The Impossible Race: Cragbridge Hall, Volume 3 (5 page)

The message closed and the saturn floated back down to his nightstand.

Whoa. Mind Blown.

Weird, huh?” Derick said, the saturn floating back down into his hand. He looked across the table at the other members of the Council of the Keys. They met in Rafa’s mother’s office, surrounded by pieces of avatars. Derick pushed a giraffe leg off to one side and sat on the edge of a table. “I’ve watched it like thirty times now.”

The room was silent.

“I don’t know where that little floating ball thing came from,” Carol said, standing next to a fully formed robot rhinoceros, “but it’s really rude. Its whole message was basically, ‘Hey, I’m from the future. Do better. The fate of the world is on your shoulders. Oh, and you’re going to die.’ Its mama robot should have taught it some manners.”

Abby felt stunned. Her brother, dead? It had been hard to live in his shadow all of her life, but she would never want him gone. She blinked several times, hoping her emotions weren’t obvious to everyone. She was surprised at how strong they were and how quickly they came to the surface.

“And look,” Carol said. “It’s almost made Abby cry. I mean,
rude
!”

Abby sniffled but tried to change the subject. “But do you really think it’s from the future?” She hoped it wasn’t. She hoped it was some bizarre tasteless joke. But over the past year she had learned that some pretty crazy things were completely possible.

“I’ve never seen any technology like this,” Rafa’s mother said. And she was the world’s expert at making robotic animal avatars. “It’s impressive. I’ve done a quick scan, and it’s just as unique and advanced on the inside.” She wore a pair of sleek goggles and held the saturn in a gloved hand. Apparently she could do some sort of scan with the goggles. “I could study this for months.”

“So you’re saying it
could
be from the future,” Carol summarized.

Rafa’s mother shrugged. “There is no way to tell for sure, but it’s a possibility.”

“From the future,” Carol repeated to herself. “That sounds like such a prank.” Then her eyes grew wide and her mouth fell open. “That gives me a great idea; let’s pick out a few students and send them fake messages from themselves in the future telling them stuff like ‘Don’t eat the food in the cafeteria today. It’s been poisoned.’ Or, ‘The first five answers on your test today are C, A, B, the number 17, and all of the above.’ Or ‘Isn’t that girl Carol Reese super-cute? You should pay more attention to her and invite her to be on your team for the Race.’”

“That is a funny idea,” Rafa said, forcing a smile. “But I think we have some more serious things to think about.” He was pulling on wires inside of a monkey arm and making the fingers flex and relax.

“At least my fake messages from the future would be nicer than Mr. Floaty Doomsday Depression here,” Carol sulked, pointing at the saturn.

“Bottom line,” Derick said. “Do we need to be worried about the Race?”

Abby could only imagine what her brother might be feeling. Did he want her to say that they didn’t have to worry about it, that his life wasn’t on the line? That he could just compete in the Race and relax? “Muns is still unconscious,” Abby said, “like our parents and our grandpa. But if this message is right, we are in some definite trouble. The stakes are higher than ever.”

“The stakes have always been high,” Derick said. “The past and future have always been on the line.” Was he downplaying it all? Was he looking for a way to rationalize it away?

“Yeah,” Abby admitted, “but if this is right, we have to do better than we would have done. We’ll have to succeed where we would have failed.” She blinked a few more times. “We have to. You have to.”

Everyone was silent for a moment.

“This is really serious,” Rafa said, setting down the robot monkey arm he had been fiddling with before. “That future looks
horrivel
—horrible. That Ash is nasty business.” He paused for a second, tucking a stray strand of dark hair behind his ear. “I’m not even sure I should bring it up, but do you think maybe we should beat Muns to it? We could go into the past and set Muns off course. Maybe we could sabotage one of his first business ventures, or mess up some assignments in school, or . . .”

“Punch him in the face,” Carol interrupted. “Because I volunteer to do that.”

A laugh burst out of Rafa. “Maybe. Anything that would keep him from becoming what he is.”

