s3.e14

Grow Up

           The battered car limped out of the daemon’s pocket dimension, and the tear in time closed behind them before any locals might drive through it by accident. They went back to the cottage, a short drive away. No one spoke as they returned home and quietly pondered what all they had just experienced. Then Jace looked at the car radio’s clock.

           “Six minutes…” he realized, “we were in there for six minutes…”

           “It was much more than that, for us,” Warren said from the front, where he sat on crunchy glass bits. “Agh… Everything hurts. Wes? Just what did you do in there?”

           Intensely staring at the road, Wes grunted and replied, “I’ll tell you later.”

           Jace needed to know one thing right away, though, and asked, “Did you really tell the daemon to… ‘eat mad hacks?’ I mean, that was cool, but it didn’t sound like you.”

           He gave a simple explanation, “It was really pissing me off.” The car’s flat tires trudged up to the driveway, but Wes didn’t pull in. “Go recuperate, guys. I’m going out for a bit. I should be back with dinner in a few hours, then we’ll go to Toys ‘R’ Us.”

           “You’re leaving us alone? Right now?” Jace exclaimed. “Where are you going?”

           “You’ll be fine. Daemon’s dead, remember? I have to drop the car off at a body shop—hoping they can fix it up a little before the big day… And then I’ll get a drink.”

           “Wait, seriously?” Warren said. “Since when do you hang out in bars?”

           “I’m an adult. I’m allowed to. Look, we’ve been through hell. Thing was almost as messed up as a cat in a Don Bluth movie. I have to cool my nerves, or I’ll shut down.”

           Jace and Warren decided to give him what he needed, and let him drive off.

           “So. Now what?” Warren sighed, as they watched the car go off at a walking pace.

           Still thinking about Wes’ gun, Jace answered, “I kind of want to talk to… Millie.”

           “Shouldn’t we be looking for Wes?” Warren asked as the bus they had taken to The Flamingo condos’ stop drove off, spewing exhaust. “I’m… worried about him.”

           Both had changed before setting out, as their previous clothes were tainted by copious sweat and battle damage. Jace was still getting used to seeing Warren in a baggy, colorful shirt; one of Wes’ and among the few things in the cottage that fit him.

           Once he stopped staring, Jace replied, “I already have a good idea of where he is. I wanted to see Millie first, since she might have an answer to what’s on my mind.”

           “If you say so. But she’s… a lot,” Warren said as they headed toward her door. He watched some of the resident senior citizens laze about on lawn chairs under the building’s awning as Jace knocked, and added, “They definitely aren’t having the kind of day we are. You doing all right? You must’ve seen me and Wes bite it so many times.”

           “I don’t really want to talk about that right now…” Jace said quietly.

           “I get that. Tch. I just wanna know so badly how he summoned a billion bullets.”

           Millie opened the door, and Jace found himself suddenly overcome with emotion upon seeing those judgmental eyes behind big round glasses looking at him curiously.

           She asked, “Jace? Warren? What are you two doing here? Kids never come here.”

           “Millie!” Jace blurted out, and surprising all three of them, gave her a hug. But the worst of it came when he added, without thinking, “I love you!”

           “Whoa…” Warren grimaced. “That’s, uh… Jace, now you got me worried.”

           “The heck are you talking about, weirdo?” Millie awkwardly replied once Jace realized what he had done and let go. “Is this a prank? You know I don’t do those.”

           “As a thankful friend, you know,” Jace said, blushing. “Sorry. It’s just, argh, I wish I could tell what all you did for us in the future. But I don’t think it’ll happen now.”

           “… Huh?” Millie said with a raised eyebrow. “Um. You’re welcome?”

           “Millie, I know it’s a big ask, but could we see one of your files? It’s important.”

           “What? No! I don’t care if you ‘love’ me! I told you, I don’t share those! Never!”

           “Sorry, Jace,” Warren said to his disappointed cousin. “We’ll have to find out about Charlie some other way. But, hey, at least you got to share your true feelings.”

           At the mention of Charlie’s name, Millie’s look went to one of intrigue, and she changed her tune. “Pippin? Hm… On second thought, come in. I think I get why you’d be interested in him. I was, too, from the start. He was my very first case study.”

           “You will be Subject #1,” a six-year old Millie announced some years ago, while Desert Tree Elementary’s 1991 first-graders headed to the big double doors that opened up to the playground. She took out her small notebook and scribbled. “Charlie Piping.”

           “It’s Pippin, Glasses,” Charlie said coolly with his hands in his pockets, trying not to sound agitated to the boys tagging along with him. “If you’re gonna spy on someone, at least get their name right. Hey, you guys ready for our first recess as big kids?”

           “Yeah!” Wes, who was usually even more hyper now than he would be by fifth grade, said excitedly. “The kindergarten playground was so small!”

           A young Colin, not yet in glasses of his own, asked Millie, “Are you really like a spy now? Why are you writing notes about Charlie? What kinds of notes?”

           “No peeking!” Millie exclaimed, and turned away to hide her chicken scratch.

           Guided by Mr. Drake, the combined classes of small kids reached the end of the hall, and he opened the doors to let the sunshine in. At first glance to their big naïve eyes, there appeared to be a technicolor dreamscape waiting for them. An oasis from lessons and math tests, where imagination and new friendships could blossom.

