JB sighed.
“I’ll see what we can do about him,” he said.
Jonah wasn’t quite sure what that meant. But he remembered what Second had said about JB, implying that he wasn’t such a time purist anymore, that he’d gone softhearted.
And JB said that Second didn’t lie to us, Jonah thought. Still, something nagged at him, something he’d missed.
He remembered what it was.
“Are you sure you’ve told us everything we need to know?” He asked JB, a bitter twist to his words. “Or are you still working on not keeping secrets unnecessarily?”
JB’s face flushed.
“Sam-Second-he told me I had to say it like that,” JB said. “To make Andrea feel like it was okay not to tell you about her parents from the beginning. I swear, I wasn’t saying it for my own benefit!”
Jonah believed him.
“Add that to… the list,” Second muttered.
“The list?” JB said blankly.
“Of reasons I’m… being fired,” Second whispered from the ground. “Tell me all of them.”
“Got a couple centuries?” JB joked. “There’s the time smack, of course, with Antonio coming into 1600 in the same space as Jonah. Though, actually, I’m grateful for that, because that was the clue that helped me find you. You camouflaged all your other tracks, but you couldn’t hide that. So maybe the time judge won’t charge you for that one. But I don’t think anyone will forgive you for forcing me to do a time smack, hitting you, because it was the only way I could get in to rescue these kids…”
Second gulped.
“That was a time smack then too?” he asked. “An authentic one? Not just a very, very close call?”
“Perfectly planned, perfectly executed,” JB bragged. A hard look came into his eyes. “I did all the calculations myself.”
Second’s face went pale.
“But there was only a 38 percent chance that you would find us, only a 20 percent chance that you would take such a huge risk…,” he whispered.
“Obviously you underestimated me,” JB said.
Second looked up at Jonah.
“That day in the canoe,” Second murmured. “Yesterday. After your… time smack. Did you have to sleep the rest of the day? Or were you just being lazy?”
“It just happened,” Jonah said. “I couldn’t help myself.”
Second’s face turned even paler.
“Then I don’t have much time,” he said. “I didn’t want to have to work things this way, but…”
With great effort, he forced himself up from the ground. He staggered toward Andrea, reaching his hand toward hers.
“You take… Elucidator,” he whispered. “You have the most interest… in seeing this through. Just press… No, wait, I can do that… My one last…”
He collapsed to the ground at her feet. A hearty snore escaped from his mouth.
“He’s out,” JB said, sounding relieved. “He’ll sleep for hours. Except-Andrea, did he hit that button?”
Andrea was staring down at the Elucidator that Second had dropped into her hand.
“I don’t-” she began.
Just then, something like a movie screen appeared in the trees behind them.
“He did,” JB muttered. “But why? What’s he trying to do?”
Second’s face appeared on the screen, beaming and confident.
“I can answer that,” he said.
44
Jonah stared in confusion back and forth between the sleeping man on the ground and the grinning, triumphant-looking man on the screen.
“He knew ahead of time what JB was going to ask?” Katherine muttered.
Oh-it’s pre-recorded, Jonah thought. Video, or something like that.
“Actually, I’m only 94 percent certain that you would ask, ‘What’s he trying to do?’” Second continued, speaking from the screen. “And only 88 percent certain that Andrea would press the button, if I couldn’t. But, as you can see, I prepare for every eventuality. It’s what JB’s been paying me top dollar for, all these years.”
He cleared his throat.
“Speaking of dollars, I want to be clear-I am not in this for the money. I am not like those greedy bumblers, Gary and Hodge. Then, why did I do this, you ask?” He stroked his chin, like an actor trying to look deep and thoughtful. “The short answer is: hope.”
“Oh, please!” JB erupted. “You know better than that!”
“Hope, and… I have to admit… a bit of boredom,” Second continued. “In my job, I watch the same bit of history again and again, sometimes hundreds of times. Can you blame me for getting a little tired of it all? For wanting to do something besides always making sure everything turns out the same way? For wanting something… better?”
“How can you be so sure your changes would be better?” JB yelled at the screen.
“You doubt my certainty?” Second asked, as if he’d anticipated JB’s outburst. “Never mind. I am done with all that. I am finished with projections and predictions and everything we were always so sure about. Let the changes begin! Because…” He smiled sweetly. “I have released the ripple.”
“No-o-o-o-o!” JB wailed, diving toward the Elucidator in Andrea’s hand. He fell short, landing on Second’s unconscious form. “No,” he moaned again.
“Too late,” Second taunted from the screen. “It’s already happening.”
JB dug an Elucidator out of his own pocket and began frantically pushing buttons.
“What does he mean, he ‘released the ripple’?” Andrea asked. “And what’s already happening?”
“He broke down our time barrier, to allow the ripples of change to spread forward from you and Brendan and Antonio being kidnapped, and from all of you being incorrectly returned to time,” JB said, without looking up from his Elucidator. “The ripples are already flowing…”
Jonah shivered. Nothing looked any different around him-he was still standing in sand near skeletons and trees. The sun still beat down on his head; the heat was still thick around him. Only Dare acted like something had changed: The dog whimpered and moved close to JB.
Then the ground began to shake.
“What’s that?” Katherine screamed.
“Time’s reacting. Too much change all at once,” JB said curtly. “Here.” He held out his Elucidator. “We’ve got to get you kids to safety. Everyone grab on. I can only send you as far as the site of the next time barrier, but as soon as I fix things here, I’ll come and get you. Or”-he seemed to very carefully avoid looking directly at anyone-”somebody will.”
None of the kids made the slightest move toward JB’s Elucidator.
“But this is our time period,” Andrea said stubbornly. “You need us to fix it. And to take care of my grandfather.”
“And Katherine and me, we came to help Andrea,” Jonah said, just as stubbornly. “We aren’t finished yet!”
“I was pretty sure you’d feel that way,” JB muttered. “Fortunately, I don’t need your cooperation.”
He hit something on the Elucidator. Jonah caught one last glimpse of JB standing on sand, with Dare huddled against his leg.
And then everything went black.
