“Jace, you must’ve gotten your memories back!” Millie said cheerfully.

           “Yeah, and I remember being chased out of the last home I went back in time to by some guy with a shotgun. So can we please get out of here, before whoever lives in my house right now comes at us with a baseball bat, or machine gun, or killer guard dog?”

           “Sure, sure. I’m just glad your memories are still there. Let’s get going.”

           “… Wait,” Jace said with a sigh. He spoke flatly, “Millie. You shoved me into the time tear when all I was wearing were my socks. I think we need to fix that before we go anywhere.” He added in a grumble, “Always with the shoe problems on these trips…”

           “Uh, my bad.” She thought for a moment, and looked at the closet. “Maybe…”

           As she rummaged around in there with her phone light, Laurie asked, “Jace, what did Millie mean? Is this seriously not the first time you’ve… done this sort of thing?”

           He admitted, “Well… No. There was this whole thing with me and my uncle…”

           Before he got into detail, Millie held up some ratty old adult-sized loafers, asking, “Think these will be missed? Oh, and Felicity’s ‘I was here’ memorial is still there, heh.”

           Luckily, the house hadn’t been outfitted with an alarm yet, so the three were able to sneak out without alerting anyone. After Millie quietly closed the front door behind them, they headed to the sidewalk, with Laurie getting a look at a familiar house in the dim predawn light as Jace’s borrowed shoes clopped against the ground.

           “Almost feels like we’re heading off to school in the winter,” she remarked and slung her backpack over her shoulders. “Not that I ever like getting up this early.”

           “Laurie, you really do seem to be taking all of this… kind of well,” Jace noted.

           “It’s definitely weird, and a lot to take in, and I’m sure I’d freak out if I stopped to think about the implications… But, hey, at least I’m with an adult—and a friend who seems to be an expert at all this already. I can have a total breakdown later.”

           “Millie, what’s the plan, what are we doing?” Jace curtly pushed for answers once they were walking the familiar streets of Desert Tree’s suburbia. “My uncle didn’t regress and screw up the past again, right? Did I hear you mention Charlie during your ravings?”

           “Don’t say ‘ravings,’ like I’m some mad scientist,” Millie replied. “We have to get to Cookton. Yes, I know it’s on the opposite end of the neighborhood—I went there, too. I figure we’d catch a morning bus and grab some breakfast before the big mission. I remember there being a Denny’s nearby… I think it’s a gas station in 2022.”

           “Whatever…” Jace groaned. “Let’s just make it fast. I’ve had my fill of the past.”

           With Laurie quietly tagging along, the three walked several blocks and soon arrived at the bus stop near the entrance to the neighborhood, just off of the typically busy highway, Kettle Road. An elderly woman was the only other person waiting there, and this being the first 1998 local Laurie had encountered, she wordlessly studied her mannerisms and clothing closely as the sky steadily lightened.

           A loud old bus showed up on time. After its air brakes blasted, Millie paid with a few quarters and they grabbed some seats near the front. During the ride, Laurie’s big eyes, partially obscured by hair, soaked in everything from the scant other passengers and the buildings they passed along the road. Very few were open yet, but most had bright signage which distinguished places that either still existed in the present—most of them fast food mainstays like the McDonald’s and Taco Bell—or were long gone before her generation came around. After just two stops, the pair followed Millie off the bus, and as promised, a bright, flickering Denny’s sign was just across the road.

           No important words had been exchanged by the time the waitress put down the breakfast plates with uncaring clatters, pretty much dropping a mix of scrambled eggs, toast, and hashbrowns in front of Laurie. She stared at the food before fork-poking it.

           “Everything look good?” the waitress asked them after a smoker’s cough.

           “Um… Do you know if the eggs are locally sourced?” Laurie replied.

           The employee stared at her like she had bugs coming out of her ears, and answered before walking away, “It came from the kitchen, kid. Have fun at school.”

           “What’s the matter, Laurie?” Millie wondered. “Never been to a Denny’s?”

           “Well. No…” she said, peppering the eggs. “We mostly eat at… healthy places.”

           “It’s not like this is a regular hangout for me.” Millie cut her sausages and looked around at the few other customers. “But, not many options this time of day. Huh. I think most of the people here are truckers or school bus drivers.”

