DAK STOOD in the middle of a snow-covered field, shivering and staring at what he believed to be the launching frame of the world’s first liquid-fuel rocket. It was freezing cold, and he was still shaken up about his time in ancient China, but none of that could stop him from grinning ear to ear. If this contraption was what he thought it was, he knew this day would go down in history. And he was here to witness it firsthand.
Unless he was mistaken.
Dak wanted to confirm with Sera, who was the one who had punched in all the coordinates, but that was impossible at the moment. Sera was still sitting in the snow, rubbing her temples, totally out of it. This particular warp had been especially hard on her for some reason.
“Sera?” Dak said in a tentative voice.
He placed his hand on her shoulder and gave it a gentle shake.
Nothing.
Regardless of what he’d seen Sera do in China, he had decided to give her the benefit of the doubt. This was his best friend in the world, after all. He had to trust that there was a method to her madness. Whatever mistakes she’d made, it was up to him to bring her back to the righteous side.
“Sera?” Dak said again.
When she didn’t answer this time, he took a few steps toward the rocket. He wrapped his arms around himself to fight against the bitter cold. His teeth chattered. But none of that mattered right now. He had to get a better look at the contraption in the distance. The rocket itself was thin, and he was still standing a good fifty yards away, but he was sure it was the early work of physicist Robert Goddard. He could tell because the engine was built into the top of the rocket, and Dr. Goddard would only later discover it was better to have the engine positioned near the bottom of the rocket.
Butterflies spread through Dak’s stomach.
If he was correct in his assumption and what Sera had said before the warp was true, then the date was March 16, 1926, and they were on Aunt Effie’s farm in Auburn, Massachusetts. This date was historic because Dr. Goddard’s liquid-fuel rocket would rise forty-one feet in the air, and it would remain in flight for 2.5 seconds. Those numbers might not sound all that impressive, but Dak knew they would change the course of history forever.
“You’re awake?” Sera said, startling Dak.
She walked up behind him, opening up her knapsack. Dak watched her small, robotic disk power on and fly around her head a few times before settling on her shoulder.
“Why wouldn’t I be awake?” Dak asked. His question was a test. He was giving her the benefit of the doubt, yes, but he wasn’t a dummy. He knew it was possible — and even likely — that she had drugged him on purpose. But he still needed to figure out why.
“No reason,” Sera said, staring across the field at the rocket. “I’m just, um, glad you’re feeling better.”
Dak and Sera both watched a group of people dressed in warm coats step out of the farmhouse and begin trudging through the snow, toward the rocket. He quickly forgot about testing Sera because this was it. Dr. Goddard was about to initiate his history-changing launch.
Sera took Dak by the arm and pulled him out of sight behind a thick, snow-covered tree.
When she let go of his arm, Dak said, “I can’t believe we’re about to see the first liquid-fuel rocket take flight, Sera. This is a huge moment in global history. That’s physicist Robert H. Goddard and his crew chief, Henry Sachs, and —”
“Quiet,” Sera barked at him. “ABe, I need the details of our whereabouts. Volume level one, please.”
To Dak’s amazement, Sera’s robotic disk lit up and made a series of buzzing sounds. “Today is March 16, 1926,” it stated in a quiet, computerized voice. “You are in Auburn, Massachusetts. Across the snow-filled farm, you should see Professor Robert Goddard walking alongside his crew chief, Henry Sachs. Just behind them are Esther Goddard and Percy Roope.”
“Whoa,” Dak said. “It’s like a flying, talking SQuare. You really made that in my parents’ barn?”
Sera shrugged.
Dak wanted to tell Sera that there was nothing her little pet microchip could tell her that he couldn’t. And he was more than a little offended that she would shush him in favor of a tin can.
Dak looked at Sera’s profile. It was the real her on the outside, all right, but it certainly wasn’t her on the inside. And for the first time since running into her in the forest, he wondered if he was actually in danger.
“Sera,” he said, “I need you to tell me what we’re doing here. Please.”
