At least, that’s what Sera had said. Dak was too tired to doubt any of it.
“I’m not worried,” he told Alexander, not wanting to start a discussion about the intricacies of time travel. “My mom and dad have always had their own way of doing things. We’ll . . . see them soon enough.”
The new king nodded, surely thinking about how he’d just lost his own parents. But he was too focused on the huge task ahead of him to let anything daunt him for long. “I admire your spirit, boy. I liked you from the instant I saw you climb the statue of Plato. May the gods bless you all.” He stood up as if to leave — even though it was his own tent now — but Riq didn’t let him go.
“Wait,” he said. “Alex — I mean, King . . . Lord hegemon . . .” He looked at Dak in desperation, not knowing how to address him.
“Just call him Alexander,” Dak replied, loving every second of it.
“Speak your mind,” the king ordered. “I’m weary and need to rest for the battles to come.”
Riq straightened, his chest puffing out. “I’d like to join your army. Fight by your side.”
Dak and Sera were on him in an instant, throwing out questions left and right. The world suddenly felt surreal and unstable again, as if the Breaks hadn’t been corrected after all. What could he possibly be talking about?
“You guys, stop,” Riq said quietly. But something in his face silenced Dak completely, and he knew there’d be no changing his friend’s mind. Riq wasn’t going back with them. “Both of you knew this was coming. My future was altered, and I can’t go back.” He lowered his voice. “But I can have a future here, and I can make a difference. These people need my help. I think their intentions are good, but they obviously have a lot to learn about civility and treating other cultures with respect. I can do them a lot of good.”
“But . . .” Dak started, and didn’t finish. His heart hurt. Sera’s face had melted into the saddest frown he’d ever seen. “But,” he repeated.
“Trust me, okay?” Riq replied, reaching out to squeeze both Dak’s and Sera’s shoulders. “This is what I have to do.”
“What about Kisa?” Sera asked. “You could go and be with her and the Maya.”
Riq shook his head. “No. She has her own destiny. Mine is here. To help Alexander change the world. And hey, what’s the big deal? You have a time-travel device. You can come visit me anytime you want. Duh.” He smiled, then turned his gaze to the king. “Will you have me, hegemon?”
Alexander, tired and worn out as he might be, looked every bit a king as he walked over and stood in front of Riq. “I’d be honored to have you by my side. I really would. And there you’ll be, always, to the four corners of the earth. But I’m giving you a new name, a . . . Greek name. You are a builder, a maker, and so I name you after Hephaestus, god of fire. From this day forward you’ll be known as Hephaestion. Be back here at dawn to plan our next move.” And with that, Alexander left, leaving his own tent to Riq and the others for their good-byes.
Dak felt no shame as he hugged his two best friends in the world and bawled his eyes out.
SERA LOOKED up, way up, and saw something that she surely never imagined she would: the long, long neck of an Apatosaurus. Its gigantic mouth munched and munched as it tore the leaves off of a tree.
She wasn’t dreaming. This was real. And it had all been Aristotle’s idea.
“Cool,” Dak whispered, staring above with his mouth hanging open like the cargo door of a giant airplane. “Cool.”
Olympias — mother of Alexander the Third, wearer of amethysts, plotter of murders — sat upon a stone, her hands and feet bound by a material that the great philosopher said would dissolve within a few hours. Right next to her, Pausanius himself sat, tied up and brooding like a punished child. He was an ugly guy, and Sera was anxious to warp back to the time of Greece so she wouldn’t have see his traitorous face anymore.
“How could you do this to us?” Olympias asked, as calm, cool, and collected as Sera had ever seen her. “How will you go throughout the rest of your lives, living with the guilt of leaving us here to be eaten by these monsters?”
“Oh, stop your complaining,” Dak answered, finally pulling his gaze from the enormous beast that towered above them. “This region is dominated by herbivores, and there’s plenty of food and fresh water for you guys to live long happy years together. You deserve each other. Just be glad that Aristotle didn’t let them throw you in the dark dungeons, like the hegemon ordered. This is paradise.”
Sera did feel a little guilty, but Dak made a great point. Alexander had felt so utterly betrayed by his own mother that he’d wanted the harshest of punishments. Olympias and Pausanius were actually getting off easy. Way easy. Most civilizations would’ve put them to death. In fact, Alexander intended to tell everyone that Pausanius, at least, had been killed. The new hegemon couldn’t afford to look weak.
“Whatever helps you sleep at night,” Pausanius grumbled. “Just please explain why I saw doubles of you two while we were . . . journeying here.”
Sera almost laughed. She’d inputted a wrong number when calculating the warp back to prehistoric times, and they’d appeared just as their doubles were leaving the stables to go back and stop Tilda from killing Alexander the first time. Thinking about it confused even her, so she couldn’t imagine what Olympias and her partner in crime thought about it.
“It’ll give you something to ponder for the rest of your life,” Dak answered. “With the dinosaurs. I’m kind of jealous, to be honest. Seems like a cool place. And don’t worry, T. rexes don’t come around these parts.”
“T. rexes?” Olympias asked, looking baffled.
“Never mind.”
