Part 9 (1/2)

The afternoon had drifted into autumn darkness and there was the barest whisper of winter chill. Abbey zipped up her hoodie and stuffed her hands into her pockets. The digital numbers on her watch read 4:46. Their parents would be home by eight o'clock, after dinner with the environmental advocacy organizations that their mother was involved in. The usual lights were on in the Forrester house. The porch light was also on, which wasn't customary, as Mrs. Forrester preferred the dark when she sat outside with her pipe. The moths fluttered and scattered as Caleb walked purposefully up the front steps and rapped on the door.

They waited, but n.o.body came to the door. Caleb knocked again, louder this time, the bones of his knuckles echoing against the old pressed-wood door. The house remained silent.

”That's weird,” said Caleb. ”They never go out at night.” He banged a third time, and then placed his hand on the doork.n.o.b. Before Abbey could say anything, he turned it slowly and pushed the door open. A patch of yellow light from the kitchen appeared and expanded on the porch. The heavy scents of garlic and cooking oil followed. Caleb leaned his head in.

”h.e.l.lo? Anybody home?”

The door swung inward with a groan. A cutting board with sliced carrots, broccoli, and peppers sat on the countertop. The paring knife lay beside the tidy piles of vegetables. A pot and a frying pan perched on the stove burners, the lidless bottle of soy sauce between them.

No answers came to Caleb's greetings, so he and Simon stepped gingerly across the threshold. Abbey slunk into the kitchen behind them, Farley's claws skittering on the linoleum. Cooked chicken remained in the frying pan and the pot contained rice that still had the vague suggestion of warmth. Two half-full gla.s.ses containing amber liquid sat on the table.

”Looks like they left in a hurry,” said Simon.

Caleb smelled the contents of the gla.s.ses and made a face. ”Hard alcohol. Do you think Mark drinks? Or do you think someone else was here?”

”I don't know,” Abbey said, backing toward the door. ”But we better get out of here.”

Simon followed her to the porch while Caleb did a final tour of the kitchen. He spent a few minutes inspecting the rotary phone on the wall, and then suddenly disappeared down the hall.

”Caleb!” Abbey called. ”What are you doing?”

There was no reply. Abbey prepared to launch through the doorway after Caleb, but Simon grabbed her arm and shook his head slightly. She let out a yip of impatience. A few seconds later, Caleb came back into the kitchen. He reached into the recycling bin, withdrew two jars, and poured a small amount of the liquid from the gla.s.ses into each. Then he joined them on the porch, carrying the two jars. They closed the door and scurried away to stand on their side of the road by the hedge, just outside the moon-like circle cast by the streetlight.

”What were you doing?” Abbey hissed.

”Checking for their car,” said Caleb. ”It's there. Wherever they went, they either walked or someone else drove, and judging from the temperature of the rice, they must have just left. Do you think we should we go look for them?”

Simon looked ghostly in the near-darkness, like a wraith, his hood casting a shadow over his face. ”No, we shouldn't. They could be just fine. We could be jumping to conclusions.”

”We should go home and do our homework and eat,” Abbey said. She wanted to feel the safety of the walls of their house around her. ”We can watch and see when they get home.” If they weren't kidnapped, she added silently in her mind. Or murdered.

Caleb thrust the jars at Simon, pulled out the list, and flipped it over to write on the back. Abbey wondered if Caleb was writing 'missing Forresters' amongst the other clues.

Caleb twirled the pencil in his fingers. ”Before you go inside and stick your head in a book, Ab, we need to think this through. We must've jumped further into the future the first two times. We know when we went to New L.A. it was 2036. And if we're guessing we just jumped ahead about ten years, we know in ten years Mom and Dad will still be driving the van, and it didn't look like there was s.p.a.ce travel or people living in bubbles. So, I'm guessing the Bubble City was also further in the future. So, what was different about last time? Why didn't we go as far? Is it just random?”

Simon sprawled his long limbs onto the curb and set the jars down next to him. Abbey studied her shoelaces and looked up at the stars that were beginning to appear. She wondered if she would ever fly Twinkle-Free Air. She returned her gaze to the pink st.i.tching in her green sneakers and debated whether or not to say anything. She wanted to go inside. But then she gave in. ”The difference is Farley went first.”

”So?” Caleb lifted an eyebrow.

”So...” Abbey ground her sneaker into the mottled pavement. ”Simon went first over the stones the first time, and I did the second time. When we were in the Bubble City, there were moments when I felt as crazy as Farley was acting when we walked down to the house. I can't describe it, but when we were in Bubble City, it was like I knew too much, and everything had meaning for me. That was my favorite periodic table on the door of that office...and that tree seemed familiar...and I felt like I'd designed that maze myself.”

