CHAPTER TWO: May 1, 2134

I’d considered that my parents might not be exactly thrilled that I’ve turned to a life of crime to keep our family together, but I convince myself that they’ll come around to my way of thinking once I explain things.

That’s not exactly how it plays out.

“You did what?” Mum rises to her feet, and the tone of her voice immediately reverts me back a couple decades, to when I was a shaggy-haired kid just figuring out this whole “family” thing.

“You set TUB’s DeLorean Box on fire?” Dad’s voice is calmer, lower, and somehow that makes it even more unnerving. He runs his fingers through his hair that was once blonde and now is more of an ashy gold, streaked through with silver that matches his everyday suit.

“I used the utmost discretion,” I assure them. “There’s a special code Dr. Wells showed me last year when I took Cass back to the 20th century that keeps any unauthorized Jumps from being recorded in the DeLorean Box’s digital log. He wanted me to be able to visit her without explaining our whole family situation to the folks at PITTA in our present day. He said the fewer people who knew, the safer.”

“I agree with him there,” Dad mutters.

“I left no record of my Jump to the TUB headquarters,” I continue. “There’s no way anyone could connect me with the fire. And no one was hurt; I made certain. All I did was eliminate the threat.”

“You did all this so we could be with Cass?” Mum asks.

“If TUB can’t Jump through time, they can’t go after you like Dr. Wells feared.” I take her hands. They’re strong and calloused from years of practicing acrobatics. “I had to do something, Mum. Something had to give. I knew I couldn’t change Cass’s situation—history’s already established that she needs to live out her life in the early 20th century—which means the only option is to bring you two back in time to join her, and to do that, I had to ensure that the organization who drove you out in the first place was no longer capable of time travel.”

I don’t bother adding that after all TUB’s done to mess up my family and jumble our timeline, they deserve what they had coming to them. First, it was my father—adoptive father, technically. After working for TUB, Jumping to the future on reconnaissance missions for them, they tried to kill him. It was only because of another time traveler named Elise Morley and her boss Dr. Wells, the founder of PITTA, that he managed to get away from them and make a new life for himself in the 22nd century.

Then there was Mum, who’d been living peacefully in the late 19th century until she ended up on TUB’s radar. They planned to eliminate her to retroactively stop Elise, her future descendant, from thwarting them, but Dr. Wells found out about their intentions and sent Dad to rescue her. He brought her with him into the 22nd century and they built their life together here. Which was all fine and dandy until my sister Cass came of age and had to go back to the early 20th century so she could become Elise’s great-grandmother. Complicated, I know.

“I can’t stand seeing you guys in tears every time I bring back news about Cass’s new life,” I tell our parents now. “Or vice versa.”

Not to mention how difficult it’s getting to sneak away from my actual duties to visit her. The past year has been a constant struggle to keep Clarke from uncovering the truth. He hired me as a Retriever—at Dr. Wells’ insistence—to make sure our time traveling clients return to our present era and don’t mess up the timeline too much. A bit hypocritical when you consider how badly my family has tangled it up.

Mum turns away, blinking back tears again, but Dad’s been sitting quietly, contemplatively staring at the mug of coffee in his hand.

“Say something,” I plead.

“Like what?” Mum shakes her head.

“I don’t know.” I sigh. Nearly thirty years old, and they still treat me like a kid. “Say that you’ll come. That you’ll Jump back to 1915 to be with Cass.”

Dad runs his thumb along his jawline. I don’t like the look in his eye. It’s an expression I’ve seen before, when he’s working with difficult computer code. I can almost see the calculations going on in his head. Adding. Subtracting. Sorting out the possibilities and probabilities and certainties.

“C’mon, Dad. It’s a good thing, I swear. I didn’t hurt anyone. I just took away their ability to harm others. To come after Mum or you or Cass or Cass’s future kids.” I don’t add that it’s what should’ve been done long ago, though I’ve often thought it.

“What date did you go back to?” he asks. “The exact date.”

“May 1, 2012.”

“And you’re certain the Box was destroyed?”

“Absolutely. I didn’t leave until I knew there was no way it could be salvaged.”

“What are you thinking?” Mum asks Dad.

“That’s two weeks after Elise returned to her present.”

“According to Dr. Wells,” I explain, “he used TUB’s Box to send a second Retriever to our era after Elise, to bring back news about what had happened to the Continuum, so that TUB would think that she perished in the disaster. I had to wait until the day after that second Retriever returned before destroying their Box. They obviously gave up on their time travel plans or tried to contact Dr. Wells and failed, because he never heard from them again.”

