“Is there a problem?” The office manager had looked up again, and there was no smile this time.
“Oh, um, no.” Come on, think!
Then I remembered how when I’d visited my old room, my communicator had flashed that message: INCOMPATIBLE NETWORK. This communicator that I had from the Resolute was a different, more advanced model than the ones we’d used at school; I was pretty sure I’d even heard that the entire network system was different. That might mean that if I just did what the office manager said…
I activated my communicator and held it out to the scanner on the screen, holding my breath. A red flash lit up the screen with a loud beep and an error message: ERROR CODE -43: UNKNOWN SOURCE.
“I, uh, think something’s wrong with my communicator,” I said. “It’s been acting up.”
The manager huffed and tapped her screen, squinting to read the message. “Try it again.”
I did and got the same flashing result.
“Hold on…” She tapped through different screens, probably resetting stuff.
“Okay, now.”
I scanned and the error message came up a third time. “Is there a way that I can manually sign in or something?” I said, even adding a smile. You know that trick where you pretend you want to be helpful when you really want the opposite?
“Wait. Hold on…” She tapped some more screens.
Just then the office phone rang.
The manager glanced at her screen and huffed.
“I could come back later,” I said, “but I really don’t want to miss the science fair.”
She tapped the screen again, and whatever came up made her scowl. She waved her hand at me. “Just go. We’ll deal with it later.” She pressed her earpiece. “Hello, main office?”
I stepped back toward the door, still watching her to be sure.…
“Yes,” the manager said. “I’ve been calling you for almost a week. The lunch shipment numbers have been way off, and the online system doesn’t seem to be accepting my requests for—uh-huh, no, I know that—”
I turned and hurried out of the office. There was an exit just a little ways down the hall, and I walked quickly toward it. A teacher appeared up ahead and glanced at me—but it was one of the younger-grade teachers I didn’t know. I slowed and tried to look calm as we passed by each other, then I veered toward the doors and pushed through.
Outside, down the steps—not spotted yet—to the sidewalk… made it! I rounded the corner and leaned against the wall, catching my breath and feeling like I might faint. That was too close! But had it worked? I closed my eyes and tried to remember: Did I have any memory of getting called for a very confusing tardy on the science project day? Nope. Okay, butterfly effect avoided! At least for now.
Back to intercepting Penny: The fastest way to the high school auditorium was to go around in front of the schools, but that would take me right past both main entrances. Given how my luck had gone so far, I figured I’d better play it a little safer. If I went a block away from campus, I could loop around on the side streets to the other side of the high school. It would take three times as long, though, so I’d have to move fast.
I walked to the corner, then took off up the street at the fastest walk I could manage without outright running. I felt like I needed to look in all directions at once, in case someone recognized me, but there weren’t that many people around at this time of day. Kids were at school and their parents at work. So I forced myself to just look straight ahead, and told myself over and over that no one was going to recognize me.
Besides, with the haze, there were very few people out walking, and anyone driving by had their windows up. I was starting to feel that tickle in my throat that came from breathing this stuff, and I would probably start coughing soon, the way I had so often when I lived here, so much so that I’d needed to use an inhaler.
I rounded the blocks and reached the back side of the high school, within sight of a set of doors that I was pretty sure led to the rear of the auditorium. I stopped on the far corner watching them. After twenty minutes, I was sweating like crazy in my colonial outfit. I was also starting to worry: How long was I going to have to wait, and what if someone from my school came along? Teachers sometimes went to the coffee shop a few blocks away. If someone drove by, I might end up in the office again, only this time they might call Mom.
Thirty minutes later, and the doors still hadn’t opened. Meanwhile, it was weird to think that my past self was in the gym at my school presenting the Trash Bot. It had worked so well. I wondered for a second if there was any way I could sneak over and watch that.…
A flash of movement barely caught my eye from down the street. By the time I had looked in that direction it was gone, but I was pretty sure it had been a person. Had they been wearing a uniform like mine? I squinted in the haze, and realized that there was another set of doors down at that end of the building.
I started that way, walking fast. I passed the other doors and saw that one of them was slightly ajar, as if someone had closed it gently so that it paused just before locking. I hurried to the corner—
There was Penny! It was the version of her from the cave, in a colonial jumpsuit like me. She was moving up the block quickly, with an excited bounce in her step, swinging her arms around, and I couldn’t hear her, but I was sure she was singing to herself. She was probably so amazed to be back on Earth, with no idea the trouble she was about to cause.
I almost called out to her, but instead walked fast to catch up. She was passing right in front of the schools—man, did she have any idea how much of a risk she was taking?—but luck was with her, at least for a few more minutes, because no one seemed to notice either of us.
We reached the block between school and the market, a good place to get her attention, but there was an older woman walking her dog on the other side of the street. I focused on catching up. Getting closer, I figured I’d reach her while she waited at the intersection.
But the traffic lights changed just as she got there, and Penny strode right out into the crosswalk. The market was on the other side.