Abby shook her head. “No. My grandpa warned us against that.” Abby had to admit that she had thought of it too, and it was tempting. But she knew better. She knew the catastrophic consequences it could have. “We shouldn’t try to manipulate the past. It’s too dangerous. We deal with troubles as they come.”

“This does sound like an exception,” Carol said.

“I know it sounds good,” Rafa’s mother said. “But I agree with Abby. I don’t think that’s what Oscar Cragbridge would want.”

“You’re right,” Derick agreed. “Plus we may mess something else up. What if knocking Muns off track somehow affects Grandpa and he doesn’t complete his inventions, or he never starts this school, or what if it sends him on a wrong course and it affects my dad, who never meets my mom, and then Abby and I never exist. And that’s just
my
family. It could mess up a lot more than that.”

“We should at least wait and talk to my grandpa about it when he wakes up,” Abby suggested, hoping to stall everyone before they did something rash.

Everyone eventually agreed, though Carol volunteered one more time to punch Muns in the face if there was ever a need.

“In the meantime,” Rafa’s mother said, raising her goggles and resting them on the top of her head, “we should warn the administrators about the Race. Have them double-check everything. Maybe even cancel it.”

Derick grimaced and Rafa frowned.

Boys.
They obviously still wanted to compete in the games.

Carol raised her hand to signal that she was about to talk. “But we can’t really just say, ‘Hey, we got a message from the future, so you need to cancel your games.’”

“You’re right,” Rafa’s mother agreed. “And the Race is the most popular event all year. I know Mr. Sul was looking forward to it, to draw attention away from our last security threat.” She thought for a moment. “I’ll say I heard a rumor that something unsafe may happen in the Race. That should both protect our secrets
and
alert security. They’re interested in any leads of possible danger.”

“And maybe let’s tell Mr. Sul as well,” Abby suggested. “Even though I’m still not sure how well we can trust him.”

Everyone nodded.

“I just wish we could ask the girl from the future,” Derick said. “Talk to her. Get some straight answers.”

“Maybe we can,” Abby said.

The group fell into silence.

Abby continued. “I know we’ve all been thinking it ever since we learned the last secret. When we put three keys into the Bridge, we can interact with the past. When we add three spheres, we can interact with the present. What’s the logical next step?”

“The future,” Carol whispered in reverence. “Whoa. Mind blown.” She pulled her blonde hair back with her hands then fell back onto a chair.

“That is some serious stuff,” Rafa said.

“If I could see the future,” Carol said. “I’d check out my wedding day. I bet I have a gorgeous dress. Oh, and I’d want to know who the groom is.” She winked at Derick. “I bet it’ll either be Derick or that beautiful tan boy in the movie about the girl who fell in love with a troll and started an interspecies war. I think it was a sci-fi Romeo and Juliet. Or maybe Gavin from history class, or the guitarist for The Deskjob Rebellion
.
”

“Something tells me that if the Bridge can be used to see the future, we shouldn’t use it to see who you are going to marry,” Rafa said.

“Why not?” Carol asked. “That way I wouldn’t waste my time flirting with other boys.”

“By the way you act,” Abby said, “I’m not sure you think flirting is ever a waste of time.”

“True,” Carol said, her eyes rolling to the side as she thought about it. “But if I knew who I was going to marry, then I could walk straight up to him and tell him that one day he’ll fall madly in love with me.”

“Now we know for sure that you shouldn’t use the Bridge to see who you marry,” Derick said. “Nothing would scare a guy more.”

“The problem is that Grandpa is unconscious,” Abby said, bringing them back on topic. “He can’t answer our questions or give us anything that might lead to the answer.” He had given them a locket to discover the secret of the past and a black box that gave them clues to the present.

“True,” Derick said. He bit his lip.

“Well, I guess we should focus on stopping whatever crazy thing is supposed to happen during the Race,” Carol said.

“
Concordo
,” Rafa agreed. “And if we are invited, I believe we should even participate in it. That may give us a better perspective of what is happening.”

