“How long would it take an android AI?” Professor Reynolds said.

  Agent Brown’s phone beeped. He looked at it, then put it back in his pocket.

  “Let’s go ask them,” he said.

  15

  Dr. Jackson and nat gathered up the dishes from room service as Rahim and Kasia both drank down the last of their apple juice. They’d ordered traditional Hawaiian food like poi, taro, and manapua, along with some mainland mainstays like chicken fingers and french fries.

  “That was…,” Rahim started to say, but then he burped. “Excuse me. That was delicious,” he said.

  Kasia burst out laughing.

  Rahim felt his cheeks get warm, but Dr. Jackson just shook her head good-naturedly.

  “In some cultures, a burp is a sign you appreciated the meal.”

  “In that case, Rahim is very cultured,” Kasia said.

  Dr. Jackson sat down on the sofa next to Rahim and Kasia in the hotel suite while Nat took the room service tray and set it outside in the hallway.

  “I have to ask,” Dr. Jackson said. “If you and Kasia are time travelers—and by all the evidence I’ve seen I’d say you are—how is it that you two do this alone? Do you just traipse through the space-time continuum without parental supervision?”

  Rahim leaned forward and put his chin in his hands.

  “I mean … the first time was an accident. But then our future selves told us we needed to help keep the timeline from going crazy. They told us we had to keep our mission secret or it could change things. It might even destroy the timeline itself,” Rahim said. “So we are sort of our own parents, I guess?” Hearing himself say it out loud made him feel even worse.

  “But I’m sure your parents would be concerned if they knew you were risking your lives going off on these missions. Trust me, there are worse things that can happen to you using this kind of technology than just changing the future.”

  “Like the Philadelphia Experiment,” Kasia said softly.

  Dr. Jackson nodded. “I think … we were dealing with forces we didn’t properly understand. I’ve been trying to rectify that ever since the Experiment. And you tell me that in the future instead of enjoying my retirement I’m still trying to do just that.”

  Rahim thought she looked sad.

  “You’re not just trying,” Kasia said. “You succeeded. You helped create a satellite and a system that allow us to go through time and make things better!”

  “Do we make things better, though? It seems like they keep going bad no matter what we do,” Rahim said.

  “That’s because sometimes you mess things up,” Kasia said. “But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to get it right.”

  Rahim turned his head and stared at her.

  Kasia shrugged.

  “Kasia,” Dr. Jackson said, “sometimes I wonder if we spent too much time trying to accomplish something, when we should have been deciding whether we should have been doing it in the first place. Being able to travel through time, through space and dimensions, is a great responsibility that I don’t know if anyone is ready for.”

  “But … but … isn’t science about using our brains to find out what we’re capable of?” Kasia said. Rahim could tell she was getting frustrated by the way her forehead wrinkled.

  Dr. Jackson tilted her head slowly to one side before she spoke.

  “I think that we should always try to find out what we are capable of, but that doesn’t always mean we should do it. Knowledge is power, and with power comes an obligation to wield it with care.”

  “I’m with her,” Rahim said.

  “Whatever,” Kasia said as she crossed her arms.

  Dr. Jackson got up and sat next to Kasia.

  “You’re a brilliant young lady. I love your curiosity. It’s your gift and your superpower. But we are dealing with incredibly potent energies. We have an obligation to treat them with caution. The individuals who had us in that attic are using the same forces, possibly for nefarious reasons. We need to assess their motivations and, if we can, communicate the same sense of responsibility to them.”

  “I agree,” Rahim said.

  “Let’s talk to them, then,” Kasia said.

  She touched the temple of her glasses to open up a connection to Iago.

  “Hello? Can you hear me?” Kasia said.

  Rahim saw the right lens of her glasses light up. An image of a large hallway appeared on it.

  Kasia squinted her left eye and looked through the lens. She saw Rashad come into the hallway and cross his arms. Soon he was joined by Kenta.

  “Do you see them, Kasia?” Dr. Jackson asked.