The walk light began to flash. I broke into a jog, reached the street, and was halfway across when the light changed and the cars on either side began to move. I had to stop on the narrow median, watching helplessly as Penny pulled open the door to the market.
No! These were the most important minutes in the universe! I wiped the sweat out of my eyes and watched the cars humming by, and when a gap appeared I dashed across. A horn beeped but I made it and rushed up the sidewalk, then slowed as I neared the door, and cautiously pulled it open.
Maleen, the owner, wasn’t at the counter. There was Penny, standing near the display of candy, frowning at her communicator. She glanced around.… This was the moment. She’d realized she couldn’t pay for anything. Now she crouched down beside the display and reached out—
“Penny!” My hand fell on top of hers just as she was picking up the first package of Cocoa Pandas.
“Hey, what—” She flinched and pulled her hand back, and then she looked up at me and her eyes bugged. “Will?” A glance at my clothes. “Wait are you… my Will? Like, from the cave?”
“Yeah! Listen, Penny, this is really serious: You can’t take that candy.”
Penny looked side to side and got that half smile like she did when she was about to deny something. “What are you talking about?”
“I know you’re going to steal it.”
“I wasn’t—wait, how could you even know that?”
“Because you just realized that your credits wouldn’t work and that Maleen was in the back room and would never notice. You’re going to tell me this when you come back to the cave.”
“Okay… but if you’re telling me this, does that mean that you’re, like… a future you? From after I do this?”
“Yeah. There’s more to it than that, though—”
Penny threw up her hands. “But if I come back to the cave with the candy, then
that means this works. So what’s the problem?”
“The problem is after that. You—”
There was a rustling, and now Maleen returned, making his way behind the deli counter and toward the front of the store. He eyed us suspiciously. “Need any help?” he said.
“Nope, we’re good, thanks!” Penny said with a smile. Then quietly to me: “Way to go and ruin that. I was really looking forward to some Green Tea Drops.” She grabbed my arm and pulled me into another aisle. “I don’t get it,” she hissed. “Why’d you come back here to stop me if it works?”
“Because it doesn’t work! I mean, it does… but only for, like, a minute. We barely got to eat any candy before you disappeared.”
“Disappeared? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I came here from another future, an alternate timeline—”
Penny squinted at me. “Okay, speak non-nerd.”
“Stealing the candy changes the entire future,” I said, pointing to the ceiling. “Cameras, Penny. You forgot about them, and they caught you shoplifting, only they blamed the old you, the one that’s here in the past, and she—I mean, you—got kicked off the mission. You and Dad ended up staying behind on Earth, and so you weren’t with us when we crashed, and…”
Penny’s face got pale. “Hold on. Should I feel like my brain is about to explode, because…” She motioned with her hands blowing away from her head. “How can I not be with you in the future if I’m standing here now? I was literally just with you.”
“It’s, like, time travel stuff,” I said. “It’s what Judy was warning us about—”
“Oh man, she must be so mad at me.”
“Actually, she doesn’t really remember it even happened.”
“Oh,” said Penny. “There’s some upside.”
“Not really. Stealing the candy messes everything up, and that’s why I’m here.”
“Okay, but so… doesn’t that mean we’re good now?” Penny pointed to the candy rack. “You just stopped me, so this future I supposedly created isn’t going to happen. Right?”
“I think so.”
“You think so?”
“I can’t be sure until we get back.”
Penny looked around. “You can probably imagine how weird this sounds, considering that I don’t remember any of what you’re talking about.”
“Believe me, it’s even weirder when you do.” I tugged her arm. “We need to get back to school and go through the doorway before anything else can go wrong.”
“I thought you said you came from another future, though,” said Penny, her brow furrowing.
“Yeah, I did, but we can’t go that way. That door is gone.”
“But if we go through mine, isn’t, like, the old you going to be sitting there, waiting for me to come back?”
“Well…” I hadn’t thought about that. Penny was right. The old me was in the cave with Judy. But this me was from a future created by the candy stealing. And now the candy hadn’t been stolen. So what did that mean? Were we really two people? What exactly was going to happen to this me? I patted myself on the chest, like to make sure I was still all there.
“You thinking about that old movie where the kid has to get his parents to meet or he’ll disappear?” said Penny.
“I don’t know.” My voice came out hoarse.
Penny patted my arm. “Relax, little brother. It will probably be fine. So says the girl who nearly changed the course of history.” She smiled and put her arm around me and led me toward the door. “So long, Maleen,” she said, waving to the counter. “Feel free to forget we were ever here.” He looked at us with a confused expression as we left.
Outside, the sun had really started to heat up the haze—it could never really burn all the way through it—and the air felt heavy and electric.
“Wow,” Penny said, “so I almost messed things up big time, huh?”
“You sound like you’re proud.”
“I mean”—Penny shrugged—“it’s just, that’s some powerful stuff, you know? Usually I have to defend why anything I do matters, but this…”
“It kinda made me and Mom and Judy probably die on the planet. It all goes worse without you and Dad there.”