           “This is all just… crazy… I mean, I can handle crazy; I put up with Toby and Chad. But—even just the bus ride. Seeing the old versions of fast food signs and buildings. Or the places I never even knew existed… We really are in the 90s.”

           “Jace’s uncle went back to 1995 because of his nostalgic needs, but I promise you, I’m not here to drag you two on a trip like that. We really do have a mission.”

           Pouring syrup on his double stack next to Laurie, Jace spoke up, “Can you tell us what that is, exactly? No more suspense. I hope it’s simple, so we can go home today.”

           Millie appeared just slightly taken aback, and replied after a few seconds, “Yeah, it should be simple. But I figured you wouldn’t mind also taking the chance to see your uncle’s old friends one more time, maybe chill at someone’s house for a bit. At least say hi. You were with us for a year, Jace. Those guys would love to see you again.”

           Her interest piqued, Laurie remarked, “Whoa, Jace, you got to know your uncle’s childhood pals? As in, like… Jared, Colin, Arthur, Sadie? Wait—what about your mom?”

           Jace sighed. “All of them… We got close. But they knew me as Jason Connor.”

           She snorted. “Wow. Some name. If they already know you, that means we’ve got to meet them! It would be amazing to see our millennial parents as kids. Or teens.” She frowned. “Jace, I know this somehow isn’t new for you, but aren’t you a little excited?”

           “I… I don’t know. I thought I was done with all this. Sure, we had our fun and plenty of good times, but I said my goodbyes. A lot of rough stuff happened, too.”

           “I can almost guarantee that this will stay quick and easy,” Millie said, as her eyes locked in on Laurie’s smart watch. “Crap, I forgot to mention—Laurie, hide your tech.”

           “Hm? Oh.” She undid the strap and pocketed it. “Yeah, good point.”

           “Anyway…” Millie reached into her hoodie pocket. “There’s barely even a plan to go over. Here, look at this.” She placed something quite modern on the table, if not also a little strange: what appeared to be a USB thumb drive, encased in a block of resin except for the actual port. Jace rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. “… What?” Millie questioned. Once it hit her, she re-pocketed the semi-futuristic device. “Okay, look, I know I’m not as good at all this as Wes. Well, you saw it, so whatever, moving on.

           “Here’s your mission. Are you ready? Do you need to take notes? … Guess not. What I need you to do is… sneak into Cookton and slip it into Charlie Pippin’s bag.”

           Jace, waiting to hear the rest, did an “and then what?” hand gesture.

           “I mean, that’s it,” Millie affirmed. “Obviously he can’t notice, so you might have some challenge there. Maybe? And I know what you’re thinking. Why can’t I just do it? Because if I get caught, it’d be bad. My younger self is already meeting with him once a year and basically telling him to never time travel again, so he’d see me as a hypocrite, won’t trust any data I’m giving him, and will probably try even harder out of spite.”

           Laurie interjected, “Back up. Did you forget I have no idea what’s going on?”

           “Uh. True… Jace? Maybe you could give her a better summary than I can?”

           With a deep breath, Jace explained, “In another timeline, a version of my uncle partnered with this guy, André Corathine, in the 2040s to build a time machine. There was an accident during testing that sent him to the far future, and André to the past—where he built a time door and had it installed in Wes’ house to try and bring him home. My uncle went through the door to ’95, then came back and took me on his second run, where we had… ‘fun.’ Meanwhile, someone else kept working on the original project on his own, and found a way to send his mind through time. That’d be Charlie Pippin, the ‘coolest kid ever’ that… went off the deep end. He’s still stuck, in his now teenage self. Millie helped us; she’s the record keeper and knows the whole story, and keeps tabs on Charlie. Because he knows everything, too. He was always a wild card, and—”

           “And I want to push him into making a time machine, sooner better than later.”

           Jace’s mouth noticeably dropped open, and he replied sharply, “Millie, what?”

           “Hear me out. I’ve skipped around—saw where he’s headed. He will start a new lab in the 2040s, when he’s getting old and feeling mortality creeping up again. But right now, he’s debating whether or not to let it go. So… if he finds a flash drive with ‘Time Machine Blueprints’ engraved into it, and has all summer to agonize over its contents, he’ll definitely pursue it at the earliest opportunity. It’ll still take him years, but when he fires it up…” She smiled deviously. “It’s designed to self-sabotage. Boom. It blows up in his face. Years wasted, dreams shattered. He’ll be shut down, as I doubt he’d try again.”