           While most of the students stampeded out to be the first on the big play fort or the swing sets, Charlie and his two best buds preferred to hang back and observe, letting their peers burn off excess energy—and then maybe give the trio a calmer atmosphere in which to explore and chill. And anyway, Charlie already had plans in place.

           “C’mon. Let’s go check out The Dump,” he said as kids made their claims.

           “The Dump? What’s that?” Colin wondered after nearly tripping.

           “Not in the know, are ya, C? It’s the cool secret club the fifth-graders get.”

           Always trusting ol’ Charlie to find them neat things to do or see, Wes and Colin kept on following him, sticking close to the school’s walls and passing by a few kids on the way that were already establishing their routines, whether they were planned or not.

           “Hey,” little Park, not yet wearing a hoodie, said through a missing tooth as he tried to attract their attention. “Any of you want this extra ninja turtle? Gramma picked it for my birthday, but, uh, I already gots one of these. It still works and stuff.”

           He was holding up a Leonardo action figure with both hands, which Charlie studied for a moment before replying, “Sorry, dude. I already have a full set.”

           “I’ll give you a whole dollar!” Reynold Weichster offered after running up to him.

           His instinctual haggling prowess coming out, Park got the ball rolling as more interested kids wandered over, answering, “Um. I can’t go lower than… two dollars.”

           The boys then passed by Wright, who had attracted a small crowd of kids fishing around in their pockets for coins. Wes stopped to watch, curious what he was up to.

           “Are you really going to do anything we tell you to?” Gerald asked him.

           “Depends on how many coins you give me,” Wright said. “It’s called a dare.”

           December held up a quarter, and upon seeing Wright look at it hungrily, she gave the attention-starved kid the first challenge of the year, “I dare you to lick your elbow.”

           Tame as it was, a few of the kids let out some ‘ew’s, but Wright had no problem agreeing to it. “You got it!” he replied, and twisted his arm to start trying. “That’s easy!”

           “Wes, keep up!” Charlie said, with Millie nearby and still taking notes. “Dang it, girl, why are you writing about me, anyway? It’s creepy.”

           “Dad says to make notes about ’spicious people and keep eyes on them,” Millie explained as Wes caught up. “And you have been awful ’spicious all day so far.”

           Charlie took out a Tootsie Pop from his jacket pocket, unwrapped it, and stuck in his mouth before muttering, “I’m not suspicious. I’m cool. Just like I was last year. But I get why you wouldn’t know that, since you didn’t have kindergarten with us.”

           Suddenly, Jared came running up, looking desperate as usual. “H-hey, Charlie! Is Millie annoying? I’ll scare her away. And then… maybe I can do stuff with you guys?”

           “Jared, you’re trying too hard,” Charlie told him. “If you wanna hang out with us, you have to work on that. I can handle Millie. You gotta get real cool first. Like, chill.”

           “B-but… I’ll never be awesome like you, or fun like Wes, or smart like Colin…”

           “You don’t have to be just like us, bro. Find your own thing. Walk around the playground for a week and see what you can do for other kids, or what makes them laugh. I dunno, man. Be a helper, or beat video games before everyone else. See what the crowd is talking about, and then tell me so I can talk about it better. When you find something you’re good at, talk to me again. Just be sure to always, always stay cool.”

           “Oh… Okay, Charlie…” Jared said and walked away. “I wanna be cool, too…”

           “Jared always wants to do things with us, Charlie,” Colin noted. “Why don’t we just let him? I don’t think he has many friends.”

           “Because, Colin, you can’t just let anyone into a club. Speaking of, here it is…”

           They rounded the corner into a back alley of the school that looked like nothing special; just a dumpster and the fence behind the bike rack. Even so, Delilah—who was already big for her age—seemed to be guarding the place with a determined posture.

           “This is a secret club?” Colin asked. “I don’t get it. Why is it amazing?”

           “Because it’s a secret,” Charlie explained. “And someday, we’ll get to spend all of recess in there if we want. Hey, Della, mind if we get a quick look around?”

           “Do not call me Della,” Delilah said threateningly and raised a balled-up hand. “I got a job from the fifthies to guard this place so none of ya get any ideas, and I’ll give anyone a fist sandwich if they try to ruin it for ‘em. That even goes for you, Charlie.”

           “Heh, fine!” Charlie chuckled. “But, you’ll be workin’ for me one day. Bet on it.”

           Delilah didn’t seem impressed by the statement, so the boys started heading back and over to the play fort, which was already clearing out after the initial rush of all those who just had to try it first. All the while, Millie was still writing away and following close behind. She appeared to be endlessly fascinated by Charlie, for some reason.

           “C’mon, Wright! Lick your elbow already!” December coyly mocked him.

           “I’m trying! Really!” Wright replied as he contorted his arm in weird ways.

           Once the sounds of the kids being entertained by the display faded away behind them, the trio noticed Zach, chilling against Bob the tree with his shades on, grinning like nothing mattered as he observed the frantic behavior of most of the others.

           “Zach’s got real potential,” Charlie said when they started moving again. “I’d ask him to join us, but I wanna see if he asks us first. He’s got that chill, ya know?”

           Millie finally bugged off, though she kept her eyes on the three from a distance for the rest of recess. Trying not to attract the attention of Felicity, who was reading a Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark book nearby and was creepy in her own way, the boys climbed the ladder to the top of the fort, where they could get a good look at the land.

           “Soak in that first day,” Charlie said, a sucker still in his mouth as he leaned back against the railing. “We’ll make our crew bigger real fast. But who else do we want?”