Penny’s face fell. “Yikes.”
We crossed the street and I caught a hot gust of bus exhaust and coughed, feeling that old itch intensify in my lungs.
“Do you know why I did it?” said Penny.
“What, steal the candy? Because you thought you’d get away with it?”
“Well, duh, but I like to think shoplifting isn’t my normal gig. The real reason was—and I’m not supposed to tell you this—I overheard Mom and Dad talking the other morning, about the planet…” She looked at the ground. “There’s something wrong with the sun—”
“A black hole,” I finished. “It’s affecting the orbit, and the planet’s surface is going to burn.”
“Yeah, how did you know about that?”
“In the other future, Mom told the whole group. And she said that because we lost our Jupiter in the ice—”
“Wait, what? The Jupiter is gone?”
“In the other future. It should still be there when we get back, now.”
“Okay, sorry. My bad.”
“So then Victor tried to take off, and their ship exploded, and it was all a huge mess.”
“Exploded?” Penny’s eyes went wide. “Like, they died?”
“They should be fine now, too. I mean, I’m pretty sure.”
Penny shook her head. “Man, I was feeling so scared about that black hole stuff and I’d been wanting to tell you guys, but I knew Mom didn’t want anyone to know yet. I guess carrying that secret was gnawing at me and made me reckless. I was like, What’s a little stolen candy when we all might die on some far-off planet?”
“Well, hopefully now our chances are better,” I said. “The candy was really good, though.”
“I can’t believe I didn’t even get to try any.”
We crossed in front of the schools. I kept my eyes peeled, but we were lucky, again, and rounded the corner to the auditorium doors.
“Wait, stop.” Penny tugged on my sleeve.
“We have to get back—”
“I know, but take a moment.” She put her arms out and turned her face to the sky. “This is our last chance… which is funny because when we left here I thought that was our last chance, and now here we are, but…” She breathed in deep. “Ahh, Earth.” Her nose wrinkled. “Man, does it smell.”
I smiled and looked around, feeling that old tightness in my throat, but this time it was more than just the bad air. Penny was right: It did smell, and the dust was toxic, and the food supply was unstable, and there wasn’t enough space… but it had still been home. And it spun my head to think of how that other me in school right now, all excited about his Trash Bot, had no idea what was to come. No idea that his worst fear—of something happening to the Resolute, of being lost in space—would actually become a reality.…
“Are you sure we shouldn’t tell somebody?” said Penny, like she was thinking the same thing. “Even just, like, leave Mom a note or something? I was thinking on my walk over here: If they knew about the attack on the Resolute, maybe they could be ready. Maybe we’d never have to crash and be lost in the first place.”
“I don’t know.” It seemed like an obvious thing to do. Except I thought of what Hiroki had said about ripples affecting more ripples. “Any change we make is going to lead to new unknowns, and we have no idea how many. At least, the way things are now, we’re alive and together. I don’t think we can risk messing that up again.”
Penny nodded. “True, and explaining that we got here via an alien time portal would be pretty tricky.” Her face fell, and I saw tears welling up. “Did you miss me when I was left behind?”
Suddenly, I threw my arms around her. “A lot.”
She hugged me back, both of us sweaty on the too-hot planet. “Okay, let’s go home, then.”
&n
bsp; Hearing that almost made me laugh, thinking that there might really be home instead of here.
I pulled away and turned toward the auditorium. I wiped the tears out of my eyes, as they were making my vision blurry—
Except then the blur moved.
“What?” Penny said when I flinched against her.
It could have been the heat off the road, but I knew better. I grabbed Penny’s arm. “Come on!” I spun around, yanking her in the other direction—
And slammed right into something solid. A flash of sparks, and there was a tall, hooded figure, its goggles glowing bright red.
Penny screamed, and they had her, too, had both of us in their powerful grips. They spun us around and there in the middle of the sidewalk was a doorway, eerie green dark glowing on the other side. The aliens shoved us forward and across the galaxy.
CHAPTER
Irushed through blazing white light, and it felt like I was traveling so much farther than I had before, as if I were being stretched out across all reality. My vision and my thoughts getting fuzzy and my body feeling so, so cold—
And then I was on the other side and falling to the ground in murky darkness. I stayed there for a second, on my hands and knees, flexing my fingers against the floor. It was smooth and warm. At first I thought it was metal, but it had a sheen to it more like mica, as if it were made of crystal.
Penny was beside me, on her hands and knees, too. Three of those alien beings were stepping around from behind us, no longer invisible, their cloaks brushing on the ground. They approached two others who stood at a console in front of us: a black pedestal that looked like it was made of a spiraling mass of black and red wires, with overlapping holographic screens fanning out from the top.
Over by the wall, I saw the Robot. He was wrapped in thick metal bonds, like enormous handcuffs that encircled his entire body. His face lights seemed like they’d been paused in place. Hey! I thought, hoping he would hear me, but he didn’t respond.
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