“It’s going to explode,” Karen cried.
We stumbled from the room as sparks shot from the frame, Eugene bellowing for everyone to get out of the house. We barely reached the front yard before an explosion burst behind us.
“What’s going on?” Eugene demanded. Flames licked at the windows of the parlor.
“The frame was rigged,” I said. I looked around and realized someone was missing. “Where’s Ivan?”
He turned pale. “He was checking the furnace room.”
Black smoke was pouring out of the house now.
“I’ll get him,” Jayden said.
Just then Ivan’s lanky figure crossed the parlor window, his arms raised. If he stayed there any longer, he’d suffocate in the smoke.
“Jayden, can you open the window?”
He motioned with his hands, and the window snapped upward. Smoke spilled out, but strangely, the flames died down.
Ivan stuck his head through the window, a huge grin spread across his face. “Hey everyone—I’m going to be a fireman!” The smoke streaming around his shoulders made him cough, but he kept punching his fist in the air and laughing.
“Pull him out,” Ellen said. “He’s delirious.”
We helped him climb out while Ivan talked the whole time. “You should’ve seen it, man. I just raised my arms, and the flames died out.” His teeth shone white in his grimy face. “I found the use for my powers. Look inside.”
We waited until the smoke cleared and then peered through the window. It was incredible. Except for the burned smell, you would never know a fire raged there. The portrait had swung closed, and only a few smudges on the frame gave any clue it was the source of the explosion.
I still held the bundle from behind the portrait, and now I lifted it for everyone to see. “We may have found what we’re looking for.”
I handed the cloth-wrapped package to Garrett, who rubbed his fingers across the surface. “Franny was here, and a guy named Dan. Bad things were happening. Men in white coats were chasing them.” He stopped. “That’s all there is. Should I open it?”
I nodded.
He pulled out something white. Lindsey and I looked at each other. Now I remembered where I’d seen the triangle-square logo. The machine was a clunky laptop, identical to the White Whale at home, except the logo in the corner wasn’t scratched. I sent words to Lindsey’s mind: Don’t tell anyone yet. She placed a finger to her lips.
Jayden studied the gold lock that sealed the device. “Do you want me to open it?”
“No, we need more information,” I said. “Garrett, can you tell us anything?”
Garrett’s face twisted with confusion. “This is a time machine, and it brought Hepzibah here.”
The others fell silent, staring at the laptop. Jayden stretched out a cautious hand to touch it. “A time machine,” he said. “They’re actually real.”
“We can’t let Dr. Card get hold of this,” I said. “I’m not sure how to stop him, but there might be a clue in Buckeye’s room.”
“Let’s go,” said Ivan, lighting all ten fingers on fire.
Back at Twain House, we split up to search Buckeye’s room with Garrett standing by to take a reading on anything interesting.
“Do you mind if I study the notebook?” Karen asked. “It might be a code.” I passed it to her, and she sat in the corner with a piece of paper, puzzling over the numbers.
“I’ve got something,” Lindsey said, holding up a framed picture of two boys. The taller boy looked like a young version of Buckeye. He wore a safari hat and had his arm around the smaller boy.
Garrett felt the frame. “This is a happy memory,” he said. “Buckeye with his little brother Bruce. They were going to be archeologists when they grew up . . . but it never happened. Bruce got sick. A rare cancer. He died a year later.”
The ache for my parents came rushing back. I understood now why Buckeye said he had regrets.
“We have the information we need,” I said. “Let’s get something to eat.” I didn’t add that it might be our last meal for a long time.
“What a relief,” Ellen said. “Buckeye’s identical shirts were getting me down.”
On the way to the dining hall Karen fell into step with me. “I have an idea about those numbers in the notebook. They might be dates and times, but they’re written strangely.”
I was only half-listening. I was developing an idea of my own. “Karen, do you think we could use the Pandora Device to travel back in time and prevent the kidnapping today?”
