Behind Enemy Lines (3 page)

S
ERA HAD
experienced hundreds of Remnants in her life, some of them so awful they literally made her sick. They always left her cold and often in tears. Having become so familiar with them, it wasn’t hard to recognize when her best friend had just experienced his first one.

Lying on the ground, Dak continued shivering like they’d just landed in the middle of an arctic winter.

“If you’re st-st-still mad at m-me,” he said through chattering teeth, “feel fr-fr-free to gloat.”

She
was
still angry with him. He’d been wrong to leave Riq behind, and never should’ve forced her to leave that way. But it was hard to stay angry while he looked so pathetic.

Sera crouched down beside him and put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “You never get used to it, but at least the feelings pass pretty fast.” The Remnant was probably made worse by the stresses of time travel, which were already hard enough. At least he’d stopped shivering.

Dak rolled to a sitting position and wrapped his arms around his legs. “I’m sorry, Sera. I never understood before. Not really.”

“I wish you didn’t have to understand now.” Then she smiled and bumped his side with her elbow. “But this is the point of what we’ve been doing. We’re fixing things.”

She had expected Dak to respond with his usual positive attitude, or at least something playfully sarcastic.

But now he only looked at her with eyes that had become hollow and hopeless. “Not this time, Sera. You said that Remnants are a feeling that something has gone wrong. That what you see with your eyes isn’t what you feel is true.” He turned away and shook his head. “Well, something’s definitely wrong. I think coming back here was a mistake.”

“We didn’t have any choice. If we don’t get a new SQuare, we’ll have no way of knowing what else needs to be fixed.”

“Then let’s just get it and leave as fast as we can.”

That was what they
should do
, yes. But Sera still felt haunted by what she’d seen in the Cataclysm. She longed to go home, just for a minute, just to check that everything there was okay. And maybe better than okay. Sera had learned, to her horror, that her parents were destined to die in the Cataclysm. But that meant they should be alive
now
. What if they were at home waiting for her? Or . . . what if they weren’t? To go there and find her home as empty as before, it would almost feel like she was losing them all over again.

Dak shuddered, drawing Sera’s attention back to him. “Can’t you feel it, too, Sera? This is all wrong. Being here will ruin everything we’ve already done.”

She squinted against the rising sun behind him. “How can being in the present ruin the past?”

“I don’t know! But it does, okay? Something’s going to happen that —” He stopped, as if choking on his own sentence.

“That what?” He didn’t answer and Sera asked, “What’s with you and Riq all of a sudden? Do you know why he wouldn’t come back with us?”

“I think so.” Dak shrugged. “He’s been acting weird ever since 1850, with Harriet Tubman. And I think I figured out why.” Then he turned to Sera. “But that’s for him to talk about, not me.”

“Is it bad?”

Dak nodded. “Yeah. If I’m right, it’s pretty bad.”

“And your Remnant, the one you just had —”

Dak got to his feet and began running down the quiet street. He called behind his shoulder, “Let’s just get the new SQuare, okay?”

Sera ran after him, but her mind was racing even faster. She knew how hard it had been to tell Dak what she had seen in the Cataclysm. And Riq clearly knew something that kept him from coming here at all. What had Dak just experienced that he didn’t want to share with her?

It only took one look at the Hystorians’ headquarters to know it was completely destroyed. Maybe a tornado had driven right through the building, or maybe this was all that was left after the SQ had invaded.

That was a cheery thought, Dak realized. To not know the difference between an SQ attack and a natural disaster.

“When are we?” he asked. “I mean, how much time has passed here since we left?”

“It’s only been a couple of days,” Sera said. “I figured if we came back much later then there would be too many people looking for us. We did just sort of up and disappear.”

Yeah, Sera would think of things like that. If it had been up to Dak, they would’ve come back early enough to save his parents, or at least in time to warn the Hystorians about the SQ attack on their headquarters. But maybe bumping into their old selves would create some huge time paradox. Probably not a good thing.

Still staring at the ruins ahead of them, Sera said, “The Hystorians won’t be in there anymore. How far do you think it is from here to your house?”

Dak shook his head. “We’re not going back there.”

“Riq said the Hystorians watched your parents’ lab. If we go there, they’ll find us.”

“Maybe the SQ watches it, too. I’ll betcha Riq didn’t think of that!”

