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Had he just saved his sister—or doomed her?

They were all in the cave now, lined up on four rows of benches in a surprisingly large, open rock room. One dim lightbulb glowed overhead, casting ghostly shadows on everyone’s face. Mr. Hodge had handed off “feel the rock” duties to Gary right after Chip entered the cave, so they hadn’t had a chance to whisper to any of the other kids. Jonah was feeling jumpy again. He’d picked the seat closest to the exit, and he had a plan: if anything happened—any strange odor arising out of the deeper part of the cave he couldn’t see into, any sound of an airplane, anyone showing up with ray guns or futuristic sunglasses—he’d grab Katherine and Chip and take off running. He’d go for help.

Nothing could happen as long as he sat close to the doorway out. He was sure of it.

From his vantage point, Jonah could see Gary standing by the mysterious spot on the rock wall outside. Gary touched the rock with one finger, then stood there staring, his eyes narrowed, concentrating. Then he touched the rock again, a quick brush of his forefinger. He turned and walked into the cave.

“Is that everyone?” Mr. Hodge asked.

“All good,” Gary said, which was a strange answer.

“Very well, then,” Mr. Hodge said, smiling.

Gary nodded.

Jonah heard the noise first, a sort of grinding that seemed to be coming from just the other side of the rock wall. Or maybe,
inside
the rock wall. He peered out through the entryway, blinking at the sunshine that filtered down through the trees. And then the sunlight seemed to narrow, to dim.

The entryway was closing.

“No!” Jonah screamed.

He threw himself toward the opening, toward the last rays of sunlight.

The opening was only five steps away, maybe six, and Jonah stretched out his legs, sprinting like he’d never sprinted before. In a second his right foot would be out in the sunlight, he’d slip through—

Something slammed into him from the side, knocking him to the rock floor. It was like being tackled in football—this was why he’d never liked football—without any pads or helmet. And it was like he was playing on a stone field. And, oh yeah, like his tackler had muscles of stone, as Gary seemed to.

The sunlight disappeared.

“Are you an idiot?” Gary demanded from above him. “You could have been crushed in that door. Killed.”

“Caves don’t have doors,” Jonah muttered back, though his jaw felt broken, smashed against the rock.

“This one does. It’s been modified,” Gary said. “They want to use it for meetings.”

And it was so strange that Jonah and Gary could have that conversation, while behind them, the other kids were gasping and shrieking. Jonah could especially hear Katherine screaming, “Jonah, oh, Jonah, are you okay?”

Oh. She was screaming it directly into his ear, because she was sprawled on the ground beside him.

Gary was scrambling up.

“He’s fine,” he called out. “He just panicked. I guess we should have warned you that we were closing the door, so we could have some privacy.”

“You have to open it,” Jonah said, raising his face from the ground. “I—I’m claustrophobic.”

He grinned, amazed at his own quick thinking. He thought maybe he should act a little wacko, so everyone would believe that he’d been freaked out by the notion of being closed in, cut off from the outside world. He stood up. All the other kids were staring at him, their eyes bugging out…. Oh. Right. They already thought he was wacko.

“I mean it,” Jonah demanded. It was a relief to let all his panic come through in his voice, to sound as scared as he felt. “Open the door. You’ve got to.” His voice cracked. Maybe, on top of everything else, he truly was claustrophobic. The walls seemed closer together than they’d been before. The air seemed to be running out.

“Now, now,” Gary said, clamping his hand down on Jonah’s shoulder once more. “Calm down. If this is really a problem for you, I can take you out the back entrance, so you don’t ruin this workshop for everyone else.”

Jonah’s eyes met Katherine’s. She was still crouched below him. He wanted to ask her advice, work out some plans. If Jonah went off with Gary, could Katherine and Chip and maybe some of the other kids overpower Mr. Hodge? Would they know to do that? Or was Mr. Hodge already too suspicious of Katherine and Chip because he’d seen them with Jonah?

Anyhow, was Gary even telling the truth about a back entrance? All Jonah could picture was himself bound and gagged and hidden at the back of the cave, helpless while all the other kids were taken away.

Jonah took a deep breath, ready to say, “No, that’s all right. I feel better now. I can stay.” Then suddenly Gary’s hand was jerking him backward, pulling him toward the ground again. Jonah’s shoulder slammed into the rock, even harder than before.

“What’d you do that for?” Jonah started to ask. But Gary had already let go and was rolling away from Jonah. Jonah raised his head. Now he could see what had happened. Gary hadn’t meant to pull Jonah down. Jonah was just collateral damage, falling with Gary when somebody else knocked Gary down. Now Gary and the other man were wrestling on the ground, first one rolling to the top, then the other. The other man was also wearing jeans and a sweatshirt and hiking boots; he was—

“JB!” Katherine shrieked. “You came back!”

