Cragbridge Hall, Book One: The Inventor's Secret (27 page)

Officer Murdoch called out, “Reverse engines,” and ordered the helmsman hard to starboard. The helmsman move the tiller to the right, hoping to make the large ship veer left, but the massive ship had too much weight and too much momentum to change direction quickly. It continued straight toward the iceberg.

The lookout watched in horror. The iceberg was at least six stories high and a few hundred feet wide, and that was only the tip. It looked as though they were going to hit it straight on. “Come on. Come on,” he mumbled to himself. He imagined the ship’s metal crumpling against the icy blockade.

Finally, the massive ship swayed to the left.

“Farther left,” the lookout whispered. “Farther. Farther.”

He wanted to exhale with relief as the point of the ship missed the floating island, but he knew better. The danger wasn’t over. A loud grinding rang out over the dark ocean. The right side of the ship scraped hard against the ice. The lookout didn’t know it yet, but below the surface of the water, the ship’s metal exterior buckled against the pressure.

From his perch, the lookout felt a small tremor—that was all. The monstrous ship collided with tons of solid ice, yet all he felt was a tremor. He knew most of the passengers were sleeping.

They probably wouldn’t even stir. They would have no idea of the damage—a series of holes the length of a football field scratched into the ship’s plates.

The
Titanic
had received its deathblow. It would not finish its historic maiden voyage. There were 2,223 people on the boat, but lifeboats for only 1,178.

30

Secret

She had traveled for a little less than two hours from Cragbridge Hall. Ms. Entrese drove a van into the parking lot next to a lecture hall. Fences lined the building marked with “Under Construction” signs. She stepped out, and walked around to the back doors of the van. Before she could unlatch them, she heard a voice.

“Excuse me, ma’am. Please stop right where you are.”

She froze.

“May I ask what you’re doing here, and so late?” The man had an athletic build and spoke with a thick Southern accent.

“Just making a delivery,” Ms. Entrese said, hoping to sound convincing. “The company lets me make them at night when there’s less traffic.”

“You’re not a very good liar,” the man said, and with a flick of his finger, he triggered a gun barrel to slide out from under his sleeve and align with his index finger. “You’re driving a Cragbridge Hall van. How stupid do you think I am?”

“Well, you do work for Muns,” she said.

He pointed the gun barrel in her face. “I’d suggest you talk a little nicer if you want to live.” His Southern accent had no hint of hospitality anymore. “Now keep your hands up, and let’s step inside.” Ms. Entrese turned and started toward the door of the auditorium.

• • •

Abby stood on the other side of the simulator. The river, the braves, the dam—all of it had vanished. She had passed the test. She had no idea how long it had taken, but it seemed like forever. Her legs still felt a little numb from the chill of the river.

An image of Grandpa appeared again, shining in the dim room. “Congratulations on passing such an arduous test,” he said. “Because you must have had great cause to endure the simulator, I don’t envy you for the fight that surely awaits you. You have earned the right to know, and perhaps even use, my secret.” He paused for a moment before declaring, “The secret is this: I invented a machine that can travel through time.”

Though Derick had already guessed that this whole thing had to do with time travel, hearing it from her grandfather felt strange.

“I heard of others who were pursuing time travel and became curious. I began to study and tinker. Soon, time travel became another of my obsessions. It took me years and years to hit a breakthrough. I finally discovered the key to time travel in my university lab. At first, I was thrilled with the wonderful opportunities, but then I remembered someone I had met before—Charles Muns.”

There was that name again. Abby paid special attention as Grandpa continued.

“For years, Muns had had a team researching the possibilities of time travel. Years before, he’d offered me a position.”

Virtual Grandpa began to pace. “In our initial talks, I became very excited about the possibilities. I imagined being able to show people what had really happened in the past. I thought of all the mysteries of history we could solve, how we could teach people today to appreciate all that others had worked for and sacrificed to prepare the way for us.

“But as our talks became more serious, Muns’s ambitions also became clearer. He wanted to travel through time to change the past. He wanted to right every wrong and reverse every tragedy.

“I admit that on its face, Muns’s argument appears to be the very noblest of causes, but believe me when I insist that it is not. Though you have probably not had enough time to think about your own opinion on the issue yet, please consider mine. You are most likely one of my trusted friends, after all. Contemplate a world where we have known no tragedy.”

Grandpa disappeared, and in his place stood two large skyscrapers. They loomed large and majestic over a sea of buildings. Then a commercial airplane collided into one tower. Abby started. The image flickered, and another plane collided into the other tower. Abby remembered studying about this event in history. Terrorists had taken over planes and deliberately crashed them into the buildings.

Grandpa’s voice came through the image. “Though we would not know such terror and fear by changing history, we would also miss the lessons such tragedies teach us.”

The image switched to firemen rushing up stairs, helping people out of the buildings. Again and again, they rushed inside to get out as many as they could.

“Tragedies are where heroes are made,” Grandpa’s voice said.

One security guard moved up floor by floor with a bullhorn, making sure everyone else got out. As he moved to another flight of stairs looking for stragglers, he had his phone to his ear. “If anything happens to me, I just want you to know that you made my life,” he said. Then the building crumpled to the ground on top of him.

“Tragedies help us forget lesser problems and come together,” Grandpa said. Abby viewed image after image of volunteers combing through the rubble, bringing in aid, and taking people in.

Grandpa’s voice continued, “Though we never wish for them, tragedies teach us. Not to learn from them is our shame. It is our loss. Others died to teach us, and we have a responsibility to learn.”

