"Finally," huffed Tida. "I'm going to go see if they need me for anything important."
Kylin made a face at Tida's retreating back. "I'm so sorry it had to be her who came and got you," she apologized to Angela. "The alternative was sending her on a mission with one of the kids, and we really didn't want to do that. We figured you'd be able to handle her better than some poor thirteen-year-old going on his or her first trip through time."
This was news to Angela. "You're sending more kids back in time?"
"We have no choice." Kylin gave her a sideways look. "How much did Tida tell you?"
Angela summarized what Tida had told her, from Gavin conspiring with Gary and Hodge to JB rescuing everyone and bringing them to the hospital.
"Oh. So she didn't tell you…" Kylin winced. "As soon as Jonah turned the Romanovs invisible, Gary and Hodge knew we'd be alerted that something was going on. So they left. They didn't even bother to take the kids with them. The kids all would have died if it hadn't been for JB's quick thinking." She shuddered, then continued. "It's been two weeks since all that happened, and we still haven't found Gary and Hodge. We've got people and computers searching all of history, in every geographical location, and every time hollow ever created, and so far we've had no luck."
Angela wasn't surprised. Of course the time agency hadn't found Gary and Hodge. They still had yet to kidnap someone in 1932.
Should she tell Kylin what she knew? Or would that mess up time?
"Gary and Hodge's disappearance puts all thirty-six of the Missing in grave danger," Kylin went on. "We now have agents watching each and every one of them at all times. We have our system set to sound an alarm the moment Gary or Hodge makes an appearance anywhere in the world between 2012 and 2112. We have shield barriers and arrival detectors and remote-travel prohibitors and a whole bunch of other security measures that Gary and Hodge shouldn't be able to get past. But," she shrugged helplessly. "They weren't supposed to have been able to break out of time prison either, so really anything is possible."
"So… I'm still not sure I understand," Angela confessed. "With all this that's going on, wouldn't it make more sense to wait until Gary and Hodge have been caught before you start sending kids back in time again?"
"It's kind of a catch-22," said Kylin. She pulled her Elucidator out of her pocket and glanced at it. "JB's waiting for you, so I'll tell you as we're walking."
Kylin led the way out of the room, into a long white hallway that seemed somehow different from anywhere Angela had been before, including the room she'd just come from.
Oh yeah, Angela realized. Where's the light coming from? The windowless hallway was well-lit, but Angela saw no sign of lights on the ceiling or walls.
In spite of all that was happening with time and Gary and Hodge and the kids, Angela felt a little thrill of excitement. I'm at Time Agency headquarters. This is the actual future!
"What Gary and Hodge just did—kidnapping Gavin, Daniella, Jonah, Chip, and Katherine and then leaving them to die in 1918 when things didn't work out how they'd planned—proved to the entire agency what some of us have known all along. That Gary and Hodge are careless, reckless, and don't care about anything at all except making money," Kylin began explaining. "As much as we'd like to hold off on returning the rest of the kids to their original identities until we're more confident in our knowledge of the advanced concepts of time travel, we don't have the luxury of waiting anymore. If Gary and Hodge do manage to get past all our security measures and kidnap anyone, they'll do one of two things. They'll either take the kid to the future without fixing the past, or they'll make another lousy attempt at fixing the past, like they did with 1918. Either option would be disastrous."
Angela thought she understood what Kylin was getting at. "So you're trying to stay a step ahead of them. You're fixing the past as quickly as you can because it's a better alternative than Gary and Hodge trying to do it."
Kylin nodded. "Exactly. I can't say I really like this arrangement—it kind of feels like we're playing right into Gary and Hodge's hands—but no matter how little we know about time travel, it's better for the kids to go back in time with us than with Gary and Hodge. At least we actually care about the kids."
"How many kids have you already returned?" Angela asked as she and Kylin turned right and began walking down another hallway.
"Counting the nine who had already had their turns back in time before we started this… I think we're up to twenty-three now. I went with Sarah earlier this morning, and JB was able to do Ming and Xavier in one day, because both of their missions were pretty short… oh, looks like Marrison's back from returning Denton."
The elderly time agent Angela remembered being introduced as Marrison Wrenley had just stepped out of a room and was wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. "Three days in 480 B.C.!" he exclaimed. "And then I had to consult the time charts and make sure everything worked out, which took forever because of how bogged down the system is… but Denton's back home safe and sound, with everything about his past resolved. And I'm ready for a shower and a nap!"
"Go home and rest," Kylin advised him. "Ariti's standing by, ready to take over your post."
"Will do," Marrison replied. "And I'll be back at seven sharp next morning for guard duty. Hi and bye, Angela." He gave Angela a smile and a nod as he passed by.
Angela opened her mouth to ask Kylin who Denton Price had been in 480 B.C., but at that moment, Kylin stopped at one of the doors. "This is JB's office," she said. "He should be ready for you… JB, it's Kylin and Angela." She seemed to be speaking directly to the door.