           “Well…” Colin thought and looked around, spotting Sadie alone on one of the swings. “I think Sadie’s gonna be lonely, since Celeste is at a different school now.”

           “No way,” Wes argued. “No girls.”

           “Aw, Wes is still thinkin’ about how things got with Celly,” Charlie joked.

           Wes scowled, then looked down and saw the Teller twins walking by as they explored the playground. “What about Arthur? He’s, um… neat.”

           “You just said ‘no girls,’ Wes. Those two are tied at the hip, for now. It’s kinda gross, like Trude and Tam. But… maybe they’ll get bored of each other in a few years.”

           For no reason at all, Charlie suddenly climbed up onto the fort’s monkey bars and started walking on top of a beam, where he perfectly balanced himself about fifteen feet off the ground. It was when he started walking backwards effortlessly, hands still in his pockets, that he attracted the gaze of dozens of kids—and worried looks from Wes. Colin had even put on his queasy face. But this was nothing unusual from Charlie.

           “Mr. Drake’s going to see you!” Colin fretted. “You’ll get in big trouble!”

           “Nah, he’s not even watching.” Charlie grinned. “Colin! Risks are fun, buddy!”

           “Why are you always doing stuff like that, anyway?” Wes wondered.

           Charlie turned around on the bars and looked down at his friends. “Because I got somethin’ called confidence. When you got it, ya show it off! And, Wes—you got lots of it, too. I promise everyone who becomes a pal of mine will do big things, but, you, Wes…” His smile turned to smirk. “I think you will do something that’ll surprise us all.”

           After Charlie made that remark, which would stick with Wes for years to come, the bell rang. Moving faster than Wes expected, the first-graders rushed to the doors to head back to class as Mr. Drake waved them in. Yet, this all somehow felt… off.

           “Wait!” Wes called out, and jumped off the fort to try and follow his friends—only to find that he couldn’t run, and Colin and Charlie had disappeared into the crowd. “Wait up, guys! Ugh… Is it just me,” he asked himself, “or was recess really short?”

           He eventually made it to the doors, which his small hands managed to open, long after everyone else on the playground had gone in and left him behind. But the once bright and colorful hallway had turned into a cold, dark, and dusty corridor that looked like it had been abandoned decades ago and was now only buried within a memory.

           Wes went in even so, and yelled into the darkness, “Where is everyone? Hello?”

           He proceeded inside, despite feeling an overwhelming sense of rising dread. The doors slammed shut behind him, and he turned to see… Colin. As an adult.

           “Wes, why do you keep coming here?” Colin asked. “Don’t you know that we’ve all moved on?” He looked past him. “It’s like some old, forgotten, TV show here.”

           “Colin!” Wes piped, his voice still young and afraid. “Why’d you all leave? Why don’t any of you want to come back? It’s better here! Things make sense!”

           “It’s so stupid that you think like that. The future is so much better, and we all like it. Look, I have to work, or something. Stay here as long as you want. We don’t care.”

           “That isn’t true! Why would you come back to help me if… if you didn’t…”

           “We came back to bring you back, but I guess you just like it here too much. You go have fun with the old stuff we all forgot about. Don’t worry. You aren’t alone here.”

           “Huh? What do you mean? Who else is with me?”

           Colin didn’t answer, but something else whispered to Wes from the other end of the hall, in the darkness past the doors to the cafeteria. A single word, in a quiet echo.

           “Daddy.”

           Little Wes turned back around, just in time to see the lights flicker what felt like a mile in the distance. Appearing in the hallway, very briefly, was the silhouette of a…

           His eyes opened before he could make it out, and the wooden ceiling of a dimly-lit bar replaced that “mothballed” version of his school, which he’d visited many times in his dreams. But he had never experienced a dream quite like that one. Maybe it was the alcohol, or the fact that he had just fallen asleep out of pure exhaustion and ended up leaning back against an uncomfortable booth with his mouth open.

           “God…” he moaned and gave his neck a crack and eyes a rub. He tried to shake himself out of a stupor, and checked his watch. “Only been an hour? Feel like crap…”

           The front door of the place opened, letting in bright light from outside. And since he was seated facing the entrance, he already felt a headache coming on. The figures of a kid and a teenager walked in, clearly looking for someone. The bartender saw them, but paid no mind. He’d probably seen the underage come in looking for lost parents before. It was a seedy establishment, but its location was convenient.

           “Wes?” Jace called out, and Wes groaned again and covered his eyes. “Hey!”

           “Argh, Jace… How did you two find me? I just wanted some alone time.”

           The boys came over to Wes’ booth, in the shadowy corner of the bar, and Jace explained, “I remembered seeing this place the night the cop was chasing us. I didn’t think there could be that many bars right next to a car-fixing shop.”

           “Well. Good job, junior detective. I was almost done here, anyway…”

           “Are you actually drunk, Wes?” Jace asked, with a look of grave concern.

           “Of course I’m not drunk! Look.” He pointed at the two shot glasses of liquor on the table—one full, one empty and overturned. “I’m just trying to loosen up.”

           “I mean, it’s not like I actually know how much it takes.”

           “What’d you do, take a nap after one shot?” Warren replied. “Whatever. We’re hungry. We burned off all the movie snack calories in the timeless hellhole. We were thinking we could get a big dinner, and then head to Toys ‘R’ Us for the main event.”

