TWENTY-EIGHT

High school graduation.

I never thought I’d make it. The possibility of actually sitting at my graduation ceremony on the football field, next to my friends, watching my parents beam proudly as I walked up to get my diploma was an impossible dream that actually came true.

I ate up every second of it, mostly because it was all so normal.

I had started the day hours before on my porch, gazing out at the ocean from my home on Pemberwick Island. It was a spectacular view I never got tired of or took for granted. Not anymore. I had worked too hard and gone through too much to get back there. I appreciated every second I spent on Pemberwick and always would.

The surf was high that day, creating a series of deep booms that echoed across the beach as each new set came in. There looked to be a storm brewing in the distance, based on the deep gray clouds that hovered on the horizon and the hundreds of seagulls on the beach that had come ashore to avoid getting caught up in it. For a moment I feared that the storm might prevent me from getting to graduation, but I immediately dismissed the thought. There was nothing that would keep me from that ceremony.

The school’s jazz ensemble played “Forever Young”; the keynote speaker was some author I’d never heard of who talked about striving for your goals and never taking “no” for an answer; and the valedictorian (for the record, not me) spoke about how we hadn’t reached the end, but were embarking on a new beginning.

Truer words had never been spoken.

It was the kind of ceremony that was being repeated all over the country. Same speeches, different faces.

What made it all the more special was that three of the most important people in the world to me were also there: Tori, Kent, and Olivia. We had attended Kent’s graduation ceremony two years before. (He wasn’t the valedictorian either, for the record.)

When I stepped on that stage to receive my diploma and shake the hand of the headmaster, it gave me a feeling of peace and satisfaction I feared I would never achieve.

I wanted normal. This was normal.

What wasn’t normal was the series of events that led us to that moment.

It was a strange chain that began on January 24, 1952, in the Mojave desert.

We were interrogated by the Army, separately of course. Being questioned had become old hat. We each gave our account of what happened and I didn’t doubt for a second that we would all give the exact same story.

Except for Feit. There was no telling what he said. I made sure to explain to my interrogators exactly what his role was in the genocide that preceded the invasion of the past.

The interrogation process lasted for days, no big surprise. We were kept apart the whole time, probably so we wouldn’t compare notes to keep our wacky stories straight. I didn’t blame our U.S. Army hosts one single bit. Our story was impossible to believe. Different interrogators cycled through, trying to poke holes in our accounts and find the fatal flaw that proved we were making the whole thing up.

They didn’t find any because none existed.

They brought in psychiatric experts to determine if we were out of our minds.

Of course, we weren’t.

After the first week, we were allowed to see each other. All of us but Feit, that is. That was the first clue that they had accepted our story, including Feit’s role in the death of millions of people. The four of us were brought to a building they called a Quonset hut, which was basically a long steel structure with a rounded roof, like an upside-down half-pipe. It was a comfortable place, complete with a few couches and stuffed chairs. It would have been nice if there had been modern air conditioning. The few table fans blowing around hot desert air didn’t count.

I arrived first, followed shortly after by Tori. When I saw her we immediately ran to each other and hugged. We stayed that way for a good few minutes. It was like holding on to a lifeline in the midst of a swirling sea.

“You okay?” I finally asked.

She nodded and pulled away.

“I’m okay too,” Kent said as he stepped in. “In case you were wondering.”

We gave each other quick but genuine hugs.

“Hey I want some of that too,” Olivia chirped as she bounced in.

It became a four-way hug-fest. I had said many times in the past (or the future, actually) that the four of us were all we had. It never felt truer than in that moment.

“Where’s Feit?” Tori asked.

“Swinging from a noose,” Kent said quickly. “I hope.”

“That won’t happen,” I said.

“Why not?” Kent asked. “He was part of the biggest mass murder in history.”

“Yeah,” I said. “History that hasn’t happened yet. There’s no evidence to prove he did any of that.”

“No,” Tori said. “That he’s going to do any it. You can’t prosecute somebody for a crime they’re going to commit fifty some odd years from now.”

“Or three hundred years from now,” Olivia said.

“Jeez, that makes my head hurt,” Kent said. “Does anybody know how this happened? I mean, I could explain everything to those Army dudes except for why we’re sitting here in nineteen freakin’ fifty-two.”