“No!” I was surprised by the intensity in her voice. “If you don’t believe anything else I say, believe this—you have to go forward to fix things. Overlapping time sets up a time loop that breaks history and triggers huge problems. That’s why Mr. Parker was concerned about the unusual artifacts at our dig site. There are rules to this kind of thing.”
I wondered if Buckeye saw it that way. For me, the idea of going back to save my parents made such rules useless.
“Read this.” Karen pulled a folded sheaf of papers from her pocket. They were stapled together and worn at the edges as if she had carried them around for a while. “I tore them out of a book. It’s a story by a guy named Ray Bradbury that shows what could happen if you change even something small in the past.”
I studied the title: “A Sound of Thunder.”
“I read this at school,” I said. “A man traveled to prehistoric times and stepped on a butterfly, but when he got home everything was wrong.”
She nodded. “Read it again.”
I read the first few paragraphs, and it was strange how different the story seemed now. I decided to study it later. I stuffed the papers in my pocket and followed the others into the dining hall.
The cook was on the field trip, so we made sandwiches from cold cuts that Cecily found. Karen sat off to the side, still working on the notebook and barely touching the cheese and bread on her plate.
We were halfway through our sandwiches when a humming sound came through the windows. Coop looked out. “It’s the buses—they’re coming back!”
Chapter Twenty-One
The campers waved and called to us as we ran to meet them. Kids poured from the buses, and Buckeye strode through the crowd, heading straight for me. “You have it?” His voice was low and urgent, and his eyes were too bright.
“It’s b-back in the dining hall,” I stammered.
“Take me there.”
I sent out a silent call to Lindsey—we’d gotten separated—and I jogged to keep up with Buckeye.
“You can’t trust those people, Buckeye. Who would kidnap busloads of kids for humanitarian reasons?”
He pushed the door with such force that it cracked against the doorstop. “They never knew they were kidnapped.”
“But you don’t believe all the stuff Dr. Card says, do you?”
“I joined for my own reasons.”
He scanned the room, spotting the bundle on the table. Snatching it up, he tore off the cloth bag and warily studied the gold lock. “How do you open it?”
The door blew open again. Lindsey, Ellen and Jayden charged into the room.
“I need this opened!”
Jayden stepped forward. I admired how calm he appeared. “Let me try.”
Lindsey was telegraphing words to me. Stall him. The others are looking for Mr. Parker.
Jayden waved his hands over the lock in slow motion. “It’s a three layer lock with a booby trap at the end. If I don’t do it right, I could destroy it.”
Buckeye took off his safari hat and wiped his forehead with his arm. “You’re the only chance I’ve got. Do it.”
Trying not to catch his attention, I picked up the cloth bag and slipped the pages from Karen inside. “You’ll want this,” I said.
Buckeye’s gaze never left the laptop as he put the bag in one of the large pockets of his khaki shirt.
“I’ve got the first layer,” Jayden said.
“Buckeye, there’s a reaso
n this thing is called the Pandora Device,” I said.
He jumped. “How’d you know the name?”
“Remember the note you sent us? We met your boss.”
“He’s not my boss anymore.”
“That’s why you need to read the papers I put in the bag.”
“Stella, it’s nice of you to try. But there’s something I have to do.”
“Second level,” Jayden said.
“Faster,” urged Buckeye.
“We saw the picture of your brother,” I said. “You can’t save his life if he has cancer. Even if you go back in time.”
“Third level—I think I’ve disarmed the booby trap.” Jayden took a breath and cautiously raised the lid. The laptop blinked to life.
With a cry, Buckeye grabbed the machine. His fingers flew over the keys, and then he paused and looked up. The sadness on his face made me gasp. He pushed a button. Light flashed in the place he had stood, and thunder roared.
My ears were still ringing when the door crashed open and three large men strode in. They wore jeans and T-shirts as though they belonged to the camp, but I saw the brown square-toed shoes on their feet.
