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I thought she meant to try to shoulder off the manhole cover with brute strength. But that was crazy! I knew from personal experience how heavy those things were.
    Instead, she pulled two little gadgets off of her belt, palm-sized black boxes with no markings on them.
    Holding one in each hand, my sister placed them against the underside of the cover and, pressing a button on each, lifted the circle of heavy iron as if it weighed next to nothing.
    “Whoa,” I muttered.
    “Magnetism,” Future Steve explained. “The devices, when used together, create a repulsive magnetic field that can lift any iron-based object up to five hundred pounds.”
    “Nice,” I said. “You’re still a pretty amazing inventor, Mr. Moscova.”
    “It’s Professor Moscova these days,” he replied. “And those particular devices aren’t mine. They’re Emily’s.”
    I gaped at him and then up the ladder at my big little sister, who had moved the manhole cover aside and was peering out at the nighttime city beyond it. Then, ducking her head back in, she announced in a whisper, “It’s clear.”
    Amy gave a nod to Steve. “You,” she said. “Then Will. Then me.”
    “Okay,” the professor replied.
    It took me a few seconds to figure out where I was when I finally emerged into open air. That might sound weird, since I’d been in this very spot about a hundred times. But the years had changed it—a lot.
    The four of us stood in City Hall’s courtyard. The space was a hundred or so feet wide, with entrances at every compass point. Except now those entrances were all sealed, bricked up so tight that I couldn’t even glimpse the streets beyond them.
    And, occupying the exact center of the courtyard, was a statue.
    I stared at it, uncomprehending. Then I looked to Emily for help, but she only turned away, tears in her eyes.
    I stepped closer and peered up into the face of the person whose bronze image stood atop a marble pillar. The statue was life-size, more than six feet tall. It portrayed a broad-shouldered man in a suit and tie. His eyes gazed eastward, a heartbreakingly familiar look of calm determination on his face.
    Mounted into the stone pillar was a plaque. It read:
     
    THOMAS JEFFERSON
    U.S. SENATOR AND STATESMAN
     
    Oh my God , I thought.
    No.

Chapter 6
     
    Chief
     
     
    Back into the sewers again, though not back into the canoe.
    Instead, we returned to the 15th Street subway platform, where the Undertakers led me to a niche set into one wall that was so dark as to be barely there at all. In it stood a service door that clearly hadn’t been opened in years.
    My sister stepped up to it and, ignoring the knob, ran two fingers along the outer edge of the door frame. I heard a faint click . The door remained closed, as solid looking as ever, but the entire door frame, including bits of camouflaged masonry around it, swung outward.
    “Cool,” I said, maybe a little unenthusiastically; I was still shaken by what I’d seen in the courtyard. Even so, the illusion was impressive. It reminded me of the fake brickwork that had hidden the entrance to the original Haven, back when I’d first joined the Undertakers.
    “The chief’s idea,” Professor Moscova told me.
    “Who is chief?” I asked. “Now that Tom’s … you know.”
    None of them replied.
    Behind the door, we found a small room with nothing at all inside it except a spiral staircase, leading up into darkness.
    “Where are we?” I asked.
    “The base of the tower,” Amy replied. “We installed the staircase ourselves, after the rest of City Hall was bricked up and closed off. Right now we’re standing in the old sub-basement. Right behind there …” She pointed to a dusty brick wall. “… is the rear wall of the cafeteria in our Haven, the one you and I were in together. It’s all flooded out now.”
    Emily added, “This staircase goes up nine stories. Hope you’re ready for a climb.”
    And a climb it was. I stopped counting steps at around two