Jonah looked astonished. Angela didn't blame him. "What?" he exclaimed.
Angela hurriedly put a finger to her lips, signaling him to be quiet. If he blew her cover, everything would be ruined. JB would probably send her back to her old life, or maybe that Outer Time place, and she wouldn't be able to help any of the kids.
"No!" she screamed. "You can't have it!"
Jonah was still staring at her. She stepped closer to him, her foot landing on something—Oh, there are the ropes—and whispered, "I really am on your side. Completely. You deserve to know the truth. So pretend that you captured me."
Angela was pretty sure that JB and the others couldn't see what was going on. But even so, it looked like Jonah needed a little extra prompting. "Maybe you should shout something about getting the ropes?" she suggested, bending down to retrieve them.
"Move it!" Jonah shouted, sounding like an actor in a play. "Get those ropes now!" Once Angela had straightened up with the ropes, he whispered to her, "What's going on? Tell me!"
Angela knew how he felt. But there was no time to explain anything right now. "There isn't time to talk. Besides, you should hear it from the experts, not me. Go on." She nudged him to start moving.
But Jonah started backing away from her, not even bothering to keep up the pretense that he had captured her. Angela hurriedly stepped in front of him and repositioned the Taser—still in Jonah's hand—so that it was pressed up against her ribs. "Don't you dare set that off right now," she whispered. "You're too close. But please make it look like it's possible you captured me."
JB was calling Angela's name from the front of the cave. Angela let go of the Taser and she and Jonah stepped out of the shadows together.
JB looked astounded. "He got your weapon? He overpowered you?"
"He's a very strong young man," Angela told him. "Stronger than he looks."
Suddenly, Jonah pushed the Taser so hard against Angela's ribs that she stumbled forward. "Maybe not quite so realistic," she whispered.
"Give the ropes to Chip," Jonah commanded her.
Chip started objecting that he didn't know how to tie knots, but Jonah handed him the Taser. "Here," he said. "Shoot her if you have to."
What was Jonah playing at? Did he not trust her after all? Chip wouldn't know that Angela had given the Taser to Jonah. He would think that Jonah actually had needed to fight her and overpower her to take possession of it. That meant that if Angela made one wrong move, she'd be lying on the ground as helplessly as Gary and Hodge.
Angela watched as Jonah tied up Gary and Hodge, then moved on to JB, who protested, but didn't resist. Then he moved onto Angela, and tied her up just like he'd tied up the others.
And now I've actually been captured, she thought grimly. Her plan had backfired. Not like she'd had much of a plan in the first place. But maybe this was good. Maybe JB could explain to Jonah how to send Gary and Hodge to—time prison, had he called it?—and then they could have a rational discussion about what to do next. Since JB was tied up as well, he would have no choice but to sit and listen to all the suggestions. There were thirty-eight people in the cave, not counting Gary and Hodge. Surely with all those brains working together, they would be able to come up with something.
The girl who JB had used as a shield before started sniffling. "Oh, please. Just open the door and let us go home. My cell phone isn't working—I've been trying and trying to call the police—once we're out of the cave, I'm sure it will work right…"
"Sure," said Jonah. "You find a way to open that door, we're all out of here."
"No!" exclaimed JB. "Don't!"
Gary spoke up from his spot on the ground. "Oh, let them try. There's a keypad by the entryway. The code is twenty-one ST."
"What will happen if we try that code?" Jonah asked JB. "If we open the door?"
JB looked hesitant. "You'll see… You'll find out too much, all at once. It might scare you."
Wait. Isn't this just a modified cave in the twenty-first century? Angela thought. Isn't it still 2012? They didn't somehow take this whole cave into the future when they closed the door, did they? Is that possible?
Jonah didn't seem bothered by JB's information. He went over and typed in the code Gary had given him. The door slid open to reveal black nothingness.
The cave was suddenly an echo hall of screams. Thirty-six voices—well, maybe not quite that many, but close enough—were yelling in a cacophony of terror. Jonah shut the door, but even still, several of the kids seemed to be bordering on hysteria. Even Angela wasn't exactly sure what had just happened. Are we in Outer Time again? She wondered. It kind of looked like it did when I traveled through time. Is this whole cave traveling through time right now? To which time period?
She glanced at JB, who looked as worried as she felt. She looked over toward Gary and Hodge, who both had slight smiles on their faces. Are we already on our way to the future?
"Explain," Jonah ordered, looking at all four of them—JB, Gary, Hodge, and Angela. "Where are we?"
Hodge smirked. "The more appropriate question would be 'When are we?'"
"Don't be cruel," JB kicked at Hodge. "This is bound to be very traumatic for all of them." He looked at Jonah. "We call this a time hollow. When they shut the door, Hodge and Gary pulled this whole cave outside of time."
Angela felt slightly relieved. A time hollow—that didn't sound like they were in the process of traveling through time. That sounded more like the Outer Time place JB had taken her.
"So, what—like, we don't exist right now?" A boy asked. He was wearing a name tag with the name Alex on it.
"No, we exist. But 'now' doesn't," JB explained.
"Why not?" a girl with the name tag Emily asked.
