Free Return Once More by Trisha Leigh Page A

this once. It was a good reason. A once-in-a-lifetime reason. And once I saw him, my curiosity would be sated. Life could go back to normal.
    And besides, you’re only in trouble if you get caught.

Chapter Six
    Once the idea of using Jonah’s cuff to observe Caesarion dug its claws into me, shaking them loose was a lost cause. The logistics of making it happen—without getting caught and without shaming my family—had kept me up half the night, and no amount of rationalizing settled my nerves. Perhaps it was the Historians’ ability to move unquestioned through time and space, but our Elders had always seemed omnipotent. They weren’t, though.
    Most likely.
    There were seven Elders at each of the twelve Academies, but they weren’t figureheads. They taught us in addition to doing their own research, and had better things to do than spy on teenagers. No one ruled or presided over anyone else once we’d been certified in our callings. Trust, individual responsibility, expectations, and freedom were cornerstones of our society’s success. The Elders were nothing more than the eldest seven at each of the Academies; they weren’t elected or lauded for anything except still being alive. A combined board made up of Elders from all of the Academies handed down the sanctions, based on the Guide, but no one traced even the movements of apprentices without reason.
    But if I was really going to use my brother’s old cuff to travel alone to ancient Alexandria, I had to hope that was the truth. The Historians had no idea that I had the cuff, and no reason to suspect I would travel alone. Unless I had supremely terrible luck and someone decided to idly touch my dot the way I had Oz’s yesterday, no one would miss me. As long as my absence went unnoticed there would be no harm and no foul. Just a peek and then back to the Academy, easy peasy.
    I rose before Analeigh and Sarah, my stomach a snarl of worry and excitement. Our suite was big, and we each had a room that held a bed and two dressers. The common room had the sitting area where we’d held the study session the other night, a picture tube for news reports and movies, a couch, and three desks. Knickknacks and the occasional physical book, salvaged for sentimentality’s sake, cluttered the rooms’ shelves.
    The Originals had allowed people to bring up to five paper volumes apiece for the journey to Genesis. I had a copy of my grandfather’s favorite book—
On the Road
—and my mother’s tattered, coverless copy of
Pride and Prejudice
. My father owned two books about physics, and Jonah had taken our family’s copy of
Romeo and Juliet
with him when he left.
    I slipped out of my standard sleep shorts and long-sleeved top and into the black uniform that molded to and warmed my morning-cold skin. Running water would wake Analeigh—the lightest sleeper in the System, probably—so I didn’t brush my teeth or wash my face, just stuffed my long dark hair into a ponytail, slapped on my glasses, and left the room barefoot.
    The hallway floors transferred a chill to the soles of my feet but I ignored it, wanting my privacy. There were two necessary stops before Egypt, and only a few hours before my friends woke and started wondering about my disappearing act. First, I needed to review Caesarion’s timeline and store the info in the password file in my tat. Second, the Research holos would help me figure out a proper wardrobe—I couldn’t go to ancient Egypt in this getup.
    It took me less than five minutes in the Archives to download the sliver of information related to Caesarion. I wanted to meet him when we were about the same age. But getting to Egypt at the right time—before he died, but not long before—would be tricky. The facts were vague, but it helped that he’d died the same year as his mother.
Her
death I could find, and if the historical outline in the Archives held