A Mutiny in Time (7 page)

E
VERYONE JOINED
Dak’s mom at the glass case, where she carefully pulled out the Infinity Ring and held the shiny silver loop in her hands like a strange steering wheel. “Your dad and I decided last night that we want to protect this investment from being stolen and used by others. We can do that by keying the device to our DNA. No one else will ever be able to use it. Other Rings can be built when and if we share the technology, but this prototype is our family’s and no one else’s. Sera, we’re including you because of your obvious and amazing contributions.”

“Me?” Sera said. “You want me to do it, too?”

“Of course,” Dak’s mom answered. “I know we’ve been harsh, but it’s only because we care about you both. We want you to feel included, and if everything goes smoothly today, we may bring you two along on a later voyage. We might even need you to control the device if we’ve got our hands full.”

Sera nodded. Dak had never seen her look so proud before.

One by one, they each pricked their thumb on a sterile medical device that plugged right into a port on the side of the Ring. Then Dak’s mom and dad each took a turn doing some programming, conferring with each other to make sure everything was absolutely correct. And then it was time.

“The Ring is programmed with the appropriate coordinates,” Dak’s dad said. “We’re planning on spending a few minutes at our destination. But the beauty of time travel is that theoretically we can be back here just a split second after we leave.”

“Theoretically?” repeated Dak.

“So for us, this trip will last a few minutes,” said Dak’s mom. “But from your perspective, we’ll be back in the blink of an eye.”

“Now step back, kids,” said her husband. “And cross your fingers.”

Dak looked on anxiously as his mom pushed a small button on the Infinity Ring. A hum filled the room, like a hive of bees had just awakened. There was a tingly vibration in the air, as if someone had just dinged a thousand tuning forks.

The dark amber liquid within the Ring glowed bright orange, filling the lab with light.

Dak suddenly couldn’t take it anymore. “We’re going, too!” He grabbed Sera by the hand and reached out to grip his father’s elbow.

He barely had time to see his parents’ shocked faces before everything around them exploded into a tube of light and sound that sucked the lab away and threw their bodies into a chaotic spin. Flashes of alternating color and darkness flew past him but he couldn’t keep his eyes open long enough to see any detail. His ears popped and his tongue swelled and his stomach rolled and the world seemed to press in on him. He tried to scream but the awful noise was so loud he couldn’t even tell if he’d done it. Pinpricks of pain broke out all over him,
inside
him, as if he were beginning to crack like an eggshell, about to burst into a million pieces at any second.

And then, just as quickly as it had started, it ended.

Dak found himself standing on a flattened patch of grass under a sunny blue sky. His parents and Sera were right next to him, all three of them looking at him with fire in their eyes.

He quickly dropped Sera’s hand.

“I’m sorry!” Dak blurted. “I couldn’t stand the thought of waiting around, wondering what happened to you guys.”

Dak’s dad pointed a finger at him. “You have no idea what you’ve —”

A roar behind them cut off his words. Dak spun around to see the source — about a hundred yards away, scores of soldiers dressed in red coats and white pants came running over the crest of a hill. Each one of them held a long rifle with a blade attached to the end. Dak was suddenly in his element, and the coolness of what he saw before him overwhelmed any sense of fear or guilt.

These were British soldiers, and those blades on the end of their guns were called bayonets. The muskets they carried weren’t like modern-day weapons that could shoot bullet after bullet in rapid succession. It took a lot longer to shoot just one bullet — or ball — with the guns that were pointed at them now. That was why they had the bayonets, so the soldiers could fight like sword-wielding knights when it came to that.

“No way!” Dak said. “You guys were going to visit the Revolutionary War without me?”

“This isn’t a game!” Dak’s dad shouted.

“We have a hundred men charging in to kill us,” his mom said rather calmly.

Dak had to admit that the bayonets seemed slightly less cool the closer they got.

Sera pointed at a copse of trees about thirty yards away, out of the direct path of the small army. “Let’s run over there. They’re obviously not after us, because they didn’t know we existed thirty seconds ago. We just happened to land in their path.”

Dak knew she was right. She was logical like that. “Good thinking.”

The four of them ran to the spot she’d indicated and slipped through the outer layer of trees to crouch behind some bushes. The soldiers had surely seen them, but Dak hoped they wouldn’t worry about a stray family — albeit a stray family in strange clothing.

The army had come into full view now, running down the slope to the area where Dak and the others had appeared out of nowhere. When they reached that spot, the soldiers were ordered to halt by a commanding officer. Then, without any kind of instruction, they lined up in three perfectly straight rows, still facing the direction in which they’d been heading.

“I need to fine-tune some of the satellite grid inputs,” Dak’s dad whispered. “Everything dealing with location is based on how things are mapped out in the future by the GPS system, but it’s not quite accurate enough. And we obviously don’t have the satellites now. We were supposed to be about a mile from here so we could watch this from a safe distance.”

“Where are we?” Sera asked. “And . . .
when
are we?”

Dak jumped all over that. “We’re smack-dab in the middle of the Revolutionary War. Those are British soldiers and they’re obviously expecting a battle with some American militiamen. Keep watching and you’ll see how organized and rigid the British are, and how wild and crazy the Americans are. I can’t believe I’m seeing this!”

His mom shushed him. “Quiet down!”

Dak felt an almost unbearable thrill of excitement as it finally hit him what was going on. They’d just traveled through time! He’d just leapt back hundreds of years using a device dreamed up by his own parents and perfected by his best friend. Judging by the half-glazed look on Sera’s face, she was coming to the same world-altering realization.

