by Holly Hook
The golden curtain swishes inside the arch, ready for us to go through. On the other side will be that wall and that touchpad that Arnelia used to come here.
We’re going to the future. I can’t help but feel an excited rush. So many people would kill for this opportunity.
“Ready?” Simon asks, looking between the two of us.
I nod. “Ready.”
I think we all pile into the rift together. I fall through the golden abyss for a few seconds, reaching for Simon, but I only brush his hand before my feet hit the ground and the world snaps into place.
“Wow,” Isabel’s saying.
Wow doesn’t quite cut it. We’re standing next to the gray wall that Arnelia came through. It’s a lot different than that vision we saw in the Main Chamber, which didn’t show too much.
For one thing, the gray wall is nothing more than a slab sticking out of the floor in a huge, huge room. We’re standing in the middle of a glass dome. The sun peers down at us through haze. Wires crisscross over the top of the wall and throughout the room.
I expect to see computers everywhere, but there aren’t any. There are more gray slabs up everywhere, rows and rows of them, but they're longer and shorter than the one we just came through. Chairs sit in rows, facing them. None of these walls have any controls on them that I can see. Maybe they're those strange touch screens, like Monica's iPad thing that she uses for homework sometimes. That must be it. Computer monitors must be a thing of the past here.
Now I'm even more out of place.
“I haven’t actually stepped in here before,” Simon says. His voice echoes in the room, cutting over the sound of some fans. “You know, I feel quite bad for these people. Working so hard like this and all. And—am I wearing a dress?”
I have to check it out. Simon's in a long, brown garment with emerald trim that resembles a silky robe. It matches his eyes perfectly.
“I like it,” I say. “At least our clothes still change with man made rifts.” I glance down. I'm in a similar piece, only mine is gray with shiny blue trim around my sleeves.
“I don't.” Simon picks at his. “It looks like a dress.”
“It does not. It must be normal for men here.”
“This must have cost the world a lot of money.” Isabel speaks loudly in a way that tells us to stop arguing. She turns, the fabric of her light green robe flowing. “We should make sure we can get this rift to work again for when we leave. I think this is the one we’ll need to use to get back. I’m not walking around outside to look for another stray rift. It must be well below zero out there.”
“I agree.” Even though there’s no one in here, I keep my voice low.
The gray wall is featureless right now. There’s no rift swishing and making weird noises. It’s off. That’s why.
I remember how Arnelia did this and lift my hand. I tap the wall where I’m sure the keypad has to be.
Nothing happens.
“I thought it was here,” I say. “Come on.” I tap it again, but the wall stays gray and boring like it’s trying to laugh at me. “Didn’t you guys see a pinpad here or something?”
“We did,” Simon says. “Crap. We'll need to find another place and open one ourselves where no one can see. I'm sure there's cameras everywhere here. There's three of us. We should be able to do that.”
I tap my fingers on the pad, harder and harder and harder. “We of all people should be able to open this up.”
“You can not. Your DNA is not in our system.”
My heart leaps, Isabel gasps, and Simon leaps in front of me as I turn.
It’s Arnelia, standing there in a flowing blue tunic that matches the sky. Her hair’s down today, with no crystal butterfly tying her hair back. Thankfully, she's not holding a stun prism thing, either. That’s good. I’m shuddering thinking of what it did to me last time.
Isabel looks at me. I know what it means. I need to prove what I’m saying about her. Is that recognition on Arnelia’s face?
“Do you remember me?” I ask.
She squints at me. Her freckles all mash together. “You?”
“Yes. Me. What’s my name?”
She shakes her head. “Right now, I do not know,” she says.
Isabel practically glares at me. Arnelia doesn’t remember a thing.
My face gets hot. I brought us here for nothing. And now we likely have to rely on her kindness to get us back out of here.
“Wait,” Arnelia says. “Let me go get something that might help with that. Stay right here. You may want to sit low and stay quiet.”