“I can only guess,” I said. “When the bomb went off it somehow reversed the Bridge and blew us back to when it was first opened.”

“Yeah, but how?” Kent asked.

“How?” I replied, laughing. “How did any of this happen? Physicists are going to be trying to figure that out for years. Don’t expect an answer from me.”

“So why didn’t they set off the bomb?” Olivia asked.

“Because we sealed that pod,” Tori said. “It closed a circuit that sent an alarm to the firing room. When they realized somebody was in there, they stopped the countdown.”

“So the bomb blast shot us back to the exact moment in 1952 before the original bomb was detonated,” I said. “And by being here, we prevented it from going off.”

“That means none of it happened!” Kent exclaimed. “The Bridge wasn’t created so the Retros won’t be able to go back to the past and vaporize all those people.”

“No,” Olivia said with authority. “It all happened.”

“But I thought we stopped the Bridge from opening up!” Kent said, frustrated.

“I told you,” Olivia said. “You can’t change the past. Once something happens it can’t un-happen. Our existence in the twenty-fourth century and yours in the twenty-first century were two different timelines that were connected by the Bridge.”

“You mean like different dimensions running parallel to each other?” Tori asked.

“I guess,” Olivia said. “I never really understood it all. I’m not sure anybody else did either. There were some geniuses who said they did but I think they were just blowing smoke.”

“So that crappy future still exists?” Kent asked. “It’s still out there . . . somewhere?”

“I think so,” Olivia replied. “The only difference is they can no longer invade the twenty-first century because we closed the Bridge.”

“That means all those people are still dead,” Tori said.

“No!” Kent exclaimed. “Without the Bridge the Retros couldn’t send those killer planes back.”

“But that’s not how it works,” Olivia said, patiently. “I’m sorry Kent, but the people of the twenty-first century you lived in have to deal with what the Retros did and rebuild from what’s left. But SYLO did exactly what they set out to do. They stopped the invasion and preserved society.”

“With a lot of help from the Sounders,” Tori pointed out.

“Yeah, and us,” Kent added. “And speaking of us, where exactly do we fit into this fantasy?”

“I think we created another timeline,” I said.

“We what?” Kent asked, incredulous.

“We were shot back to the past and stopped the bomb test from happening,” I said. “But the past can’t be changed. That means we’ve started the clock ticking on yet another timeline.”

“Seriously?” Tori asked. “We’re stuck here in . . . in . . . what? Another dimension?”

“That’s exactly it,” Olivia said. “As far as we know, there are three realities now. The twenty-fourth century when I was born. The early twenty-first century that you guys came from, and—”

“And a new timeline that began on January 24, 1952, with no Bridge to the future,” I said, finishing her point. “Where we are right now. At least that means this reality won’t be invaded by the Retros.”

Kent rubbed his face anxiously. “Okay, let’s pretend that’s all true,” he said, his voice cracking with nervous energy. “How do we get back to our own time? Our own reality?”

We all exchanged anxious looks. Nobody wanted to say the obvious so I took the step myself.

“We don’t,” I said with finality.

“That other life will go on without us,” Tori said quietly. “And we have to make a new life here.”

“But . . .” Kent was all set to jump in with a reason why that couldn’t be true, but he didn’t have one.

It was a sober moment as we let the undeniable reality sink in. We would never see our families again. We would never get back to Pemberwick Island. At least not to the Pemberwick Island we knew.

“I don’t want to live in the past,” Kent said, glum.

“Tell me about it,” Olivia shot back quickly.

“There has to be a way,” Kent added with a touch of desperation.

“Not unless they create another Bridge,” I said. “But even if they did, there are no guarantees it would open up in the exact right time of our original lives. What we’ve got here, right now . . . this is it.”

“Like it or not,” Olivia said. “This reality, this time, is our home now.”

“The people from home will think we were killed in the bomb blast,” Tori said, soberly.

“At least we’ll be remembered,” Kent said. “They’ll probably erect statues of us. We’ll be the brave heroes who gave their lives to save the world.” He sighed and added, “Nobody will know we’re still alive in another freakin’ dimension. Jeez.”

“Remember that,” I said.

“Remember what?” Kent asked.

“We’re still alive.”

With that understanding, our new lives began.