The door opened, and Angela followed Kylin into a spacious room that only slightly resembled the offices Angela had seen in the twenty-first century. One entire wall was covered with what looked like digital charts and graphs that were constantly fluctuating. The opposite wall contained a bookshelf and a few framed photographs. The picture nearest to Angela was of JB as a teenager—she recognized him from the videos of Tete, although he looked much better put-together here—with the parents she recognized from the adoption video and a boy who must have been the teenage version of JB's older brother. There was a window on the back wall, but all Angela could see out of it was sky. In front of the window was the real JB, sitting at a desk, his fingers moving as if he was typing, though Angela couldn't see a keyboard.
JB looked much more composed than he had the last time Angela had seen him. Hopefully that meant he'd had time to come to terms with the idea of being Tete Einstein. Angela wanted to ask him about that, about how he was doing, but she didn't want to be untactful. Besides, now probably wasn't the best time.
JB looked up. "Angela! Clearly you survived the briefing with Tida," he said with the ghost of a smile on his face. Angela got the feeling that Tida's unpleasantness was something of a running joke among the other time agents.
"I survived," she agreed, grinning back. "Kylin said you wanted to talk to me?"
"Yes, I do. Why don't you sit down."
Angela sat down in one of the chairs facing JB's desk. Kylin hovered next to her, as if unsure whether she should stay or leave.
"You're welcome to stay too, Kylin," JB told her. "You're always welcome in my office."
Angela caught the way the corners of Kylin's mouth turned up at those words, and the slight pink tone that came into her beige cheeks.
"Close the door," JB instructed. Angela was halfway out of her seat to do it when she realized the door was closing on its own.
"Sorry," JB apologized. "I was talking to the door itself—never mind, that's not important. Tida and Kylin told you everything?"
"Not about Maria and Leonid," Kylin spoke up before Angela had a chance to answer. "I wasn't sure if you wanted her to know about them before you talked with her."
Angela racked her brain, wondering who Maria and Leonid could be and why they were important. There was a Maria who was one of the Missing, but the name Leonid didn't ring any bells at all.
"Okay," said JB. "So Angela, you know about Katherine rescuing the others from the basement?"
"Katherine?" Angela raised her eyebrows. "I thought you were the one who rescued everyone."
"I rescued Jonah and Katherine initially, because they were the only ones who I could grab," JB explained. "I only had thirty seconds, and I knew I had to get to Jonah because he'd been shot. Katherine was the only other one close enough for me to reach within the time I had. Of course, once they found out that their friends had been left behind in 1918, they wanted to make sure everyone else got rescued. So I brought them to the Time Council meeting, where everyone was discussing what was to be done, and… long story short, Katherine ended up being the only one who had a chance at rescuing anyone from that shooting gallery." He grimaced. "It still gives me nightmares when I think about what could have gone wrong, but fortunately, she was able to get in and out without being harmed. And she was able to rescue not only Chip, Gavin, and Daniella, but also Gavin and Daniella's older sister, Maria Romanova, and the Romanovs' kitchen boy, Leonid Sednev."
"That's good," Angela said firmly, studying JB's face in an attempt to figure out whether he shared her opinion. JB's belief that people from the past should be left in the past to live out their original destiny had definitely lessened since Angela had first met him—how could it not, especially with what he'd recently found out about his own history—but she wasn't sure to what extent. The Romanov family had been pretty influential in history—what if JB thought rescuing an additional family member would have too much of an impact on time?
But JB was nodding. "It is good," he agreed. "Maria was supposed to die that night, just as Anastasia and Alexei were. All three of them were pulled out at the last possible minute, meaning that there were no holes left by their disappearance. Leonid was supposed to live for several more years, but our analysts checked out the situation and found no problems with his early departure. And the remains Gary and Hodge faked were convincing enough that nobody will know the truth until the year—well, until many hundreds of years later."
"So everything's been worked out?" Angela asked, unsure of why JB was telling her this. She was glad to know, of course, and honored that the time agents were keeping her in the loop. But at a time when the whole agency seemed so stressed out and had so many different things going on, she found it odd that JB was taking the time to meet face to face with her and fill in the details—especially since she'd already had the chance to be briefed by both Tida and Kylin.
"Almost," JB replied, and something in his tone indicated that whatever he was about to say was the real reason he'd wanted to speak with her. "We're still trying to work out a placement for Maria and Leonid—when and where they're going to live. Obviously, it would be ideal if we could place them in the twenty-first century, someplace where they'll still be able to get together with Daniella and Gavin. Daniella has already requested multiple times for Maria to move in with her, but given the fact that Daniella's parents aren't even aware that there's such a thing as time travel, and would have dozens of questions about how Daniella and Maria met and how they know they're sisters… that's not a possibility quite yet."
"Hmm," Angela frowned, thinking. "How old are they? Maria and Leonid?"
