Nothing.
THIRTY
Behind him, other kids began to scream in terror, but Jonah could only stare. It wasn’t dark beyond the cave door—darkness would besomething ; darkness would mean that, with a little light, there’d be plenty to see. Darkness would be comforting, actually. This was so much worse. There was just enough light filtering out from the cave to show that there were no trees anymore, no houses, no path, no rocks, no clouds, no sky. Nothing. It was like being deep in outer space, so far away from everything else that he couldn’t even see any stars.
“We’re in a black hole!” someone screamed behind him.
Automatically, instinctively, Jonah hit the keypad again: 2 1 ST. He hoped it was like the garage-door opener at home, where the same code worked for opening and closing. Mercifully, the door began to roll shut again.
“It’s not a black hole,” another kid was explaining, sounding perfectly rational. “In a black hole the gravity would crush us.”
“It reminds me of the Bible,” a girl said thoughtfully. “Genesis. ‘The Earth was without form and void….’”
Jonah grabbed the “not a black hole” boy and the girl who’d thought of the Bible and pulled them through the crowd. He wanted people by his side who could think when everyone else was screaming. He walked back to the adults, who were all sitting on the floor now, with their backs against the wall, Chip and Katherine pointing the Taser and the Elucidator at them. Gary and Mr. Hodge looked amused. JB and Angela looked distressed.
“Explain,” Jonah demanded. “Where are we?”
“The more appropriate question,” Mr. Hodge said teasingly, “would be, ‘When are we?’”
JB kicked at him, with both legs at once, since JB’s legs were tied together.
“Don’t be cruel,” JB said. “This is bound to be very traumatic for all of them.” He looked over at the screaming, hysterical mass of kids clustered by the door, then back at Jonah. “We call this a time hollow. When they shut the door, Hodge and Gary pulled this whole cave outside of time.”
“So, what—like, we don’t exist right now?” the “not a black hole” kid asked. Jonah glanced at him more closely now. He had curly blond hair, kind of like Chip’s. His name tag saidAlex .
“No,” JB said. “We exist. But ‘now’ doesn’t.”
“Why not?” the girl said. Her name tag saidEmily .
JB glanced toward the hysterical crowd once more.
“Get them calmed down,” he said. “And make them sit on the benches again. Hodge and Gary and I will explain everything.”
“We will?” Gary growled.
“Iwill,” JB said. “And it’s fine with me if they hear only my version.”
“We’ll explain too,” Hodge muttered.
It took forever to get all the kids back to the benches, to get them to be quiet. Jonah thought he and Emily and Alex had accomplished it when one kid happened to glance at his cell phone.
“It still says ten eighteen!” he screamed. “It’s said ten eighteen since we got here!”
“Shh, shh,” Emily soothed him. “Sometimes cell phones break.”
She sat beside him, holding his hand, and that seemed to calm him down.
Katherine, Chip, and a few other kids had worked to pull the adults to the front of the room. They stood like dangerous prisoners on trial, Katherine and Chip guarding them from the side.
“Just show them the presentation,” Hodge was suggesting.
“You mean, your commercial?” JB sneered. “No way.”
“You can give the counterpoint afterward,” Gary said. “We promise.”
“Let them,” Angela said. “You showed it to me.”
JB frowned, then shrugged.
“All right,” he said.
“Go into demo mode on that Elucidator, sugar,” Hodge told Katherine. “See theDEMO button at the top?”
Katherine glared, offended by the “sugar.” But she seemed to be following his orders.
“Let me guess,” she said. “The one that saysADOPTION PROMO ?”
“You got it,” Hodge said. “Now aim at the wall.”
Instantly, on the front wall of the cave, a movie screen appeared. No—Jonah went over and touched it—it was still solid rock. No light shone from the Elucidator, but it was clearly the source of both the screen and the images that suddenly glowed from the screen: shifting photographs of hundreds of faces, seeming to represent every era and culture in history. Despite the rock surface, the faces were clear and unruffled. This was beyond high definition; it was like watching reality.