We spent the next year living at the military base sixty miles from where the dome was built. Area 51. Our existence was kept secret from all but a few top military types, scientists, and government officials. Oddly, most people who knew who we really were didn’t want any contact with us. They didn’t want to be influenced by knowing what would happen in the future. Or maybe they were just scared.

I think information leaked out that something odd was going on at Area 51 and it caused a slew of headlines. I’m not saying we were the aliens that everyone suspected were being kept hidden at the base, but we were undeniably alien to this world and we were most definitely kept hidden.

For the record, I never bumped into any other aliens at Area 51.

The government wasn’t sure what to do with us. I’m happy to say that they didn’t do any strange testing on us like you see in movies. They treated us like normal kids . . . who happened to be from the future.

On one hand they tried to learn as much as they could about the phenomenon that had ripped open a hole through time. We spoke with physicists from all over the country. They were the guys who had the least trouble believing us, because they always thought time travel was possible. Our existence justified their theories. But they were cautious about not asking us anything about specific events that had happened in our past, or their future. They saw it as an ethical dilemma. Why should a few people know about what the future held while most others didn’t have that advantage? I got that. I didn’t want to go messing with the world any more than we already had. How would things have changed if we told them that President Kennedy would be assassinated? Or that we would land on the moon? How much would that knowledge have changed the natural course of events? Probably a lot and maybe not for the better. There was no way to know for sure, so it was best left unsaid.

We did tell them as much as we could about what a mess the world would become due to the exhaustion of fossil fuels, pollution, and overpopulation. They took note, but didn’t seem too worried about it. We got a little taste of what some of the people from our time experienced when trying to warn the world about the coming disaster.

The Army had a real dilemma. What should they do with us? We had no families. We didn’t dare contact our grandparents. What would we tell them? We had no history. No birth certificates. We truly didn’t exist. In the back of my head I was worried that they would keep us hidden away in the middle of the desert for the rest of our lives, but that wasn’t the case.

New identities were created for each of us. Records were fabricated, complete with histories that said we were abandoned at birth and brought up in foster homes. The Army found wonderful families who were more than willing to take us in. Better still, they were all in the same area of the country. Los Angeles. It meant that even though we were being sent to different homes, we would still be close enough to see our true family: each other.

I once asked what had happened to Colonel Feit. Nobody gave me a straight answer. They would say things like, “He’s been taken care of” or “It’s best you forget about him.” I didn’t know if he was imprisoned, set free . . . or executed.

When the day came for us to leave the base, the commander of the unit gave us a final bit of advice. He asked us to do our best to forget the past, and the future, and to live our lives as normally as possible. He said that our records would be sealed and nobody would learn of our true identities. He also said that the Army would check up on us from time to time.

For the record, they never did.

When we left that base for the final time, it was the last contact we had with anybody who knew we had come from the future. I guess they felt it was better to pretend that we didn’t exist rather than to risk the truth getting out. I think they feared that every country who developed atomic weapons would try to duplicate the Bridge, or that we’d be constantly hounded by people asking us about the future. It would have ruined any chance we had at living normal lives.

My guess is they didn’t seal our records, they destroyed them.

As we were driven off through the desert in the vintage jeep, I looked back on the base for the last time and saw the final proof that the Army and the government wanted nothing to do with time travel.

The dome was being dismantled. There would be no above-ground atomic test. Project Alcatraz was scrapped, never to be resurrected. The secret of what had happened in another dimension and another time would die with those who we met there.

And eventually, with us.

Though we wanted nothing more than to live normal lives, making that happen wasn’t easy. Forget all the time travel and the near destruction of our world; we had lost our home and our families. Somewhere in another dimension my parents were mourning the loss of their son. When I was younger they had joined SYLO and moved to Pemberwick Island to protect me. Though they couldn’t know it, that was exactly what happened. If we had stayed living in Greenwich we would probably have been victims of the first Retro attack. I hoped my parents weren’t feeling any guilt over the fact that they had lost me. I knew they would be proud of what I had done. The solid B-minus student who didn’t apply himself at school had helped save the world. I hoped that would give them some consolation.

I missed them, and always would.

Tori, Kent, and Olivia were set adrift much the same way. Though we were all fostered by wonderful people, none of us felt truly complete unless we were with each other.