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” she answered, pulling a syringe out of her knapsack, “but I’m a little busy at the moment.” She pushed the needle into a small vial, sucked up all the liquid medicine inside, and then held it up to her eye level as she squirted out a few drops.
Dak’s heart sped up at the sight of the needle. “Is that what you used on the alchemist?”
“How very perceptive of you,” Sera answered in an especially snarky voice.
Dak took her by the arm. “Sera,” he said, stern but gentle. “What’s going on with you? Seriously.”
Sera looked at Dak’s hand on her elbow and then looked up at him. “Everything’s fine,” she said, ripping her elbow free. “Strike that. It’s more than fine. I feel like I’m finally able to do the work I always dreamed of doing when we were hopping all up and down the time stream, doing whatever the Hystorians told us to do. We’re no longer just fixing history, Dak. We’re improving people’s lives.”
“You’re not really acting like yourself, though,” Dak countered. “I know you.”
“Okay, okay,” Sera said, taking a deep breath and blowing it out slowly. “You’re right, Dak. You’ve always been able to pick up on my moods.”
“Exactly,” Dak said, feeling like he was finally getting through to her.
“I’m a little stressed,” she said. “I want so badly for the world to be a better place.” She paused and looked up into the sky, and to Dak’s surprise, a single tear spilled out of her left eye and ran down her cheek. She wiped it away and looked at him.
He saw her in that second.
His Sera.
“I just need you to understand what it looks like from my perspective,” Dak told her. “You’re putting people to sleep with a needle and walking around with a robotic Frisbee on your shoulder. But whatever, Sera. I believe in you. I just want you to let me in on the plan.”
Sera took a few more deep breaths, nodding. “You’re right, Dak. You really are. I’ve been so caught up in wanting to do good, I’ve failed to include my . . . you know . . . best friend.”
Dak nodded. “Exactly. You know how helpful I am. I don’t mean to brag but I’m way more useful than Riq. You just have to give me a chance.”
Sera motioned around the tree. “This man, Dak —”
“Robert Goddard,” he said.
“Yes.” Sera peeked her head around the tree at the group of people gathered around the rocket. “By coming up with the first liquid-fuel rocket —”
“Three minutes until launch,” the flying can opener said. “The Pacifists will be coming out of the house in two minutes and thirty-five seconds.”
The Pacifists? Dak remembered the golden-robed men in China. Could the computer be talking about the same people? Did they have a time-travel device, too? And who were they anyway? A “pacifist” was a person who didn’t believe in violence, but that hardly described those brutal men.
“By coming up with the first liquid-fuel rocket,” Sera went on, “Dr. Goddard is paving the way for a number of terrible inventions. Think about it, Dak. Missiles, atomic bombs, even nuclear weapons. These are all things that threaten the well-being of everyone on the planet.”
Dak watched Sera prepare a second needle. Her knapsack was lying by her feet, and he saw the tip of the golden Infinity Ring peeking out. “When you said you wanted to help people,” he said, “I was thinking much more specifically. Like, imagine if we were able to stop Adolf Hitler from ever gaining power in Germany. Think about how much good that would do. The things we’re doing now are too general, aren’t they?”
“Not in my opinion.”
“Think about it,” Dak said. “Stopping the invention of gunpowder? Stopping rocket technology? These advancements are inevitable, Sera. I don’t see how this is helping anyone.”
Sera sighed and glanced up into the sky again. “The universe is so enormous, isn’t it?” she asked.
“Uh, I guess so,” Dak said. He had no idea what this had to do with anything they were talking about. Was she referring to the dream he’d told her about?
“One minute,” the flying SQuare said.
“Have you ever looked up at the moon and wondered what it would be like if all of humankind started fresh?” Sera looked at Dak. “Maybe we’ve messed it all up down here. Maybe it’s too late.”
When Dak looked into the sky, all he could think about was his dream. He felt nauseated remembering how he was trapped in the seat belt. The fire inching toward him. The weightlessness he felt when he bounded over to the window in time to see the asteroid. He wondered if this was what Sera used to feel when she had her Remnants.
