Departure by A. G. Riddle Page B

Sabrina asks urgently. “Another agent? A passenger?”
    â€œNo—”
    â€œHow does Bacon figure into this?”
    â€œChrist, Sabrina. Forget Kevin Bacon.”
    â€œI want to know everything they had you do, every move you made before we boarded the flight.”
    â€œAll right.” Yul sounds exasperated. “What are they dying of?”
    â€œOld age.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œThey’re dying from different diseases, conditions that I assume would have developed in time as they aged,” Sabrina says. “But it’s happening to them all at once.”
    â€œWhy aren’t we affected?”
    â€œI don’t know. Only half the passengers seem to have the condition.”
    The voices begin to fade, and I lean closer, trying to hear them. A sound, a low rumble, is blotting them out. It’s not coming from the cockpit. It’s outside.
    As I step back from the door, a bright spotlight breaks through the small oval windows, running quickly along the length of the plane. Through the rain, the roar grows louder. Then the light blinks off, and the sound recedes.
    The cockpit door flies open, and Yul and Sabrina rush out. They don’t stop to interrogate me with their eyes this time. Yul jerks the exit door open and peers into the dark, dense forest, where rain drips unevenly down through the trees.
    He glances back at me.
    I nod. “I saw it, too: a beam of light ran over the plane.”
    Yul looks at Sabrina, opening his mouth to say something, but a crunching sound outside the plane stops him. Boots, grinding the fallen underbrush into the forest floor. Someone is running straight toward us, though I can’t make out who.
    Someone from the lake? A rescue team? Or . . .
    Yul jerks a phone from his pocket, activates the flashlight app, and holds it out. The light is weak, but it’s just enough to reveal shapes moving out there. At first it looks like rain catching on invisible, maybe human forms—three of them, barreling toward the plane.
    Before we can react, the first form charges up the rickety stairs and stops on the landing. It stands over six feet, glittering in the cold glow of Yul’s phone, like a glass figurine.
    It raises its right arm toward Yul, then Sabrina, then me, firing three rapid shots, almost silent pops of air with no flash of light. My chest explodes in pain.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Nick
    FOR SEVERAL SECONDS MIKE, BOB, AND I STAND there, staring at the tall stone columns of Stonehenge, perfectly formed and aligned. How? No, how isn’t the right word. When? There are only two possibilities: we’re in the past (a past we don’t understand at all), or we’re in the future—a future in which this huge monolithic monument has been rebuilt.
    I scan the octagonal glass and metal structure for clues but find none—no writing, no symbols, no hints of what the year might be.
    The glass panel reseals behind us with a soft click, breaking the silence. Bob opens his mouth to speak, but a neutral, computerized voice drowns him out.
    â€œWelcome to the interactive Stonehenge exhibit. To begin your tour, follow the path to your right. For your safety and the preservation of this historic monument, please do not leave the path.”
    Tour. I look down, realizing for the first time that there’s a glass-tile pathway around the perimeter. It lights up, flashing green arrows thatend at a pulsing red target, a bull’s-eye where it wants us to stop. Without a word, the three of us follow the path, stopping at the red circle.
    â€œWhat you see now is how scientists believe Stonehenge would have appeared approximately four to five thousand years ago, when it was completed. Follow the path to continue your journey into the past, exploring the stages of Stonehenge’s construction.”
    The glass tiles once again glow green, guiding us to another red bull’s-eye twenty feet away.
    â€œStructure’s probably