Living in the 1950s was a challenge. It was an age before digital technology. There were no computers or smart phones. Theaters only showed one movie at a time. The black-and-white television only received four channels. Without my iPod, I had to listen to music using plastic discs that spun on turntables.

For the record, they’re called records.

Regressing technologically was annoying, but expected. There were plenty of other things I didn’t expect, like not being able to wear jeans to school. I also had to keep my hair cut short because if your hair fell over your ears, they called you a girl. And most everybody smoked cigarettes. That took some getting used to.

It was also tough making new friends because I had to be careful about everything I said. I couldn’t tell them that Neil Armstrong would be the first man to walk on the moon or that the Beatles were about to rock the planet or that the World Trade Center would be attacked by terrorists. I couldn’t even tell them that there would be a World Trade Center. It was a huge pain, not only because it kept us from fully connecting with the people of that time, but because there were so many horrific events that we had the power to prevent, but couldn’t. We had to let history play out naturally.

I lived for the weekends. That’s when the four of us got together, usually at the beach, where nobody could hear us and we could be ourselves. We’d talk about our true pasts and the people we cared about. It relieved the pressure and helped keep me sane. But as time went on and all of our stories had been told more than once, we found ourselves talking less about the past and more about the future. Not the future we knew, the future that had yet to be written.

It was on a beautiful, warm day in Manhattan Beach, sitting on a blanket by the edge of the surf, that our lives were changed once again.

“We can’t ignore it anymore,” Tori said. “History is repeating itself.”

“Isn’t that the point?” Kent asked.

“But that means this world is on a path to the same disaster scenario that led to Olivia’s world in the twenty-fourth century. Only a handful of people know what’s coming and they’re pretending like they don’t. I’m not even convinced they truly believed we were from the future.”

“So the only people who understand what’s going to happen are us,” Olivia said.

“Who cares?” Kent exclaimed. “Those people from the twenty-fourth century are killers. They deserve whatever they get.”

“But they became killers because of what they got,” Tori said. “I’m not saying what they did was justified, but they were desperate. The same thing is going to happen again.”

“So what do you want to do about it?” Kent asked. “Go public? The Army will say they never heard of us and they’ll put us in a zoo. Or a loony bin. There’s no point. Nothing we say will make any difference because people are going to do what they’re going to do.”

“So we don’t tell them,” I said. “We change them.”

I had everyone’s attention.

“Uh . . . what?” Kent said.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about Quinn,” I said. “Maybe I spend too much brain time on Pemberwick Island but I can’t help it. Quinn had plans. He wanted to leave that island and make a difference. I didn’t understand that. For me, living quietly on a beautiful island was all I needed. Neither of us got what we wanted and now we’re in the exact same spot, living on our own little island, hiding from the world. The difference is we have the knowledge that could change the future. We can make a difference.”

“We can’t tell people what we know, Rook,” Kent said. “They’ll treat us like freaks. Hell, we are freaks.”

“It’s worse than that,” Olivia said. “If we start monkeying with things there’s no guarantee it won’t lead to something even worse.”

“You might be right,” I said. “But I can’t imagine anything worse than what we saw in 2324. We risked our lives to save the world once. Do you really want to sit around and watch it fall apart again?”

They all exchanged nervous glances. I had hit a nerve.

“What is it you want to do, Tucker?” Tori asked.

I smiled and said, “I want to cheat.”

I had been forming the plan for months, trying to think of every possible scenario and pitfall. When I laid it out to the others, they quickly embraced it. Even Kent. They each may have had different reasons for agreeing to my vision, but the main thing was that they were with me. I knew they would be. It was the right thing to do. The only thing.

We had saved the world once. We were going to try to do it again.

The plan started with school. From that moment on we became the most dedicated students imaginable. Even me. It was all geared toward getting us into college, where the real work began. Kent took business courses. Olivia studied marketing. Tori took a double major in physics and chemistry. I studied political science and went to law school. We all received advance degrees to prepare us for the most important step.

We were going to cheat the system.

The four of us formed a company. At first, it was all about investment. That’s where the cheating came in. We knew where the money was going to be, eventually. IBM, Xerox, Microsoft, Apple, Walmart, Intel. In the ’60s the phrase “Made in Japan” had a negative connotation, but we knew that wouldn’t last. Sony, Toyota, Datsun (that became Nissan) were all companies we knew were going to be major players. We even invested in ExxonMobil (though it was called Esso back then).