And then she’s walking away. I watch as she walks out of the room, into a circular tunnel that’s got water flowing all the way around the walls, and glances back at us. I wave, just to say that we’re not here to kill her.
“I think we should leave,” Simon says. He looks around the room like lasers are about to shoot at us.
“Where do we go?” I have a feeling we should stay. Maybe this will work out after all. Arnelia seemed pretty confident that she can sort this out.
“I don’t like being in this big open room,” Isabel says. She looks at the water tunnel. “Who knows who else is here? They might have those stun things. Or she might be going to get one of those. I think we should follow her.”
“But she told us to—“
Isabel’s already running towards the tunnel.
“No!” Simon yells.
There’s a hissing sound all through the dome like something’s losing a lot of air. Isabel must not hear it, because she keeps running for the water tunnel.
And then a metal box rises around her. It's liquid at first, shimmering in the sun. Isabel stops a split second before the box rises high enough to block her from view. With a sucking sound, it closes on top and solidifies.
“Isabel!” I yell.
She shouts something back, but it's muffled. The box shimmers. It looks as solid as any of the walls here, and it’s got her trapped inside.
“This must be their security in 5052,” Simon steps forward, then stops. “This place must know when someone’s here who shouldn’t be. DNA or something.”
The box doesn’t move. Isabel’s still stuck. She shouts again but I can’t make it out through the material. This place is designed to deal with intruders coming from both the rift and outside the chamber. If we leave this middle area, Simon and I will end up inside those boxes, too. Then we'll have to wait for someone to come deal with us.
Do they still execute people in 5052? They wouldn’t succeed with us, of course, but it would still be pretty horrible. Is this a bad enough offense?
“Arnelia!” I yell. She must know how to undo this. She got through the room okay. But she doesn't return through the water tunnel.
“There might be some controls in here for letting Isabel out.” Simon searches the room. “If we move really, really close to the walls and jump back when we hear that hissing, it might work.”
“I doubt the computer screens or whatever here will let us use them.”
Simon slaps his forehead. “Good point. But we still have to try something. What if she’s being tortured in there?”
“I don’t hear any screams.” But he’s right. Standing here doing nothing is stupid.
Simon waves me over to him and we creep along one of the long gray walls that runs along the walkway. We scoot past chairs, not daring to move them. Maybe they’ll block those walls from coming up around us. Perhaps the trap only happens when you go through the main walkway.
Someone must be coming and we have to hurry.
Simon goes first. We slide along the gray wall together, holding hands, inching closer to the box that's keeping Isabel prisoner. I've got to get her out of there. I'm the one who suggested this whole thing. I hold my breath and listen for any hissing noises. There aren't any, but I can't let my guard down. If I hear that, we'll have to run back to the platform.
My arm seems like it's glued to the gray wall.
Simon stops. “Ju
lia, are you stuck?” Simon asks. He looks at me, his brown eyes huge and worried.
And he's not moving, either. It's like the gray wall's sucking in his robe like a gigantic magnet. It's sticking to it like someone's sprayed it with invisible crazy glue. His arm's on the wall, too, and he's trying to yank it off.
“Let me see.” I reach for him. No use. I can't peel my whole left side from the wall. It's the weirdest feeling. I don't feel like it's pulling at me, but I can't move. We're still holding hands, which are both on the wall, too.
Isabel shouts something from inside the box again. She's getting impatient.
“I think something in this room detected us,” Simon says. He forces a grin. “Looks like all we can do is wait for Arnelia to get here. This must be the same technology Arnelia used on you in the bathroom.”
“Or--”
Footfalls approach from the direction of the water tunnel. A guy's yelling. I can't understand the words. He's speaking whatever language they use three thousand years from now. The yells grow louder. I can't see the water tunnel around the box that Isabel's trapped in, but I can tell he's in the room. I tense. Will he try to shoot us? Simon gives me a glance. “We might have to do a mind trick. Get ready.”