Dak knew he’d scored a point there, but the look on Sera’s face told him that she understood the real reason for his protests. He didn’t want to go home, not yet. Wherever and
when
ever they’d traveled, Dak’d been too busy figuring out puzzles, dodging Time Wardens, and living the world’s history to think too much about his parents. To wonder if they were still all right. And to worry about what would happen to them if he failed.

But if he went home, that was all he’d be able to think about. Losing them once was hard enough. He didn’t want to go through that again.

“We don’t even have to go inside,” Sera told him. “Just make sure the Hystorians know we’ve come back. Then they’ll give us a new SQuare, and after a quick stop at my house, we’ll hurry back to 1943 again. Easy-peasy. No problem.”

Dak caught the part about a visit to her house, but he wasn’t going to argue with that. He knew she had questions that made her want to go home just as strongly as he wanted to avoid his own. So he began trudging along beside Sera. “Okay, we’ll go to my house. But the one thing I’m learning about time travel is that there’s
always
a problem.”

I
F IT
really only had been a couple of days since they left, then Dak and Sera had barely missed some truly harrowing events. A gap in the earth had split open along Main Street and was so wide in some places that entire cars had been swallowed into it. Several windows of their school were boarded up with a
CONDEMNED
sign across the entrance. And the theater near Dak’s home now had an uprooted tree lodged upside down through its roof. Where the current show’s name had once been
The Farthing Family’s Music
, the
h
in
Farthing
was now missing from the billboard.

Dak snorted out a laugh and pointed to the sign. “Look, Sera, now it says —”

“I can see what it says.”

“That would make some interesting music, all right.”

Sera only rolled her eyes while Dak continued laughing. “I need to hang out with more girls,” she mumbled under her breath.

Dak sighed as they turned into his neighborhood. “Just trying to lighten the mood. I gotta say, this was not the welcome I was expecting. Where is everybody? And shouldn’t things be a little bit better than when we left? I mean, we’ve done a pretty amazing job of fixing Breaks so far.”

Sera nodded silently. This was almost harder than when she’d seen the Cataclysm. Because as awful as it was now, she knew it would only get worse. The streets were entirely empty, but eyes peered back at them from windows and doorways. She wanted to scream at the people to run, but where could any of them go? Everything, everywhere was going to be destroyed.

“We have to succeed,” she said to Dak in a hushed voice. “No matter how tired, or scared, or worried we get —”

“We won’t give up,” Dak finished for her. “I agree.”

There were no signs of any Hystorians when they approached Dak’s house. Not that Sera had expected any, but it would’ve been nice to have some idea of how to get another SQuare. His parents’ lab seemed quiet enough, though the door was slightly ajar. Maybe the Hystorians really were watching this place.

“Do you have the Infinity Ring programmed already?” Dak asked.

“Yes.” No matter how badly she wanted to go home, the devastation had convinced her it wasn’t a good idea. For all she knew, the Cataclysm could kick off at any moment. And besides, Sera didn’t like the way Dak had looked after his Remnant. The minute that SQuare got into their hands, she wanted to leave for someplace safer.
Like the battlefield of a world war,
she thought wryly.

“Then let’s get the SQuare and go,” Dak said. “All we need now is a Hystorian.”

“I’ll bet Arin left us some sort of message inside the lab,” Sera said. “Maybe even a code, like we always get on the SQuare, to tell us where to go next.”

Dak’s eyes darted left and then right as if he was uncomfortable. “Why don’t you go check that out? I’ll, uh . . . keep watch out here.”

This time, Sera didn’t push. She knew he didn’t want to be reminded of his parents any more than he had to be. And maybe he was still shaken by the Remnant he’d experienced. Unfortunately, Sera understood how that could feel, too.

So she nodded and said she’d be back in a minute or two.

It was dark inside and the lights didn’t flip on when she tried them. That wasn’t a big surprise. That earthquake along Main Street likely destroyed much of the city’s power grid. But the Smyths’ private generator, which kept their computers running, was still humming along. She could see the dim light of the screens at the far end of the room and used it to guide her way forward.

“Hello?” a woman’s voice called.

Sera froze as a chair that had been facing the computers slowly spun her way. She squinted, hoping to see whoever was seated there better, but with the only light coming from behind the chair, the person was cast in shadow.

“Sera, is that you?” the voice asked. “What a relief to see that you’re still safe! Is Dak here, too?”

“He’s waiting outside,” Sera replied. “Who are you?”

“We met at the Hystorians’ headquarters. I hoped you’d come back here.”