There was no guarantee that any of those companies would develop the exact same way they had back in our other world, but it was a safe bet because we knew that no matter what happened, there would be a need for the products they created. We didn’t interfere, we invested. Quietly. What began with money we earned from after-school jobs slowly grew into a fortune.

An immense freakin’ fortune.

With that kind of money we had the freedom to use it for whatever we wanted, and what we wanted was the Holy Grail. Our main goal was to find an energy source to replace fossil fuels. We hired visionaries: physicists, chemists, biologists, and even sociologists. They worked for decades trying to find the practical alternative to fossil fuels and nuclear energy.

They struck gold with hydrogen. It is one of nature’s simplest elements. Our “H” team worked for decades to find a way to create a hydrogen fuel that didn’t require the use of fossil fuels or nuclear power to produce. It was clean, it reduced the world’s reliance on fossil fuels, and it only took a few billion dollars of our not-so-hard-earned cash to create.

It was a patented process that ended up making us even more money than all of our cheating did. Though making money was never the point. Most everything we earned was plowed right back into research and development. Once we got to the point where we could no longer predict future investments it didn’t matter, for we had hundreds of our own patents in place and it kept our production humming. Soon, over half the world’s cars ran on hydrogen fuel, as well as the power plants that provided electricity throughout the grid.

Simply put, we had done it.

We made a difference.

The ultimate result of what we achieved won’t be known for centuries, and since we didn’t have a Bridge to the future, we could only speculate. But all signs pointed to the fact that we had cracked the nut. We had set the world on a better course than the one that led to the horror of Olivia’s time.

Of course it wasn’t all work. We had lives to live.

Kent and Olivia got married.

Not to each other.

As much as they loved each other, I think they were too much alike. They both had big personalities and loved living the life of people who had fame and money. Oh yes, creating a revolutionary new source of power brought us fame. Kent had more girlfriends than I could count, but he finally married a girl who both fed his ego and kept him in line. Not an easy task.

Olivia married an Olympic skier. They travelled the world together and were on the cover of every sports and style magazine that existed. They had two kids who were both as beautiful and athletic as their parents.

Tori and I got married too.

To each other.

I think I fell in love with her the moment I first saw her on Pemberwick Island with her long curly hair and her University of Southern Maine baseball cap. She wasn’t like the other girls. Getting her to talk was next to impossible and I think that was because she actually had more to say than the other kids and knew they wouldn’t understand. But I did. I often wonder if we would have ended up together if not for the Retro invasion. It’s odd to find a silver lining in the nightmare we lived through, but if there was one, that was it.

Tori and I had a beautiful daughter who knows she will always be able to rely on us and trust us. It was everything to Tori that our little girl knew she had two parents who would always be there to love her. I couldn’t be prouder. Of both of them.

I’m not exactly sure what happened to Mr. Feit. He dropped off the face of the earth. Part of me wondered if the Army had him executed, or locked away for life, but that didn’t seem right. They had no evidence of the part he played in the atrocities. In fact, those atrocities never actually happened. Not in this world.

It was more likely that Feit had simply been released and forgotten, just as they had done with us. I’d often scour the newspapers and later the Internet, searching for signs of anybody who was having as much success in the stock market as we were. That would have been the tipoff. I didn’t find a thing. If he was still alive it meant he wasn’t as smart as I thought he was, or way smarter than I could have imagined.

There was one day, however, when at the beach in Santa Monica I saw a group of old-guy surfers with longboards headed for their cars. One of them was a dead ringer for Feit, right down to the long blond hair and the earring. He was older too, which fit. His hair had as much gray in it as blond. But since many older surfer dudes looked exactly like that I figured I was jumping to conclusions. The guy handed his board off to a friend and jumped behind the wheel of a sweet Maserati. He fired up the powerful engine and tore out of the parking spot with his wheels screeching.

As he flashed by where I was standing, we made eye contact. He smiled and gave me a small salute. As he sped off, I heard him laugh.

I try not to let the memory haunt me.

As much as Kent, Olivia, Tori, and I had our own lives, we never spent much time apart. We were joined together not only by our energy company, but by the bond that we had formed many years before. We were family. We had a goal. We weren’t going to let the world crumble and I believe in our own small way, we succeeded.

