"What's that all about?" Grand frowned while wiping his hands on his green coat. He had just returned from the bathroom and his face was dripping with water as if he'd just refreshed himself.
Lir followed after Grand. He banged his wheelchair into a blob shaped statue. It weaved, teetered, and then crashed to the marble floor along with a number of gasps. Tim looked like he was going to be sick.
"Very sorry, Master Nikolas."
Grand grabbed the wheelchair's hand grips and steered Lir past the white couch. Even though they had just washed their faces, both men were covered in a thin layer of dirt. Grand's clothes were ragged crumples of fabric. If their mom was home, they would have been mortified by the sight of the two men. Nick knew he'd been working an archeological site for a couple of years, but his parents didn't care about that stuff. They would have gasped at Lir's wheelchair, which left small brown track across the white marble floor. And if she'd found his refugee friend's wandering around her suburban palace? Life wouldn't be worth living. Their house, one of the richest ones in the neighborhood, had more in common with a national museum than it did with an actual house. Its walls were sharp, angular and egg white. All of the furniture was pale and lifeless. Everything echoed, like a vast cavern. Nick preferred Grand's workshed.
So many would have given their right arm to move into Nick and Tim's house. It was fully automated for your every need. If Tim was upstairs brushing his teeth, H-3000 adjusted the temperature in the room according to his preferences. If Nick yawned, the H-3000 offered to draw the shades and then told the nannydrone to offer him a sleep aid while playing white noise for his nap. His parents were subscribed to every hologram console, every virtual reality TV service, every food delivery company. It was a thirteen-year-old boy's dream land.
Nick stayed as far away from his house as possible.
Every time H-3000 opened the shades, overlooking Hiker's canyon and the miles of refugee detainment camps, he hated it. Every time he ordered a dozen pizzas and snuck them over to his friends so they had something to eat that weekend, he hated it. Every time he thought about Jermaine, there, gasping for breath—
Dying.
Nick shook his head. He couldn't go there. He'd drive himself out of his mind if he didn't learn to keep that memory locked down.
Though Nick and Xanthus had wheezed and hissed as they carried the Viachron into the room, Grand lifted it without so much as a flinch and set it on top of the steel hewn coffee table.
Grand took the room in as if he forgot where he was for a second, focused in on Nick and Tim and said, "Oh my boys!". He clapped his hands together, took three great steps, and pulled the brothers into a hug that smelled of sweat and hovertruck. Nick returned the hug. Tim stiffened.
"So much to tell you!" Grand gritted through suppressed tears. "For years we've tried to find a way back home. And now we have. Nikolas! The Merrows are under attack and Huron needs you."
Several faces in the room looked disturbed. Nick hated to tell Grand he was babbling … again. His grandfather was his most favorite person in the world, but he had a tendency to scatter-talk. You just had to go along for the ride.
"Moon?" Tim said. "Wait. What's a Merrow?"
"Merfolk," Grand said. "You know. Fishpeople. They've been attacked by Dujinnin, and they call for your brother's aid. I have to take Nikolas back into the past to save them—the Merfolk on Möon, that is."
Nick could only stare back at him. He knew Grand had been a little loony, but did he just utter the word "Merfolk"?
As if Grand knew Nick wasn't buying this, he patted his dirty trench coat, mumbling, "A world of explanations and no time to give them. Ah. Here you go." He showed Nick the key that he'd waved around earlier. "Don't you see?"
At the sight of the key, the woman's voice fired up in Nick's head: If you turn the key, you turn the clock. If you turn the clock, you save me. He tried to ignore the voice.
"A key?" Nick shrugged. "Its an old timey key. Sorry, Grand. I'm not making the connection."
"No. Look. The machine. The Merfolk. Don't you see. That's why I've spent years in Machu Picchu. We were looking for a key to the Viachron machine, left for us by Ludwig The Toymaker thousands of years ago. This key turns on the time machine and gets us home. But there is only one catch. Only the steward of Huron may do it."
Grand gently rested the large key into Nick's hands.
If you turn the key, you turn the clock. If you turn the clock, you save me, shouted the woman.
"If you turn the key, you turn the clock …" Nick's voice trailed away.
"Pardon me?" Grand frowned.
"The woman—the voice in my head." Nick didn't want to finish that sentence. Things never went well when someone admitted to hearing voices in their head telling them to do things. "It's what she's being saying in my head. 'Turn the key. Save me.' I've been…ok. I've been hearing a voice in my head telling me about a key."
"You have?" Daniel's eyes grew.
Grand smiled broadly, "Oh, dear boy. Of course you're hearing a voice. You're a steward. Your city, Huron, is speaking to you."
"What's a steward?" Nick said.
"Well. A stewar—"
"Come now," Lir protested. "Can we not explain this at another time. The Sheriff's trackers may be at our doorstep at this very moment, Mr. Lyons."
"I suppose we can wait for that telling. But I assure you. You are the steward of the city of Huron." Grand declared, and then grunted as he lifted the large machine and flipped it over on its head.
"As her steward you're the only one who can activate the machine." He pointed to the keyhole Daniel had shown earlier. "Now put the key in there," Grand commanded with one sure tap of his index finger on the key's hole.
Nick hesitated. "Ok. This is all kind of crazy. What is—"
"You don't understand, Master Nikolas," Lir's voice edging on shrill. "You have to do it! Only the steward of Huron can activate the machine."
"Calm down, Lir," Grand said. "Give the lad a break. This is all new for him."
"I'm sorry. If the trackers catch us—then my people are lost."
Nikolas shrugged and then inserted the key into Grand's machine.
Nothing.
Nick heard Helen sigh. Xanthus shifted from one excited foot to another.
"Sorry, Grand," Nick started to say when something like gears came from inside the machine. It unfolded like a copper origami, revealing a cluster of clocks, sprockets, and wires.
"What is it?"
"It's the Steward's TimeGate," Lir said.
"It opens timeways," Grand added.
Nikolas frowned. "A real time machine."
Grand put his hand on Nikolas's shoulder. "Like I said. You're taking us home, lad."