“But I met my own grandfather before he was my grandfather, and my own dad before he was my dad, and it changed everything. I had to go back and stop myself from meeting either one of them, remember?” Rahim had said.

  “I mean, that’s what you said happened. But I didn’t go with you on that trip, according to you. I mean, you’re the only one who actually remembers any of that. It’s like that anime we saw, Nobunaga Concerto. The time stream resolves its own paradoxes,” Kasia had said.

  “But I was there. I saw my grandfather and he was young, and I saw my dad as a kid. And the time stream didn’t resolve anything. I had to do it,” Rahim had said. But Kasia hadn’t seemed convinced.

  “I mean, I’m not saying I don’t believe you, but I’d like to see myself whether the theories stand up to the scientific method,” Kasia had said.

  Rahim had just shrugged. He didn’t know what the scientific method was. He was pretty sure they hadn’t covered that in class yet.

  Kids were still talking about their summers. There was another trip to the South (Georgia, not Florida), a lifeguard, and a kid who said he had watched every horror movie ever made. Rahim made sure the teacher wasn’t looking and touched the screen of his phone, which was hidden and angled under his desk. A voice appeared in his earbuds: “I trust you won’t be sharing what you and Kasia have been doing over the summer. Not that your teacher would believe you.”

  There was his future self on the screen sitting in what appeared to be a small, cramped room with a bank of flat liquid-crystal screens behind him. Adult Kasia was working near those screens, using some type of translucent tablet.

  “We calculated that there is an angle under your desk where you can hide your phone effectively,” Adult Rahim said.

  “How do you know where I’m sitting?” Rahim whispered.

  “What did you say?” Leona Randall asked him. She had turned around in her seat and was staring at him.

  “Huh? Nothing,” Rahim said. Leona rolled her eyes and turned back around. Leona didn’t pick on him as much as Man Man and his boys, but she did seem to be irritated by his existence.

  “We have advanced chronolocation tools. Plus, remember, you are us, but earlier. We’re able to pinpoint you and Kasia fairly easily. She is sitting in the third row in her homeroom.”

  The third row? Rahim would have expected her to go for the front row on the first day. Did Kasia already know to drop back a few rows?

  Adult Rahim continued, “I hope you’re rested up. We have a new mission. And a new lead on Dr. Jackson. We will be sending details shortly. This may be our last chance to find her and get her back from the Chrononauts.”

  “The who?” Rahim said. This time he forgot to whisper.

  “Rahim, do you want to share what you did for your summer vacation?”

  “Um…” Rahim paused.

  Well, we’ll have to back up a little earlier, to last winter, when my best friend and I almost destroyed time. Ever since then, we’ve been traveling through the time stream trying to find a kidnapped scientist who was a part of the Philadelphia Experiment, and now we apparently have to rescue her from something called a Chrononaut. Oh, and my friend goes to this school now. She’s in the third row.

  “No, sir, I don’t,” he said softly.

  2

  Rahim rushed to the cafeteria and scanned the cavernous room for Kasia. He didn’t think Man Man and his crew would actually hurt a girl, but he didn’t want them to corner her and start teasing her, either.

  As if on cue, Man Man slammed into Rahim from the side and sent him sprawling across the floor. Rahim landed on his backpack and was spared most of the impact.

  “You got wack shoes to go along with your wack lyrics,” Man Man said to the delight of his two sidekicks.

  Rahim waited until they walked away to answer. “You got wack jokes,” he said. “And wack lyrics.” Man Man told people he was an aspiring rapper, too, but Rahim had heard some of the songs him and his crew had come up with, and it was nearly impossible to listen to them. Most of them didn’t even rhyme. Plus, Rahim knew for a fact his songs had more views than Man Man’s.

  Grunting, Rahim rolled onto his side and pushed himself up off the floor. When he got to his feet, Kasia was standing there with two girls and a boy he recognized from his homeroom last year.

  “So, this is your best friend?” one of the girls said. The three of them started to laugh. Kasia shot them a look.