“Come on,” Sera said, stepping beside Dak and holding out the Infinity Ring. “Let’s go say our final bye-bye to Aristotle.” They had two more trips to make. Back to Greece, then back to the modern day, where hopefully everything was hunky-dory. Then maybe they could spend a few months healing from the toll all that time traveling took on their bodies.
Dak reached out and put his hand on the cool metal of the Ring, then he gave one last glance at the banished prisoners. “I hope you guys learned your lesson. And don’t be mad at us. It was Aristotle’s idea, and we just do what we’re told. He’s the boss of the Hystorians, you know.”
Sera loved the expression of confusion that swept over the face of Olympias. She pushed the button and quantum physics took them back to Greece, far in the future and long ago, depending on how you looked at it. She just never knew how to think of such things anymore.
“I don’t really know what to say,” Aristotle said as they sat on the balcony in the place they’d had their first deep discussion. Dak thought it seemed like thousands of years ago, which, in a way, was true. “We’ve been through so much in such a relatively short period of time. It’s hard to say good-bye to friends. Friendship is a single soul living in two bodies. Or, in our case, four. At least I’ll get to see Riq — I mean, Hephaestion — again, once the wars are over.”
Dak nodded, not sure what to say himself. He was itching to get back to the modern day and make sure his parents were okay. And that the world wasn’t, you know, about to blow up into tiny pieces. Sera did the talking for them.
“So, how are things going to work now?” she asked. “I know that talking about this stuff can drive you nuts, but since we corrected all the Breaks . . . then that means you don’t need to start the Hystorians. But if you never start the Hystorians, how will we know to go back and . . . Oh, never mind.”
Dak was glad she stopped. His head was starting to hurt.
Aristotle chuckled, a great sound coming out of the great man. He looked a million times better than he had right after the fighting.
“Not to worry, Sera. I suspect these things are simpler than we make them out to be. Most people will have no memory of the former time line, though for you two they will remain linear recollections. In fact, including your Remnants, you will have memories of three dis
tinct time lines, in whole or in part. ”
Now Dak’s head really hurt. “Boulders in the river of time. That’s what I always say when I don’t have a clue what anyone’s talking about.”
That earned another couple of laughs, especially from Sera.
After a few moments, Aristotle grew serious. “Still, we know now that history is a special thing. And that it can be changed — but with dire consequences. I’m still going to form the Hystorians, and create a society that will last throughout the ages.” He paused, scratching that grand beard of his. Then he held up a finger in true philosopher form.
“But this time things will be a little different,” the old man said. “Instead of putting our focus on changing history, we will now do everything in our power to protect it. That’s what we’ll do, my friends. We will protect history until our last, dying breaths.”
Dak wanted to high-five the guy, right there on the spot. But instead he hugged him.
Then came the good-byes, along with more tears.
TO THE future they went.
They warped to the Hystorian headquarters first. But . . . it wasn’t there. Instead, all they saw was a big field, lined with rows of corn.
So they zapped themselves nearby to Sera’s house next. Half of her was terrified to discover what awaited her in this new world, and the other half could hardly stand the wait. Dak had to break into a run to keep up with her as they made their way through the neighborhood.
“Things sure seem . . . normal,” Dak said, slightly out of breath.
“Yeah. They do. And it’s weird about the Hystorians being gone.” But everything around them seemed brighter, the people happier, the colors and edges sharper. So far they hadn’t seen one sign of destruction or oppression.
“I bet they still exist in some way,” Dak responded. “Maybe they’re a lot smaller now, without the SQ to fight. I don’t know. But it sure looks like we re-created a pretty good planet, if I do say so myself.”
Sera slapped him on the back. “Say it all you want. By jove, I think we’ve done it.”
Dak whacked her on the shoulder, though not as hard. “You know, funny that you say that. The phrase ‘by jove’ originated in . . .” He trailed off, his face showing that he’d just been kidding. Although she honestly missed his constant spewing of historical facts. She hoped he relearned everything quickly so he could get back to it.
And then they were there. Her house. Where her uncle had raised her but she’d felt a thousand Remnants that her parents would arrive at any second.
“They’re alive,” Dak said, standing by her just as he’d always done. “I know it.”
She nodded, then let instinct take over. The next few minutes were like a dream, as if the Remnants of her past were slowly unfolding to her like a storybook.
The front door was locked.
They rang the doorbell. No one answered.
They went around the back.
Through the yard.
Down the little dusty lane.
A long, beautiful, dreamy walk.
To the barn. That barn way behind the house.
And the doors opened.
And out they came.
Her mom.
Her dad.
Smiling.
Talking.
Laughing.
When they saw her, she bolted into a run, crossing the grassy distance faster than any horse ever could. They were shocked at her excitement when she hugged them fiercely, kissed them, laughed, and cried.
“My goodness,” her mom said, pulling back and looking delightedly at her daughter. “What in the world has come over you?”
“I just missed you is all,” Sera said. “I just missed you so much.”
The day had been a total blur for Dak.
Everything had changed, yet in some ways, it all felt the same, too. There was something perfect about it, and he felt happier than he had in a long time.