  “Yeah. Geez, I hope they don’t hurt Iago,” she whispered.

  “I’m going to assume you’re one of the kids who helped Dr. Jackson escape,” Kenta said, talking to Iago, who was hovering high in the air above her. “That was very clever. We underestimated you. We won’t make that mistake again.”

  “Ask them why they kidnapped us,” Dr. Jackson said.

  “Why’d you kidnap Dr. Jackson and put her in that attic? That was rude,” Kasia said.

  Rahim rolled his eyes.

  “There are things going on that you can’t understand,” Rashad said. “We did what we needed to do.”

  “You know, I’m getting a little tired of hearing that,” Rahim said. “Grown-ups tell you that all the time, but then when you find out what’s going on, it’s never something you can’t handle.”

  Dr. Jackson nodded at him. “That’s a very mature way of looking at things, Rahim,” she said. “Kasia, ask them where they are from.”

  “Where you guys from? Another time? The future? Gotta be, right? You ain’t from the past.”

  Rahim stared at Kasia’s lens again and waited for the answer.

  “That doesn’t matter,” Rashad said. “What does matter is—”

  Kenta cut him off. “Did you build this? Your drone who seems to have arms and legs.”

  “Yeah. I did. Built our first phone, too,” Kasia said.

  “Is he an AI?” Kenta asked.

  “Yeah. Are your robots AI?” Kasia asked.

  “No, they work on programmed behavior and instruction,” Kenta said.

  “Kasia, this ain’t the science fair. We need our phone,” Rahim whispered.

  “Oh yeah. Can we have our phone back, please?” Kasia asked.

  Kenta shrugged. “Not just yet,” she said.

  Rahim stared at Kasia’s lens again. He saw Rashad and Kenta. He didn’t see anyone or anything else.

  Rahim felt the bottom fall out of his stomach.

  “Kasia, where are their robots?” he said suddenly.

  “Huh?” Kasia said.

  Just then there was a loud knock on the door. An extremely loud knock.

  Kenta smiled.

  The door to the hotel room exploded inward. As it slammed against the wall, the three hooded robots came through in single-file formation. Nat jumped in front of Dr. Jackson, but one of the robots grabbed him by the collar with one hand, while the second grabbed Dr. Jackson around the waist. The third grabbed Rahim and Kasia by the collars as well, lifted them off the couch, and held them suspended in midair.

  The second robot carried Dr. Jackson to the balcony, slid the door open, and stepped through it. Without looking back, he climbed up over the railing and jumped off. The robot holding Nat carried him to the balcony and followed his associate over the railing. The third hooded robot released Rahim and Kasia and followed his brethren over the railing.

  Rahim and Kasia ran to the balcony, but Kasia stopped and closed her eyes.

  “I can’t look,” Kasia said.

  Rahim could tell she was close to crying. So was he, but he had to see if somehow Dr. Jackson and Nat had survived. She’d told them they were on the fortieth floor. Rahim knew that was a long, long way down. He peered over the railing and felt his mouth drop open. He’d seen a lot of wild things since Kasia had given him that phone last winter, but he’d never seen robots jump out a forty-story window, pull a superhero landing while holding two grown-ups, then run off into the setting sun.

  Kenta was still linked to Kasia’s glasses. “Don’t worry about your phone,” she said. “We’ll be taking Dr. Jackson with us and keeping her safe until she makes the grand discovery that will take her years to fully understand. By that time, you and your friend will never have met her. She will have never laid the groundwork for temporal distortion or dimensional degradation, and our world won’t get torn apart like tissue paper. Everybody gets a happy ending.”

  “They’re gonna keep her so she doesn’t figure out time travel,” Kasia said

  “How did they know we were here?” Rahim asked no one in particular.

  “I don’t know. And I don’t like not knowing,” Kasia said.

  Rahim slapped himself on the forehead.

  “Turn it off.”

  “Turn what off?”

  “Your connection to Iago.”

