User:Atcovi/Writer's Fair/Annotated Text

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"Gavin's just a lot madder at you than I am," Jonah said evenly. "Because this is his family. His life you're messing with." Hodge raised an eyebrow. "And this isn't what your life has become?" he asked. "The constant time travel, the constant danger, the constant difficult decisions . . . when all you ever wanted to do was stay in the 21st century and stick your head in the sand and pretend none of this anything to do with you?" "Would you just answer Jonah's questions and stop trying to distract us?" Gary laughed. "Sounds like neither of them is as easy to distract as they used to be," he said condescendingly. "Daniella? Chip?" Hodge called out. "Would either of you like to add your perspective to this discussion?" Daniella lifted her head slowly from the floor. She gazed around fearfully at the frozen Romanovs and servants and guards, at the mostly frozen Gavin. "I don't have the slightest idea what's going on," she whispered. Katherine went to huddle beside Daniella. Jonah heard his sister starting to explain, "See, sometimes time travelers can stop time, but anyone who's traveled through time isn't affected . . . not usually, anyway . . ."

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Chip stepped out slightly from behind Yurovsky. "I think," Chip began, "if your main goal was saving people's lives, you would have done all this very differently. Why did you even want us in 1918?" "Oh, my dear boy---you think we sent you to 1918?" Hodge said mockingly. "Wasn't it Gavin's fault? Or maybe Jonah's? Sometimes it's so hard to pick out cause and effect, event and consequence." "I didn't want to come here!" Gavin yelled, uselessly jerking his head back and forth. "You promised me I could go to the future! You told me that's what would happen if I typed that code you gave me into an Elucidator!" "Yes, yes, that is still when you're headed," Hodge said, waving his arm dismissively. "We just didn't tell you there'd be one little detour along the way." Jonah looked from the calmly mocking Gary and Hodge to Gavin with his bottled-up fury. "You had to do something to fix 1918, didn't you?" Jonah asked. He was finally putting it all together. "When you kidnapped Alexei and Anastasia the first time around, you were lazy and did it in the afternoon. You grabbed them from Alexei's bedroom and took them down to the garden and time-traveled from there, hours before it was safe to take them away. And that's why we all landed in the wrong place, coming back." "Maybe," Gary admitted. He looked around at the Romanovs and their servants and the guards, all frozen in anguish and fury and fear and despair. "Who in their right mind wouldn't try to avoid coming here tonight?"