After the incredible reunion between Sera and her parents — he was man enough to admit it, he’d gotten a bit choked up — they’d walked over to Dak’s house, where his own mom and dad were busy in the lab, working on twenty projects at once. It was a huge relief when he saw them alive and well. But what really made him happy was that they were doing what they loved — solving the world’s problems, one by one.
The Smyths and the Frostes had actually joined forces, forming a company to seek out, discover, and invent practical scientific solutions to everything from illness to environmental issues. Their company was called Solving Quantum Physics.
Yep, Dak thought. The SQP. He thought that was just about the best thing ever.
“Dak.”
It was Sera, pulling him back to the real world. They were sitting on a big branch of their favorite tree, enjoying the cool air and the cleanness of it, drinking juice. She had a tablet out, scrolling through some article with taps of her fingers. It had caught her interest big-time, judging by the look of her eyes.
“So?” he asked. “What did you find?”
“Oh, you know. Just checking out the history of Alexander the Great. That’s right, the Great. And his best friend, Hephaestion.”
Dak’s jaw dropped. “What? Yeah, right.”
“I’m serious! Look for yourself. It’s in the Encyclopedia Britannica.”
Dak took the tablet from her and read through the article she’d found. He couldn’t believe it. He absolutely couldn’t believe it. Alexander and his armies had crossed the world, fighting when they had to, but also bringing food and knowledge and resources to countless people. Riq — renamed Hephaestion by Alexander himself — had become a dear friend and confidant to the hegemon. He was thought by many to be the true force behind the king maintaining respect for other cultures at the same time as advancing the world in the greatest leap yet in human history. They called it the Iron Empire.
Riq.
Hephaestion.
Bestie to Alexander the Great.
Dak realized he’d been holding his breath, and he let out a long and loud exhale. “That’s the single coolest thing I’ve ever read in my entire life. Our boy did pretty well, huh? That’s our boy!”
Sera laughed, and Dak loved the sound of it. They’d come so close, so many times, to everything being ruined. To death. To the end of the world. It was good to be home again. It was really, really good.
“So, what do we do with this thing?” Sera asked. She held up the satchel, the shape of the Infinity Ring obvious through the cloth.
Dak stared at it for a long time, as if the answer might appear in the stitches. “I don’t know. I think once my head doesn’t feel like it got beaten by a hammer from warping so much, I might be tempted to go hang out in ancient Rome for a few days.”
Sera shook her head. “I know you’re kidding, but we really can’t do that. It seems like the world is in pretty good shape, and we better not mess it up.”
“So, what are you saying? That we should destroy it? Like Riq did with Tilda’s Eternity Ring?”
“No, no, no. No way. Who knows what might happen in the future. Or . . . the past?”
“Yeah,” Dak agreed. “We’re safe for now, but you never know. So let’s decide where to put the Ring.”
Sera shrugged. “I guess we can wrap it in plastic, put it in a box, bury it. I say we give normal life a chance for a while. Sound good?”
“Sounds good times infinity.”
They were silent for a while, listening to birds and wind and rustling leaves. The branch swayed a little, making Dak sleepy. It’d be nice to take a nap and not worry if the world might end the next day.
“It was fun, huh?” Sera finally said.
Dak looked at her. His best friend. “Yeah, it was. Not that I’d want to do it again.”
“Me, neither. But I’ll never forget what we did.”
“Save the world?” Dak asked.
“Yep, save the world. And I’m glad it was with you.”
She smiled then, and Dak decided not to say
anything back. Sometimes words just weren’t enough.
TILDA SAT, crouched, withered, dying, in the filthy corner of the alley. All of majestic Athens rose up around her, but no one cared about the sad little woman with the hair that once shone like flames. Now it was dull and lifeless and limp, like the last dying embers of a once mighty fire.
She huddled, cold despite the heat. Hungry despite the rat she’d just eaten. Shivering, she leaned against the wall and wept. Every day she’d cried, hopeless and hating the world. Hating the Hystorians. Hating that boy. That girl. That other boy.
They’d done this to her. They’d ruined her. They’d ruined her future.
Oh, how she hated them.
But it didn’t matter. It was over. Though not gracious in defeat, she at least knew she’d been beaten. The SQ was no more.
And so, she’d wait.
She’d wait for death.
The next day, it still hadn’t come.
That evening, a light flashed nearby, accompanied by the crackling sounds of thunder and sparks. Wind rushed through the alley, picking up leaves and trash, pelting her body. Then a sudden darkness blossomed, making her feel as if she’d been cast into a dungeon. Scared, she shifted, trying to shrink farther into the corner.
The shadow of a man stood before her. It took a while, but her eyes adjusted, and she could finally see him, standing there, silent and watchful. He was bald, and hideous scars marked his face. He wore a robe, its hood pulled down around his shoulders. And there was something terribly wrong with one of his eyes, though she couldn’t quite see well enough to know for sure.
“Who are you?” she asked in a rasp, her throat dry as decayed bones.
The man sank toward the ground and knelt before her. That eye. She could see it now. Bloodshot and puffy, like it was riddled with disease.
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