“That’s not the problem,” Dad says. “The problem is that someone was there looking for your mother when I met her back in the summer of 1893.”

“What do you mean there?” My mouth went dry. The story I’d heard had always involved a threat. A suspicion of what TUB was planning to do and a Jump back in time that snatched her up before they had a chance. “Dr. Wells just suspected…”

Mum shook her head. “No. There was a man there. Following me. I’d hate to think what might have happened if your father hadn’t been there to rescue me.”

“Dr. Wells told me he’d found evidence that someone was researching your mother and her family tree, but that was well after Elise’s return.” Dad runs his fingers through his thinning hair. “2016, maybe? I suppose it could have been coincidence, or maybe Dr. Wells just made that part up to get me to go back and meet your mother and interact with his younger self—”

“Remind me, what was he was doing back there?” I ask, trying to sort the pieces out in my head.

“Looking for some journal,” Dad says absently, “to help him finish constructing the Wormholes. But if you destroyed TUB’s Box the day after the second Retriever returned…”

I sink into the nearest chair. “Then how would they have gotten to 1893?” I look from one parent to the other. “You’re telling me that you saw someone there? Physically saw them?”

“The man was stalking your mother. He kidnapped her and tried to throw her from the Ferris wheel.” Dad paces the room, and the motion-sensor lights follow him, gently illuminating his path. “He was definitely there.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you’d actually seen someone back then?” I ask. “All this time, I thought it was just a hunch Dr. Wells had. That he’d sent you to watch over Mum as a preventative measure.”

“We didn’t tell you at the time because we didn’t want you to worry.”

“Didn’t want me to worry? You don’t think I ought to have known?”

“Dodge, someone tried to kill your mother.” Dad’s voice is firm, his expression stony. “They would have killed me, too, if they’d had the chance. You were just a kid, one who was still having nightmares about the Continuum disaster. I didn’t want you to be worried about TUB, too.”

“And you didn’t think to tell me when I was older? When I joined PITTA? When we sent Cass back?” I place my head in my hands. “What have I done?”

“You didn’t do anything,” Dad says, placing his hand on my shoulder. “What’s done is what was always done. That’s how time works, at least as far as I’ve seen.”

I nod, still numb from the revelation. The truth is, we’ve spent the last twenty years—since I found out the truth about my parents’ origins—debating this. What things are fated? What things are fixed in time? Can things be changed in the past, and what effect would they have on the future? Dad’s always argued that things are set. According to him, history’s unchangeable. Personally, I believe it’s more flexible than that. It’s more like a rubber band, with some stretch. Some room for error. The big things would take huge changes to affect, but little things can be tweaked and altered in ways that most people wouldn’t notice.

Still, the stalker in 1893 had to have come from somewhere. Or somewhen.

“But where did the man at the fair come from?” Mum asks, obviously thinking along the same lines as I am. “If he wasn’t TUB, who was he? And what did he want with me? He followed us all the way to Chicago. And Viggo—”

Dad takes Mum’s hand. “Maybe it’s best to leave well enough alone. That was twenty years ago for the two of us—over two hundred years ago in real time—and we haven’t had a hint of trouble since. And Cass’s been living in the 20th century for a year now with no problems. None that weren’t of her own doing, anyway,” he mutters when I open my mouth to protest. “Even if it wasn’t TUB back then, this mystery man obviously gave up his pursuit after we disappeared that day. Maybe we were wrong. Maybe he wasn’t a time traveler at all.”

“But he was using futuristic technology,” Mum says. “We both saw it, Chandler. Some sort of recording device in his watch. You said it looked like the one you had when you worked for TUB.”

“I don’t know. Maybe he was. It was a long time ago, and it’s not like I got a good look at it: just enough to see that it looked out of place.”

My hand moves involuntarily to my own PITTA-issued watch with its shining black strap and recording device.

“People didn’t even wear wristwatches back then,” Mum insists.

Dad sighs and rubs his forehead. “Maybe we’re misremembering. Maybe it was just your run-of-the-mill admirer who became obsessed with your mother after he saw her in that magic show. I know I sure did.” He pulls her close to his side and is rewarded with a tired smile.

“I hope you’re right.” Mum turns to me. “Regardless, Dodge, I don’t think it’ll do any good for you to worry about it. We’re safe here.”

“And Cass?”

“Dr. Wells wouldn’t have sent her back to the 20th century if he’d suspected there’d be any trouble. I’m sure everything will be just fine.”

I nod, but I don’t share her confidence. I’m the time traveler in the family now, which means it’s my responsibility to make sure this guy can’t harm us, whoever he is. Whenever he is.