           Wes yawned. “You don’t need to tell me about it. I know you two must have spent a while in your own versions of that nightmare, but I… might’ve experienced six hours of it. Or more. And that’s on top of the existential dread. I saw you two… so many times… Like, what if there are now hundreds of versions of us that are statues in that… yeah, hellhole, frozen forever? All the ‘us’es that didn’t make it. No… No, don’t like it.”

           “I’m trying not to think about that. But, six hours for you?” Warren glanced at Jace. “Did you have to keep… um, saving one of us, or something?”

           Wes huffed. “It’s not like that. I know you really want me to tell you everything, so…” He leaned back and stared at the ceiling. “You two made it possible, but you only got to see the very final run I did. While Jace gave me covering fire and you kept him safe, I went back in time five seconds… I dunno, hundreds of times, at least. The bullets I put into the portals it made, just before they closed—they all got duplicated, or stayed suspended in time somehow. So when I finally reset all those portals…”

           Warren’s eyes widened. “That’s why you wanted to use Slipflash. Just like the remote control, when I was showing you how the blue quartz works…”

           Jace looked at them and said, “I still don’t know much about the blue ones.”

           “They’re just a more advanced model,” Wes replied. He took his out of a pocket and put it on the table next to his drink. The blue glow was noticeably quite dull, and the crystal was nearly transparent. “I think I used up most of its battery, though.”

           Seeing the ongoing tremors, Jace replied, “Wes, your right hand is still shaking.”

           “Y-yeah…” Wes moved it and the quartz back into his jacket pocket. “I guess that’s what happens when you fire a gun… so many times in a row.”

           “I had no idea,” Warren said as he imagined Wes’ plan in action. “You must’ve brought yourself to the brink doing that. But it worked. You actually killed the thing.”

           Wes smirked a little. “And I also spent those hours avoiding everything it threw at me, at least that Jace couldn’t blast away. It was, like… a perfect run in a hard game.”

           Jace rained on Wes’ parade before Warren this time, replying, “Hold on. How would you even know that? We probably had to reset each time you did get stung.”

           “Um. Huh. Yeah, I think I can give that to you. It did feel crazy to me that, from my point of view, it never managed to hit me. Man. Once again, time travel is messy.”

           Jace added after a moment, “Just… one more thing, and hopefully we never have to talk about today again. You totally changed at the end. I could barely recognize you. You became a different person. Like in today’s movie, but not in a funny way.”

           “I’ll be honest. That was Zeff you saw. My Hot Topic alter ego who fears and feels nothing?” Wes read the expressions he was getting, and continued, “It’s not like I have multiple personalities or something, but in high school and even through college, there were a few really stressful moments where I’d let myself become him, and usually… play metal music in my head. It’s a survival mechanism for when I feel overwhelmed.”

           Going along with things and trying to show respect to his uncle, Jace replied, “Is he still in there, right now? Just so I know for sure, who am I talking to?”

           “He gradually goes away, as I get my nerve back.” Wes suddenly used his stable left hand to grab the remaining shot and down it, grimacing as he did so and coughing afterwards. “Okay. We’ll celebrate with dinner out. Today was messed up, but at least it’s finally gone. At the very end, sure, but still. Really impressive that a guy past his prime and a couple kids pulled off what most time criminals probably can’t, don’t you think?”

           Jace gave Wes a mild smile in response. But Warren was visibly fidgeting.

           For dinner, Wes chose a Royal Valley classic that he and Jace had only visited a few times so far: the old Pig Pit. It was a bit of a drive, yet in the same direction as the big toy store, just past the interstate. Warren didn’t like greasy food too much; despite having junk food often, he insisted that he usually had leaner, healthier meals to keep in shape. But Wes managed to convince him to have one of the famous burgers. With his ninja-ing days likely coming to an end, he agreed to let himself go. Just this once.

           Sodas got slurped, jokes were cracked, steam was blown off, and the three guys commiserated on all their shared tough times. It was a deserved good reprieve.

           But, only a brief one. With the sun going down, they got back in the car and Wes started the drive to Toys ‘R’ Us. For him, this was just a small, anticipated celebratory event to bookend a journey, and little more than watching his kid self go into a building. But Jace and Warren became unusually quiet on the way there, both knowing how much was on the line. Wes was there to witness fate; the boys were there to change it.

           The car pulled up into the emptying parking lot at about 7:30, a half hour before the Sunday closing time. Wes opened his door and stepped out into a balmy evening, and used the nearby lamps to survey the fresh work on the wagon.

           “The body damage isn’t too bad,” he told the boys once they left the car. “If I wasn’t selling the thing in a few days, I would’ve gotten the frame fixed, too. Well. At least I might get back most of what I paid for it, with the windows and tires replaced. What’s really something, is that not a single one of my bullets ricocheted into it.”

           “Wes…” Warren spoke up, expecting him to keep the subject moving. “We—”

           “‘Little Me’ should be here in about ten minutes. I’ll run inside, trying to get the submission in just before it closes and the deadline passes.” Wes leaned against the car’s hood, and gazed at the colorful lit letters of the big store. “So much better being out here, seeing something real I can make sense of. Not like my recent stupid dreams.”

           “Dreams?” Warren muttered. “We’re talking about dreams now?”