  She touched the temple of her glasses. “Iago, hide,” she whispered. Her right lens blinked, then was clear.

  “That’s how they found us,” Rahim said.

  “Oh geez, she tracked us tracking her,” Kasia said. “She reversed it on us. That’s what I would have done.”

  “Yeah, that’s exactly what you would have done. She’s smart.”

  They walked back to the living area. Rahim leaned against the kitchen counter while Kasia flopped on the couch.

  “We gotta get our phone,” Rahim said. “But if they are keeping tabs on us through Iago, well, I guess he can’t get it for us.”

  “Yeah. We’re gonna have to sneak in there. You think we can fix this door?” Kasia said.

  “I mean, I guess we can just shut it even if it doesn’t lock,” Rahim said.

  “Good, I need a nap,” Kasia said.

  “A nap? Are you being for real?” Rahim said.

  “Yeah, I am. We can’t go right now. The sun’s setting. We have to wait till it gets dark so we can break in Mission: Impossible–style. We’ll get our phone and rescue Dr. Evelyn and Nat. Then we’ll go home. Easy peasy mac and cheesy,” Kasia said. He could tell she was in a better mood and calmer now that she knew Dr. Jackson was relatively safe.

  “Have you ever broken into a house before? Because I haven’t.”

  “I’ve broken into government computer networks and rewritten their internal code. It can’t be much harder than that. They might be smart, but they aren’t smarter than me. We just gotta wait a little while and let them think they’ve won.” Before Rahim could respond with a counterargument, she took off her glasses, closed her eyes, and was nearly instantly asleep.

  Rahim went to the door and shut it, then dragged a chair from the kitchen area and propped it against the door. Then he sat in the chair near the balcony. The moment he did, he realized he was exhausted, too. And scared. What if they didn’t get their phone back? What if they were trapped in the past forever? And what had Kenta said about her world being torn apart? The more he thought about it, the more he was convinced their future selves were hiding things from them. Dangerous things, maybe even—

  He fell asleep before he could finish the thought.

  16

  Mrs. Collins, kasia’s mom, tried to keep herself busy while her husband and Rahim’s father were out with the agents looking for the kids. She’d already made a huge pot of kale soup and worked on one of her clay sculptures when she decided to go upstairs and clean up Kasia’s room. The agent had left it in a state of disarray.

  She straightened the computer desk and put the monitors and keyboards back in their original positions. She made the bed. She picked up some of the books the agents had pulled off the shelf. Most of them were college-level texts about computer programming, artificial intelligence, astronomy, and history. As she replaced them, she noticed the one book the agents hadn’t taken down was one she didn’t recognize. She pulled it down and looked at the cover. It was a huge graphic novel about some superheroes who apparently called themselves the Eight Pillars.

  Mrs. Collins frowned. Kasia was curious about a great many things, but she’d never seen her take an interest in comics. Mrs. Collins loved comic books herself, but she had long ago accepted the idea that was something she and Kasia wouldn’t share.

  She opened the book.

  “What in the world is this?” she said out loud. The inside of the book was actually hollowed out in the middle. Inside that recess was a large bulky plastic rectangle. She picked it up and turned it over in her hands.

  It was soldered and glued together with a thin, clear plastic screen instead of glass. The plastic casing was heavy and hard. She thought it resembled the first cell phone she had ever had herself.

  “Kasia,” Mrs. Collins murmured. “You hid this for a reason.”

  * * *

  The agents, Professor Reynolds, and Mr. Collins pulled up to the main branch of the Philadelphia Library on Vine Street. It was almost seven o’clock. A few people were milling around on the front steps as the darkness began to creep over the building.

  “I used to come here all the time when I was a kid,” Professor Reynolds said.

  “Did you want to be a teacher back then?” Mr. Collins asked.

  “Maybe,” Professor Reynolds said. “And I’m a bit of a nerd.”

  “Just a bit?” Mr. Collins said. Professor Reynolds shook his head.