Quinn would have been proud.

It was the common desire to fulfill this goal that brought us all to my high school graduation. Or more specifically, the high school graduation of my younger self. The guy who was born in this dimension and had barely squeaked through Greenwich High School.

In this reality, my parents hadn’t moved to Pemberwick Island. There was no need because there was no Bridge to the future, no threat, no Retros. Dad kept his job with the town and my mom started her own accounting firm. They were pretty successful, too. I threw Mom a lot of work through one of our subsidiary companies. She had no idea that if she followed the money it would lead to me. Even if she had, there was no way she would have known that I was an older version of her own son, from a different time and place.

It was my bittersweet secret.

Through the years I kept tabs on young Tucker. He was pretty much the same underachieving, happy kid that I was, no big surprise. He had no idea that he was going to live a life that would make a difference.

He wouldn’t get a hint of that until the day of his graduation.

The day began at our home on Pemberwick Island. Tori and I had purchased the remote property on the north side of the island known as Chinicook. It was the spot where, in another life and time, her father died trying to protect his beloved island from the invaders that had taken over our world. We built a seaside home and kept the rest of Chinicook as an unspoiled nature preserve, in honor of Mr. Sleeper.

Hours later, Tori, Kent, Olivia, and I sat by ourselves to the far side of the football stands in Cardinal Stadium. Anyone looking at us would think we were the grandparents of a graduate. Or maybe some proud aunts and uncles. They wouldn’t have seen the helicopter that dropped us off behind the school an hour before the ceremony, or the bodyguards who were never far away. You can’t be too careful.

We had done the same thing two years earlier for Kent’s graduation from Arbortown High. We had also been to Arbortown the week before to celebrate the graduation of Tori Sleeper and Quinn Carr. It was both a satisfying and somewhat sad experience for all of us. But we weren’t there just to revel in our own successes.

We were also there on business.

When young Tucker stepped up onto the stage to receive his diploma, Tori squeezed my arm and said, “I wasn’t so sure you could do it.”

I gave her a playful shove and said, “Hey, that kid has potential.”

“I’m counting on it,” she said with a sly smile.

When the ceremony was over, as the beaming parents mingled with the excited graduates, I made my way through the crowd to find Mom, Dad, and Tucker. Though I had seen them from afar many times, I never approached them. Seeing my mom and dad together gave me a mixed feeling of joy and despair. It was wonderful to see them, but I missed them terribly.

“Excuse me, Mr. and Mrs. Pierce,” I said. “Congratulations.”

They looked at me with big, genuine smiles that also had a touch of uncertainty. I guarantee they weren’t so sure about Tucker graduating either, so the day was as much a relief as anything. Or when they saw me, was there some vague sense of recognition?

“Thanks,” Dad said as his smile dropped into a look of confusion.

“Hey, aren’t you—?”

“I am,” I said.

Of course they’d recognize me. Not as the grown version of their own son, but as one of the most powerful people in the world, whose company invented the “H-fuel” that created a new industrial revolution. Together, we had been given more media coverage than most presidents combined.

Mom and Dad looked at me like I was an alien, and in some ways I probably was.

“What can we do for you?” Dad asked.

“I’d like a moment to speak with your son, the graduate,” I said.

“Tucker?” Mom asked, incredulous.

“Do you have another son?” I asked, playfully.

“Uh, yeah, sure. I mean, no. Of course you can talk with him.” She called out, “Tuck! Tucker! C’mere. Somebody wants to talk to you.”

Young Tucker Pierce came bounding over, all smiles and enthusiasm. He walked right up to me and looked me right in the eye.

“Hey, I know you,” he said.

“I’m not surprised,” I replied.

Tucker stuck out his hand and shook mine with a strong, confident grip. With that simple act I had connected with my younger self. It was a good start. Strange, but good.

“Can I have a quiet word with you?” I asked.

“Uh, yeah, sure,” Tucker said.

He gave Mom and Dad a curious look and followed me off.

I led him to the side of the football stands. On our way I saw Kent give me a big smile and a thumbs-up. Tori stood next to him with her arm draped through his. They both looked as proud as if their own kid had just graduated. Or maybe they were just enjoying the odd scene, as I had enjoyed it when they had done the same thing with their younger selves.

