Warren insisted on a summary of events before he would even officially rescue Wes and Jace from their potential tomb. Wes grudgingly obliged, giving one as quickly as possible. Fortunately, just talking about the bomb was enough to appease the kid.
“All right, all right… That explains why you lost your quartzes, and the big temporal disturbance I detected that led me down here…” Warren thought a moment. “But how’d you find out about the bomb, and this place to begin with?”
“Can we please get out of here first?” Wes grumbled.
“Yeah, fine. But we’re heading to July 4th, ’95 first so you can pick up your crap.” Wes and Jace watched as he took out a blue quartz and tapped it. “Gimme a sec…”
“What’s with the color on that one?” Jace was the first to ask.
Warren glanced at it, then back at Jace. “You haven’t seen this one before? Huh, yeah, guess not. I ran back and forth so many times looking for you, I was starting to wear out my pinks. So, I went back to my hideout and started using this one. By the way, here.” Warren took out and handed them both faded rosy quartzes. “Be careful with them, they’re the last ones I got. This blue one is special and rare, I think only given to elite time cops or something. It can make portals—multi-use time tears.”
Warren demonstrated by squeezing the crystal and creating a mirror-like vertical portal in front of them that glowed in a deep blue. Wes and Jace studied it closely.
“Go on through. Each bit of mass costs some energy, but it’ll hold.”
More concerned with spending another minute down in the place than trying out unfamiliar time tech, Wes and Jace stepped on in and emerged into another version of the Time Lab lobby. The lights were back on, and the elevator was running again.
Warren came through, closed the portal, and the three quietly proceeded onto the elevator and took it back to the surface—Wes breathing a sigh of relief on the way.
“We owe you, kid. Thought we were about to die down there,” he said once the doors opened and they were back among the drywall crumbs.
The light coming in through Galaxy Hub’s construction tarp was now dim, but punctuated by bursts of sound and colorful lights. The fireworks show across the pond was happening; Warren had taken them a few hours past their prior ’95 arrival point.
Wes and Jace replaced the pillar panels a second time, grabbed all of their demolition gear and lights, long after they had last used them, and headed out into the nearly-complete park. The light from the fireworks guided them out and back towards the entrance. On the way, Warren was fully caught up.
Walking with his arms up behind his neck, the teen muttered, “So, after you saw a post-quake Royal Valley in’98, you… ‘accidentally’ went to 1989 and met André…”
“Do you know him?” Jace asked.
Warren shook his head. “I know of him. He’s one of the reasons I’m here, too. I take it you learned all about the other version of yourself, Wes?”
“Not that I’m happy about it. I’ve already told myself to do everything I can to not become that guy, but apparently it hasn’t changed anything yet, because we’re all still here. Also… Any idea what would’ve happened to you?”
“You mean why I disappeared in this alternate timeline? Can’t say for sure. The time cops could’ve caught up with me, or I found the bomb first and… didn’t take care of it too well. There are two reasons I’d abandon you: I’m in time prison, or I blew up.”
“Or you’re just ignoring me again until I learn some new lesson.” Wes finished looking at the worn quartz in his hand and pocketed it. “Anyway… what now?”
“I’ll take you to a minute before this now-erased quake and let you resume everything from right where you last left it. Think of it like loading a save point.”
“Won’t that mean there will be multiple copies of us?” Jace worried.
“No, actually. Quartz overwrites the user’s location the moment they re-arrive. It’s part of the tech; no duplicates. You just have to be smart about where you come in.”
“Wish he told us that earlier…” Wes muttered to Jace as they arrived at the gate.
“Just enjoy the fireworks, Wes,” Jace replied, his eyes on the sky explosions.
With all of the nearby spectators in the city focused on the light show above the water and in front of the soon-to-open park, Wes and Jace barely got any looks as they headed downtown with sledgehammer and crowbar in hand. Wes figured that Warren was guiding them to the restaurant he had mentioned during the catch-up, and as it was a bit of a walk, he saw a chance to ask the ninja-kid a burning question.