"Maria is nineteen and Leonid is fifteen. They both speak English—Maria more so than Leonid, but Leonid can still carry on a conversation and understand most of what's being said around him—and the other kids will of course be happy to fill them in on all the historical events and technological developments that have occurred between 1918 and 2012." JB took a deep breath. "What I was thinking—and it's totally your choice whether to say yes or no; I haven't mentioned this to the kids yet—I was thinking maybe Maria and Leonid could live with you for a little while. At least a couple months, and then we can work on making other arrangements."
Angela blinked. The idea of Maria and Leonid living with her hadn't even crossed her mind. But—it made sense. Angela knew about time travel. She had some idea of what the kids had had to go through before ending up here. That was more than she could say for any other adult in the twenty-first century.
Angela tried to imagine what it would be like having two teenagers living in her house. She'd have to make meals for them. She'd have to buy clothes for them. She'd have to share the bathroom with them. She'd be the one responsible for their education, for helping them find jobs if they wanted to start earning money, for teaching them about the twenty-first century. Not to mention how weird it would be just having them in the house. Angela hadn't lived with another person for thirteen years.
She pondered what this must feel like for Maria and Leonid, being brought to live thousands of miles and a hundred years away from everyone and everything they'd ever known. Angela had been around Maria's age when she'd first moved to Liston to take the SkyTrails job, and she remembered feeling homesick sometimes, missing her family and her hometown. But her family had always been just a phone call away, and if she really missed them, she could hop in her car and drive the hundred miles to Mayville whenever she felt like it.
That wouldn't be an option for Maria and Leonid.
"That's fine," she told JB. "They can live with me."
"They can?" JB's face brightened. "Are you sure? I don't want you to feel pressured into doing this. We can always look at other options if necessary."
"No, I want this. It's perfect. They won't have to worry about hiding the fact that they're from the past when they're with me, and I can make sure they get to visit Daniella and Gavin. They can stay with me for as long as they want."
JB and Kylin both let out audible sighs of relief. "You don't know how much this helps, you saying yes," said JB. "We were really worried that we weren't going to find a placement for them… okay, so let's just work some things out here."
They talked about the logistics of how things would go—when JB returned all the kids to the twenty-first century, Angela would drive over to pick Leonid and Maria up and bring them to their new home. The time agency would drop off beds and a few changes of clothes for them at Angela's house, and provide all the necessary documents to get Leonid into Liston High School and Maria enrolled as a part-time University of Ohio student. "The fact that they're Russian really makes this easier," Kylin commented, scrolling through the notes she'd been taking on her Elucidator. "They can tell everyone they just moved from Russia, and people won't find it totally weird that they're not 'in the know' about a lot of American pop culture stuff."
"Good old twenty-first century Americans," JB grinned, a playful look in his eyes. "We can definitely play off of their belief that everywhere else in the world is so strange and different that foreigners don't even know what a cell phone is."
"Hey!" Angela protested teasingly. "We don't think like that!"
"I know. I was just kidding. Your time period is actually a lot better-informed than most people give them credit for," JB conceded. He went back to drumming his fingers on the desk, or typing on his invisible keyboard, or whatever he'd been doing before. "Kylin mentioned you wanted to visit the kids in the hospital?"
"Yes," said Angela, remembering what she'd been told about their injuries. "Can I?"
"Well, it's actually only Jonah and Gavin who are still in the hospital by now; the rest of them are being given some time to heal psychologically in a nearby time hollow. But yeah, I think that would be great, having you pay them all a visit. Getting to meet Maria and Leonid." He picked up his Elucidator. "I just have to check and see whether this is a good time to visit Jonah and Gavin," he explained.
"How long do they have to stay in the hospital?" Angela wanted to know.
"Probably a couple more weeks. We need to make sure the bullet wounds heal enough that their parents don't notice when they return to the twenty-first century, and of course give them time to come to terms with everything they saw back in that cellar." He shook his head. "I've traveled to a lot of bad places during my career, but I'd never been anywhere as awful as that nightmare in 19—" He broke off, his face suddenly turning pale.
"What's wrong?" Angela asked.
JB didn't answer. Angela glanced at Kylin, who also looked baffled and concerned by JB's behavior. "JB?" said Kylin, when he continued to not speak.
"1918," he finally finished, his eyes wide with alarm. "I went to 1918. I was there, in that cellar, getting Jonah and Katherine out. I spent thirty seconds in 1918."
Angela looked at Kylin again, wondering if she understood what JB was getting at. But Kylin looked just as perplexed as Angela was.
"It shouldn't have been allowed! It shouldn't have been possible for me to go to 1918!" JB yelled, his voice bordering on hysteria. Feverishly, he started typing something into his Elucidator.
"JB, what's going—" Kylin started to say, but JB turned his Elucidator around so the two women could see it and stabbed his finger at the screen.
"There," he announced, his voice shaking. "There's the proof. I duplicated myself in time."