I shake my head, and I feel her performing the same motion, sometime in the future. This is weird. This person is undoubtedly me…but isn’t.

“Why are you here?” I ask.

She hesitates. The silence is so abrupt that I think she’s disappeared. So drawn out that my mind has time to race through several possibilities.

Maybe she’s here to tell me that getting a tattoo of a star on my belly is a colossally bad idea. Or to impart the winning lottery numbers so that I’ll be able to cross-country ski around Antarctica. Or maybe—

“I’m only allowed to tell you what you need to know,” she finally says. “Time travel is tricky. One wrong move, one detail too many, and we could create ripples that will change the future in ways we never intended.”

She stops once more.

“I’m trusting you here. Trusting that you’ll keep what you learn to yourself. Trusting you won’t let an immature need to confide in someone ruin the future for millions of people. Saying too much to the wrong person could result in a disaster of unknown proportions.”

“You have my word,” I swear. “Besides, if you can’t trust me, then who can you trust?”

She sighs, as though she’s asked herself the same question. “We need you for a very special mission,” she says slowly. “In the future, a person will invent a virus that will wipe out two-thirds of the world. It’s your job to stop them now, in the present.”

A blast of cold hits my core, and my mouth opens and closes, opens and closes. Seconds loop around to eternity and back again.

A fatal virus? Two-thirds of the world’s population? My responsibility?

It’s…it’s too much to process. Too much to comprehend.

Faintly, I hear myself asking, “How am I supposed to do that? It’s not like I know many mass murderers hard at work in their lair.”

“Wrong,” the Voice says. “You already know this person. The Virus Maker is a student at your school.”

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

5:58 a.m.

Most Obnoxious Boy Alive: Black flannel shirt, sleeves rolled up. Black jeans. White canvas sneakers

Me: ???

Most Obnoxious Boy Alive: Ur imagining what I’m wearing, amirite? Don’t lovesick girls fantasize bout this every morning?

Me: Hate to break it to you, Bandit, but the only “sick” I’m about to be is all over my phone.

Most Obnoxious Boy Alive: Could u plz not call me that?

Me: What? Bandit? But it’s your name.

Most Obnoxious Boy Alive: Yea, but when u say it, w all ur proper spelling, it sounds like ur scolding me

Me: What should I call you, then?

Most Obnoxious Boy Alive: How bout babycakes?

Me: How about Most Obnoxious Boy Alive? That’s how you’re listed under my Contacts.