  “Yeah. He is.” Their laughter ceased so quickly it might as well never have started.

  “You okay?” Kasia asked.

  “Yeah. I watched some pro-wrestling videos over the summer. Learned how to fall right,” Rahim said.

  “You wanna sit with us?” Kasia asked.

  “Who’s us?” Rahim asked. Kasia pointed to the other kids.

  “Dasha, Jaleen, and Tomas. They were in my homeroom this morning. Why didn’t you tell me they had a robotics team here?”

  “Um. Because I don’t like robots.”

  Kasia narrowed her eyes.

  “I mean, I don’t think of Iago as a robot,” Rahim said. Iago was the robotic drone with AI technology that Kasia had created in her spare time a few years ago.

  “Anyway, you can sit with us,” Kasia said.

  “Okay, but I need to holler at you after lunch, okay?” Rahim said. He pointed to the pocket holding the cell phone.

  “You heard from them?” Kasia asked.

  “Yeah.” He didn’t want to go into more detail in front of anyone. If people knew he had a phone that could send you back in time, they might start to get ideas that it should be theirs. He’d had the phone Kasia had originally built stolen from him once. He didn’t want to go through that again.

  “Them?” Tomas said.

  “Yeah,” Kasia said. “Nobody.” She headed for the lunch table.

  * * *

  Rahim had thought it would take Kasia at least a month to get used to going to public school.

  It had actually only taken three hours.

  In less than a day, she had used math to figure out where her locker was, deduced what homeroom row made her seem smart but not too eager, found her own crew of friends, charmed almost all her teachers, and managed not to run afoul of Man Man and any other bullies. Rahim was happy for her, but he felt a little … left behind. He was used to it just being him and her against—well, not the world, maybe, but against the usual things that stalked kids in their first year as teenagers. He didn’t worry so much about being cool or having the right shoes or being in the right group because he had always known he could come home from school and talk to Kasia about it while Iago flew around the room.

  But that had all changed by lunch. He looked across the table and saw Kasia laughing with Dasha. They noticed him watching and stopped for a second. “Sorry,” Kasia said. “Inside joke.” Inside joke? How could there be an inside anything so fast? Rahim wasn’t surprised that the other kids liked Kasia. What did surprise him was that he felt a little jealous. Kasia was his friend, wasn’t she? The second he had that thought, he heard his father’s voice in his head. That doesn’t mean you own her, son.

  Now Kasia was done with her inside joke and was holding court with all three of her new friends. “Then I said, ‘Of course, if you want me to explain how the Pythagorean theorem was discovered, I can. You’d have to be obtuse not to get it.’” Tomas laughed so hard, milk came out his nose.

  Rahim didn’t think it was that funny.

  “Hey, Kasia,” Rahim said. “I need to talk to you before we go back to class.”

  “Yeah, I almost forgot. I’ll catch up with you guys later, okay?” Kasia said. Her new friends got up from the table and started to carry their trays to the trash can.

  “Let us know about the talent show, okay?” Jaleen said.

  “Yep,” Kasia said.

  When they were gone, Rahim pulled out the phone.

  “You gonna enter the talent show with them?” Rahim asked.

  “I’m going to do it with you, obviously. No, this is a separate thing. Jaleen and Tomas can sing and Dasha can dance, so they were wondering if I’d make a beat they can all perform to as a group,” Kasia said.

  Rahim paused.

  “You making beats for them?” he asked. He almost didn’t recognize his voice. It sounded strange. Not angry, just weird.

  “Not like ours. Just something they can put words to for their song,” Kasia said.

  Rahim frowned.

  “What?” she said.

  “Check out the message,” he said.

  “No,” Kasia said. “I meant your face.”

  “Nothing about my face,” Rahim said. “I was just going to say that you got yourself some fans. I thought you had probably come up with a routine with rocket shoes, flying bicycles, and a trained animatronic penguin.”

  Kasia looked up.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” Rahim said.

