“See that it doesn’t. Run along.”
I escaped out the hatch behind him, my fast steps betraying my nerves. His black gaze followed me, pricking sweat between my shoulder blades until I turned a corner and dropped from his line of sight. I stopped, pressing a palm to the wall of the cold, stainless steel corridor until my heart slowed to a normal pace.
Ezekiel was the unofficial leader of the Elders and the head of our Academy. After studying the past for clues, collective humanity decided no one person should hold power, and that went for the Elders as well. But everyone listened to Zeke. Everyone. Even though he never treated us poorly or sanctioned us more harshly than required, he scared the pants off me, a chemical and physical reaction I’m sure my bio stats reflected and catalogued. He had the same effect on Analeigh and Sarah. And before Jess, Levi, and Peyton split off into their own clique when we were twelve, they had felt the same, too. Oz never mentioned it. He never mentioned much of anything, though, so it was hard to tell whether that meant anything.
I felt sorry for Sarah for getting stuck with him even if she did get to be the one in ten million who experienced true love. If Oz’s name had showed up on my card … Well, it wouldn’t have been a happy day no matter how intense his gray eyes were behind those glasses. I didn’t know if he liked me, or anyone, for that matter. He was probably the best student in our class, giving Analeigh a run for her money both in that department and the seriousness one.
The empty hallways whispered back the sound of my slippered footsteps. I followed twists and turns by memory, nothing on the bare walls to guide me down a correct path, and when the doors to the Research Lab whooshed open, Analeigh’s shoulders slumped with relief.
“Oh, thank the System you’re back. I was worried.”
I smiled, hoping to hide the remnants of nerves slicking my forehead with sweat. “Worried you’d have to lie if someone came looking for me, you mean?”
“Maybe.” She gave me a sheepish grin. “You know I can’t lie.”
It was true. Her face and neck got these impressive, bright red blotches when she tried. It was why I hadn’t told her about finding Jonah’s cuff, at least not yet. If I did decide to use it—if—she couldn’t be involved. It had to be my secret.
“Did you find anything?”
Discussing Caesarion held little appeal, and there wasn’t much to tell, anyway. I shrugged and joined her in one of the circular booths. A screen sat atop a waist-high pedestal, and three of the surrounding walls were mirrors. The fourth projected clothing on our bodies based on the coordinates we typed into the system. The comps and tats could provide us any and all required information on the spot, but evaluations showed a higher likelihood of retaining facts when we ingested information the old-fashioned way—manual research. Not having to manually learn languages was the only cheat the Elders allowed, so the days leading up to a new trip were filled to the brim with reading about clothing, mannerisms, customs, and anything else we needed in order to blend into a certain time period.
“Do you need any help with our wardrobe for the Triangle?”
“Nah. Check it out.” Analeigh punched a few buttons and spun me around.
Ankle-length skirts and fitted tops lined with buttons down the back covered us both. The blouses tucked in at our waists, and boots—with more buttons—covered our feet and ankles.
“Hmm. Don’t we get hats? I feel like Edwardian fashion means hats.”
“No hats in New York City!” Sarah called over the wall from the next cubicle.
“Hats for the wealthy, but we’re going to be fitting in with immigrants. So no hats, but we will get to pin our hair up,” Analeigh clarified.
“But I like hats,” I replied, being difficult on purpose.
She rolled her eyes and punched another button. Wide-brimmed hats appeared on our heads in the mirror with fat, sheer ribbons secured under our chins. I nodded. “Much better.”
“You can’t wear hats on the trip!” Sarah yelled.
“Sarah, I know you can’t see us, but we’re still only like four feet away. You don’t have to yell.” I gave Analeigh a look, and we shared a quiet giggle.
“Whatever,” Sarah said, poking her head into our cubicle. “We need to finish downloading facts before supper.”
Analeigh switched off the hologram. She and I stepped into the empty space in the room, a circle at the center surrounded by fitting booths, and then the three of us headed for the hatch, matching again in all black, supple Kevlar. We stepped into the labyrinth of sterile, steel-and-white hallways, our words bouncing back at us like pellets from an old firearm.
“You guys want to split up the research?” I asked as we headed back the way I’d come, toward the Archives.
“We’re not supposed to—”
Sarah rolled her eyes. “Stars, Analeigh. As long as we complete the names, order of event, and setting, who cares? We can store all of the research in one file and download it three times under each of our names. No one will be the wiser.”
We’d taken advantage of Sarah’s prowess with comps and tech more than once. It still surprised me she’d been sorted into the Historian Academy instead of Technologies because I’d never met anyone who could manipulate machines the way she could.
“I guess.” Analeigh sighed. She’d probably do her own, anyway.
Once surrounded by the thick, cloudy glass and dancing images in the Archives, the three of us split the research and got to work. I’d grabbed the easiest third—the manifest. The historians on Earth Before had listed the victims of the Triangle Fire, those who had lived and those who had died, so all I had to do was load it into a file, along with their physical characteristics.