Jonah felt the relief flowing through him. He relaxed against the stone floor, letting go of all his fears. JB had protected them before; he’d protect them now. Jonah didn’t have to worry about what to do, how to save the other kids. JB would save them all.

Except…

JB was getting his head pounded into the stone floor. It’d been quite a while since the last time JB had rolled over on top of Gary, the last time he’d seemed to be dominating this fight.

Jonah jumped up.

“Katherine!” he screamed. “JB’s going to lose if we don’t help him!”

Jonah lunged at the struggling men. He grabbed Gary’s arm—his thick-as-a-tree-stump arm, with biceps as distinct as rope—and, by bracing his feet against the ground, Jonah managed to keep Gary from punching JB again.

No—scratch that. Gary’s arm continued forward. Jonah had managed only to keep Gary from punching JB quite so hard.

“Chip!” Jonah screamed. “Help!”

Jonah glanced up to see that Chip and Katherine and even some of the other kids were rushing toward him. Katherine, with a girl’s sense of fighting, went straight for the hair, jerking Gary’s head back by entwining her fingers right down to the roots. Jonah had to admit—it seemed to be working.

Chip and two or three of the other boys were pushing at Gary’s chest, trying to shove him away from JB, while a few girls tugged JB in the other direction. The other kids stood by in shock, their faces contorted into masks of dismay and disbelief.

“Is this the role-playing part of the seminar?” he heard one girl ask hesitantly. “Are we supposed to do something?”

“It’s not—” Jonah started to scream at her, but then he decided he didn’t have time to explain. “Help us!”

The girl began to crouch down, but it was too late.

Seconds later, Jonah heard the gunshot.

“That’s enough,” Mr. Hodge said.

He was standing at the front of the room, his right arm in the air, something glistening in his right hand. It didn’t look quite like a gun. But Jonah’s ringing ears and shattered nerves told him he’d heard gunfire; the adrenaline had come back and was telling him,
That was real! Take cover! Hurry! Before he shoots again!

Had Mr. Hodge shot straight up into the ceiling? Where had the bullet gone? Where would the next one go? Where would it be safe for Jonah to run?

Gary pulled away from JB, giving Mr. Hodge a chance at a clear shot.

JB only sat up, staring back at him.

“You weren’t supposed to bring that into the twenty-first century,” JB said. “You know that’s illegal.”

His voice was calm and resolute, which comforted Jonah somehow. If JB wasn’t afraid, then maybe Jonah didn’t need quite so much adrenaline coursing through his system.

Then JB’s words sank in.

Weren’t supposed to bring that into the twenty-first century…
Was that proof that JB and Gary and Mr. Hodge weren’t from the twenty-first century? Jonah wondered. Did that mean that Angela’s theory was right?

He still didn’t want to believe it.

“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” Mr. Hodge was saying with a shrug. “Surely you’ve heard that one before.”

“These are desperate times only because of you,” JB retorted.

“
I
didn’t choose the century,” Mr. Hodge said, taking a step closer to JB and lowering his arm slightly so his gun—or whatever it was—was pointed right at JB. “Children, get away from the interloper. This doesn’t concern you.”

Before any of the kids had a chance to move, JB reached out and grabbed the girl who’d wondered if the fight was a role-play—
Ming Reynolds
her name tag said. The force of his grasp knocked her name tag from her shirt, and it went fluttering toward the ground, showing the name, then the blank side, then the name, then the blank side…. JB jerked Ming upright, so they were both standing. He held her tightly against his chest, like a shield.

“Oh, you wouldn’t hurt one of
them
,” JB said. “It might cut into your profits. What are you getting per kid—a million? Two?”

“That one’s only a minor Chinese princess from the fourth century,” Mr. Hodge said, keeping his arm steady. “Very obscure. Who says I wouldn’t sacrifice her to keep the others?”

“Minor Chinese princess from the fourth century?” What?
Jonah thought. He felt frozen, unable to do anything but watch JB and Mr. Hodge stare each other down.

“Um, hello? This is seeming a little too realistic. I want to stop now,” Ming said.

JB looked down at the girl, frowned, and carefully set her to the side.

Jonah immediately stepped between JB and Mr. Hodge.

“You can’t shoot him!” Jonah shouted.

Mr. Hodge began to laugh.

“Amazing,” Mr. Hodge said. “And you are…” He squinted at Jonah’s name tag. “Jonah Skidmore? So you’re really…” Mr. Hodge peered down at the small silver object in his hand. Jonah wondered if maybe it wasn’t a gun, after all. Maybe it was a Blackberry or a really high-tech, tiny computer with an incredible audio system.

Or maybe his mind was just trying once more to turn something surreal and unbelievable into something ordinary and familiar and easily dismissed.

“Well, that’s very interesting,” Mr. Hodge muttered.

“What?” Jonah said. He wanted to say, “Who am I?” too. He wanted to understand everything. But the words stuck in his throat.

