five minutes of science class, when it seemed like time stopped and the boring teacher was going to ramble on forever.
âJordan, you donât know all the dangers possible,â Jonah said.
âNot that itâs your fault,â Katherine added quickly.
That didnât help. Jordan shot both of them a defiant look, then bent down toward the Elucidators in Jonahâs hands.
âElucidators, send us ahead in time to five p.m. today,â he said.
Jordan didnât feel any of the spinning dizziness of his last few trips through time. But maybe he wouldnât, when he wasnât even moving ahead a full day?
Then he saw words glowing near Jonahâs hands: MY ACTIONS ARE BLOCKED BY THE TIME-DEADENING PROPERTIES OF THIS ROOM. YOU MUST LEAVE THIS ROOM TO TRAVEL THROUGH TIME.
âOkay, thatâs suspicious,â Jonah said. âWhy could we get into this room with time travel, but not out of it?â
âGary and Hodgeâs coworkers said itâs a protected space,â Katherine reminded him. She cupped her chin in her hand, as if she planned to think for a long time. âHmm . . .â
âAre you two going to do nothing but talk about this until five oâclock?â Jordan asked incredulously.
âWeâve got to figure out whatâs going on,â Jonah said. âI donât trust Second, heâs using Mom and Dad as bait, we donât even know what year this isâweâve got to be careful!â
What was it about Jonah that made Jordan feel so much like punching him?
âRightâMom and Dad are missing, so Iâm not going to just sit here doing nothing!â Jordan said.
He reached over and grabbed both the cell phone and the plastic card from Jonahâs hands. Then he stood up.
âJordan, wait!â Katherine cried.
âYouâre not thinking this through!â Jonah argued.
Both of them reached toward Jordan, trying to grab the two Elucidators back. But Jordan was a step ahead of them. He held both Elucidators high over his head, out of their reach. Katherine and Jonah scrambled to their feet, but Jordan anticipated that, too. He took off running toward the door.
âJordan, you donât know whatâs out there!â Katherine called after him.
âStop!â Jonah hissed.
Jordan reached the door and wrapped his hand around the knob.
Iâll show them. Iâm not as careless as they think, he told himself. He pulled the door open only a crack, so he could peek out, just in case.
Outside the lab he saw an empty hallway. Maybe it was wildly futuristic; maybe the walls and floors and ceiling were made of some bizarre substance that didnât even exist in the twenty-first century. Jordan didnât pay attention to any of that. All he cared about was that the hall was empty. He gave himself an extra second of glancing around to see if there were security cameras anywhere in sight. His brain threw an irritating thought at him: Maybe in the future, security cameras are just woven into the wallpaper orotherwise completely undetectable. . . . But if there were security cameras, wouldnât the three people whoâd come into the lab already have shut them off? Jonah and Katherine had almost caught up with Jordan. He didnât have time to worry about every little possibility.
Out of the corner of his eye, Jordan could see Jonah and Katherine reaching for him. Just as he felt them grab for his shirt, he yanked the door open and stepped out into the hall.
âElucidator, take the three of us ahead to five oâclock today!â Jordan muttered.
The next thing Jordan knew, a very large man smashed into him.
âWhere did you come from?â a deep voice asked.
TWELVE
Jordan slammed to the floor, which may have been cushioned more than a typical twenty-first-century floor, but he didnât care about that either. His brain had just figured something out, way too late: Just
Katie Salidas, K.A. Salidas