  “No, you’re not. I know that look,” Kasia said.

  “What look?” Rahim said.

  “That look. When you look down, but your eyebrows are arched. What’s up?”

  “Nothing, it’s just, I mean, I know you’re a genius, okay? I get it. But I thought maybe just this time you might need my help with something. But you been in school one day, and you already got a crew, and you’re explaining math to the other kids.”

  “I was talking to a teacher. Wow. WOW. You’re the last person I thought would do that,” Kasia said.

  “Do what?”

  “Make me feel weird,” Kasia said.

  Rahim sat back in his chair and sighed. He felt his cheeks get hot.

  “I … It’s not … you’re not weird. I just … it’s not easy for me here. I thought you’d be like me and Harris. Thought we be in this together, I guess. But you’re great at being a student, just like you’re great at everything else,” Rahim said.

  Kasia moved an errant curl out of her face and adjusted her glasses.

  “Rahim, I am in this with you. But your having a hard time isn’t my fault. You gotta stand up for yourself. Guys like Man Man are always gonna pick on you until you do. But don’t ever think I’m not on your side. I got your back always. I just can’t help but be amazing at everything I try,” Kasia said. Rahim laughed. Kasia frowned. “What’s so funny? I wasn’t joking.”

  3

  They hadn’t been able to review the phone message during lunch, so Rahim and Kasia both asked to go to the library during their study hall period. They went to the very back of the room and settled among the dusty stacks where the old reference books were stored. Rahim took out the phone and placed it on the table. He gave Kasia one of his earbuds and dialed the number that opened a channel to their adult selves.

  The screen lit up with a blue light, then it changed to red, then finally green. When the green light dissipated, Rahim and Kasia were greeted by adult versions of themselves. Their future selves were sitting at a translucent desk with a large bank of computer screens behind them.

  Future Rahim had a shaggy mini-Afro and a closely trimmed goatee. Future Kasia rocked braids that fell halfway down her back. She also wore a pair of glasses with clear frames.

  “Are you in a secure location?” Future Kasia said.

  “The most secure,” Kasia said. “We’re in the library, by the reference books. Nobody ever comes back here. People don’t have an interest in real knowledge, stuff you have to earn. It’s all about looking it up quick online.” Future Rahim and present-day Rahim both rolled their eyes.

  “What’s the mission this time?” Rahim said. “I hope it’s in someplace warm. I thought I was gonna freeze my toes off in Newfoundland.”

  “As a matter of fact, it is,” said Future Kasia. “We think we have a lead on where Dr. Jackson might be.”

  “He’s going to find her?” Kasia said.

  “I’m sorry. I got ahead of myself. First, we need you to go to Hawaii in September of 1978. According to our analysis, there are several temporal anomalies emanating from that area. Rahim, you will need to go to Honolulu and retrieve a volcanic rock from the base of the Diamond Head State Monument. Get in, get out, and try not to be noticed. Kasia, as usual, you will monitor him from your room and make sure he gets back safe.”

  “Temporal anomalies? Like the vortexes?” Rahim asked.

  Their future selves looked at each other.

  “No, not the vortexes,” Future Rahim said. “There seem to be fluctuations in the time stream there. Places where time is stuck on a loop with events happening over and over. Through our research, this indicates it is a place where the Chrononauts have interfered with the time stream. We have to correct that.”

  “Why do I always have to stay in the room?” Kasia said. “I want to go and help. And please don’t say it’s too dangerous. If you really are from the future, I know you think that girls can do things just as well as boys.” Kasia pushed her glasses up on her nose. “If not better.”

  “It’s not that, Kasia. If something goes wrong, you’re his anchor to your present. He needs a lifeline. That’s you,” Future Kasia said.