  “Sorry, just trying to lighten the mood. I make mad jokes when I’m nervous,” Mr. Collins said.

  Agent Brown was tapping his wristwatch. “Our agency tracked recent hacking activity to one of the public computers in this facility. If your kids turn up, we’ll have to have a long talk with them about their duties as law-abiding citizens.”

  “That’s fine,” Mr. Collins said. “I plan on having one of those talks with Kasia myself.”

  “On the other hand, if we have any further encounters with the androids, we may have to neutralize them.”

  “When you say neutralize…” Mr. Collins let the question hang in the air.

  “Our cell phones are equipped with … certain technologies,” Agent Green said.

  “But hopefully it won’t come to that,” Agent Brown hurried to add.

  “Gentlemen, if I’m being honest, you don’t sound too confident about that,” Professor Reynolds said.

  “We won’t hurt your kids, Professor. But as far as these android upgrades are concerned, well, they have never been used in the field before. They’ve mostly been utilized in theoretical situations.”

  “Ah, so what you’re saying is they are experimental,” Mr. Collins said. “Experiments can go bad.”

  “Can’t get anything by you, can we, Mr. Collins?” Agent Brown said.

  “Hopefully they are kids and not androids,” Agent Brown said. “I don’t feel like getting my arms ripped off today.”

  “They can do that?” Mr. Collins said.

  “Like they were eating chicken wings,” Agent Green said. Then he pantomimed a chicken wing being torn apart.

  They exited the car and followed Agent Brown up the concrete steps of the library.

  As they entered the building, Agent Brown gave them all instructions.

  “Let’s spread out. There are two banks of public computers on this floor. We’ll go left; you and Mr. Collins go right. If you find them, approach them cautiously until you’re one hundred percent sure they are actually your kids.”

  “You make it sound like we should be afraid,” Mr. Collins said.

  “If they are androids, you shouldn’t be afraid,” Agent Green said.

  “Oh, okay,” Mr. Collins said.

  “You should be terrified,” Agent Green said. “Remember? Chicken wings?”

  The two agents went toward the row of computers to the left without another word.

  * * *

  Professor Reynolds and Mr. Collins moved through the library as quietly as possible, heading for a row of computers near the rear of the first floor. The building seemed almost empty. They passed one or two employees and a few patrons. Professor Reynolds thought about how he would use the library to escape his own bullies as a child. It saddened him that Rahim was being harassed by Man Man and hadn’t confided in his parents. He promised himself that when all this was over he was going to have a long talk with Rahim and make him understand he could always come to him if he had a problem.

  They took a right and found themselves standing in front of a row of cubicles, each with its own desktop computer. None of them was occupied.

  “I guess they left,” Mr. Collins said. “Maybe Kasia did actually break their code.”

  “I don’t know where else to go,” Professor Reynolds said sadly. “I was sure we’d find something here.”

  “STOP! STOP, BY ORDER OF THE UNITED STATES—OHHH!”

  Both Professor Reynolds and Mr. Collins turned in the direction of the loud yelling.

  They both watched as an entire shelf of books began to tip over like a giant domino. It hit the next row of shelves, which began to tip as well. It took Professor Reynolds a second to realize they were in danger.

  “Move!” he yelled as a shelf near the two of them crashed to the floor. He pushed Mr. Collins. They both got out of the way just in time. Rahim came running across the toppled shelves. Professor Reynolds’s mouth fell open as he watched Rahim jump from the top of the shelves all the way to the mezzanine on the second floor. Right behind him, Kasia executed the same incredible leap.

  Moments later, Agent Brown came walking around the corner with Agent Green, who was holding his left arm and flexing the fingers on his hand.

  “Those aren’t our kids,” Professor Reynolds said quietly.

  “No, they aren’t,” Agent Brown said.

  17

  Rahim opened his eyes.

  The moon was shining through the sliding glass door. Rahim didn’t wear a watch, but he felt like it was late. He got up out of the chair and went over to the couch. He shook Kasia.