Jared was the one to eventually say, nonchalantly, “Um… Evening, officers.”

           “You four,” the sergeant said sternly. “Are you aiding this suspect? You can’t be here by coincidence. We need to bring you in and ask some questions.”

           “Seriously? We’ve been trying to track her down! Just like whoever you guys are.”

           “Jared, dude…” Colin whispered sharply. “Maybe tone it down? They look tough.”

           “Don’t worry,” the lead cop continued. “Cooperate, and we’ll return you to your homes with no memory of these events. Don’t resist. We deal with all kinds of people.”

           “Oh, hell no,” Jared replied aggressively, took out his phone, and had the guile to flip it into landscape mode. “I know my rights. I don’t care if you’re the transdimensional police or a bunch of T-1000s—me and my friends are not going to be harassed.”

           The sergeant let out a disappointed noise of some sort, and signaled to one of his partners—who promptly put Jared into an inescapable bear hug that might as well have been from an actual bear. He struggled in the cyborg’s grasp and his phone went flying.

           “Jared!” Wes shouted. “Hey, let him go! He’s a bit dumb, but harmless!”

           The sergeant opened up a blue-hued portal in the living room, calmly adjusted his sunglasses, and tried to keep things from escalating. “Locals so often go for the hard way. You’d think seeing a trio of… It doesn’t matter; just do what we tell you. Or you’ll be treated the same way as your accomplice.” He gestured to his strong-armed partner.

           “I demand a call to my lawyer!” Jared wheezed. “Listen to me! I co-own a very important and large company, and if I don’t show up on Monday, hundreds of employees will be worried—” he was cut off when he and his captor vanished through the portal.

           “Anyone else want to be carried, or do you prefer walking?” the other cop asked.

           “H-hold on,” Arthur stuttered. “Can we talk about this? I also work for the government, and I’m sure a quick phone call will help us sort this all out.”

           “They haven’t heard of us,” the sergeant replied. “Our department hasn’t been created yet. Now, while I’m still asking nicely…” He stopped and shifted his attention when his irises suddenly glowed a bright emerald from behind his shades. “Hm…? What are you doing here? We have this under control… But… All right, fine. Standing down.”

           The two remaining officers stepped back and holstered their pacifying weaponry. Wes, Arthur, and Colin stood frozen in place, still as confused as they were when such a strange sequence of events first started, and waited for the next bizarre thing to happen.

           There was a light knocking on the balcony’s door to attract attention, and they turned to see the sliding glass open from the outside, letting in a cool night breeze. Millie walked back into her apartment, only now she was wearing different clothes and didn’t seem at all frazzled, unlike her two-minutes-ago self. With her was a punk-light girl in LED-lined boots, who looked like she was right out of a neo-80s retro future.

           “… Millie? What did you…” Colin, now overwhelmed, wasn’t sure what to say.

           Equally stupefied, Wes added, “Weren’t you just here? What the hell’s going on?”

           “Don’t ‘what the hell’ me!” Millie snapped. “What are all of you doing in my apartment? You triggered my alarms, and… Nyra, did the cops just obey you?”

           “I am… so confused,” Arthur sighed deeply. “Wes. Let them do the talking.”

           “Ma’am,” the sergeant said to the synthwave queen. “She got away.” He paused, looked at Millie, and shook off his own confusion. “But we’re going to interrogate—”

           “Allister, don’t ‘ma’am’ me,” Nyra groaned, and gave the robocop a backhanded pat on the arm. “Tch, ya know, you were cuter before your cyborg conversion.” She then turned to the three very dumbfounded guys in the room. “Sorry about all this. You must be some of Millie’s old friends, yeah? I’ll get this out of the way; that Millie you just saw and, I’m assuming, vanished in front of your eyes isn’t… this Millie.”

           ‘This Millie,’ now also in the confused club, replied, “Nyra? You mind explaining all this to me? Because right now, I’m just about as in the dark as they are.”

           Nyra huffed and gave her neck a crack before shifting focus to her. “Sorry, Mill. I do consider us friends, and I’m not normally great at making them, but the truth is, I’m a fed. We work with and oversee the metal guys, and also run our own investigations. I’ll tell you everything when we get a moment, but we have a mess to resolve first.”

           “I… But you… Gah…” Millie rubbed her forehead. “Wes, Arty, Colin—this is the first I’m hearing about some ‘shadow’ version of me running around causing trouble. I’m sorry about whatever she… Hold on, you haven’t traveled recently, have you?”