“Stella Harski? You’re coming with us.”
“Where are you taking her?” Jayden demanded. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the bug juice cooler levitating toward the man’s head.
“She’s wanted at the laboratory.”
The other two men edged around the room, surrounding us.
“Run,” Jayden shouted, as the cooler knocked into the first man.
We dashed for the kitchen, and I heard the crack and slosh of the juice cooler as it slammed into the second man, and then the third. But when we pushed open the back door, our cook stood there. He zapped us with a small silver box, and my limbs went stiff. Jayden tried to summon the dish pans, but the pulse from the contraption surged again, and everything went black.
I woke up in a white room with seemingly no corners or door. Lindsey, Ellen and Jayden lay a few feet away. Lindsey’s eyes opened.
“You okay?” I asked.
She touched a lump on her forehead. “I must have fallen.” She surveyed the room with a dazed expression.
Ellen stirred, but Jayden lay frighteningly still. I reached for his wrist to check his pulse, but he sat up, clutching his stomach. “Something’s wrong,” he said.
I realized my stomach was cramping as well. “That thing that zapped us,” I said.
Ellen pushed herself up and rubbed her arm. “I’m going to have huge bruises tomorrow.”
Something whirred above us, and a panel slid open to send a computer screen down from the ceiling.
The head of Dr. Card appeared on it. “Welcome, again, Miss Harski,” he said. “I thought you would have brought me the machine by now, but alas, events have conspired against us.”
“Buckeye took it,” I said. “Wasn’t he bringing it to you?”
“Tut, tut. I hate lying.”
The floor glowed, and a current of electricity coursed through my body. Lindsey groaned and went limp. Jayden jumped up and levitated our bodies from the ground.
“Nicely done, but you need to follow instructions better if you are going to work for me.”
My arms ached from the blast. “We’re not working for you,” I shouted.
The screen went blank, and the glow from the floor dimmed as the monitor receded back into the ceiling. Jayden grunted and lowered us to the ground, just as Lindsey woke up again. I tried to help her sit.
“I’m okay,” she said. “I was trying to reach his thoughts, but he slammed me back, and I blacked out.”
“What do we do next?” asked Ellen.
“I don’t know, but they may be listening.” I looked at Lindsey and sent a message to her: Can you tell the others to communicate through your mind?
Lindsey got Jayden and Ellen to look at her, and they nodded in understanding. We sat cross-legged on the floor in a tight square. My mind chugged furiously. The white walls probably meant we were back at the lab. Ellen, can you see what’s behind the ceiling?
She closed her eyes, tilting her head back. There’s a guard in the room up there, watching a monitor on a desk.
That gave me an idea. Ask Jayden if he can knock out the guard. We might escape through the trap door.
Jayden crouched as though ready to spring and then levitated to the ceiling, pushing back the panel in one smooth motion. His head and shoulders disappeared through the gap, and a terrific crash sounded above us. “Come on up—” He levitated the three of us through the opening, and we landed in a heap next to him.
In the corner the guard lay unconscious with a broken monitor by his head.
Lindsey blinked and spoke aloud. “It’s safe to talk now, but someone just contacted us. Her name is Sarah, and she’s a prisoner like us. She wants us to go to her.”
I wondered if Dr. Card would trap us with a story like this. No, his traps would be more spectacular. I cracked the door an inch and looked into the hallway. The same glaring white walls stretched in both directions. “Ask how we can find her,” I said.
Lindsey slipped into the passage and drifted to the left. “She says to walk till we reach a door with a small window near the ground.”
“This place is getting creepier all the time,” Ellen said.
I tiptoed behind Lindsey, wishing I could shrink to mouse-size. If someone spotted us, there would be nowhere to hide.
“We’re getting closer,” Lindsey murmured.
“It’s like that game, ‘hot and cold’,” Jayden whispered. “Wait.” He crouched down and slipped aside the panel to a small window. “We found her.”