Sera stepped forward a little closer. The voice did sound familiar, but everything had happened so quickly before they escaped the headquarters, it was hard to place it. She didn’t think it was Arin’s voice, or Mari’s. What other women had they spoken to that day?

“I’m sorry, what was your name?” Sera asked.

The woman leaned forward and, for a moment, Sera thought she got a glimpse of an angular chin. But then the woman reclined and her face disappeared again into the shadows. “You haven’t completed your mission, Sera. Why are you here?”

“Our SQuare was destroyed during an air raid in World War Two.”

“And is the Infinity Ring okay? You have it with you?”

Sera clutched the satchel in her hands. “It’s fine. We just need a new SQuare and then we’ll hurry back there.”

“Certainly. I have one right here. Come on over and I’ll get it for you.”

The woman returned to face the computers and plugged a SQuare in, probably to update it with the most recent data. Still, Sera didn’t walk any closer, and she kept an eye on the exit, just in case.

“Marq is okay, too,” Sera said casually.

“Who?” The woman remained facing away as she worked on the SQuare.

“Marq — the Hystorian you sent to help us with languages.”

“Oh, yes . . . Marq. Fine young man.”

Sera’s mouth pinched together. Whoever was seated in that chair, it was no Hystorian. All of them would’ve known it was Riq who came with them, and that there was no Marq.

“There now, I have your SQuare ready,” the woman said. “But there’ve been some big changes since you left. Call Dak in and I can explain them to you both.”

“Sure.” Sera already had her fingers wrapped around the Infinity Ring. She would get outside, grab Dak’s hand, and get them out of here. The explanations could come later.

Only Sera had barely turned around before Dak burst through the door. “We have to go right now!” he cried. “There’s SQ coming!”

“Actually,” the woman said, “we’re already here!” And with that, she stood and her face was fully lit by the computers around her. Sera saw the fierce lines of her jaw, hard and square. The red glow of the SQuare in her hand deepened the bloodred tones of her hair, and as the woman came closer, her oily black lips whispered, “It will be less painful for you both if you just give me the Ring.”

“Tilda!” Dak hissed.

Sera remembered Tilda all too well. The woman was an ambitious leader within the SQ, intent on clawing her way to the top. She had led the raid on the Hystorians’ headquarters, a raid in which good people had been killed, and she had obviously been waiting for their return.

“Now don’t go anywhere, Sera,” Tilda said. “Don’t you know how much you’ve worried your parents?”

Sera froze. Dak clutched her arm as if he wasn’t sure whether she’d bull-charge the woman or faint on the spot.

But Sera didn’t move. “Where are they?” she asked through clenched teeth.

“Mommy and Daddy?” Tilda laughed, a humorless, throaty laugh that screeched like nails on a chalkboard. “Oh, they’re fine . . . for now. But they have a lot of explaining to do, and they won’t be slipping away from us again.”

“Explaining?” Sera stepped forward. “About what?”

Now Sera felt Dak tensing at her side. “Has the SQ done something to her parents?” he asked.

“Oh, so you kids don’t know the truth?” Tilda’s laugh turned dark and sinister. “Sera, your parents
are
SQ! They work for me!”

“No!” It was everything Sera could do to keep from attacking Tilda in that moment. “You’re lying!”

The voices of the SQ agents entering Dak’s backyard carried into the lab. Soon, there would be no escape.

“You let my parents go!” Sera cried.

“No, Sera,
we
have to go,” Dak said.

Sera turned to look at him, then felt Tilda’s hand on her arm, pulling her back. Dak lunged for the woman, knocking her down.

“The SQuare!” Sera yelled. It was still in Tilda’s right hand, waving wildly in the air.

Dak put one hand on the Infinity Ring, and then stretched enough to grab the SQuare with his other. He wrenched it from Tilda’s grip and said, “Get us outta here!”

At that moment, the doorway was filled with SQ thugs, yelling and pushing to be first through the door to capture the two young time travelers.

Sera had her thumb on the Infinity Ring’s button. “Hold on tight!” she yelled at Dak. Instantly, she felt time grab on to her gut and yank her into the warp. She opened her mouth, but realized someone else was already screaming. She looked over at Dak, whose face was vibrating so hard he’d shut his eyes as if to keep them from being sucked out of their sockets. But his mouth was clamped shut, too.

So who was screaming? Sera turned her head the other way.

Before they left, Tilda had been holding the SQuare with her right hand. Sera had noticed that. But she had never thought to check for where Tilda’s left hand had been.

It was on the Infinity Ring. Tilda was traveling with them through time.