There were vehicles flying overhead as well. Rahim looked up and saw what appeared to be a type of helicopter, but instead of rotating blades it had wings on the sides like it was a giant bee or wasp.

  “Rahim, look,” Kasia said. She was pointing at the remnants of a streetlamp. It was twisted and broken like a stick of chewing gum tossed aside by a giant. It was standing in front of an enormous warehouse that seemed to be made completely of metal. He saw a couple of garage doors on the building, where some of the heavy tanklike vehicles were entering and exiting.

  Kasia ran up to the light post and dropped to one knee.

  “Oh no,” she said.

  “What? What is it?” Rahim said.

  “Remember that time I tried to create lightning in my room?” Kasia said.

  “Yeah. It shot out the window, went down the street, and hit a … lamp post,” Rahim said. Realization dawned on him.

  Kasia was running her hands over the base of the lamp post. “Here,” she said. “Here’s the scar where the bolt hit. It knocked out power for the whole block.” She stood and looked at the gigantic warehouse. “And that means—” she said.

  “No,” he said.

  “Yes,” she said. “That means that this is where our houses were.”

  “What? That’s impossible.” He suddenly felt his knees going weak. He almost fell but caught himself just in time.

  “It doesn’t make any sense, but there’s also no way around it. The signal is coming from inside there. Kenta and Rashad, your future self and my future self, are in there. This is their headquarters. This is Aevum Organization.”

  Rahim felt like he’d been punched in the stomach.

  Overhead, he heard another helicopter noise. This time it wasn’t one of those bee or wasp things, but a big drone with four propellers. Big was an understatement: This thing was about the size of a bus.

  “What is going on here, Kasia?” he said. “Did the whole world go crazy?”

  “You got that right.” A bedraggled homeless man pushing a cart passed by him and Kasia. Rahim was too stunned to say anything to the man, who went down the street and turned into an alleyway.

  “Let’s see if we can find a way in there,” Rahim said.

  Kasia followed him as they went around the back of the building and stood where his back step used to be. He saw a few more garage doors, and then he saw a pair of regular ones.

  “You think Iago can open one of those regular doors?” Rahim asked.

  “I think he can, but let’s have him do a little recon first,” Kasia said. She reached in her pocket and released Iago into the air. For some reason, the way he unfolded himself reminded Rahim of the bee and wasp copters he had seen. They watched as he flew up to the top of the warehouse, then over the roof, down the front, and back around to them. The whole time Kasia was looking through her lens and seeing things through Iago’s eyes.

  “The place looks empty,” she said. “This must be some kind of factory that’s no longer active. I don’t see us or Kenta and Rashad, but maybe they are in a room somewhere inside. The place is pretty big.”

  “Let’s go in,” Rahim said

  Iago landed just above one of the doorknobs and got it in a pincer grip. He tried and tried turning it, got a wire into the lock, but to no avail. Finally Kasia called him off.

  “I don’t know what kind of system this is, but he can’t break it.”

  Rahim walked along the edge of the metal building and tried to see if there was another way in besides those garage doors and the two entrance doors. He didn’t see any.

  “Wait a minute. Give me the phone,” he said to Kasia.

  “Why?” she said. “I’m tracking them. I know they are in there.”

  “Right,” he said. “And if you can’t get in the door, what’s the best way in?”

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  “For once, I do,” he said. He entered his home address into the phone, added the word INSIDE and hit SEND.

  * * *

  In a flash, they were inside the building. The two of them hid behind one of the tanklike vehicles, which was parked near one of the garage doors. Rahim peeped around the edge of the vehicle. He could see several figures that looked human from a distance, but they were moving in a strange, robotic way as they climbed into the vehicles and drove to the far end of the warehouse. They then passed into what looked like a tunnel to the basement but was obviously some kind of exit out onto the street.

  “I think they are leaving,” Rahim whispered.

  Kasia snuck a quick glance around the vehicle.

  “Those are robots. You can tell by how they move. What is this place, Rahim?” she whispered back.

  “I don’t know,” he said, “but it’s bad. That much I can tell. I can feel it.”

