CHAPTER THREE: April 15, 2133

I’d never been at Dodge’s workplace before. From the outside, it looks like any of the other prefab storefronts on the ground-floor level of Main Street, with shining black solar panels and a single display window that flashes ads of exotic travel packages to places like the Mt. Everest Adventure Park and the Mariana Trench Underwater Resort. I stand, transfixed, as the images scroll past.

“Those are terrible prices, you know,” I say as he pulls me through the front door. “And I had no idea people still vacationed in the Amazon since that flesh-eating bacteria plague.”

“This way,” he says, crossing the dusty, dimly lit waiting room in three strides. “You’re going to want to see the real travel agency back here.”

“Bet I am.” It’d better be more impressive than the front room; the furnishings here obviously haven’t been updated in decades, and even the retina scanners look like they’re from before I was born.

Dodge holds open the door to the back room. The contrast between the two is so stark, I’m momentarily taken aback. This room is clean, sleek, and modern. It looks like a museum, with holographic projections swirling on pedestals, showing historical events and places, while soft music plays in the background. I pause in front of one display, and the music shifts to fit the scene of an unfinished Egyptian pyramid, with tiny figures pulling enormous stones behind them on log rollers.

“Is this projection made from actual footage?” I stick a finger through the center of a massive stone.

“One hundred percent,” Dodge says without looking away from the wall where a humming, blue light scans his retina.

“Huh. Before Cleopatra’s time, though,” I say. “She was always my favorite. Hey, do you think someone could go back in time and kill that asp before it—”

“Absolutely not.” Dodge looks away as a door beside him springs open from the flat, unmarked wall. He strides over and takes my shoulders, turning me from the projection. “Promise me, Cass, that you aren’t going to try to alter established history.”

“I never said—”

“Cass.”

He knows me too well.

“This is incredibly important,” he says. “Swear it.”

“I thought you all said that I was free to do what I wanted.”

“With your life. Your individual life. And one person’s ordinary life can make a lot of difference, but you can’t go changing history. It’s my job to stop things like that from happening, so if I have any reason to believe that you’re going to try to… I don’t know… kill Hitler or something—”

“I hadn’t even considered it,” I say lightly. Though now that he mentions it, the dictator would only be a common soldier in World War I. He’d been wounded in the Battle of Somme—a shell explosion that injured his thigh—but that wasn’t until 1916. Maybe if that shell was just a little closer…

“Cass.” Dodge’s tone is sharp and decisive. “Swear to me that you aren’t going to try to kill Hitler.”

“You really think I’d be able to kill someone? Even if it was Hitler? I can’t even kill spiders, and you know how much I hate them.”

“Cass.”

“Fine. I promise I won’t kill Hitler.”

“Or convince anyone else to kill him.”

I sigh. “Or convince anyone else to kill him.”

“Or cause him to be killed—”

“Dodge.”

“Okay, okay.” He drops his arms from my shoulders. “But you won’t try to alter the established timeline in any way, will you?”

I roll my eyes. “I solemnly swear that I will be on my very best 1914 behavior.”

He scowls and I pretend to study the pyramid hologram again. I’m a terrible liar, but what choice do I have? And what could he do if he knew, anyway? Force me to stay here in the 22nd century?

“Besides,” I say, trying to sound casual and unaffected, “how much trouble can I really get into, knowing that you or Dad or Mum could drop in on me at any time?”

“I suppose that’s a small comfort,” he says, though he doesn’t sound entirely convinced. He takes my elbow and steers me through the open doorway. “The prop room’s this way. I’ve already prepared your clothing and supplies. We ought to Jump now before my coworkers come in; Dr. Wells thought it best that no one else know our family’s history, and that includes my present-day boss. I’ve made sure that everyone else is occupied this morning, but that only buys us about a half hour.”

The prop room is fascinating—an enormous storage room filled with authentic costumes from any era or culture imaginable, and even some I can’t place.

“People wore stuff like this?” I ask, holding up a pair of skin-tight pants of a stretchy material. “Why are there so many sizes?”