JB looked at Alex and Emily, who seemed perfectly calm, and Jonah, who was still waiting for an explanation. "Get them calmed down," JB said to the three of them, glancing over at the other kids, who were still screaming and crying. "And make them sit on the benches again. Hodge and Gary and I will explain everything."
It took a while for Jonah, Alex, and Emily to calm down all the screaming kids. The whole time, the four adults sat lined up against the side wall of the cave. Angela glanced over at JB, who looked distressed. None of this was going according to the plan he'd made in the Outer Time place. He'd ended up being overpowered, and the kids were taking control.
Angela tried not to smile. That was a good thing, right? Now she just needed to make sure the kids stayed in control.
Eventually, all the kids were more or less calmed down, and Katherine, Chip, and a few of the others came back to get the adults. "We're going to bring all of you to the front of the room, where you'll be able to explain everything," said Chip, pointing the Taser at each adult in turn. "If any of you try anything, I'll Tase you." His voice shook, and Angela wasn't sure whether he would actually have the courage to use the Taser on any of the adults or not. But she wasn't going to take any chances.
JB, Gary, and Hodge were all looking much more warily at Katherine, who was pointing Hodge's Elucidator at them. "Be careful with that," JB warned her. "You don't even know how to operate it. Only trained professionals are supposed to use those." He glared at Gary and Hodge.
"Come on," Some of the other kids stepped forward and started pushing, pulling, and dragging Angela and the others toward the front of the room. It hurt, but Angela didn't complain. Chip and Katherine were still guarding the whole group of them with the Taser and the Elucidator.
When they reached the front of the room, Hodge looked at JB. "Just show them the presentation," he said.
"You mean, your commercial? No way."
"You can give the counterpoint afterward. We promise," Gary assured him.
Angela assumed that the commercial they were talking about must be the same one JB had shown her in Outer Time. "Let them," she advised JB. "You showed it to me." She wasn't sure any of the kids would believe that they were kidnapped children from the past if they were given just an explanation.
"All right," JB sighed.
Hodge instructed Katherine on how to access the video on the Elucidator, and the front wall of the cave turned into a sort of movie screen, like Angela had seen in Outer Time. A collective gasp went up around the room.
And then the commercial started up. The kids reacted with horror at all the violent images toward the beginning, and with shock at Curtis Rathbone's explanation. Then JB ordered for the commercial to be turned off, and Katherine obeyed.
JB, Gary, and Hodge started arguing about Interchronological Rescue. When they brought up the age reversal, Angela felt she had to say something to Jonah, Chip, and Katherine. Earlier that afternoon, she'd been so excited to share her theory—and it had been wrong. "This was one of the few parts of the theory I was right about," she told them. "They had turned you all into babies again, even though some of you had once been much older. Teenagers, even."
Jonah stared at her. Maybe he hadn't yet realized that he and the other kids in the cave were the kids everyone had been talking about. The kids the commercial had been about.
"Us?" he gasped. "You're talking about us?"
Angela nodded, but Jonah was watching JB and Hodge, who had started arguing again. They became louder and louder until they were practically screaming at each other, and Angela's ears were ringing. Finally, Jonah climbed on top of a bench and yelled, "Who are we?"
This stopped them. JB and Hodge both turned in his direction, and JB sighed. "Show them," he said to Hodge. "They're going to have to find out eventually."
Once again, Hodge told Katherine how to access the information on the Elucidator, and a seating chart for the airplane appeared on the front wall. Angela leaned forward in interest. JB hadn't shown her this. She remembered taking careful note of which baby had arrived in which seat, back at the airport, but of course, she hadn't known at that time that the babies were famous children from history. She squinted and tried to make out the names. Virginia Dare… Anastasia and Alexis Romanov… Charles Lindbergh III… the missing Lindbergh baby! So this was what had happened to him? Wait, but hadn't someone ended up finding his body?
Maybe I'm supposed to go back in time and change that. When I go to 1932…
Most of the kids were screaming again. Or at least yelling. But this time it wasn't in terror. This time, most of the voices Angela could hear were yelling things like, "Which one am I?" and "No way!" Hodge was saying something, but Angela couldn't hear him over all the yelling. Then JB started yelling at Hodge again, and his voice clearly carried over all the other noise. "It was your worst rescue mission ever! If we hadn't discovered how to hold back the ripple, just temporarily, just until we can heal all the wounds, until we can return the children to their rightful place in history…"
"What?" Katherine's voice broke out, even louder than JB's. "You want to send everyone back in time?"
Everyone fell silent. Katherine pointed the Elucidator straight at JB. "You can't do that," she said forcefully. "I won't let you."
"I'm sorry. I wish there were some other way," said JB. "It's not fair to any of you. But… some of you are royalty. Or the children of explorers. You can understand the need to sacrifice for your country, to take risks for all humankind. This is even more important. Yes, returning you to history may be dangerous for many of you. Even deadly. But—think of it as your chance to save the world. To give your own life in order to help every other person on the planet, for all time."
Angela looked around at all the children's faces. Understandably, none of them looked too thrilled at the prospect. We have to find another way. Whatever it takes… we have to find another way.