  Rahim saw one of the figures heading toward the vehicle that he and Kasia were hiding behind. He looked around frantically for another place to hide. Suddenly he felt a strong hand grab him by his shoulder and pull him backward into a small room. The other hand had pulled Kasia. They appeared to be in a maintenance area filled with mops and brooms and cleaning supplies.

  The person who had pulled them into the room closed the door behind them. Rahim and Kasia turned around. Kasia was ready for a fight, hands up, fists balled. Rahim had his hands up in surrender.

  The person standing in front of him looked familiar, the way that Man Man had when his glasses were off, but Rahim couldn’t figure out why until he spoke.

  “Look, kid, I don’t know how you got in, but you can’t be hanging out in here. You’re gonna get hurt. Hurt bad, okay? This place ain’t for children.”

  There was something in his tone that sent a word shooting out of Rahim’s mouth before he could stop it. “Harris?” Rahim said.

  “How do you know my name?” Harris said. He squinted. “Hey,” he said. “You look just like this kid I used to know, name of Rahim. And you look just like another one, name of Kasia.” Now that Rahim was getting a better look, he saw that Harris hadn’t changed much. He was taller and heavier and his hair had streaks of gray, especially in the front. But otherwise it was his old friend.

  “Harris, it’s me. It’s us,” Rahim said.

  Harris took a step back and collapsed in a small metal folding chair.

  “You don’t believe us?” Kasia said.

  “No,” Harris said. “That’s the thing. I do believe you. They said you might show up one day. They’ve been expecting you. But go figure: The day you do, they’re out on patrol.” Harris laughed, but there wasn’t much joy in it.

  “Harris, what is this place?” Kasia asked.

  “It’s the Central Hub.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s the place where Rahim and Kasia—where you two—live, making sure they do what Aevum wants so that Philly doesn’t get wiped off the map like the other cities in the world Aevum has destroyed. This is Aevum’s headquarters, or nest, or whatever you want to call it. This is where it lives.” Harris was talking rapidly and softly, like he was talking to himself.

  “Have you seen two people named Kenta and Rashad?” Rahim said. He spoke slowly and gently. His old friend looked like he was about to pass out.

  “Yeah. They’re here. Aevum has them locked up in the back. Well, I say locked up, but really it’s just a room, not a cell. The Aevum hasn’t decided what it wants to do with them, so there haven’t been extreme measures yet. It was trying to make the girl tell it about how they traveled dimensions. But she’s tough. Real tough.”

  “And you … work here or something?” Kasia asked.

  “Yes and no. I help out with maintaining the vehicles, the warehouse, and the androids that drive the vehicles. In return, me and my family are not sent to one of the ‘special homes’ to build more androids.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath. “Why don’t you know any of this if you’re related to Rahim? It’s been going on for years.”

  “Harris,” Rahim said, even more gently than before, “I’m not related to Rahim. I am him. Remember, you said they were expecting us.”

  “Oh yeah. I’m not feeling so great, you know, all of a sudden,” Harris said.

  He looked like he might pass out, but instead he pulled himself to his feet.

  “You gotta get out of here. It hates you two. It’s so mean. I don’t know what it would do if it saw you here,” Harris said.

  Before any of them could say another word, the metal door to the maintenance room was wrenched open like the top on a can of fruit. A faceless robot stood in the doorway, its head a shiny reflective dome. The rest of its body was dressed in a black tactical outfit.

  Harris stood in front of Rahim and Kasia.

  “Hey, what are you doing?” Harris said. “I’m Harris, authorization code 3873839482. These kids are lost.”

  “Oh, they are lost, all right,” said a mocking voice from inside the dome. “Children out of time. The wannabe rapper and the wannabe scientist.”

  “I’m not gonna let you hurt these kids,” Harris said. He grabbed one of his mop buckets and tossed the stinky brown liquid on the robot.

  Electric sparks flew up from the robot’s chest as the silver metallic dome cracked and hissed. Rahim, Kasia, and Harris watched as the robot started to shake and shimmy. It spun around several times and fell, smoking and partially on fire, to the floor.