I don't mind the idea now, especially if this man is armed. My heart pounds. Can I? This isn't like Mr. Iris. I can't even talk to this guy, unless he's as learned in English as Arnelia is.
The man appears from around the box, taking us in. He's a short guy with black hair in a lab jacket. He squints at us. Shouts a few words. Then he points at the trap box and rants some more. I realize he's giving us an angry lecture, like we're kids that got caught skipping class. I don't have to hear the words to know what it means.
“Just nod like you understand him,” Simon whispers.
I do. The guy lets loose another torrent of yells, and I nod a bunch of times like I understand.
Finally, he lets out a breath and turns to the low gray wall opposite us. He jabs it with one finger.
It's amazing. I forget all about the fact that we're in trouble. The gray wall's turned into a long, high-definition TV screen. There's charts everywhere. Something that looks like someone's pulse, glowing in blue. There's long numbers everywhere, but I can't read the actual text. It's written in something that looks like a cross between Chinese and Arabic.
I'll ask Arnelia what it all means if she ever gets back here. What if she's abandoned us? She might have even called for this guy. I have a lot of answers to give Isabel when we're out of here, answers that I don't have.
The guy hits a few buttons on the screen and Simon and I practically fall off the wall. He's freeing us. At the same time, the box around Isabel retracts, shimmers like mercury, and sinks into the floor. The floor shimmers for a moment before turning solid again. Isabel stands there and lets out a breath. She opens her mouth to say something to the man, but must think better since she remains silent.
I know what's next.
The Lab Coat Man stands there, glaring at the three of us in turn. It's almost comical since he's a few inches shorter than I am. He points to the water walkway and waits.
The three of us run towards the water walkway while the guy watches. I'm so relieved that we're not arrested or in custody or anything, but I know if he catches us in here again, there's going to be a lot more to pay other than our eardrums. I keep my gaze down on the floor until we're safely in the tunnel, surrounded by the gentle gushing of water.
“Well, that went well,” Simon says when we slow. “I think we're safe in here.”
The water swishes around us, moving in a perfect circle. We're on a pathway through a blue, living tunnel that looks just as amazing as the golden rifts I'm getting used to. The hallway curves, keeping the rift chamber and the angry scientist out of sight. I can still hear him grumbling to himself.
I breathe out and stop along with Simon and Isabel. I can't help but wonder if these people have modeled this complex after the corridors in the Hub. After all, a mortal's memory doesn't get erased if they only go there and then back to their normal time. The wipe only happens if someone goes from time to time. Some of these travelers must have seen the Hub. The rift room even looks a lot like the Main Chamber, only smaller.
“How did they do this?” I ask, studying the water flowing above my head. A trickle of dread rises inside me. I suppress an urge to run back out of the tunnel. I don't like being surrounded by water. I can't help but imagine it crashing down on my head and closing in...
Isabel looks back to make sure that Lab Coat Man isn't coming back after us. “I've never seen anything like this,” she says, reaching for the liquid. She lets her fingers slide into it. “It's warm. I thought it would be freezing.” Then she retracts her hand and faces me. Her blue eyes are steely. “But now, how do we get home? It turns out Arnelia isn't so helpful.”
“We can start by getting out of this tunnel.” I seize Simon's hand and squeeze, focusing all my attention on that. He must be able to feel how fast my pulse is still going. Hint, hint.
Footfalls approach. “Oh. There you are.”
It's Arnelia, talking with her strange accent. She's got that butterfly back in her hair now. Okay. I'll think about that. Did she just leave to go straighten up? Is that the culture now? Maybe in 5052, it's rude to talk to people without having your hair done right. I wish she'd told us what would happen if we left the platform. It would have saved me this growing headache.
“Julia,” she says, smiling at me. “And Simon.”
Isabel looks between us both, mouth falling open.
Now Arnelia remembers. Whatever she's gone off to do might have brought that back. Wow, I can’t figure her out.