  “Hawaii?” Rahim said. “And in 1978? I like going and all, but my parents are getting a little suspicious about it. Why am I spending so much time in my room? Once we went into a hurricane, and I went into my room with my hair normal, and they came in a few minutes later, and it was all messed up. It was hard to explain. I don’t want these Chrononauts to mess up the timeline and change our past or present or future, like y’all be saying, but…”

  The truth was he hated lying to his parents. He wanted to find Dr. Jackson, and he definitely didn’t want the universe to collapse (or for something to change time so that his parents never met or Four the Hard Way never got together). But every time he came back from one of these missions, he felt like he was making a fool of his folks. His father could be really strict, but Rahim loved him and he loved his mom. This all felt wrong sometimes.

  Adult Rahim and Adult Kasia shared another brief glance.

  “Rahim, you just have to trust us. If we could do it ourselves, we would. There are complex issues when it comes to time displacement and temporal travel that we just don’t know if you would understand.”

  “Tell me, then. I know I would understand it,” Kasia said a little louder than Rahim thought was necessary.

  “Shhhh!” Mrs. Daleon said from her desk as she put her finger to her lips.

  Adult Rahim let out a sigh.

  “Please just trust us. You can trust us like you would trust yourselves. We are yourselves. I wish we could say more, but it’s complicated,” Adult Rahim said.

  “That’s what my sister says about her and her boyfriend,” Rahim said. “My mom says it isn’t complicated. She says my sister just doesn’t like the reality of the situation.”

  No one spoke for a few seconds.

  “Kasia, Rahim … the truth is…,” Future Kasia started to say, but Future Rahim cut her off.

  “The truth is that if we go,” he said, “we could disrupt things to such a degree that we would irreparably damage the fabric of time and space. You are closer to the specific points in time where the Chrononauts are attacking. Think of the time stream like a rubber band. Every time you go back to the past, you’re pulling that rubber band. The farther you are from the point you are trying to visit, the more you stretch that rubber band, until eventually it snaps. If the time stream snaps, the universe falls in on itself. If you go, it won’t stretch the rubber band as much,” Future Rahim said. He leaned forward on the desk so his face was close to the monitor he was speaking into.

  “Look, I know this is a lot. I do. But right now we are the only thing standing between our world and the Chrononauts destroying it and reshaping it in their image. And trust me, you do not want to see what that world looks like.”

  “What is a Chrononaut? You keep using that word, and I have no idea what it means,” Rahim said.

  “It means time sailor. Are they time travelers, too?” Kasia asked. Their adult versions shared another glance.

  “We should tell them,” Future Kasia said. Future Rahim stared at her. They didn’t say anything for a long time. Finally Future Rahim sat back and nodded at Future Kasia.

  “Yes, they are time travelers,” Future Rahim said. He was talking slower than usual, like he didn’t want them to miss a word. “They have access to similar technology, and they are trying to use time travel to change the world to fit their own idea of a perfect one. But their vision of that is a place where people have no free will. Where art and music don’t exist anymore. Where they and their friends are rich and powerful and everyone else is barely surviving. And they don’t care who they hurt in the process. So, that’s what we are up against. That’s what the Aevum Organization is trying to stop. That’s why we need Dr. Jackson, and that’s why we need you.”

  Rahim looked at Kasia. This was the most their future selves had ever told them about what they were doing and what was at stake. Rahim felt like his lunch was trying to make a return visit, but he pushed that feeling down and looked at the screen.

  “Okay. When do you want me to leave?”

  As the last bell rang and Rahim and Kasia started walking home, Kasia handed Rahim a piece of paper.

  “What’s this?”

  “It’s the slip so we can enter the talent contest. You gotta get your mom and dad to sign yours. I got the one for my parents in my bag.”

  “Did you miss the part where I gotta go back to 1978? We don’t have time for no talent contest.”

  Kasia snorted.

  “We literally have all the time in the world. And we should do this. Aren’t you tired of just rapping in my room? Besides, I know you like it when we post a new song and it gets a lot of likes. Just imagine what it’ll be like getting an immediate response.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” Rahim mumbled.

  Kasia stopped walking.

  “Rahim, listen.”