“We’ll radio for help,” said the first guard, reaching for his communicator.

“No, you won’t,” said a voice behind us, and we all turned to see Officer Salzburg striding down the path, looking furious.

“No way,” I said. “You followed us?” I flashed back to the last image I’d seen before Regan and I had Glitched out of the collapsing mountain. He hadn’t come back into the Glitch room because there was no other way out—he’d come back in so he could stop us.

“What’s going on?” said one of the guards, looking in confusion from us to Salzburg and back.

“What’s going on is that these children have been caught red-handed committing crimes against our nation. They are Butterflies,” Salzburg said, his voice ringing out with an icy authority that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

“He’s the Butterfly!” Regan said, jabbing a finger at Salzburg. “He installed explosives all over campus.”

“Lies,” Salzburg said. “Arrest them. Confiscate the bags they are holding. They’ve stolen expensive security equipment in an attempt to weaken the Academy’s defenses.” Regan took a step back and involuntarily the rest of our group huddled together, as though somehow we were going to be able to stop what was about to happen.

I turned to look back at the clock. We had less than three minutes left. Just then, there was the sound of running feet behind us, and everyone turned to see Serina and Sam sprinting down the path with a pack of security officers in hot pursuit. Maybe it was Serina’s gigantic ball gown that she had hitched up around her waist, or Sam’s gas mask, but I knew in that moment that we were sunk. No one would believe us over an officer like Salzburg.

It was like I was seeing everything in slow motion. The clock ticking down, Regan still trying desperately to convince the guards that Salzburg was the real criminal here, the wide panicked eyes of the rest of the kids, and the small black explosives that were about to detonate and blast apart the Academy. Regan turned to me then, and I could tell from the desperation on her face that she was out of ideas. My mind scrambled for something, anything, and I found myself flipping through every historical event and Glitch mission I could think of like an old-fashioned Rolodex, searching for something that could save us. Nothing had prepared me for this. Not my studying. Not the classes. Not even the practice simulations I’d done with Regan where the worst-case scenario was that one of us would get annoyed and use our Chaos Cuffs to exit the situation, and then it hit me. This was a mission. I was in the past, and all I needed to get out of here was a set of Chaos Cuffs.