           “Jace, did I ever tell you this?” Wes prattled on. “I’ve had a sorta headspace for a decade or so that I delve into sometimes. A big metaphor full of all those melancholic feels… And now it’s starting to show up in my dreams, too. I’m visiting a place from my past, whether or not it still exists, but it’s empty and old, abandoned. And then I get this sense that I’m exploring somewhere that everyone else has forgotten, and I’m the only one left that hasn’t moved on from it. Usually it’s a school. Lot of memories there.

           “Maybe it’s a version of the anxiety dreams you’ll both get one day. I’m talking about the nonsense where it’s the last week of college, and you realize there was a class you went to once and then somehow forgot to go back to all semester. Or the good old ‘forgot to do the final’ experience. But I do like one sub-genre—when you find out that you didn’t actually graduate from one of your schools, so you go back and redo a grade. Also nonsense, sure, but those dreams were the closest thing to time travel for me.”

           “That’s really cool, Unk,” Jace tried to speak over him. “But maybe—”

           “Could be I keep getting the dreams because, even while awake, to this day I never truly felt like I actually graduated from any of my schools. As if there has to be some requirement that got missed. It just never felt like a book closed, or that some authority figure told me that it was time to move on. It’s almost as if I could go back whenever I wanted, or that some goal was left unfulfilled. Maybe I simply have trouble feeling any sense of accomplishment. Or I just don’t want the story to end.”

           “Wes!” Warren exclaimed, with agitation in his voice. “We have to talk!”

           “I know!” Wes fired back. “I could tell you two had some ‘talk’ planned for tonight for a few days now. I don’t like ‘talks.’ So, do you mind if I keep stalling?”

           “This is really important, and can’t wait,” Jace emphasized. “I get that you don’t like real talk, but it’d mean a lot to us if you listened, and tried to stay calm.”

           “Oh, yeah, Jace! ‘Stay calm.’ Starting with that totally helps. Look, I’ve waited so long to see this a second and final time. Can you please let me have it without ruining tonight by bringing up serious stuff? This is about the Toy Run. My big moment.”

           “But the Toy Run is exactly what we need to talk about,” Warren said sternly.

           “I swear, ninja boy, if you’re about to say I can’t do it, I’ll… I’ll…” Wes turned a possible threat into a guttural growl. “Haven’t I given up enough? Lost enough games I was supposed to win, screwed up things for Wessy that were supposed to go smoothly?”

           “Is that what matters to you the most? How many pointless childhood trophies do you need stuffed into the back of some closet? Who cares, Wes? Who freaking cares?”

           “Just come out with it! What’s more important than my one real claim to fame?”

           “You put paper in a box! Wow! What an achievement! Thing is, I won’t exist!”

           Upon hearing this, Wes stepped away from the car’s hood and looked at Warren with sudden empathy. “I… I had no idea. I’m sorry about that… You should’ve told me earlier—I would’ve started working on a solution. It’s some butterfly effect thing, right? Some specific trigger that keeps your parents from meeting? We’ll find a way to fix that!”

           Warren, whose glare and breathing had been intensifying, grumbled, “This is just like you. Thinking you can fix everything, just because you have infinite attempts at it.”

           “Kid, what do you want from me? I want to help you, but you have to level—”

           “Damn it, man!” Warren snapped, and finally let it out. “I’m your SON!”

           Wes’ initial reaction was a nervous chortle. Nah, he thought. He didn’t just say that.

           “Not a good joke, guys. Not funny,” was Wes’ eventual response after several tense seconds, the boys’ stares pulling one out of him. “I mean, I get it. You’re trying to guilt trip me into making you real again, Warren. I’d be desperate in that situation, too.”

           “Uncle Wes…” Jace worked up the courage to reply, and stayed serious. “It’s all true. When I went back to 2020 and met your old friends and made plans to save you… Warren was there, at my age. He’s my cousin. Younger by a few months.”

           Wes let out a few more airy laughs that turned into wheezes as he backpedaled and felt his forehead, stammering as he did so, “C-come on… I… I don’t have any…”

           “Sit down,” Warren boldly commanded. “Just… sit down and let me say what I need to—all the things I’ve been holding in since we first met. Don’t think, just listen.”

           Breaking into a cold sweat and feeling his heart palpitating, Wes nodded, opened the passenger door, and nearly fell into the seat. With his legs sticking out onto the asphalt, he tried to steady his breaths as he waited to hear that this really was a joke.

           With a sigh, Warren crossed his arms, leaned against the nearby lamp post, and got into it. “I know the other you. When I was twelve, in 2022, he came to me one night while I was doing math homework. Knocked on my door and walked right in, just like he’d do any other time to see what I was up to. Only… he was in his sixties. Less hair, some gravel in his voice, but definitely still my dad—just aged thirty years. Thought he was playing some elaborate prank with Hollywood makeup, making himself look older.

           “He explained that he’s a time traveler, coming from the distant future. I couldn’t make sense of any of it. But he knows that I hate math homework, and would rather be doing anything else, so… I let him show me proof of what he can do with this little blue crystal he’s holding.” Warren took out his quartz and nervously fiddled with it in his hand. “Next thing I know, my night takes a weird turn, and we’re zipping through time. It was crazy. We saw something from every year in the 90s. He had all the cash he’d ever need, so we stayed at hotels and explored the city on a hundred different days across the years. At first, he brought me back whenever I was homesick, but our travels got longer and longer, and time became a playground. This went on for months to us.