Caleb looked blank, but Simon nodded slowly. ”That's how I felt in the s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p. Every programmer has their own style and tics-and when I was looking at that computer code, it was like it was so identical to something I could have written that I felt like I might have actually written it.”

Abbey jumped in. ”And that explains how the computer had your retinal scan in the database and knew your name, and why the code pa.s.sword system matched the pa.s.sword system you use.”

Caleb glared at them both. ”Could someone please explain what you're talking about?”

”The future is determined by who goes through first, I think...” Abbey said. ”The first time was Simon's future, the second time was my future and the last time was Farley's future. We could only jump ten years ahead in Farley's future because that's probably all he'll live.” Abbey's voice got all twitchy again at the thought of the old and lonely Farley in the future. The Farley of the present licked her hand. ”Except, I guess that kid was the first through when we went to Simon's future. Maybe he and Simon have the same future. I don't know.”

Caleb looked from Abbey to Simon and back again.

”I know,” said Abbey. ”It doesn't make any sense scientifically. But I could just feel it the whole time.”

Caleb c.o.c.ked his head. ”Feel what?”

”I don't know. I really can't explain it. Familiarity. Like there was weird truth in it somehow. Is that how you felt, Si?”

Simon nodded. ”Sort of. It felt like I knew what I was doing, like I had all the right answers and understood how that computer system was structured, the logic behind it.”

Caleb stood for a few minutes with his lips pursed before pulling a freckled hand through his crown of unruly orange hair. ”There's only one thing to do then. We need to go back through, and I need to go first.”

Abbey jerked her head up. She had allowed herself to stray too far from the scientific method, and now she was foundering in an abyss of half-baked hunches. ”Wait. No. I don't think you should act based on a feeling. I was just about to say that feelings are often wrong. We need more evidence. We should ignore everything Simon and I just said. It's crazy-talk.”

”That's why we need to go back through, and I need to go first. To get evidence,” Caleb said.

Abbey studied her brother. She could not let him go back across the stones. ”There are all sorts of problems with our hypotheses. How did we get home from the Bubble City? Why did that set of stones appear just outside the lab building? Are there two sets of stones? Or did they move? There are just too many variables.”

Caleb's face became impa.s.sive for a few seconds. Then he c.o.c.ked his head to one side, drew his eyebrows together and grinned at her. ”I think you're just trying to lead us astray with your variable talk. Isn't it best to solve multi-variable equations by picking off one variable at a time? In this case, the question of whether the future we go to is determined by who goes first?”

Abbey ground her teeth together. ”Maybe.”

”So, let's go!” Caleb turned to head back up the hill, his eyes bright.

”Right now?”

”Yes, why not?”

”Because I'm hungry, that's why.” She didn't add that she was also scared. Abbey looked pleadingly at Simon, who had his arms crossed over his chest and a noncommittal expression on his face.

Caleb wheeled back around wearing the big-eyed look that worked famously with the girls at Coventry High. ”Come on, guys. It's the last night Mom and Dad will be out late. Tomorrow night we have to be at Mom's dumb campaign party. We have to do it.” He widened his eyes further.

”We have to eat, too,” said Abbey.

”So, we go pack a sandwich or two and take it with us. Come on, Ab...please. For me? So I can understand. To help us figure this out. We don't have to stay long. We can just go through and see how I feel and then turn right around and come back.”

Simon c.o.c.ked his head. ”All right. I'm in.” Without waiting for Abbey's answer, the two boys headed toward their house. Simon carried the jars of liquid.

Abbey followed behind, dragging Farley, who'd spotted a neighborhood cat and decided he'd prefer to stay out and about. Her mind scrolled through all the things that could go wrong.

”I don't want to go,” she announced when they reached the house. ”This is getting too dangerous. The Forresters are missing, some creepy guy named Mantis seems to be after someone named Sinclair, we have no idea who Fly Kid is, or where he is, and we have no idea what we're doing.”

”You don't have to go,” said Caleb. ”We'll go alone. We won't be long. We promise.”

Abbey sank onto the kitchen nook bench silently. Salami, cheese, and mustard sandwiches were made with more speed than she'd ever seen her brothers dispatch in the kitchen. Three sandwiches, she noted. She thumbed through her chemistry textbook at the table. Her heart clunked around in her chest like the rusty piston of an old steam engine as her brothers packed the sandwiches into a backpack. Simon tossed in a bag of chips, pears, and some juice boxes, while Caleb returned with his arms full of stuff-their father's hunting knife, a compa.s.s, flashlights, a desktop atlas, a pen and paper, scissors, twine, hats, and sungla.s.ses.

”Looks like you're going for a month, not fifteen minutes,” Abbey said.

”This is all just in case, Ab. This should be our standard gear when using the stones,” said Caleb.

Caleb and Simon donned hoodies and shoved their feet into sneakers.