“From the time humankind achieved time travel,” a voice boomed out, just like in a movie preview, “people have been stirred with compassion for the sufferings of the past.”
What followed was a montage of images that Jonah could barely stand to watch. People lost their heads to guillotines; soldiers on horseback ran swords through infants, bodies fell into pits dug to bury the living with the dead. It went on and on and on, agonizingly. Jonah felt like he’d seen all the worst moments of human history by the time the killings finally ended.
“I’m not allowed to watch R-rated movies!” a kid behind Jonah screamed. “Make it stop!”
“Shh. It’s over now,” a girl’s voice comforted. “It’s in the past.” Jonah looked back—it was Emily again.
On the screen now, all the death and destruction was replaced by a grim-faced man sitting in what appeared to be a TV studio. A caption at the bottom of the screen identified him as Curtis Rathbone, CEO, Interchronological Rescue.
“The past was a very brutal place,” he intoned solemnly. “But as much as modern humanity’s hearts went out to their ancestors, their antecedents, they knew that the paradox and the ripple would make intervention very difficult.”
“Pause it for a moment, will you?” JB called out. “I think you need a few definitions.”
Katherine squinted at the Elucidator. “Where is—oh, wait, wait, I got it!”
Curtis Rathbone, CEO, froze on the screen.
“Theparadox ,” JB called out. “That’s the possibility that time travelers might cause some event in the past that would lead to their own nonexistence. Such as, for instance, accidentally killing their own parents. And theripple is what we call any significant change caused by time travelers, which then alters the present and the future. Think of a stone thrown into a pond, and the way the ripples spread out to the very edge of the water…. Is that clear? Does everyone understand?”
Jonah expected the other kids to begin shouting out, “Time travel? What are you talking about? Are you nuts?” or “The ripple? The paradox? Yeah, right. Try the psych ward!” But when he looked around, the faces around him were as solemn as Curtis Rathbone’s. The other kids had seen the nothingness outside their cave; they were ready for explanations, however far-fetched.
“Okay, back to the propaganda,” JB said.
On the screen, Curtis Rathbone began talking again.
“We here at Interchronological Rescue were determined to take action,” he said. “We studied time very carefully, centuries worth of wars and genocide, famines and pestilence—all the very worst of human suffering. And we discovered hundreds whose deaths were so horrendous, so chaotic, so terrible, we knew we had to save them. And we knew wecould .”
Someone gasped behind Jonah.
“That’s right,” Curtis Rathbone said, almost as if he’d heard the gasp. “Rescue was possible. Oh, we knew we couldn’t save everyone. Much as we would have liked to, say, save every victim of the twentieth-century European Holocaust, we knew that was off-limits. The ripple would have been extreme—too much happened as a result of that Holocaust. But to save even the small, insignificant victims of the past—the ‘orphans of history,’ as it were—didn’t our own humanity demand that we try?”
A single tear glistened in Curtis Rathbone’s eye. He dabbed at it and smiled fleetingly out from the screen.
“We began ten years ago, rescuing children of t
he Spanish Inquisition,” he said. “Babies left in houses that were then burned to the ground, children left for dead who were easily revived by our modern techniques—we could save them! Save them without causing a ripple or a paradox, because they had as good as vanished from history, even without our intervention. And, thus, we could transform those dark days of humanity into a triumph of the human spirit, of modern humanitarianism.” Now he beamed out at the crowd, the terrors of history receding into the past.
“The response of the modern age has been overwhelming,” Rathbone continued. “Everyone was eager to adopt a desperate child from the past, to reach out across the centuries to save some poor soul who had never had a chance. Within five years, we were running ten rescue missions a week, in every century since the beginning of time. Our generous age paid for plastic surgery for Neanderthals, counseling for war refugees, reconstructive surgery for land-mine victims…. And then we perfected our age reversal techniques, so the children we rescued didn’t even have to remember their ordeals. We could deliver perfect happy, healthy bouncing babies to our clients—”
“That’s enough!” JB snarled. “Turn it off!”