           “I mean, summer just started, and the kids can’t compromise on where they want to go this year, so…” Wes stopped and went back to looking nonplussed. “What am I even saying? I just came here to talk to you about a weird crystal I dug out of storage, and next thing I know, another you takes it and Jared gets carried through a wormhole!”

           “You arrested Jared?” Nyra asked. “Damn… I wanted to meet him the most.”

           “Sorry, Nyra,” Sergeant Allister said. “Given the suspect’s priority, he was likely taken straight to HQ for questioning. Freeing him involves red tape. Your favorite.”

           “Mierda…” Nyra grumbled. “If we’d gotten here a few seconds earlier… Guys, I’d love to get to know you, but that meeting will have to wait. We’ll mem-wipe you and get Mr. Reiner back home before he was even taken. Don’t worry, it won’t hurt.”

           “No, w-wait,” Wes stuttered and took out his phone. “Millie, you have to help us out here. I don’t know what’s going on or where you’ve been, but… the terminators, and now you—you’re all time travelers… Right? Here, just look at this message.”

           “Time travelers? Really?” Colin whispered to Wes as Millie shuffled over.

           She took the phone, read the text, and murmured, “Jason…” then handed back the antique 21^st century device and spoke to Nyra. “Remember Jason, from my stories? I don’t care about your lying and using me to help along an investigation right now—you know who Jason really is, and he’s stuck… in a place only we can get to.”

           “Mill, I swear, we are friends,” Nyra said emphatically. “I was going to tell you everything as soon as my report was submitted.” She looked at the trio and groaned. “But I don’t even need to think it over. If he’s in trouble, we’ll get him out of it.”

           “Thank you…” Millie turned back to the three. “So. Are you all ready to go help a childhood friend, see some familiar sights, and… oh yeah, bust Jared out of jail?”

           Colin glanced back and forth at Millie and Wes, and exclaimed, “Are either one of you going to fill us in on what the heck you’re talking about? No more cryptic stuff!”

           “I’m still baffled, too, Colin,” Wes said. “And yet… I have this strange feeling…”

           “I’m just going to go ahead and say it,” Millie replied. “There’s a cloaked shuttle hovering by the balcony outside that can time travel. We’ll be going to 1998. And this won’t actually be the first time the three of you have gone to the past, either.”

           “… What? What?!” Colin burst, while Arthur remained stoic. “You’re joking!”

           Nyra reacted to this accusation by tapping at her smart watch, which commanded her invisible aircraft to open its door. They watched as a hatch opened up outside from thin air, with the tip of the door landing softly on the edge of the balcony railing.

           As the trio tried to find the words, Nyra finished things. “Okay, Allie, I’ll remand them into my custody and let you clean up. Feel free to name-drop me on the report.”

           “So, this is Mr. Colton? Be careful, Nyra,” Allister replied. “I’ve read the stories.”

           No more was said until they had all stepped aboard the shuttle, quietly hovering at a low altitude over a busy road. The sight of cars and their lights passing by below was replaced by a homely yet cozy interior of an aircraft that looked like it belonged to a rugged sci-fi bounty hunter. Once the hatch had shut, the fuselage and whatever noise-cancelling devices that were running inside obscured all of the urban noises.

           “Sit anywhere,” Nyra said as she shoved off random gadgetry and odds and ends that covered a patchwork of chairs in varying condition. “I think I have enough seats.”

           “… Stories?” Wes piped. “I’ve gathered that time travelers lose their memories eventually… is that right? Did I go on some big adventure and cause a bit of trouble?”

           “That’s up to you to tell the guys, once you remember,” Millie replied. “As soon as we jump, it’ll hit you all at once. Quartz is the typical tool for light travel, and then there’s the big hardware like this old, but reliable bucket. Two years ago, a portal opened up in my living room, and brought me to the future. I still don’t know who created it or why, but it put me in the 29th century version of this very building. I was mistaken for an intruder, put in jail for a day, and next thing I know, Nyra here has bailed me out and we become… fast friends. Though now I know there’s a reason for it.”

           “I am sorry about the deception, Mill,” Nyra said from the open cockpit, where she was studying a holographic sphere of a city street. “But I’ll make it up to you.”

           “She likes 90s years,” Millie explained. “We’ve been visiting a bunch of them.”

