Risked (The Missing ) (17 page)

“Drop your Elucidators!” he yelled.

In response, Gary aimed his hand—and probably an Elucidator held within it—directly at Chip. The gun immediately jerked out of Chip’s hand and glided across the room toward Gary. Gary calmly tucked it into his pocket.

“You think you can fight Elucidators with a twentieth-century gun?” he taunted.

Almost as quickly, Hodge raised his hand toward Gavin. Gavin instantly froze in the midst of running, both
his feet off the ground, his left knee cycled up, his elbows jutting out. But it appeared that he’d only been frozen from the neck down: With his head, he still strained forward, uselessly. And he continued to scream at Gary and Hodge: “What did you do to me?”

“Relax, all of you,” Gary said lazily. “Well, I guess Gavin can’t relax, really, suspended in midair like that. But be at peace, anyway. We’re not going to hurt you. We’re saving your lives, remember?”

“Oh, yeah?” Katherine challenged, looking up and over her shoulder from her place sprawled on the floor. “Why should we trust anything the two of you say?”

“Because we didn’t let time start back up when your brother would have been responsible for killing you,” Hodge said. He aimed his hand toward the wall and a scene began playing back from just a moment earlier: Jonah flicking the bullet toward the floor, the bullet bouncing and spinning. . . . The scene froze at a moment when the bullet was clearly directed toward Katherine.

Jonah shivered.

“See what we mean?” Hodge asked. “If we’d just let time start up then . . . Anybody else feel inclined to rush toward us and be frozen like Gavin? Or have their toys taken away from them, like Chip?”

Nobody moved, but Gavin shouted, “I hate you!”

Hodge shrugged and stepped farther out of the shadows.

Jonah noticed that Hodge looked a lot older than he had the last time Jonah had seen him. His hair was grayer, and his clothing hung on him as if he’d lost an unhealthy amount of weight.

Meanwhile, Gary looked even more muscle-bound than before.

If they’ve come straight from escaping from time prison, he must have been one of those prisoners who spend all their time lifting weights,
Jonah thought, staring at the man’s bulging biceps.

Jonah and Katherine and their friends had been no match for Gary’s muscles before, back in the time cave. Trying to overpower him seemed even more clearly hopeless now. Especially if Gary and Hodge each had an Elucidator, and Gary was holding Chip’s gun.

But do we have a chance to outthink them?
Jonah wondered.

“What do you want with us?” Jonah asked quietly. “Why are you doing this?”

Both men turned their attention to Jonah.

“Ah, young Mr. Skidmore,” Hodge said. “You
have
matured. Back in the time cave you would have been running for us just as impulsively as Gavin over there.”

He gestured toward the frozen Gavin.

Thanks,
Jonah thought.
Way to make Gavin hate me.

“Gavin’s just a lot madder at you than I am,” Jonah said evenly. “Because this is his family. His life you’re messing with.”

Hodge raised an eyebrow.

“And this isn’t what your life has become?” he asked. “The constant time travel, the constant danger, the constant difficult decisions . . . when all you ever wanted to do was stay in the twenty-first century and stick your head in the sand and pretend none of this has anything to do with you?”

“Would you just answer Jonah’s questions and stop trying to distract us?” Katherine demanded.

Gary laughed.

“Sounds like neither of them is as easy to distract as they used to be,” he said condescendingly.

“Daniella? Chip?” Hodge called out. “Would either of you like to add your perspective to this discussion?”

Daniella lifted her head slowly from the floor. She gazed around fearfully at the frozen Romanovs and servants and guards, at the mostly frozen Gavin.

“I don’t have the slightest idea what’s going on,” she whispered.

Katherine went to huddle beside Daniella. Jonah heard his sister starting to explain, “See, sometimes time travelers can stop time, but anyone who’s traveled through time isn’t affected . . . not usually, anyway . . .”

Chip stepped out slightly from behind Yurovsky.

“I think,” Chip began, “if your main goal was saving people’s lives, you would have done all this very differently. Why did you even want us in 1918?”

“Oh, my dear boy—you think
we
sent you to 1918?” Hodge said mockingly. “Wasn’t it Gavin’s fault? Or maybe Jonah’s? Sometimes it’s so hard to pick out cause and effect, event and consequence.”