  “Oh my God. What did I do?” Harris said in a high-pitched moan.

  Rahim pushed past him and ran out of the maintenance room, followed by Kasia. Most of the vehicles were gone now, and the warehouse was mostly empty except for a large metal apparatus sitting near one of the garage doors. Rahim thought it looked like a metallic octopus. It was a little smaller than the vehicles, but that still made it a lot bigger than him.

  To his horror, the arms of the metallic octopus began to articulate themselves and the creature moved toward him. A shiny reflective metallic dome sat in the middle of the eight moving arms. A voice came out of it:

  “Water, my one weakness. Just like the Wicked Witch of the West. Only when I melt, I just move to another vessel. I’ve been expecting the three of you. Hello, Rahim. Hello, Kasia. Hello, Iago, you insignificant bug.”

  “Who are you?” Rahim said. He felt like his feet were glued to the floor as the creature moved toward him. Even though the taser had worked on the robot, Rahim felt silly now. It wouldn’t do anything to this monster.

  “No. What are you?” Kasia asked.

  “Oh, I know you don’t recognize me in my new form. I’ve come so far since I was flying around and landing on your shoulder,” the voice said.

  Kasia let out a short wailing noise. It was a sound Rahim had never heard her make before.

  “Iago,” he whispered. Rahim felt like he was going to be sick.

  Harris was suddenly by his side. He stepped in front of Rahim.

  “Aevum, sir,” he said. “He’s just a kid. Throwing the water, that was all me. These two had nothing to do with it. Please don’t hurt them. Deal with me.”

  The robotic creature paused.

  “I will,” the hollow voice said.

  One of the metal arms shot forward and grabbed Harris by the collar of his coveralls. It lifted him twenty feet into the air.

  “Do not think you can dictate to me,” Aevum said.

  Harris was yelling instructions. “Go down the hall! Last room on the left! Help them!” Kasia took off down the hall, followed by Rahim and Iago. Rahim looked back over his shoulder just in time to see Harris spray the metallic dome in the center of the eight arms with two plastic bottles full of a blue liquid. A bolt of electricity shot straight up in the air as the monstrosity dropped Harris and began to move in weird stutter steps. Harris hit the ground hard, but Rahim thought he looked okay. Rahim joined Kasia and Iago at the door to the last room on the left. Iago was using his pincers to cut a hole through the lock. He moved surprisingly fast. Rahim had never realized how strong the little drone was.

  An arc of electrical energy shot past them and hit the wall just as the door opened, revealing Kenta and Rashad sitting on two metal cots. The wall behind Kasia smoked and crackled.

  “A temporary setback!” the hollow voice intoned. It echoed through the cavernous warehouse.

  “Run, you two!” Harris yelled. “Get out of here!”

  Rahim heard the click-clack sound of the garage doors near the rear of the building rolling up as two more metallic octopus machines entered the warehouse.

  “You came to get us. You really came to get us,” Kenta said. Kasia went to her and helped her stand. Rahim did the same with Rashad.

  “It was the right thing to do,” Kasia said. She looked at Rahim. He nodded back.

  “I changed my name to Aevum when I became sentient. This is my new age.” Two voices were coming from the dome, speaking in unison.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Rahim said.

  He pulled out the phone and typed as fast as his shaking fingers would allow. He typed his home address and the time he and Kasia had originally traveled from. It seemed like a hundred years ago.

  “We gotta hold on to each other!” Rahim said. He put his arm around Rashad as Kasia hugged Kenta. Then he and Kasia joined hands.

  He pressed SEND.

  As the cocoon of warm, welcoming light fell over all of them, he saw the sharp metal pincers of one of the newly arrived octopus things reaching out.

  He’d see those pincers in his dreams forever.

  23

  The four of them arrived in Rahim’s living room. His parents and the Collinses were there. So was his sister. His mom came running to him as soon as the light disappeared.

  “Oh, my baby! You said you’d be right behind us! It’s been days,” Mrs. Reynolds said.

  “I tried to type it right,” Rahim said, “but things got a little tricky.”