Movement out in the ranks grabbed his attention. Three red-coated soldiers were running toward them, guns raised.

“You there!” one of them shouted. “American spies! Come out or we’ll shoot!” He and his partners kept coming at full speed.

“
That’s
not good,” Dak said. “Do you know what they did to American spies? Because I do, and —”

Sera silenced him with a glance.

“What do we do?” Dak’s mom asked.

“Don’t worry,” her husband answered with forced calm. He was pressing buttons on the Infinity Ring. “Keep your heads down. I’m almost there.”

One of the soldiers fired a shot, smoke and fire flashing from the muzzle of his weapon. The ball smashed into a tree right next to Dak’s head.

“Almost there!” his dad repeated.

But it was too late. The soldiers crashed into the trees, throwing their weapons down and grabbing at the visitors from the future. The biggest redcoat pulled Sera by the shirt, ripping her off her feet. Dak moved in to help her but the man swung a fist, slamming it into Dak’s cheek. He fell to the ground, dazed. The other two soldiers tussled with his parents, pushing at them roughly. Dak caught a glimpse of his dad, struggling to hide the Infinity Ring and work on it at the same time as he was being roughed up.

Dak’s mom tore loose and fell on Dak, pulling him into her arms. Sera ripped herself free at the same time and jumped toward them. They huddled as a group and backed into his dad, who still fidgeted with the device.

There was a humming sound. The trees around them started to shake. Dak saw one of the soldiers pick up a gun he’d dropped. The bayonet on the end glinted in the sunlight, breaking through the branches above them. He lifted the gun like a spear and charged at their small group. Sera’s arms came up as if she could actually deflect the vicious blade.

Everything around them turned into chaos and color and sound.

Dak, his parents, Sera — all of them were ripped from the copse of trees, sucked into a wormhole. In that blur of movement and noise, Dak felt as if his body were frozen, but the others seemed to be moving. Dak’s mom had let go and turned to hug her husband, and the two of them looked as if they were dancing, the edges of their skin tendriling out like streams of their soul being torn away.

Someone squeezed Dak’s hand — he forced his head to move as if through a thick liquid or a tremendous wind, and he saw Sera looking at him. Still they flew through the wormhole, the rush of noise almost deafening.

An object was in Dak’s other hand. He knew it by touch: the Infinity Ring. When had his father given it to him? He didn’t have time to think, just gripped it in his fingers. The lights grew brighter, the sound impossibly louder. Dak screamed but the sound of it was lost in the madness.

Then it all ended. Dak and Sera appeared on the floor of the lab.

There was no sign of his parents. Anywhere.

S
ERA COULDN’T
quite process what was wrong at first. She’d just had the craziest ten minutes of her entire life, and now she stood back in the quiet lab of Mr. and Mrs. Smyth. Her mind felt a little bent, as if it had just gone up in an airplane and done loops. Parts of her body were hot and other parts were cold. Dak stood next to her, staring at something in his hands. She followed his gaze and saw that he clutched the Infinity Ring.

The soldiers were nowhere to be seen — but neither were Dak’s parents.

He was frozen, his eyes glued to the Ring.

“Dak,” Sera whispered.

His free hand shot up, palm toward her, telling her to be quiet.

She let a few seconds pass but couldn’t stand it anymore. “Dak, what do —”

“Be quiet!” he yelled. “They’re going to show up any second now.”

Sera felt a painful thumping in her chest, a mix of panic and aching hurt for Dak. Something terrible had happened, and she wasn’t sure why. But if his parents hadn’t appeared yet, they weren’t going to appear at all.

“Dak, listen to me. . . .”

He turned toward her, his face at first full of fire and anger. But it quickly melted into despair. His lips trembled.

“What happened?” he asked, his voice cracking. “Where are they?”

“I don’t know.” In that moment she felt responsible — had she messed something up in her calculations? “I’m sorry.” She hated that her words sounded so empty.

Dak turned on her, thrusting the Infinity Ring into her hands. “Fix this! Help them! Do something!”

“Dak, we’ll figure this out, but you need to calm down,” she said.

“Easy for you to say! You have no idea . . .” He started pacing around the room, looking as if he wanted something to kick.

But before he found anything there was a sudden explosion behind them.

Sera screamed and fell to the floor, instinctively turning her body to avoid landing on the Ring. Lights danced before her eyes as the huge iron door jumped a couple of feet forward then fell down, its ringing
boom
shaking the entire building.

Then came the people. They stormed into the lab in the wake of the tremendous crash — people dressed head to toe in black. At least a dozen of them.

Oh, no,
thought Sera.
It’s the SQ.

Dak freaked out, punching wildly at the intruders as Sera scrambled to her feet. She was shocked and confused and suddenly terrified that these people were going to put a bullet in Dak’s brain.

“Dak! Stop it!” she shouted, but he seemed like he’d lost his mind. Several men tackled him to the ground, subduing him roughly.

Sera didn’t know what to do. Her only thought was that she could use the Infinity Ring to get them out of there, but she’d barely had the idea before people were grabbing her, taking the Ring out of her hands. She kicked and flailed to no avail, screaming at the black-clothed thugs.

“Both of you calm down!” someone yelled at them. “We’re doing this for your own good!”

But Sera and Dak didn’t stop fighting as the intruders dragged them through the door and away from the laboratory.