“I didn’t want to come here!” Gavin yelled, uselessly jerking his head back and forth. “You promised me I could go to the future! You told me that’s what would happen if I typed that code you gave me into an Elucidator!”

“Yes, yes, that is still where you’re headed,” Hodge said, waving his arm dismissively. “We just didn’t tell you there’d be one little detour along the way.”

Jonah looked from the calmly mocking Gary and Hodge to Gavin with his bottled-up fury.

“You had to do something to fix 1918, didn’t you?” Jonah asked. He was finally putting it all together. “When you kidnapped Alexei and Anastasia the first time around, you were lazy and did it in the afternoon. You grabbed them from Alexei’s bedroom and took them down to the garden and time-traveled from there, hours before it was safe to take them away. And that’s why we all landed in the wrong place, coming back.”

“Maybe,” Gary admitted. He looked around at the
Romanovs and their servants and the guards, all frozen in anguish and fury and fear and despair. “Who in their right mind
wouldn’t
try to avoid coming here tonight?”

“But your laziness must have created too many problems with time, and so to get away with the kidnapping, you had to send Gavin and Daniella back to finish living out the day,” Chip continued for Jonah.

“But why did you have to get Chip and Jonah and me involved?” Katherine asked plaintively from the floor beside Daniella.

“You think Daniella and Gavin could have handled this day all by themselves?” Hodge asked. “Of course, we hated to risk any of our investments, especially so many of you all at once. But—”

He’s talking about us like we’re just “investments”?
Jonah thought furiously.
Just things he can send wherever he wants?

He clenched his teeth and tried not to let Gary or Hodge see how mad that made him. Fortunately, Hodge was still talking.

“But you know, Daniella’s coming into all this cold, without the slightest bit of background in time travel,” he said. “And Gavin . . . well, Gavin’s got that little anger-management problem. . . .”

“Not after I became Alexei,” Gavin protested. “Not once I saw how he coped—”

“And that’s why you were trying to attack Hodge and me?” Gary asked.

Gavin glowered at him.

“So what’s going to happen now?” Daniella asked.

Don’t ask that question,
Jonah thought.
Don’t get them focused on their next step. Keep them talking, so we have time to figure out a plan. . . .

“No, wait!” Jonah interrupted. “Time’s stopped, anyway, so why don’t you explain a few other things? How did you do it? How did you break out of time prison without JB and the other time agents finding out?”

“Trade secrets,” Hodge growled.

“Now, now,” Gary argued. “The boy’s asking us to brag. Don’t you think he needs some new heroes?”

“Didn’t you just get Gavin to do all your dirty work for you?” Katherine taunted. “Yeah, you guys are some heroes, when you have to trick a poor, sick boy into doing what you want.”

“I am not some poor, sick boy!” Gavin screamed.

What’s Katherine’s problem?
Jonah wondered.
Why’s she trying to get Gavin even more upset? Shouldn’t we be trying to join together as a team against Gary and Hodge?

Everyone else looked toward Gavin, who was trying to pitch a fit as best he could with his whole body frozen except for his head. But Jonah kept his eyes on his sister.

Do you have the Elucidator?
she mouthed in Jonah’s direction.

The Elucidator?

Jonah looked blankly at Katherine and shook his head.

Get it!
she mouthed.
Hide it!

Jonah had no prayer of tackling Gary or Hodge and wrestling their fully working Elucidators away from them. So he guessed she meant the dumbed-down “parental controls” Elucidator that Gavin had brought from the twenty-first century. So much had changed in the last few minutes that Jonah had almost forgotten how frantically he and Katherine had been searching for it in the last instant before time froze.

But what good is it now?
Jonah wondered.
We’re already in 1918, so that command is useless. And invisibility? Even if we turn the Romanovs invisible, Gary and Hodge can still see them. They’re the big problem now, not Yurovsky and the guards.

He hoped Katherine had a plan.

He scanned the two piles of toy soldiers lying before him. A tracer guard walked by just then carrying a dead tracer body—
eww, don’t look to see who that used to be—
and in the sudden burst of light, Jonah caught sight of a chipped cap on one of the toy soldiers right beside his knee. Quickly Jonah palmed the soldier and slid it into his pocket. But Gary must have caught a glimpse of the
motion out of the corner of his eye, because he turned and peered suspiciously at Jonah.