           “But the old guy had a sadness in him. Sharing time with me made him happy, briefly, but it always felt… like he was missing something. Then one day, after he earned my trust—he was still my dad, after all—he let me in on his big plan. The Toy Run.”

           Wes looked up from the ground and mumbled, “Toy Run…?”

           “Yeah. The other you was always going on about ways to make his childhood really ‘legendary.’ For himself, and all his friends. He’d been working on a plan since before we met. See, it turns out that there’s a company in this city that runs contests across the country, and one of them is the Toy Run. It was too tempting, he reasons. Easy to pull off. Fate. ‘Surely’ I had to understand. ‘Think of all the toys I can pass down to you!’ Blah, blah, blah… Just like that, we go from goofing off and seeing the sights to trying to change something, in a big way. I know this isn’t easy for you, but…

           “Wes… I… I mean, dad,” Warren continued, trying to strike a more sympathetic tone. “You weren’t meant to win the contest. He made a script that—”

           “I already know,” Wes interrupted, his voice weak. “I found a copy of the disk, down in the lab, in his safe. I wasn’t positive what it did, but now it’s obvious.”

           “What disk?” Jace asked them. “What are you talking about?”

           Warren answered, “I hadn’t told you this yet, Jace. We used time travel to sneak into the contest office, late at night, in 1986. Of course, he made it a game, like we were spies. Even though it was way too easy. He stuck a plastic square into a computer, and that’s all it took. Installed a ‘bug’ that would make any Wes Colton from California win automatically if they showed up on the submission database; guaranteed to get in. All he has to do is, again, drop a form in a box. Which will happen in…” He checked the local time on his quartz. “A couple minutes. And then I’ll stop feeling real, again.”

           “I know what that’s like,” Jace murmured. “That… empty, floating feeling.”

           Wes shook his head. “If… if you’re telling me the truth, I don’t get how…”

           Warren let out another sigh. “The very instant he uploaded his little program, time twisted itself into a messy knot. Since he went to Los Angeles for the Run, he and Mom never got close, and I was never born. Yes, he realized what happened. He was upset, wanted to help me. He wasn’t evil, just… selfish and insecure. He did everything to fix it, to make both it and me work, tried to force two incompatible timelines together. But he only ever made things worse, did more damage. He just couldn’t give up his master plan.”

           “Do… I even want to know who she…” Wes’ mouth was dry, and he covered his face with a hand to hide the strange emotions he was feeling. “Is it Celeste? You kind of look and act like her, but, not sure where the amber hair would come from…”

           “What? No. I mean, ‘aunt’ Celly is fun when she visits, but she’s too intense to be my mom. It would get exhausting. You married Mom.” With four eyes on him, it took Warren a moment to realize what he had just said. He let out a faint snort and corrected himself, “Sorry, I almost never say her first name. It’s… Sadie, Dad. Yeah…”

           “Sadie?” Wes reacted just as strongly as he had at the first reveal. “Sadie Lorraine? B-but… Seriously? That’s just… Wow.” He let out an incredulous laugh. “Some people think childhood friends getting hitched is cute, but I always found it a little… Gross? In my universe, we were still distant friends, but… Marriage? Us? Just… Just, how?”

           “The way I hear it, and how Jared tells it, is that something happened at a late summer camping trip this year. Supposedly, there weren’t any first kisses… ick… but it was more like, I guess… a seed was planted. A shared childhood memory. Like a slow-motion spark? Look, don’t make me get into it. As if I know anything about love.”

           Wes got a moment to process everything as his dad’s car pulled into a space not far away. Wessy jumped out and ran towards the store on his own, yelling into the night that he had to get in before it closed after his dad told him to slow down.

           “And there it is…” the older Wes said quietly. “What we came here to see. Only, if I win, I’ll miss the camping trip, and… Jesus, Warren, what’s she see in a loser like me? We barely talked in high school. In college, the gang was hanging out again like the old days, but from what I remember, she showed no interest in me. Not like that.”

           “No idea. You’ll have to ask her when you get a chance. I just know you started dating after college. And that no amount of bonding he tried to force between you two was ever enough to bring you together otherwise. There was something about that camping trip you were supposed to have, at that exact time, that set up events just right later on. But the sooner we move on from this subject, the better.”

           “This is all too much… What eventually happened to this old me?”

           Warren noticeably looked around the parking lot, then checked the time again before replying, “Um, I’ll get back to that. Once he was out of the picture, though, I was left in the past, stranded because I no longer existed. So I’ve just assumed that if I ever travel forward to any date after I was meant to be born, I’d just disappear or something. But it wasn’t long until I found another version of you, alone, exploring 1995.”

           After thinking about it for a second, Wes asked, “Was it… my first trip?”

           “But you two didn’t officially meet until that rainy night, right?” Jace noted.

           “It wasn’t always that way,” Warren explained. “I’ve had talks like this with you before, Dad, but you don’t remember, since they didn’t end well. No matter how close I tried to get, or how much you accepted the truth, even the you at thirty-five couldn’t let go of the Toy Run. You always promised to find a fix, just like he did. I’d get mad, we’d fight, and eventually, I gave up. Rewrote everything so we never met, and I only kept an eye on you. The last hope I had left was that you’d do a second trip. So, before you went home after seeing that alien invasion movie, I slipped a random, corny pamphlet I found called ‘Being a Good Uncle’ into your stuff, thinking it’d give you an idea.”