Katherine must have managed to hit the right buttons, because Curtis Rathbone disappeared from sight. Maybe it was Jonah’s imagination, but the lights in the room seemed a bit brighter as well.
“Perhaps Curtis Rathbone had humanitarian intentions in the beginning,” JB growled. “Perhaps.”
“He did!” Hodge shouted. “He does!”
JB ignored him.
“But what Interchronological Rescue became was something entirely different,” he said bitterly. “Purveyors of prestigious names from history for wealthy idiots who want to brag at their cocktail parties, ‘Oh, yes, my little Henry comes from a line of British kings.’…Didn’t you try to kidnap Amelia Earhart out of the skies over the Pacific? Didn’t you lure Ambrose Bierce to the Mexican border?”
“The age reversal doesn’t work on adults,” Gary muttered.
“You know that—now,” JB countered.
“Hold on,” Jonah said, because no one else was speaking up. “Age reversal?”
JB flashed him an angry glance, then turned his glare back to Hodge.
“Traumatized children from traumatic times in history have a lot of issues,” JB said sarcastically. “There were problems Interchronological Rescues never wanted to talk about, never wanted the prospective adoptive parents to know about.”
“Erase the memories and you erase the problems,” Hodge said cheerily. “What’s wrong with that?”
Jonah stared at Hodge, trying to understand.
“This is one of the few parts of the theory I was right about,” Angela spoke up, apologetically. “They had turned you all into babies again, even though some of you had once been much older. Teenagers, even.”
Angela’s words seemed to echo in the stone room.Turned you all into babies again… Watching JB’s outrage, Jonah had almost forgotten that any of this time-travel talk had anything to do with him.
“Us?” he whispered. “You’re talking about us?”
JB was still glaring at Hodge and Gary.
“Interchronological Rescue got sloppy,” he accused. “They began taking children whose disappearances were noticed. They caused ripple upon ripple upon ripple….”
He closed his eyes, pained beyond words.
“Oh, and your intervention worked so well,” Hodge accused. “We could have repaired the ripples. We could have put a few children back, if we had to. But, no, you and your friends insisted on attacking, right in the middle of the time stream—”
“The time crash was not my fault!” JB screamed. “If you’d just surrendered…You’re the one who chose to speed away, to slam into the time frame, to ruin her life”—he pointed at Angela—“to nearly destroy thirteen years of time—no, to nearly destroy all of time!”
Even tied up, they were about to come to blows again. Jonah had had it. He’d had it with the suspense, the implications, the accusations, the strain. He stood up. That wasn’t enough. He climbed up on top of a bench and yelled, “Who are we?”
JB and Hodge both fell silent. Then JB said, “Show them. They’re going to have to find out eventually.”
“It’s F six on the Elucidator,” Hodge said.
Jonah watched his sister hit a button. The screen reappeared, displaying a chart. It was a seating chart, Jonah realized, like for a classroom. Or an airplane. He stepped down from the bench to get a closer look and squinted at the names: Seat 1A, Virginia Dare
1B, Edward V of England
1C Richard of Shrewsbury
His eyes skimmed down the list, looking for boys’ names, or names that sounded familiar: 9B, John Hudson; 10C, Henry Fountain; 11A, Anastasia Romanov; 12B, Alexis Romanov; 12C, Charles Lindbergh III….
“That’s who you are,” JB said quietly. “You’re the missing children of history.”
THIRTY-ONE
“Which one am I?” Jonah demanded. But his voice got lost in the sea of voices around him, all calling out the same question. And shouting, “How could it be?” “That’s not possible!” “I can’t believe it!”
“Believe it,” JB said, his voice carrying over the shouts. “It’s true.”
Incredibly, Mr. Hodge was nodding too.
“Virginia Dare,” he said. “First child born of English parents in the Americas. Who vanished with the rest of Roanoke Colony. Edward and Richard, the British princes who vanished from the Tower of London in 1483. Anastasia and Alexis, the two youngest children of Czar Nicholas II, who disappeared during the Russian Revolution. The kidnapped Lindbergh baby, the so-called Eaglet…It was my best rescue mission ever.”