“Sometimes, when I gaze at the sky,” Sera went on, “I feel like I’m looking into eternity. Do you ever feel like that, Dak?”
He shrugged because he didn’t know how to answer. Sera was back to acting weird.
“Try it,” she said. “Look up and tell me what you see.”
Just as Dak raised his head to look at the sky, Sera lunged at him with her syringe.
He was ready for it, though, and just as the needle came at his neck, he raised his arm to block it. The needle stuck him in the forearm instead, and before Sera was able to drive in all the sleeping agent, the needle broke off in Dak’s skin, and he pulled it out and tossed it into the snow. A third of the liquid had entered his arm, at most, but his brain still began to fog over. And his movements felt lethargic.
Sera pounced on him easily, pinning his arms under her knees. “You’re going to be okay,” she whispered in his ear. “We’ll talk it over when you wake up in the USSR.”
“U . . . ?” He tried to ask what she was talking about, but he couldn’t. His tongue felt like a dead fish in his mouth. His eyelids drooped.
The fog grew even thicker in Dak’s brain, and he closed his eyes. The dose hadn’t been strong enough to knock him out completely. He pretended, though, to buy himself time to think. Otherwise he was afraid Sera would stick him with her second needle. And then he’d be asleep for days.
There was a commotion near the rocket. And Dak could feel Sera shifting her body to look. He cracked open his eyes, just a fraction. Everything was blurry. And jittery. But he saw a flash of gold from inside her knapsack, just out of his reach.
“Thirty seconds to launch,” the flying disk announced.
Sera turned back to Dak, and he shut his eyes just in time. She slapped him across the face, saying, “You asleep, Dak? Hey, nerd boy? Can you hear me?”
Dak didn’t move or say a word.
He just lay there, barely breathing.
She slapped him a second time, and he still didn’t move, even though his heart was breaking.
“Good,” she said, getting off him. “At least I know how to shut you up now.”
Dak heard her fumbling with her second syringe and then he heard her step out from behind the tree, shouting across the farm, “Tie them up! I’ll handle the rocket myself!”
Dak cracked open his eyes. The world was spinning on him now. He saw tiny stars everywhere and he wondered if they were the microscopic cells that made up the world. He scooted his way to the right a few inches and snatched the Ring from Sera’s knapsack and shoved it down his pants and closed his eyes again, wondering if that’s what death was: You saw all the tiny molecules of life right before the life drained out of you, and then you were gone.
“Okay, Dacky Boy,” Sera said, “you stay here while I make sure the AB Pacifists have everything they need. Then we’re off to the Soviet Union.”
Dak heard Sera tying up her knapsack and he heard the flying SQuare buzzing away from him and then he felt something warm cover the top half of his body. When he heard Sera crunching through the snow away from him, Dak opened his eyes and saw that she had placed her jacket over him, to keep him warm.
His mind was in such a fog now, it was hard to form a coherent thought. But he knew he was hidden behind a tree so he slowly sat up, sucking in difficult breaths, and felt around him for the Ring. It took him several minutes to remember it was in his pants, beneath his robe. He pulled it out and set it on the snow. He was so exhausted now he had to slap his own face to keep from passing out. He pinched his arm and pried open his eyes with his fingers.
Dak looked at the Ring, and then he looked at the jacket Sera had covered him with.
He was so confused.
Would someone who planned to do him harm really try to keep him warm?
He tried to focus on the Ring. It was spinning in his hand, though he knew it wasn’t really spinning.
Where would he even go?
He felt like he was lost, without a friend or ally in all of history that he could turn to.
But that wasn’t entirely true.
There was still Riq.
He struggled to program the device, then aimed a shaky forefinger at the ACTIVATE button, but he was seeing three of everything now.
He heard the sound of bodies falling in the distance.
Dak had no idea which ACTIVATE was the right one, so he pushed them all, and everything around him began to spin more dramatically and the world went black, like his mind, and he knew it wasn’t from the warp this time. It was the drug Sera had injected into his throbbing arm.