Keeping out of earshot of Jace, Wes kept at Warren’s pace and got out his inquiry, “So, do you know why the quartz glitched and sent us to 1989?”
“It didn’t glitch,” Warren explained. “You programmed in a time prior to its earliest possible accessible date, and it defaulted to the moving time horizon.”
“Time horizon… As in, the furthest into the past anyone can go?”
“Or the furthest in the future, yeah. The horizons are always progressing in real time. And there’s no going past those outer barriers. You get what that means, right? When you’re on the edge, there’s no going back. You couldn’t fix any mistakes, not by a second. Events solidify and became perma-history. You were in danger.”
“Freaking langoliers, man…”
Warren raised an eyebrow and grumbled, “Huh?”
“Fictional time-devourers of the past. It’s like they were at my back.”
“Yeah, sure. However you want to see it. Point stands. Dangerous place.”
“What about the future? The date on the quartz goes all the way to the 29th century. Does that… Does that mean everything up until then is written? Because, really, ever since I saw that, I’ve felt like Neo waking up from the matrix. Like I stepped outside of destiny or time itself. Even though, I guess, I could still just be playing things out the way it was always written and free will really is just a myth.”
Warren thought about what to say again, and after they walked another city block, he finally replied, “Just because the time horizon extends all those centuries out, doesn’t mean any of it is real yet. Think of it as history waiting to happen.”
“But the time cops have to come from the future, right?”
“Maybe they just operate out of a place where time doesn’t exist.”
“I dunno, kid. I think you’re trying to mislead me here.”
“Look, I don’t have all the answers, Wes. But I do know that the more you dig, the more of a target you make yourself. They’ll come after you harder and more often.”
They arrived at Main Street, now fairly emptied out as so many people were elsewhere to watch the festivities. Across the main thoroughfare was Venetian, the Italian restaurant Wes and Jace were eating at as the earthquake struck.
Warren set his blue quartz’s clock to 7:14 PM, April 1st 1996, and gave Wes one more word of warning, “Stay away from the Time Lab, too. It’s going to be a temporal hotbed that both the cops and the daemon will probably take more interest in from now on. Unless, of course, another earthquake gets triggered because of a bomb.”
“Trust me, I don’t want to go back down there,” Wes said, giving his attaché case a shake to make sure he could still hear the ‘Toys’ floppy disk rattling about.
The three went through a portal inside a back alley, and the sky lightened to an early evening blue. The street was busy again, and Wes could spot out the table where he had eaten a fancy dinner with Jace quite a long while ago from their perspective. The last of dinner and his half-filled glass of white wine were still sitting there, preserved.
“Good to be back…” Wes sighed. “But you worried me, ninja boy. Don’t disappear on us again. Um, also, since you’re here… What should we do now?”
He answered, “Just try to lay low, keep out of trouble, and don’t do anything stupid. There shouldn’t be much to worry about until June.”
“June? What happens in June? Hey, we gotta go back to 2020 eventually.”
“Not until I tell you we’re done here.”
“Fine. Bossy.”
“Also…” Warren turned to Jace. “You’ll be going to summer camp. Take up the offer when it’s given. You’ll thank me later,” he said with a small grin. “All right. Bye.”
“Summer camp…?” Jace muttered as they watched Warren leave through the portal and close it behind him. “That sounds hot and buggy.”
Wes shrugged and walked over to a nearby ATM, where he stuck in his card to check his balance and withdraw some needed funds. “Hope you look good in khakis.”
“You’re right about Warren. He is freakin’ bossy.”
“Well, good news is, all the money I spent on our alternate timeline hotel is back,” Wes said and grabbed the fifties that were getting spit out. “Nice… Payday.”
Jace eyed their empty table and said, “You need to pay for dinner again, dude.”
“Ah, geez…” Wes grumbled. “You’re bossy, too, you little moral compass.”
Before Wes had the chance to cross the street and appease Jace, the clock hit 7:15, and a distant crack of thunder echoed across the clear sky. No one but them seemed to notice it, which led Wes to make a conjectural statement.
“I think that was just the sound of a timeline snapping back in place.”
