoken, and was named queen. Elated, she used a rope to tie her pink bicycle to this tree.”
He presented the cypress tree beside him. The wind blew its branches like it was part of the act.
I said, “Who uses a rope to lock up their—?”
Jazz held up a finger. “She tied her bike to this tree with an elaborate knot and declared it a gift to the gods. And the gods were happy. Until the lass fell ill. Too ill to rule the town alone. The oracle issued a new declaration: The person who unties this knot will rule the land jointly with the queen.”
Time Travel for Love and Profit Page 18