“Early 21st century. Dad’s era.” Dodge busies himself in digging through the clothing racks. “It was a time between tailor-made clothes and Tru-Fit technology, when everyone had to purchase clothing in a particular size. You couldn’t just buy an outfit, hop in the shower, and shrink it to fit you like we do now.”

Well. That would explain some of the strange fashion trends of that era.

“Here. One early 20th century traveling suit.” Dodge hands me a pile of clothing. “Changing room’s the first door on the left.”

“I’m supposed to wear all of this at the same time?” There’s a long skirt, a matching jacket, a blouse, stockings, and far more layers of undergarments than I know what to do with. I gather the kilometers of fabric in my arms and head for the changing room Dodge pointed out.

Twenty minutes later, I’m ready to go, with my PVD glasses carefully hidden between the front of my blouse and the layers beneath, and when Dodge asks me to double-check that I’ve left everything modern behind, I confidently tell him I have. What’s one little lie?

“We should be set then,” he says, obviously too distracted to see through my lie. “The DeLorean Box is this way.”

Dodge guides me through yet another door and reveals a large, metal contraption that looks like one of those old-timey phone booths I’ve seen in historical film footage and vintage photographs. Inside, buttons blink and flicker pleasantly, but there’s something cold and strange about the machine. I can’t shake the feeling that it shouldn’t be here. Shouldn’t be anywhere, really. For the first time since agreeing to this crazy scheme, I hesitate.

Dodge nudges me forward. “It’s a little weird the first time, but—”

He stops short, as if suddenly remembering that this will be the only trip I’ll take, that there won’t be a “next time” for me to get used to it.

“Look,” he starts again. “I know this is a lot to take in. It’s confusing. It’s weird. But we’re doing the right thing, setting history right. We have to trust that things will turn out as history dictates. That it’ll all turn out for the best.”

I raise an eyebrow. I’ve studied history. How things happen definitely aren’t always “for the best.”

But he’s right. I need to get a grip. This is what needs to be done to make the world a better place, and if Dr. Wells and Dodge and the rest of the time travelers aren’t willing to take some risks and change things up for the betterment of the future, well, they’ll have to live with that themselves. I, on the other hand, am not content to let history pass by as it has before. Not if there’s anything I can do about it.

“Are you ready?” Dodge asks, holding the door open to the strange, shimmering machine. In his hand sits a round, black orb.

“What’s that?”

“Wormhole device.” Dodge tucks it in his pocket. “It’s what helps me get back to the present-day.”

It’s not lost on me that he doesn’t offer me one. I take a deep breath and step into the machine. It hums around me, pulsing with its unfamiliar power.

“You’re sure this is safe?”

Dodge squeezes into the box beside me and pulls the door shut. I can smell the mothballs in his vintage attire.

“I reckon it’s safer than the airtrain,” he says, smiling.

“You reckon?”

“Just getting into the mood.” He shifts his shoulder to square up with the control panel on the device. “It’s been awhile since I’ve been in the early 20th century. Great food, for the most part, though not as convenient as Punch-In. Decent music, too.”

“You look excited,” I say accusingly.

He sets a final dial. “Yeah, I am. Are you?”

“I don’t know. It all feels so rushed.”

“I am sorry about that. Generally, clients have a couple weeks of debriefing and training, making sure they’ll be comfortable in the past. We do lie-detector tests and full-body scans, too, to ensure us that they aren’t trying to pull something over on us. No time for all that now, though, if we want to keep my boss in the dark about this.”

“Won’t he be able to tell that someone’s used the machine?”

“Generally, you’d be right,” Dodge says, “since the DeLorean Box records every Jump. But Dr. Wells has shown me a workaround so that it won’t log our little trip.”

“And when are we going back to, exactly?”

“April 15, 1914.”

April 1914… That’s two months before the start of World War I, which is as good a place as any to start righting history’s wrongs. I run my thumb along the edge of the new suitcase Dodge picked out for me and think of the PVD tucked into my bodice. Is there enough information on there to prevent a global conflict? I hope so.

“All right, then,” I say. “I’m ready.”