“It was your worst rescue mission ever!” JB retorted. “If we hadn’t discovered how to hold back the ripple, just temporarily, just until we can heal all the wounds, until we can return the children to their rightful place in history…”
Jonah’s head was spinning. He knew he should be paying attention, listening closely. He had the feeling that JB had just said something important, but he couldn’t quite grasp what he meant, couldn’t quite understand.
“What?” This was Katherine, exploding. “You want to send everyone back in time?”
Oh. That was what JB meant. That was important, all right.
Suddenly the whole room was quiet, everyone stunned into silence at once. Katherine turned the Elucidator away from the wall, aiming it at JB once more.
“You can’t do that,” she said. “I won’t let you.”
JB held out his hands apologetically, a particularly pitiful gesture with his wrists bound.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I wish there were some other way. It’s not fair to any of you. But…some of you are royalty. Or the children of explorers. You can understand the need to sacrifice for your country, to take risks for all of humankind. This is even more important. Yes, returning you to history may be dangerous for many of you. Even deadly. But—think of it as your chance to save the world. To give your own life in order to help every other person on the planet, for all time.”
Someone began clapping. It was Mr. Hodge.
“Oh, very noble,” he said sarcastically, his clapping too slow and exaggerated to be sincere. “What a pretty speech. But you forget, my friend, that these children haven’t been raised as royalty. Or as sacrificial lambs. They think of themselves as twenty-first-century Americans. They’re selfish. Spoiled. Overprivileged. The richest society in history, up to this point. They aren’t capable of sacrifice.”
Jonah waited for some kid to speak out, to complain, “We’re not selfish!” But nobody said a word. They were all watching Mr. Hodge.
“WhatI’m offering—myself and Gary, that is—is the glorious future,” he said. “Even more privilege than you’ve ever imagined. Technology beyond your wildest dreams. I mean, we havetime travel—you can be sure that the video games will be truly awesome!” His eyes seemed to twinkle hypnotically. “I just w
ant to complete my original mission. That ripple effect he’s so worried about”—he pointed at JB jeeringly—“pah! You won’t even feel it!”
He took a hop-step toward Katherine; he seemed barely constrained by the ropes around his ankles.
“We’ve worked so hard to bring you all together again,” he said softly now. “The time crash put thirteen years off-limits, but we came back for you as soon as we could. Just hand me that Elucidator, sweetie, and we can all be on our way. There are families waiting for you!”
Katherine jerked the Elucidator back, away from Mr. Hodge.
“All the kids here already have families,” she said coldly. She stared defiantly toward Jonah, as if she expected him to spring to her side, to link arms and agree: “Yeah! What she said!”
He didn’t move.
“And, if we do what you want, we’d have to go back to being babies again?” a voice said quietly from the crowd. Jonah looked back—it was Andrea Crowell, the girl with braids. “We’d have to forget everything, forget our entire lives? Forget everyone we’ve ever known?”
“Well, uh, yes, but it’s not like you’d even remember that you’d forgotten anything,” Mr. Hodge said, looking uncomfortable. “You’ll be perfectly happy in the future. I promise.”
Jonah looked from Mr. Hodge to JB. Both of them were staring back at him as if they expected him to make some sort of decision. He glanced back over his shoulder—several of the other kids were peering anxiously toward him as well. Why?
Oh, yeah, Jonah thought.I did kind of take charge before. Grabbing the Elucidator, “capturing” Angela, opening the door, closing the door… He felt like climbing up on top of the bench again and calling out, “Hey, guess what? I’m good at quick things—snap decisions, rash actions—that’s all. This one’s too big for me. Someone would have to think about this one for a long, long time. That’s not my department.”
But no one else was talking.
Jonah sighed.
“What if we just want to stay in our own time?” he asked. “This is where we belong—the twenty-first century, I mean.”