When we got to the side of the stands, Tucker stopped and faced me with confidence.

“What’s this about?” he asked.

“What are your college plans?” I asked.

For the first time, Tucker looked unsure.

“I got accepted to a few schools,” he said with a dismissive shrug. “Not sure why, my grades aren’t the best. But I’m planning to go to community college. It’s a whole lot cheaper.”

“You’ve heard of my company, right?” I asked.

Tucker laughed. “Uh, yeah. I’m not from Mars.”

“Well we offer scholarships to students we feel deserve encouragement and support,” I said. “Full ride to the school of your choice. Including grad school.”

Tucker’s eyes grew wide. “And you’re telling me this because . . . ?”

“We’ve been watching you, Tucker, and we think you have a promising future.”

Tucker blinked, he smiled, he frowned, he chuckled nervously, and then he looked around as if there might be a hidden camera somewhere.

“Are you sure you’ve got the right guy?” he asked. “Tucker Pierce?”

“We’ve got the right guy,” I said.

“What’s the catch?” he asked.

“No catch,” I replied. “The only thing we ask is that after graduation, you give serious consideration to joining us. We have offices all over the world and a wide variety of opportunities for someone who—”

“Yes,” Tucker said with total conviction. “You’re offering me a free ride to college and all I have to do is consider working for the most important people who ever existed? Why would I turn that down?”

I shrugged and said, “I don’t know. You could be an idiot.”

We both laughed at that. Of course we did. We had the same sense of humor.

“This isn’t a joke?” he asked.

“Talk to your parents about it. Someone will be in contact with you tomorrow to outline the program. I truly hope you’ll take us up on this offer. I think you would be a very valuable asset.”

Tucker stuck out his hand to shake. “I’ll do exactly that,” he said. “But I’m pretty sure I know what’s going to happen.”

“Do you?” I asked. “It’s not easy predicting the future.”

“Oh I think this one isn’t so hard. Thank you. Thank you very much.”

Tucker turned and ran off, melting into the crowd, probably to find Mom and Dad.

We had had similar conversations with young Kent, Tori . . . and Quinn. Young Kent was in his second year at Cornell. Quinn had been accepted early admittance to MIT and Tori was all about going to the city. She wanted to attend NYU.

Young Tucker was right. Sometimes you can predict the future. If events played out the way we expected, one day these five young people would form the nucleus of the next generation of visionaries who would run our company. We needed young people with new ideas. People who thought like us. Who better to choose than . . . us?

Olivia stepped up to me and put her arm through mine. “What did he say?”

“He’ll accept,” I said. “He’s a smart kid, though he doesn’t know it yet.”

Olivia gave me a kiss on the cheek and said, “Oh he knows it. He just doesn’t like to brag.”

“Hey, get your hands off my man,” Tori said with a smile as she walked up with Kent.

“He’s my man too,” Olivia said, chuckling.

“What about me?” Kent said.

“You, I have doubts about,” Olivia said. “But I’ll keep you around if I have to.”

“How do you feel?” Tori asked me.

“I feel old,” I said. “And incredibly alive.”

Kent scanned the field that was still swarming with students and said, “I guess our work here is done.”

“Nah,” I said. “We’re just getting started. Let’s go home.”

We turned toward the helicopter that would take us back to Pemberwick Island, away from our past, and straight into our future.

“Sir?” came an excited voice.

We all looked back to see Young Tucker running up to us.

“Change your mind already?” I asked.

“No, I just wanted to make sure. I mean. In case we don’t get a call tomorrow. Do you have a business card or something?”

Kent, Tori, and Olivia laughed.

I dug into my pocket and handed my younger self a card.

“What’s the matter?” I asked. “Don’t you trust me?”

“For the record,” Tucker said. “Not really.”

That got another laugh.

“Smart,” I said. “I promise we’ll be in touch.”

The four of us strode away from the field and the helicopter that was powering up.

I took one last look at the stadium to see that Tucker hadn’t moved. He stood alone, staring at my business card as if it were some rare treasure that might disappear if he took his eyes off of it.

It was a simple card with only a few words.

SYLO

Today. Tomorrow. Forever.

Sequentia yconomus libertate te ex inferis obedianter.

We were the guardians.

We were SYLO.

THE END