           “Hm…” Jace scratched his chin. “Actually… That could work. Assuming that him getting a time machine really is bad and everything, and we want to stop him.”

           “I did my research. USB-C doesn’t come out until 2014, making that the earliest he can even read the files, after spending over fifteen years wondering what’s on board. And it’s in a resin block in case he tries to get clever with jury-rigging it to function with current ports. If that’s even possible. If he wants to try, he has to chew through the resin and risk damaging the goods.” The waitress dropped the check between empty plates. Millie caught her breath, then grabbed it and grinned. “I do love 1998 prices.”

           Laurie, in a daze, wondered, “Jace? Could you maybe… go over all that again?”

           “He’ll have time for that as we go,” Millie said, looking at the early morning light outside as she paid the bill. “And I’m sure he has more questions for me, too. There’s a little more to the plan, but let’s get you to good old Cookton first. Last day of school!”   

           Cookton was Desert Tree’s only middle school and brought together kids once separated across the neighborhood, who’d gone to either Sherman Miller or Desert Tree Elementary. That meant it was a much larger institution and had a centralized location, in the middle of the sprawling suburb and a few blocks away from the busy highway. As it was within walking distance of Denny’s, the three got to enjoy the crisp morning air on the way there—gradually joining more and more student walkers as they drew near.

           The two-story campus looked pretty much as it did in 2022, with a large main building holding most of the classrooms and a few smaller structures along its east side, built like a plaza around a central quad. To the west were wide, fenced-in exercise areas.

           “Yep,” Jace commented once they hit the sidewalk in front of the big front doors. “Place has the same ‘busy yet slow’ atmosphere it did on our last days of school here.”

           Laurie added, “Except fashion is dated, kids have CD players, and some of them are… Wait, I know this. Broody, dark clothing, mascara… Cookton had goths in 1998?”

           “It’s mostly the eighth-graders. It was taking off,” Millie replied. “When it quiets down out here, I’ll give you some goodies to help with your quest. Jace, you okay?”

           “Yeah,” he said shakily as he looked around. “Just a little nervous about what to say if they see me… Hey, is that Stu and Mikey over there? They’d be in… eighth grade.”

           “Huh, where?” Millie said and tried to spot two of the crowd’s older kids.

           “They just went inside. Anyway, Millie, what do we do if—”

           His inquiry was suddenly interrupted by a familiar shout, “Jason? Jason Connor?!”

           Bracing himself, Jace turned around to see the old gang approaching, everyone nearly two years older than when last he saw them. Upon facial confirmation, the teen version of his uncle, known as Wessy to Jace and leading the pack, beamed vibrantly.

           “Oh my God. Jason! Holy crap!” he exclaimed as he and the others rushed over.

           “Duuuude, yo,” Jared said and came in for a fist bump. “What’r’ya doin’ in town?”

           Jace replied unsteadily, “I, uh… It’s just a quick visit. I thought I’d surprise you.”

           “Pretty hardcore, getting up this early just to say hi before school starts,” Arthur remarked with a big grin. “And killer threads! Well, er, except for those shoes.”

           Colin, who had a new pair of glasses, added jokingly, “Dang it, Jason. You just made sure today goes even slower. We’re hitting the mall after. You’ll join, right?”

           “Um… Yeah. Yeah! You know it.” He looked at Arthur’s twin sister Ash, staying in the back of the group and looking sheepish. “So, where’s Zach? And Celeste?”

           Sadie answered, “She has gym in the morning and shows up first thing. And his social circle is huge these days. But I’m sure he’ll join us when he finds out you’re back.”

           The bell rang and students began to rush inside. Wessy eyed Laurie and adult Millie, and asked before joining the masses, “Are you gonna introduce us, Jason?”

           “Sure. Uh, this is… my other cousin. And my… new… stepmom?”

           This triggered some murmurs among the group. The old buds quickly shrugged it off, said their little goodbyes, and headed in. Except for Teen Millie.

           Glaring at Jace, she muttered, “I can’t believe you’re trying to pass off adult me as your mom. That’s just weird. I don’t know what you’re up to, but we’ll be talking later.”

           “… That seems about how I’d react,” Millie said as her younger self went inside.