A Mutiny in Time - James Dashner Page 0,1

hands,” Brint replied. “Volcanic eruptions all along the Pacific Rim. Blizzards in parts of South America that have never even seen snow before. If we’re lucky, the tropical storm brewing in the Atlantic might put out the wildfires in the Northeast.”

“Look on the bright side,” Mari said, her voice grim. “At least people believe we’re in trouble now.”

“People still believe what the SQ tells them to believe. Because fear is always more powerful than truth.” He ran his fingers through his dark hair and sighed. “Aristotle would be so proud. Look what the Hystorians have been reduced to! The SQ is going to win — even if it means destroying the world.”

It wasn’t just the natural disasters that had him worried. Or the blackouts. Or the food shortages. There were also the Remnants. Every day when Brint went home and looked at the picture that hung above the fireplace — he and his wife sitting by a river, the sun glinting off the water behind them — he felt a disorienting twist in his head and stomach. A gnawing gap in his mind that made him extremely uncomfortable. Someone — at least one someone — was missing from that photo. It made no sense whatsoever, but he knew in his bones that someone was missing.

He wasn’t alone in suffering these types of sensations. More people experienced Remnants with each passing day. They’d strike when you least expected them. And they could drive you crazy. Literally crazy.

Time had gone wrong — this is what the Hystorians believed. And if things were beyond fixing now, there was only one hope left . . . to go back in time and fix the past instead.

Mari did what she always did when he was inclined to whine. She ignored him and moved on to the task at hand. “What’s the latest on the Smyths?” she asked. Of all the scientists the Hystorians tracked, they were the only ones who hadn’t been shut down by the SQ . . . yet.

Brint pulled up their file and pointed out the latest developments. All of the Smyths’ experiments, findings, data — every little thing they did in their lab each and every day — it was all being monitored by the Hystorians. Without the Smyths’ knowledge, of course. Brint would be sure to apologize for that after they saved the world.

They both fell silent for a minute, staring at the data on the screen as if hypnotized. The Smyths were so close. If only they could figure out the missing piece in their calculations. If only they could give the Hystorians a fighting chance at carrying out Aristotle’s two-thousand-year-old plan to save the world.

“It’s coming, you know,” Mari whispered. “Sooner than I ever thought.”

Brint nodded as dread squeezed his heart. “I never would’ve guessed it would be in our lifetime.”

Mari continued, her words like a prophecy of doom from a wrinkled old oracle.

“It’s coming, all right. The Cataclysm is coming, and we’ll all wish we were dead long before it kills us.”

2. Old Man in a Coffin

DAK SMYTH was a nerd.

He’d been called worse, no doubt. Dork, geek, wimp, brainiac, pencil-pusher, dweeb, you name it. But the word that most often floated out of people’s mouths when they mentioned him was nerd. And did he mind? No. When all those dummies who poked fun were working their tails off in thirty years, living paycheck to paycheck to buy doughnuts and milk, he’d be laughing it up in his private jet, drinking cream soda till he puked. Then he’d laugh again as his butler cleaned it up, and when that was done, he’d count all his money and eat big blocks of cheese.

(Dak Smyth was a nerd who also loved cheese. Unnaturally so. Not a winning combination, which he was the first to admit.)

On the day before the big school field trip to the Smithsonian Museum in the nation’s capital of Philadelphia, Dak had to put aside his nerd-powered excitement to attend the most boring of events — an uncle’s funeral. Make that great-uncle, as in Great-Uncle Frankie, a man he’d laid eyes on all of twice if you included the viewing before the funeral, which Dak certainly did. He’d looked down on an old, grizzled man who had his eyes closed, hands crossed over his chest, looking like he’d just settled down for one of the twenty naps a day the geezer was probably used to. But, according to Dak’s mom — and supported by the fact