I tried the doorknob, but it was locked. “Can you open it?”
It took Jayden so long I began to imagine guards chasing us down the long white hall, but finally the lock clicked, and a tall woman with ebony skin greeted us. She wore an orange headscarf and a flowing gown that swirled with orange, blue and purple.
“Come in quick,” she said.
The light in her room was dimmer, and every inch of the wall was covered with paintings that matched the bright design of her robe. She saw my admiring glance. “All that white was driving me crazy.”
“Did they bring you here to make these?” I asked.
She snorted. “No, they brought me here to create things—silly stuff like machines—I’d rather be painting.” She hurriedly passed out white lab coats. “You’ll need these for our escape. It’s time to get the others.”
“Who are the others?” I asked.
“Other prisoners, brought here to work for the Human Project.” She was talking faster now. “Harold predicts the future and said we had to wait for you.”
She hustled us through the door and down the passage, but Ellen froze by one of the doors. “There’s someone here.”
Sarah frowned. “There shouldn’t be, unless they brought a new prisoner today.”
I touched the door, and my vision wobbled. “We need to find out who’s inside,” I said.
Jayden unlocked the door faster this time, and in the dim room we found an old woman lying on a bed.
Aunt Winnie.
Chapter Twenty-Two
With great effort, Aunt Winnie pushed herself into a sitting position. “Stella, how did you find me?” Her forehead wrinkled as her eyes tried to focus.
“They brought us here, too, and we’re escaping.”
She shook her head. “I’m too weak, and my wheelchair is gone.”
I held her hand. “We can get you out.” I looked at Jayden, and he nodded.
He scooped up Aunt Winnie, and we rushed from the room.
“Thank you,” she murmured. It seemed to take all her strength just to speak. Her body went limp in Jayden’s arms.
Sarah prodded us to walk faster to the next cell. When Jayden unlocked it, a man peered around the door. He had two tufts of hair above his ears, and his bald head glowed in the light from the room beyond. “This is Harold,” she sai
d.
Harold gave a little jump and slid into the hallway. “Time at last!” He wore striped pajamas and carried a bundle of clothes. “As you can see, I’m always prepared.” I liked him at once.
Suddenly he clapped a hand to his forehead. “Come inside quickly.” He closed the door behind us, and a minute later the tapping of footsteps sounded a few feet away.
Sarah shook her finger at him. “Good thing you knew the guards were coming. Now, you better put on a lab coat over those pajamas.”
He sniffed. “I don’t see you wearing one.”
“That’s because I always dress like this.” She held his bundle while he put on the lab coat. His striped pajamas stuck out from the bottom, and I didn’t think he would be very convincing if we met the guards. But then, Jayden carrying Aunt Winnie would be suspicious, too.
“Do the others know?” Sarah asked.
“They will when we get to the lab,” he replied, his eyes twinkling.
“You predicted this was going to happen—you’re supposed to alert everyone.”
His face fell. “I’m not good at the mental transference stuff, but then I thought—it will be more of a surprise this way.”
“Lindsey can do it,” I said.
Harold mumbled how people didn’t appreciate surprises anymore, but Sarah folded her arms. “Thank you, Lindsey. You’ll want to contact Cliff.”
Lindsey closed her eyes. “Got him.”
“Tell him to get the others and meet us in the tunnel.”
The tunnel lay behind a gray door—rough cinderblock walls and dim bulbs. The bright colors of Sarah’s gown swept ahead of us, and we walked faster to keep up. I held Aunt Winnie’s hand while Jayden floated her at his side, like she was riding an invisible stretcher. “I wish we could do something to help her,” I said.
“We are doing something,” Jayden said. “We’re getting her out of here.”
The dim bulbs blinked twice, and Sarah gasped. “They’ve discovered our escape. We need to find the passage to the lab—fast!” She strode ahead and began frantically running her hands over the wall. “It should be here somewhere.”
The Pandora Device Page 11