Grandpa reappeared, walking in front of Abby. She followed him with her eyes. “The second reason to not change the past is perhaps even more important than the first: doing so would most likely have horrendous ramifications. It would disrupt the balance between the past and present. If we prevented tragedies in the past, those who would have died would, of course, survive, changing human history. Our time would have people appear who hadn’t existed before—the descendants of those who had previously died in the tragedy. We would also have other people
disappear
, because those who were saved could cause other circumstances that prevented people who live now from ever existing.”

Abby listened closely, imagining the consequences her grandfather suggested.

“The very fabric of society could change,” he continued. “Our whole government could be swayed by those who have not been humbled, who have not learned lessons from the past. This could lead to entirely new world wars, greater than those from the past. We may or may not be able to prevent wars from happening, for who knows how often or for how long we could change time? One wrong move, and perhaps I would no longer exist, and therefore, I never would have existed, and time travel would not be possible. Then we are stuck with how society turned out, or perhaps the consequences would be even more drastic than that. Messing with time could endanger civilization as we know it—our entire world.”

Grandpa stopped his pacing. “After I discovered time travel, I felt that Muns would stop at nothing to have the ability. Once the experiments were published, it would just be a matter of time before he learned to replicate them. So I told no one. I worked for another three years before developing a shield between us and the past. That shield is what is in place today as you use the Bridge. You see only faint images of the past, because you are separated from it. You are not allowed to interfere with what you see. Nor are those from the past allowed to interact with you,” Grandpa said. “That shield was supposed to solve the problem. It was supposed to allow students to study the past, not lead people like Muns to wreak havoc on our past and our future. Because you are listening to this, that shield has probably not been sufficient.”

Grandpa cleared his throat. “You have now earned your final key.” A rock slid out from the wall. It was hollow inside, and contained a single key, bigger than the others.

“This key, when placed in the console of the original Bridge, which all the other booths and copies are connected to, will allow you to enter the past—actually enter it. Please heed my caution, however. Do not interfere with the past unless it is worth risking the entire world.”

Abby’s mind swarmed with thoughts and questions. Was her situation that important? Her parents were about to die, but was that worth risking so much? It was up to her. She could choose.

Muns was likely the person holding Grandpa captive. Muns sought the same power, and if he got it, nothing would ever be the same. She had to have the key. She could save her parents from the past, where Muns had put them, then never change anything again. Muns had already messed it up; she would just fix it.

“The original Bridge lies on the other side of this door and farther below the school.” Grandpa pointed behind him. “I have taken one more precaution. You will need three of these final keys to enter time itself, which means you will need two others who have keys. It is my hope that if your cause is dear then two of my other trusted associates will be sympathetic to your cause, and that together, you may make wise decisions for both the future and our past.” Grandpa paused solemnly for a moment. “Do your best. I apologize if my ambition costs us our world. I was trying to help others learn and grow. I didn’t realize the threats that my achievements brought. Best of luck.”

And he was gone.

Abby was about to unlock the large door in front of her when she remembered Carol. She had left her behind on the other side of the simulator. She walked around the machine and found the door beside it. She used her new key and it unlocked. That was the purpose of the second door—to be able to come to the Bridge without having to return through the simulator.

“You did it! You did it! You did it!” Carol jumped up and down. “I can’t believe it. I mean, I always knew you
could
, but it’s great to see that you
did
it—not that I doubted you. Well, maybe a little, but I would have done that with anyone.”

Abby told Carol what she had learned from her grandfather. Soon they faced another massive door. Abby stepped forward and used her new key to unlock it.

31

Keys

Ms. Entrese stood, looking down the gun barrel.

In a flash, the back door of the van flung open, and a blur of black charged out. The man turned his gun on what he realized in horror was an attacking gorilla, but not in time. The gorilla knocked the gun barrel off of the track that held it in place, swung his long arms, and sent the man sprawling.

The man rolled to the side and struggled to push the gun barrel back into place. He nearly had it when his eyes grew even wider. A rhino ran out of the back of the van, lumbering at full speed. The man got only halfway to his feet before the rhino rammed him in the chest. He flew over ten feet and rolled onto the ground. Ms. Entrese quickly ran to his side and checked him.

“He’s unconscious,” she said.

Inside the lab at Cragbridge, both Rafa and Derick smiled as they moved their avatars into the lecture hall behind Ms. Entrese. The books they had packed around the avatars were scattered throughout the parking lot.

• • •

“Grandpa said that the original Bridge was below us,” Abby said, beginning to climb down another ladder.

She noticed that other ladders on other sides of the cavernous basement also went down.

“Do you think those ladders are other ways of getting here?” Carol asked. “Like for other people with keys?”

“Could be.” Abby admitted she didn’t know for sure, but it made sense that each person would get a different set of clues specific to them. And each person could even have a different path to the original Bridge. Once at the bottom, the girls started down another dark hallway. They heard someone clear their throat.

“I thought I heard someone behind me.” It was a man. Abby could only make out his silhouette. “But I didn’t plan on seeing any students down here.”

“Who are you?” Carol asked.

Mr. Hendricks stepped into the light. He looked ragged and tired. “I assumed only teachers would have lockets, but I guess it would make sense that Oscar would give one to his granddaughter.”

“You have a key too?” Abby asked.

“I spent a full night in the simulator with Shackleton’s crew stranded in Antarctica for it,” Mr. Hendricks said. “But I got it.”

Carol shivered.

Relief swept over Abby. Someone else had a key, and it was Mr. Hendricks.

“Where do we go from here?” she asked.

“We continue down farther. There you’ll see the real Bridge. I’ve come here several times hoping to find someone else, and fortunately, tonight I’ve found you.”

“Has anyone else been here?” Abby asked, remembering her grandfather’s instructions that they would need three keys to go back in time. They needed one more person, or they wouldn’t be able to save her parents.

“There may be one other,” Mr. Hendricks said. “I came late one night, and thought I saw someone leaving. Unless of course, that was you.”