           “I remember…” Wes said. “I wondered where that came from when I returned to 2020 and dumped everything out. I didn’t actually read it—but I was always going to bring Jace on a second trip, anyway. I get it, though. You were hoping we’d bond, and I’d learn to understand what being a parent is like. Maybe… mature a bit.”

           “And, alongside some planning on my end, find a way to create a version of this night where you make the right choice. Instead of trying to ‘make it work’ again.”

           Hit by a thought, Jace asked, “If right now is the first time our Wes can make that choice, because of that rogue cop, why were you already around in 2020?”

           “I had set up a failsafe in case he didn’t make it to tonight, so that at least I would be real again. It wasn’t easy. The daemon was originally really aggressive here, and it guarded the store like a fortress. I ended up having to wait for the truck to arrive in the morning to pick up the forms. I had to fight off more tendrils to do it, but I may… have tossed a fire bomb into the back of the truck, burning up all the mail inside. I only barely got away. That’s about to be overwritten, but with the daemon gone, you can walk right in, and…” Warren trailed off as a big vehicle pulled up nearby, where no lamp light hit.

           “Crazy. But you fixed the future, more or less,” Jace said, his eyes on the SUV.

           With wobbly legs, Wes stood and gazed out at it, asking, “Uh, who is that?”

           “Someone helped me keep the old you away, Dad. We asked him to come here.”

           Upon seeing Mr. Drake, of all people, step out of the vehicle, Wes raised a brow.

           “My old recess monitor, banished my geriatric self? Huh… Actually, that tracks.”

           A smaller pair of sneakers approached the light, shuffling on the gritty asphalt as Jace shook his head and replied, “No, Wes. Turns out, there was always… another.”

           “You’ve met my dad, haven’t you?” Millie asked Jace, earlier in the day when he and Warren walked into her apartment. “Don’t worry, he doesn’t bite, much.”

           Mr. Vanbusen was on his living room couch, casually sharpening knives with a whetstone as a Discovery Channel nature doc played on the TV. He acknowledged the boys with a grunt and a nod, and moved onto the next knife resting on the cushions.

           “Um… nice metal,” Warren remarked. “I have a pretty nice sword myself.”

           “I used to have a sword,” Millie’s pop replied matter-of-factly.

           “Ok, Dad, don’t scare our guests.” Millie pushed the guys into the hall. “I swear, it’s mostly an act. Ugh, I could never bring over a boyfriend… Anyway, here’s my study.”

           Like Park’s safe space at his dad’s shop, Millie’s sanctum was little more than a glorified hall closet with very little room. She pulled a cord to give it light, revealing two filing cabinets, a corkboard with dozens of pinned photos, and an old Macintosh Classic.

           “That’s an oldie,” Warren observed. “My dad has one of those in a closet, too.”

           “It’s just for digitizing my files. Nothing beats paper in the field.” Millie opened the bottom drawer of the older cabinet and flipped through files. “My early work is pre-composition book… I actually pulled this one to do some revising not too long ago.”

           “I kind of expected you to have more cabinets,” Jace commented.

           “You can stuff a lot into them.” Millie handed Jace a folder full of old legal paper, small notepads, and photos of Charlie. “This feels so wrong. No one but me has ever looked at one of my files. But, I promised to help you, and… Just read it.”

           Warren got in closer as Jace started flipping through the copious notes on Charlie and his antics. Much of the text was faded pencil scribble from first grade, but it was the newer additions, perfectly legible in red pen, that shockingly confirmed Jace’s suspicions.

           He looked up at Millie with big eyes and said, “So, you see it, too…”

           She crossed her arms. “Of course. Idea came to me the day your uncle did his Freaky Friday thing. You didn’t even get to see him in his prime, and you still get it. But I remember him well. The way he spoke beyond his years, how he pulled off the craziest of stunts… How he always seemed to just know… the way things would turn out.”

           “I don’t believe it,” Warren muttered as he looked at the files. “That punk kid…”

           Jace’s eyes were transfixed on Millie’s big red letters, encircled by heavy ink near a paperclipped photo of Charlie smiling smugly: ANOTHER TIME TRAVELER???

           Charlie stepped into the light of the parking lot lamp, hands in his jacket pockets and looking chill. Wes blinked and stared. The kid was just like how he remembered.

           “Charles!” Mr. Drake shouted at him impatiently from the SUV. “Whatever this is about, make it fast.” His eyes hit Jace’s and gave him spine shivers. “Is there some reason you’re meeting this troublemaker? You don’t even know Mr. Connor.”

           “Friend of Wes’,” Charlie said without looking back. “Give me a few minutes.”

           Mr. Drake grumbled. “I swear, if you weren’t my baby sister’s kid…”

           “C-Charlie?” Wes was at a loss. “Mr. Drake is your uncle? We never knew that.”

           Charlie looked up at Wes—which was weird for both of them—replying, “Hey, Wes. Yeah, managed to keep that on the down-low over the years. Just imagine what it would’a done to my image if it got out, right?” Charlie smirked. “You’re wondering why I’m talkin’ to you right now, aren’t ya? Well. Millie had my number, somehow, so Jace here called and caught me up on things, thinking you’d need an extra push tonight.”

           “B-but… You? You’re still a kid. How could you possibly know about anything?”