Okay, if he’s suspicious, give him something else to be suspicious about,
Jonah thought.

Pretending not to notice Gary’s stare, Jonah snatched up one of the ordinary toy soldiers. Hiding it with one hand, he dug a thumbnail against the soldier’s cap, hoping the motion would scrape away the paint. Then, pointing the soldier at Gary and Hodge, Jonah cried out, “Make Gary and Hodge invisible! Send them back to time prison!”

Both men instantly went translucent—because of the Elucidator in Jonah’s pocket, not the toy soldier in his hand. But of course they didn’t go anywhere.

No, scratch that. Gary was suddenly diving toward Jonah, tackling him and pounding him flat against the floor.

Jonah’s face smashed into one of the piles of toy soldiers; the other pile seemed to have scattered enough to jab into every other part of his body from his neck down to his ankles.

Okay, okay, so I’ll have lots of bruises—just don’t let Gary take away the toy-soldier Elucidator from my pocket,
he thought.

Gary grabbed Jonah’s wrist and twisted it slightly, then yanked away the ordinary toy soldier Jonah held in his hand. Gary tore the soldier in half—
he can do that with just his bare hands?
Jonah marveled.
To solid metal?
—then hurled the two halves of the broken soldier into the opposite corner of the room.

“You’re an idiot!” Gary exclaimed, hitting Jonah’s face and smashing it that much harder into the toy soldiers he was lying on. “Didn’t you remember that Elucidator’s
worthless? Time’s stopped! What does it matter if we’re invisible or not?”

“I—I had to try something,” Jonah mumbled.

He didn’t have to work too hard to fake disappointment—he
was
disappointed that he hadn’t thought of some distraction technique that wouldn’t have required Gary tackling him.

Gary punched him again. But then he backed away without searching for the actual Elucidator.

Don’t act happy,
Jonah told himself.
But . . . you can act relieved that Gary didn’t kill you.

Stiffly he sat up. He felt his face, and was surprised to discover that it wasn’t covered with open sores and gushing blood. It was very tender, but the skin wasn’t broken.

Next Jonah patted his ribs and arms and legs to make sure none of them were broken. They ached too, but all his bones seemed to be intact.

Then, surreptitiously, he patted his pants pocket to make sure the real toy-soldier Elucidator was still there.

It was.

Katherine raced dramatically across the room to his side.

“Are you all right, Jonah?” she cried aloud. “Gary didn’t hurt you, did he?”

Just to Jonah she whispered, “Do you have it?”

Jonah nodded, hoping she’d understand which
question he was answering. Surely she wouldn’t think he could be all right after Gary’s tackle.

Hoping he wasn’t carrying the charade too far, he hugged Katherine and whispered back to her, “Do you have a plan?”

“Working on it,” Katherine whispered.

“Okay, you two, break it up,” Gary said, kicking them apart.

The kick hurt almost as much as being tackled.

All that, and Katherine’s just “working” on a plan?
Jonah thought bleakly.

Hodge was frowning and shaking his head at Gary, as if something about Gary’s actions—or maybe Jonah’s—really upset him.

“Enough fooling around,” he said. “All you kids, gather around Gavin.”

“What will happen if we don’t?” Daniella asked.

“Ask Jonah how it felt to have Gary tackle him,” Hodge replied. “And remember, we’ve each got an Elucidator, and Gary’s got a gun. You’ve got nothing.”

Except a worthless dumbed-down Elucidator and a sister who’s just working on a plan,
Jonah thought.
Why didn’t I try to steal the gun or Gary’s Elucidator when he tackled me?

Gary flexed his muscles, and Jonah remembered why.

So we have to obey Hodge?
Jonah wondered.
Isn’t there anything else we can do?

The only ideas he could think of were nothing but delaying tactics.

“If you’re thinking about sending us somewhere else, Gavin and Daniella are going to want the rest of their family to come along,” Jonah said as he stood up very, very slowly.

“Oh, yes!” Daniella agreed, scrambling up. “We have to save them!”

“You care that much about the rest of the Romanovs?” Hodge asked, rolling his eyes.

“They’re our family!” Gavin argued. “Our real family!”