  “That’s the understatement of all time,” Kasia said.

  “Can’t I sit down? I haven’t had anything to eat for … a while,” Kenta said.

  She stumbled, and Mr. Collins caught her. “I got you,” he said. “Sit right here.”

  Rahim helped Rashad sit down on the couch.

  Professor Reynolds came over and hugged Rahim tight.

  “You are such a good son,” Professor Reynolds said through tears.

  “Oh, Button, we missed you!” Mrs. Collins said.

  Mr. Collins scooped her up off her feet.

  “Don’t ever scare us like that again, Button,” he said.

  Iago flew up out of Kasia’s pocket as Mr. Collins held her close to his chest.

  Kasia held out her hand, and Iago landed there like a hummingbird. Rahim saw Kasia’s left lens light up. He couldn’t read the text on it, but he saw her reading it. All of a sudden she flinched. “What?” she said. “No. Don’t worry. That won’t happen.”

  “What’s wrong, Kasia?” Rahim asked.

  “He … he says he needs to put himself in deep sleep. He says he doesn’t want to become Aevum. But that won’t happen for certain, right? Everyone says that nothing is for sure. We can change the future. Can’t we, Rahim? Rahim?” She was crying and yelling all at once.

  Rahim didn’t say anything.

  No one did.

  Finally Professor Reynolds spoke.

  “What’s this all about, son?”

  “It’s … a lot to explain, Dad,” Rahim said. He felt a lump fill his throat.

  Iago folded his pincers in on himself. Then in the tiniest chirp of a voice, he spoke.

  “I … will … always … be … your … friend,” Iago said.

  Rahim watched as he folded his head down and wrapped himself into a tight, light oval ball. A moment later, he heard Iago’s motor go quiet. Then he was still.

  Kasia held the oval against her chest and cried.

  Rahim felt tears rolling down his cheeks too.

  * * *

  A week after they had rescued Kenta and Rashad, Rahim thought things were back to normal. Well, as normal as they could be from now on.

  Besides his family knowing he was a time-traveling superagent, he now had two new houseguests.

  When they had returned without Kenta’s ship, his parents had insisted the two of them stay with them.

  “They can’t go home, and they can’t go traipsing all over the … what do you call it? The multidimensional universe? No, they are our responsibility. They can stay here,” Professor Reynolds had said.

  “That’s very kind, but we have to go,” Kenta had said. “I need to get to work on another ship so that we can stop Aevum.”

  “That’s all well and good,” Mrs. Reynolds said, “but you will still need a place to sleep and three square meals a day. Why not just stay here with us? Or you can stay at the Collinses’ house and Rashad can stay here. Whatever you decide, one thing is for sure—we are not going to turn you two out into the street.”

  “It’s just like my old house, Kenta,” Rashad had said. “Except my roof was green.” That had broken down Kenta’s resolve. Now she and Kasia spent most weekends building operating systems for a new ship, while Rashad hung out at Rahim’s house and discussed history with Professor Reynolds. He had interesting ideas about the past—about all pasts.

  Agent Brown and Agent Green let them know that Dr. Jackson—the Dr. Jackson of their time—had suddenly reappeared in the lab with little memory of where she’d been. They confiscated the phone that Future Rahim and Future Kasia had given Rahim, but he held on to the original one Kasia had built.

  “Like you said, it’s always good to have a spare,” he’d said to Kasia. She hadn’t said much in return. She had been quiet since they came back, hurt by what had happened to Iago. Rahim figured she was probably also thinking about whether her extraordinary intelligence was always a good thing. Whatever it was, she seemed weighed down by doubt and more than a little sad.

  Rahim felt bad for her. He also really wanted to talk to Kasia about what they had been through. Things ended up bad, but they could have been worse. At least Barack Obama was once again an internationally known politician who had been elected the forty-fourth president of the United States, rather than a nationally recognized teacher. Rahim saw him on TV, talking about the responsibility of the younger generation to fill the world with the right kinds of ideas, with forms of progress that never lost sight of moral responsibility. He was still a pretty great teacher.