“How?” I ask, walking towards her—and hopefully closer to the other end of the tunnel—with Simon in tow. As far as I know, she’s not a member of the Timeless. Time wouldn’t have made us send her back if she was. I look closer at her eyes, trying to make it look like I’m not staring. I don’t see any trace of gold in them, no streaks going through the smooth brown. But I didn’t see that in Simon at first, either. “You shouldn’t remember us, but you do.”
Arnelia smiles. It’s mischievous, like there’s some secret that only she knows. It does nothing but make me shift foot to foot. She's blocking our way out of here. “I told you that you shouldn’t have left the platform. Mulavi doesn’t like it when anyone who’s not in the system goes into the Time Lab. I heard his yells from here. He is very paranoid that people are going to go in and mess with the equipment. Not that they can, of course. He is the one who made all the security measures that the three of you must have experienced.”
“Yeah. That was great.” I have to keep speaking. I'm safe. I'm safe. “At least he didn’t zap us with one of those prism things.”
“Can we...talk?” Arnelia asks. Her smile is gone. Her gaze flicks over to Isabel and back to us.
She’s dodging the subject. There’s some tension in her voice. Her gaze goes over to Isabel and I realize why.
Whatever she has to say to us, she doesn’t want to do it with her here. She trusts Simon and I only. We’re the only two she mentioned in the bathroom back at Trenton High.
“Whatever you have to tell us, it’s fine,” I say. I motion to Isabel. How much longer do we have to stand in here? If I focus on Arnelia, it almost looks like the water is closing in...“She’s okay. We just need her help with something.”
Arnelia narrows her eyes. “Are you sure she’s the one?”
The one. I can’t shake the feeling that Arnelia knows more than she’s let on about our plan. “Yes. She must be. What do you know about what we're doing?”
Arnelia nods. “Then the three of you need to come with me.”
There’s a burning question that I need to ask. “Who are you exactly, and why are you interested in me and Simon? Are we some kind of report you have to write about the effects of changing history? A study that you're doing? I’m sure we’re an interesting subject.”
“That’s what I’ve been thinking,” Simon adds.
Arnelia lets out a breath and faces us. “My interest in the two of you is far, far more than that,” she says. “My full name is Arnelia Desmondi. I am a scientist working on the Time Project, and I am your descendant.”
Chapter Fourteen
I forget all about the water flowing around us. Simon coughs. “Um…huh?”
“I did the calculations,” she says, waving us down the hall like we need to hurry. “I checked the global DNA bank as well, where the genetic history of every person on Earth is stored. It is the truth.”
“But it can’t be,” Simon says. Now he's pulling me along. I'm still too shocked to say anything. “The Timeless can’t have children. None ever have. Julia and I will never reproduce.”
“That is true,” Arnelia says. “Only mortals can pass on their genes. I am fully mortal, in case you were wondering.” Arnelia walks faster through the swirling water tunnel. There's excitement in her steps now. Thankfully, it’s not hard for me to keep up the pace, especially since I still want out of here. I can't breathe. Isabel's right behind me. Is she feeling the same fear of the water? Is Simon?
“Simon is right,” Isabel says. “This isn’t possible.”
“It is,” Arnelia says. “Follow me to the library. I will show you how.”
"But in order for Simon and I to have descendants, we’ll have to both become human again." My heart's pounding. Does that mean that we succeed with our plan to stop the Titanic from sinking? It must. Arnelia does want to help us if what she’s saying is true. Her existence depends on it.
The exit to the water tunnel is right ahead. I breathe a relieved sigh. The four of us emerge into a huge chamber that’s crowned with another glass dome. Sunlight streams down and tall potted plants cast shadows everywhere. Fans blow somewhere. People mill around, almost all of them in robes like us. There's chatter and I can make out none of it. There are also a few people in lab coats, a group of women standing over by a gurgling fountain in the middle of the room. I see all skin types and hair types around me. Nobody has a trace of acne or even wrinkles, not even those with gray hair. They must have amazing health care in this time.