           “There’s an underlying cultural-societal thread that shows up in every century’s last decade. Hope, maybe? Excitement for the new and what’s next? I’m still trying to pin it down, but the 1990s are my favorite of all. And not just because of the millennium.”

           “Yeah… I can kind of tell,” Wes replied. “The way you talk and dress—it’s like how some fan in the future would go about showing their fondness for another era.” He came closer and looked at the holosphere. “Interesting name. Nyra. So… is that a map?”

           “Not really. I’m named after the space station where I was born. And this should look familiar; it’s ‘live’ feed of this spot in 1998. I’m scanning a minute before and after our arrival point to make sure the coast is clear. Time travel is all about not being seen.”

           “That is the Royal Valley from the past…” Arthur said, his eyes lit by the sphere.

           “You all might wanna buckle in,” Nyra cautioned and began firing up the ship’s systems. “Jumping this much mass is a little intense. And I don’t have any dampeners.”

           Back down on Earth and away from all that sci-fi stuff, on a Saturday in early summer, 1998, a scene of late childhood simplicity: Jace and Laurie, sitting and waiting on the steps of their old school, Desert Tree Elementary. The area of the neighborhood was empty and quiet, as if all the kids out there enjoying their first worry-free weekend were doing their best to avoid seeing the building that reminded them of homework and teachers. For a couple of teens that left the school in 2020, though, it wasn’t so bad.

           “You can’t really tell that we’re in the past, from this spot,” Laurie said, to break the silence. “The school feels so… familiar, almost unchanged from our run. I already miss those days. A little.” She rubbed her hand over the top step’s pavement, careful to avoid the blackened years-old crushed gum. “I wonder how many pairs of shoes from how many generations of students have walked right here…”

           “You’re sounding like my uncle,” Jace murmured. “He had all these thoughts about the past. His past, too. Always trying to put a feeling into words. But I think I’m starting to get nostalgia, now. If just barely. So… What’d you think of his friends?”

           “They’re great. I can really tell how tight they are. Even when they’re bickering and ‘putting up with each other,’ they know what they got is worth hanging onto. It’s so cool they’re still friends in our time, and they’re so like us. Jared has Chad energy. Colin’s like both Jamie and Austin, and I’m a sort of mix of Sadie, Celeste, and Wes. Zach is a total Toby, of course. I won’t mention Millie right now because of what she did, but it’s no wonder you like Ash and Emiko… Even if you still won’t tell her how you feel.”

           Jace blushed, but it was subdued this time. “She’s not ready to hear something like that from me. You see how she just laughs and shrugs off Toby and Chad whenever they try to ‘make a move.’ So, uh… Does that mean ‘Jason Connor’ is like Warren?”

           “Well, that should be obvious. You and Warren are so…” She went quiet for a few seconds. “Hey, Jace… Can I talk to you about something I’ve been…”

           She was cut off when, without any warning, what appeared to be an aircraft hatch opened up in the thin air a few feet over the sidewalk just out front of the school, revealing the shuttle cabin beyond. Jace and Laurie had no precedent for what was going on, but she did check her watch and showed him that it was 6:00 PM on the dot. And then Wes appeared in the space of that floating entryway, holding his head in pain.

           “Hey… kids,” he muttered with a weak smile. “Need a lift?”

           Hesitantly, the two stepped aboard the cloaked aircraft, and the door shut and locked behind them. Instead of wasting time on introductions, Nyra got the shuttle back into the sky over the neighborhood right away, where it was less likely to be discovered, or walked into. Seeing Colin and Arthur seated as well was odd enough, but what really felt strange was the way the aircraft simply floated straight up without need for torque, engine systems, or even any noise at all. Only a brief sense of acceleration remained.

           “Uncle Wes… I was hoping for a rescue, but this is something else,” Jace said. “I get that it’s a time machine, sure, but how does it… you know, fly?”

           “Your uncle’s still going through the time travel bends right now,” Nyra replied. “So, I’ll explain things. Um… Hi, Jace. And Laurie. Name’s Nyra, I’m from the ticking present, and this is my shuttle. Like most 29^th century vehicles, it moves by manipulating gravity directly. Efficiently and quietly. Also like most vehicles, it’s still got thrusters for when you need that extra oomph… But, ya know, good deuterium fuel is expensive.”

           Laurie glanced at Jace and asked, “Cool tech specs… But who are you?”

           “Oh, just a federal agent who protects the timeline. And a friend of Millie’s.”

           “Yeah. Hey, guys…” said a voice that the two didn’t really want to hear.