“It’s on the box.” Jia lifted the lid of the box where the information and instructions were printed on the inside. “And maybe I didn’t live in China that long, but I remember my cultural heritage.”
Matt felt he had struck a nerve with Jia. He knew she did not like to discuss her past, and he told himself it was none of his business and she would tell him when and if she felt like it. But he couldn’t help but feel a tiny bit hurt that she hadn’t confided in him a little more. He didn’t even know what era she was from, only that she was an orphan from China. Sometimes Matt got the feeling Jia was hiding something from him, but then he told himself that was probably just his own paranoia because he was actually the one hiding something from everyone.
They didn’t play Chinese checkers. Haha wanted to have a chess tournament, and Matt soon learned where his dad got his competitive board-gaming nature. Haha beat out everyone and gloated after each win, until it came time to play Matt. Matt had always been a natural at chess. He declared checkmate on Haha in six swift moves. Haha was flummoxed. He thought maybe it was a fluke, or that Matt had surely cheated. Matt played him again and beat him in four moves.
Haha scratched his head, laughing a little. “Okay, how did you do that?”
“Matt’s a genius, duh,” Corey said.
“None of us have ever been able to beat him at chess,” Ruby said. “He doesn’t operate on the same level as the rest of us.”
“Well, I suppose that makes sense,” Haha said, “considering how you built a time-travel machine and all.” He kept frowning at the chess board, rubbing his chin.
Matt frowned at the board too. He wished all this time-travel stuff could be as clear to him as a game of chess, all black and white, that the moves would reveal themselves in combinations of letters and numbers. But when it came to time travel there was so much gray and fog. Even if Matt fixed the compass, he wasn’t sure what their next move should be, how to predict Captain Vincent’s moves, or Quine’s. He could feel himself going crazy.
Corey didn’t help any. He kept going on about the Quine thing, and how they needed to find him and take him down somehow, though no one could even begin to guess how. Well, Matt had a guess, but what was he supposed to do, sell himself out? Maybe that was the answer.
Late that night, when everyone else was asleep, Matt sat working on the compass at his desk. He could still hear the clanks and rumblings of whatever battle was happening outside. A huge shadow passed over his window and when he opened the blinds there was a pterodactyl sitting on the fire escape, folding in its huge wings. Matt studied it. For a moment he forgot about all the chaos and simply marveled at this prehistoric creature before him. Unlike the more reptilian creature he’d always imagined, this pterodactyl actually had small, tufty feathers. Its crest was bright red and its eyes were surprisingly catlike, wary and intelligent. If they could wade through the chaos, Matt thought, scientists and historians could probably learn more in a few short weeks of real-life interaction with the past than they could in a lifetime of digging and research. Time travel wasn’t all bad. Like anything it just needed some regulation. But how could anyone regulate such a thing?
The pterodactyl made a sound between a growl and a shriek and flew off.
Matt placed the center dial back on the compass and gave it a short twist. Before he knew what was happening he was gone.
When he appeared again, he didn’t know where he was. The space was dim and foggy. He took a breath and coughed as dust entered his lungs. He was in a small room with bunk beds. After a moment he realized it was his own bedroom, his and Corey’s. Those were their bunk beds, covered in dust. There were the baseball stadium seats, his desk, his books and magazines and clothes.
He went out to the main area of the apartment. Everything was gray, covered in a thick layer of dust. One section of the wall was blown out, and Matt could see the city beyond, only there was no city. It was in ruins and completely unrecognizable to Matt. Some buildings had been reduced to rubble, others were partially standing. There were hills and mountains. People and animals roamed the land aimlessly. He could see a herd of giraffes. This couldn’t be New York. But this was his apartment. He must have traveled to the future, far into the future for this much change to have happened. He looked down at the dials and his heart did a little leap. He’d gone to June 10, 2019, only days from the time they’d left the vineyard, which meant this could only be a day or two in the future. How could everything have changed so drastically in such a short space of time? What happened? Where was his family? Had they left? Were they here? Maybe they were hiding?
“Hello?” Matt called. “Mom? Dad?” He went to his parents’ bedroom. The bed was unmade, but there was no one there. He went to Ruby’s room. No one. His heart began to pound. Whatever had happened, it clearly wasn’t good. He needed to get back. When had he left? He’d disappeared so quickly and he hadn’t been paying much attention to the time. It was around 11:00 p.m., he thought. He didn’t want to overlap with himself, so he’d go back at midnight the next day. That should be safe. As long as he returned while everyone was still asleep, he should be okay.
He was just about to turn the dials when something caught his eye, something on the dining table,