Mr. Hodge had turned his attention back to JB.

“I can’t believe they think you’re on their side,” Mr. Hodge said. “You must not have told them what you want to do.”

“Oh, and you did?” JB taunted.

Mr. Hodge shrugged.

“I’m not the one pretending to have ethics,” he said. “
And
I’m taking them to a better place. A better time.”

“If the future’s still there after we release the ripple,” JB said.

Jonah wondered if, on top of developing claustrophobia, he also might have begun to hyperventilate. JB and Mr. Hodge’s conversation seemed to be making less and less sense.

“Oh, that’s right. I forgot.
You’re
allowed to play with time, even if no one else is,” Mr. Hodge said.

“We have to protect it,” JB said. “You wounded it so badly, we can’t follow any of the old rules anymore.”

Jonah’s head began to throb. He didn’t know if it was from being slammed into solid rock so many times, or from the strain of having a gun pointed at him—if it was a gun, or from the effort he was making to come up with an explanation for everything he’d witnessed. But it was getting harder and harder to think straight. He glanced over his shoulder, hoping JB could give him some directions.

JB was gazing past Jonah, past Mr. Hodge, even, into the darkness beyond.

Backup
, Jonah thought. Of course. JB wouldn’t have planned to overpower Mr. Hodge and Gary all by himself. He would have brought the other janitor from the FBI, the one who’d given Jonah the Mountain Dew. Maybe he’d even brought Mr. Reardon—maybe he was in on this too.

The person who stepped out of the shadows was Angela DuPre.

Gary evidently saw her at the same moment that Jonah did, because he screamed, “Watch out! Behind you!”

Mr. Hodge whirled around, pointing his gun at Angela now, instead of JB. But Angela had a gun too. Or, no—hers looked more like a toy, all black and yellow. Then she pointed it at Mr. Hodge and a stream of light shot across the room, jolting him. Mr. Hodge let out a scream and fell to the ground, twitching. The silver object in his hand hit the ground too and skittered across the floor, toward Jonah.

Jonah reached down and scooped it up. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see JB bending over Mr. Hodge and Angela fiddling with the front part of her gun. And Gary? Where was Gary? Jonah turned his head, and there was Gary racing toward him, ready to slam into him yet again. Jonah took a step back, but it wasn’t necessary. Before his second step, Gary was on the floor, screaming and twitching like Mr. Hodge.

“Is that a ray gun?” Jonah asked, in awe, because this, finally, would be proof he couldn’t ignore.

“Nope,” Angela said. “Just a regular twenty-first-century Taser. I ordered it off the Internet.”

“But the lights,” Jonah said. “And—”

“That’s just the laser tracking system,” Angela said. “The electrical charge goes through the barbs.”

Jonah saw that JB had looped thin silvery bands around Mr. Hodge’s wrists and ankles and was pulling little barbs that looked like fish hooks out of Mr. Hodge’s chest. Then he rushed past Jonah to do the same with Gary. Both men had stopped screaming and twitching, but they seemed too dazed to put up much resistance.

“Quick, Angela, get the ropes,” JB said. “So we can tie them up firmly.”

Angela rushed back toward the dark section of the cave.

“I’m a Boy Scout,” Jonah said, turning toward JB. “I can help with that.”

Instantly, he felt humiliated for saying that—how nerdy could he be? He didn’t have to look back at Katherine to know that she was probably rolling her eyes, mouthing the words, “Really, we’re not related. Not by blood.”

JB grinned as he straightened up.

“Thanks, Jonah,” JB said. “You’ve been
very
helpful today. You just hand me that Elucidator, and then we’ll let you tie some knots.”

He had his hand outstretched, his fingers so close to the object in Jonah’s hand that he easily could have grabbed it. But he was clearly expecting Jonah to pass it over without any problem. He waited patiently.

“This thing?” Jonah said, pulling back a little. He looked down at the object, which seemed more like a remote control to him now. “This is an Elucidator? What’s that mean?”

“It means it’s not something you want to mess with,” JB said. “It’s very dangerous.”

Jonah remembered Mr. Hodge looking at it, muttering about Jonah’s identity.
So you’re really…Well, that’s very interesting….

“This ‘Elucidator’ is from the future, isn’t it?” Jonah asked, holding it even more tightly.

JB hesitated.

“Yes,” he finally said.

Jonah took a step back. JB still stood there waiting, but he was squinting now, getting anxious. Beyond JB, Jonah could see all the other kids watching him, wondering what he was going to do. Moments before, some of the kids had been shrieking as loudly as Mr. Hodge and Gary, but now they, too, had gone silent. It seemed like they were all holding their breath.

“Jonah,” JB said. “Give me the Elucidator. Now.”

Jonah raised the Elucidator, but only to point it at JB.

“No,” he said.