If
they were invited. Abby didn’t like that
if.

“If the Race is dangerous, I’m not sure I want you to participate,” Rafa’s mother confessed.

Rafa pulled another stray stand of dark hair behind his ear that had fallen out of his ponytail. “But if you and other adults are watching the competition really closely, we need people on the inside,” he argued. “The more eyes, the more we might be able to catch on to what Muns may have planned.”

“I’ll think about it,” Rafa’s mother said. She didn’t seem in any hurry to let her son do anything that might be remotely dangerous.

“We still don’t know what we’re looking for,” Abby pointed out. “It could be that unless we can see into the future, we’ll never know if we’ve stopped that terrible future from happening.”

Abby looked over at her brother, who looked away.

• • •

“5:32. That’s a whole two minutes late,” the nurse said. She stood in the white, sterilized lobby, a hall containing several doors stretching away behind her. “I was beginning to wonder if you were going to come.”

“I had a meeting,” Abby explained.

“I’m teasing you.” The nurse laughed and gave Abby a hug. She was really touchy-feely like that. Abby didn’t mind though. She was grateful to have someone so loving taking care of those in the med unit. “They’re waiting for you.” The nurse gestured toward the hall behind her.

“Any changes?” Abby asked, moving toward the hall. She could always hope.

“Nope. Sorry. They’re still waiting for just the right moment.”

“I hope it’s soon,” Abby said as she passed the nurse. She walked down the hall, passing two rooms she had been in before—rooms that held other teachers she knew. She visited them at times, but it was the last door on the right she opened most often. She always had to steel herself for what she was about to see. Abby took a deep breath and stepped in.

There were three beds in the room. Not just any kind of bed, but beds that rotated. They were designed to move those who were in them, to keep them from getting bedsores and to help them heal.

Abby looked at both her parents and her grandfather. All of them were hooked up to tubes that kept them hydrated and nourished while their bodies were comatose. They had been unconscious since Katarina had attacked them with tranquilizers.

“Hey, everyone,” Abby said, hoping they could hear her. “I’m back.” She walked over and held her mother’s hand. The nurse kept her hair combed and her clothes cleaned, but there was no life, no laugh, nothing. “I miss you.” She glanced at her dad, who was usually so quick to tease and fast to flash a smile; now he lay dull and motionless. Her grandpa, whose mustache and beard made him look like a safari hunter ready for an adventure, looked cold and nearly fake—like a mannequin someone had made to remember the great inventor. “All three of you.” She swallowed a few times. “I really hope you’ll wake up soon, because . . .” She looked around to make sure she had closed the door and the nurse was nowhere around to overhear. She spoke softer. She told them all about Derick’s saturn and the message. Then she waited. She was hoping for one of them to twitch, to raise a finger, anything. Maybe if they knew they were needed it could bring them back to consciousness. She sat in silence for several minutes.

“I mean, the nurse says you’ll be fine.” Abby brushed away a tear. “It’s just a matter of time. But if we don’t stop Muns, then Derick . . .” Her voice trailed off. She couldn’t think about it for too long. Plus, if the message was right and who knows how many people would be stricken with the Ash, Derick wasn’t the only one in danger. Who knew if any of the Cragbridges would survive?

Abby stood up and paced for a moment, then stopped in front of her grandfather. “I wish you were awake to help. To help me know what to do.” Still no movement. No sign.

She kissed her grandfather’s forehead. “I wish I could ask you whether or not the Bridge could show us the future.” She smiled to keep from crying. “Of course, you’d just dodge my question and tell me I had to earn the answer.” She looked at him—so pale and, for one of the few times in his life, not wearing his blazer. He wore it all the time. Abby used to think it was because he was an eccentric inventor, but had discovered that the blazer was where he kept a sphere he needed with him constantly, a sphere that could allow him to see the present, anywhere in the world. She wondered where he kept his key that allowed him to interact with the past. Wait. A sphere. A key. If the Bridge could show the future, it would probably come with something physical that Grandpa would carry with him all the time.