“If you had run off with your brother, your parents would have probably been exposed. The penalty for having both of their children turn pirate, leave behind the System wouldn’t have reflected well. Not to mention you would be branded an outlaw, meaning both you and Analeigh would never be able to return.” He swallowed, blinking his eyes hard. “And let me worry about Sarah.”
Shame and guilt burned in my throat, making it hard to hate Oz more than I hated myself.
His face softened. “This way, your parents are alive. Analeigh was technically kidnapped, even though she was in trouble, so should anything change in the future she could still return.”
“What’s going to change, Oz?”
He paused, swallowing a half dozen times as his eyes swept the hallway. “I need you here, Kaia. You’re the only person who knows what’s going on.”
My laugh sounded like someone was trying to strangle me with a tube sock. “I have no idea what’s going on, Oz. And you heard them. If I put one more toe out of line, it’s curtains for me and my family.”
“I was running some trajectories last night on the Projector when everything started to hit the fan with Analeigh and Sarah. Kaia, I think there’s more going on, like you said. I don’t think the Projector is just to enhance our understanding of how things went wrong, and I don’t think the missions they’ve been sending me on are simply to test the validity of the trajectories. If they continue to alter such significant developments, it’s not only death for your family. It’s curtains for all of us.”
Epilogue
Sanchi, Amalgam of Genesis–51 NE (New Era)
The months had stretched out, each day lonelier than the one that preceded it. I had no friends. Sarah and I existed largely in silence; she and Oz had patched things up, though I had no idea how he’d managed that or how much he’d told her since three months had done little to return our friendship to normal. Or even frigid.
I had a right to be angry with her, too, given that she’d done something illicit for my brother and never thought to mention it, but my guilt overshadowed my indignation. Every night before bed I told her nothing had happened between us and she said she knew, but other than to talk silently about how we might clear Analeigh’s name, we didn’t speak.
The fact that I’d failed in Egypt haunted me every time I closed my eyes. In my mind, it meant I might not be as cut out for this job, for this life, as I’d always believed. Even though my work improved, my enthusiasm waned.
Observations continued, as did the reflections and group sessions, lunches and dinners. The Elders watched me closely, but nothing had happened that allowed me to distinguish the ones who were part of the so-called Return Project and those who weren’t. Oz and I hadn’t had a moment alone to speak—the overseers assured we took separate trips, our reflection times were opposite, and the group sessions were always supervised.
We’d returned from a trip to England, where we’d witnessed the coronation of Queen Elizabeth. The rest of the class had been issued a pass for Oz’s birthday celebration at Stars in My Pies, and although they would have given me one, too—for all of the anger and watchful eyes, the Elders outwardly took care to treat me the same—I didn’t feel welcome. Or like celebrating. At all.
I didn’t know how to go through the Archives without triggering some kind of alarm, and clearly whatever Analeigh had learned about Zeke’s family had gotten her into trouble. I still had Jonah’s scrambling chip, but no chance to use it—not to mention nowhere to go, even if I hadn’t lost his cuff.
Oz had said he needed me here, to help him figure out how to get the proof we needed about the danger of the Return Project to present to the full Elder Council, but I felt useless. Analeigh had been gone, stars knew where, for three months. My parents had been banished the day after the hearing. I hadn’t even been allowed to say good-bye.
The suspicion that the reason they had been banished and not me was because they wanted me here to monitor my movements. It made no sense that Analeigh would be exposed, my parents banished, but I would remain here, my day-to-day life largely unchanged.
I brushed my teeth and climbed into bed with my mom’s copy of Pride and Prejudice when my best friend appeared out of nowhere on her bed. Like she never left.
I threw myself into her arms and we held on for dear life. Relief and guilt and loneliness so strong it forced sobs from my gut crashed through me like thunder, and for a long time we cried together. Then I realized she must have traveled here from the future, and that Sarah and the others would be back soon. We couldn’t waste all our time crying.
“What are you doing here?” I managed, wiping the wetness from my cheeks.
Her white-blond waves were piled high atop her head in a messy bun and her Historian clothes had been swapped for shorts and a blue tank top with green dots that hugged her slim figure and showed off her chest. Pink splotches decorated her cheeks and excitement lit her green eyes behind her glasses, still in place after all this time. The angry scar on her wrist and throat where the golden bio-tat had been was new, though.
“I had to see you. We’ve been working on how to get back inside without tripping the new security but it’s taking forever.”
“There’s new security?”
“Yes. It’s good, too. Sarah designed it. They probably made her.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Your brother is fine, too.” The pink splotches deepened before her eyes turned sad. “Your parents are doing okay. They’re confused and we haven’t spoken to them, only checked in since Cryon is pretty heavily monitored, but they’re safe.”
“I miss you.”
“I miss you, too. I want to come back, but this is bigger than you and me. Jonah knew about this Return Project—they recruited him at the beginning, bribed him with the incentive of saving Rosie Shapiro, then left him no choice but to run when he found out their end game was to return to Earth.”
“How is that even possible? Will there be anyone left to take back with them?”
“Jonah left the Academy more than three years ago, so who knows what they’ve figured out since then. He thinks Oz was probably roped in somehow, too, and that they didn’t tell him the full scope of consequences.” She paused. “Have you talked to him? Oz?”
“No. They keep us apart, but if they plan on sacrificing people in order to return, I’d guess he didn’t know.” I paused, trying to decide what to ask next. “How did Jonah know we were in trouble?”
“When we visited him and he pulled me aside?” She waited until I found the memory and then continued. “He gave me a beacon in case we needed him. They have access to satellite feeds on the ship and it beamed a signal. I slapped it under one of the table comps when the Enforcers caught me in the Archives.”
“Why didn’t he give it to me?”
“He knew I’d recognize trouble even when you refused to ask for help.” She smiled, but it was quick to fade. “I have to go. Sarah’s going to be back soon, and you’re going to have your hands full. We need her on our side, Kaia. She’s the only one in the Academy with the brains to outsmart their tech.”
“What do you mean, I’m going to have my hands full? And what were you trying to tell me about Zeke’s last name?”
“When I researched environmental causes of our evacuation, his paternal founder—Thomas Midgley, Jr.—kept coming up. He pretty much had the biggest singlehanded detrimental effect on the environmental destruction of Earth Before. Gasoline and fluorocarbons, among other things. We know Truman’s ancestry. The Elders involved all come from families with negative impact on our previous society—so they’re trying in some sick way to make it right.” Her cuff beeped and she looked down. “Gotta go, Kaia. I’ll come back soon.”