“I hope so,” Jace replied. “Ah, man, I can’t wait to sleep in my bed again.”
Once they had walked over to the restaurant and Wes put down a fifty on the table for the second time, he finally seemed to relax a bit. “We did good, bud.”
“We did just save King Arcade, Royal Valley, friendships, and Wright’s eye.”
Wes put a hand on his nephew’s shoulder, adding, “And your very existence.”
“Yeah… Actually, I kind of already feel real again.”
Wes’ car had been saved, too, and was right where he’d left it. They took it home, were equally relieved to see the cottage, and right away, kicked off shoes and collapsed on the couch to watch the evening lineup that was once interrupted by quake coverage.
“Just like things’re supposed to be,” Jace said wistfully, his eyelids already feeling heavy. “And I’m glad the whole day wasn’t overwritten. April 1st recess was perfect.”
“Oh, yeah—no more school getting cancelled for a week while you wait for the portables to arrive. By tomorrow, I think everything will feel back to normal.”
“You know, for the first time…” Jace yawned. “I can’t wait to go to school.”
As Jace stepped off the bus with his friends the next morning, he really couldn’t be more excited to see the building in the early light, free of any major cracks or broken windows—the students not at all aware of the dark future they narrowly avoided.
He quickly found Millie, leaning against the wall by the main doors in her usual observational way, but without taking notes about her peers that often earned her scorn. He almost wanted to hug her, like how he was greeted by her teen self, but he practiced restraint. He wouldn’t do that in front of the gang, whom he waved off at the entrance.
“Hey, Jace,” she said coolly. “You look stupidly happy today. What’s up?”
“I have… the most incredible story you’ll ever hear.”
“Oh, yeah? We’ll see about that. Tell me about it at recess.”
Remembering something about the day, Jace looked up at the incoming gray clouds and replied, “I’m pretty sure there won’t be a recess, actually.”
Millie’s first hint that Jace really did have big news came when his prediction about a big rain storm came true, right as lunch began. He couldn’t forget its arrival; in another world, it was like the heavens were crying about Royal Valley’s new fate. Now the raindrops were for just another day where recess got moved to the school library.
For the first twenty minutes of free time, Jace told Millie all about the quake, what her alternate older self had done for them, and whatever details he could remember about her reporting on all of their classmates. She was fascinated, and barely said a word, instead mostly listening along and nodding on occasion.
Once the tale was concluded, she leaned back in her woody chair across one of the many library tables, stared up at the skylight being pelted with rain, and sighed out, “I always liked being surrounded by books on a rainy day…” She snapped back up and asked, “And what do I look like in a few years? I’m not covered in zits, right?”
“Nah. Mostly the same, but taller. Oh, and you had a nice pair of boots.”
“King Arcade, Wright, kids going bad or moving away… Whew, it’s a lot to take in. But thanks for giving me the rundown of my other self’s research. Now she won’t fade away into the abyss of destroyed timelines in vain!” She grinned and made a fist.
“That’s a really scary idea, Millie.”
“I want more deets on this rotten version of Royal Valley. And your uncle’s take, too—this is too much to cover in one sitting. Lemme come over this weekend.”
“Well, maybe.” Jace looked over at one of the bigger tables, where the rest of the group was sitting and chatting—Arthur the only one among them actually reading. “I do kinda want to catch up with the pre-teen versions of the gang, too.”
“Yeah, I get that. Just one quick question is on my mind… You’re gonna have to do the last few weeks of fifth grade for a third time! Heh, that must suck.”
“Thanks, Millie,” Jace muttered. “But that’s not really a question.”
“Oh, I was just wondering about Ms. Porter’s lessons. Any changes there so far?”
Jace shook his head. “She’s going through the same stuff we covered ‘last time,’ but since we lost a week, the pace seems better, slower. Also, the lunches in the hot portable were miserable. Seriously, the quake timeline does suck.”
“And that makes me want to learn more about it. But, I’ll let you hang out with your pals. I’ll just…” She looked around at all the books. “Actually, I’ll hang out, too.”
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