           Charlie exhaled, dug around in his pockets, and took out a lollipop that he stuck into his mouth. “Damn sugar addiction…” he muttered. “Ah, look, Wes. I don’t have all night, because I still have a curfew. All those childhood rules, ya know. Jace says you got a taste of that again, too. So I’ll keep this short. Quick of it is, I originally got kicked out of school in fourth grade for a completely different, less intense reason. I didn’t mean to do it this time, either. Not exactly. Guess I should say I didn’t mean for it to stick.”

           “Hold on. Are you saying that you somehow found a way to time travel mentally? Like… you sent your mind into the past? How are you even traveling to begin with?”

           Jace answered, “Wes, remember that other Time Lab funder that André couldn’t remember? Ever since I saw that mall meeting between Wessy, Zach, and Charlie that wasn’t supposed to happen, something kept biting at me. Millie picked up on it, too.”

           “Sorry about that, Wes-dude,” Charlie said. “I was trying to ‘scare you straight’ or somethin’ back then, playing my small part in fixing this mess. The truth is pretty nuts. See, in another world, I became rich off crypto—got in on it early, mined, the whole deal. Guess you already know that, though. Jace says you met my middle-age self before this return trip of yours, and bought that old cursed gun off me. In the far future of the timeline I came from, you showed up out of the blue with a business propo.

           “You came off as crazy at first, going on about some old guy making a kind of time machine beneath the park ruins. But, hell, you got me to check it out, and I realized he was the real deal. I mostly stayed back; just wrote checks and got updates. Right after the lab accident that disappeared you two, I got into the off-site databases and continued the work—for another ten years. Man, I was starting to get old by then. Actually started having body aches, health problems. Can ya imagine that, Wes? Me, old? I was never as nostalgic as you, but I didn’t mind taking the project’s potential further, just to exist longer. And it worked. I remade it on a smaller scale and sent my mind into the past.”

           “Well… Shit, Charlie…” Wes replied. “That’s incredible. But you always did impress everyone. What year, exactly, did you go to first? I didn’t get to pick.”

           “Yeah, yeah. Stop ass-kissing. It wasn’t a year I went to. It was all of them. I could move through time, back and forth, to any point in my life. Relive and change any moment. Knowing you, I must’ve accomplished your ultimate dream. To turn time into a god-sim that was almost as ‘magical’ as the playground we hung out on at DTE. Not that I worshipped the gift like you would have. It was just a game to me, a way to break down reality and probability. It was fun… Until everything lost all meaning.”

           “Damn.” Wes needed a moment to think about the implications. “No wonder you could always pull off the craziest things. You were always in full control.”

           “Don’t get me wrong.” Charlie flicked the lollipop stick into the night, “I was always good, did plenty of insane things in my old timeline even without redoes. This power just put me on another level. And making you guys laugh… still made me happy.”

           “Leave it to you to reach some kind of demigod-hood. But what happened?”

           Charlie scowled. “The worst luck. I was goofing off on some fourth-grade nights, around the time I’d be kicked out of school. Didn’t plan on changing that, by the way; it was too important to my life path and all that. Did my best to avoid paradoxes. So, I was setting up the perfect heist for my little punk self. Stealing from an expensive chocolate shop, bringing the goods to school the next day, handing them out at lunch—that was how I wanted to be remembered. But in one version of the night, I went as extreme as I could, just for laughs. Call of the void, intrusive thoughts. That psychological stuff.”

           “Charlie, you still shouldn’t have. I cringe when I think about the things Phil did in Groundhog Day that weren’t in the movie. Like, who knows when you’ll lose the gift?”

           “Uh-huh. Exactly. I ‘lost the gift,’ right then and there. The universe is a bitch, ain’t it? Sure, I was bending it to my perverse will, but did it have to play a joke on me right back? Guess it’s fun and games until you suddenly have to face consequences.”

           “And you haven’t been able to time travel since then?”

           “Nope. Tried my hardest, but it was just gone. Point is—if there is a point, some lesson in all this—you gotta move on and start owning up to your actions again. It sucks sometimes, I get that. Fact is, though, time’s still going forward for you and Jace no matter the year you’re in. And you both grew, right? If ever there was a reason to come on this trip, it’d be to undo what an older, selfish prick version of you did.”

           “Like this is entirely my fault, Charlie,” Wes said with some anger. “You made the gang pretty much want to be just like you, always try to kick things up a notch. We all have no idea what things were like in the very first, original, forgotten timeline. But you always being ‘Cool Kid Omega’ and then leaving a void in the group made me feel like I had to carve out a piece of history, and hang onto it for dear life right now.”

           “I get it, Wes. I really do. And I made it even worse by going back and perfecting my routine. But you didn’t earn this. You were always a cool and reliable buddy to us, but I put too much pressure on you—gave you tunnel vision, I think. Still, ya gotta admit that you did lose sight of what you did earn. So what if you don’t become famous, or known in every school in California? Everyone wants to be a celebrity, and then most of us can’t handle the fame and want things to be simple and easy again. You’re supposed to make a video game company, bro! Get married, have kids! What else do you need?”

           “Charlie. How did you get rid of the… version of me that started all this?”

           “Specifics are lost on me, man. The timeline where I helped is gone. Warren is the one who still has any memories of it, but not what I did directly. He says I reached out to him—but kept my identity a secret. I still got all my street contacts, so I guess I was spying on Old You and told Warren I knew of a way to end his dad’s fix-everything rampage. I probably got André to help, since he’s stuck in the past and I know him.”

           Warren added, “Since I can travel and remember Charlie talking to me, I think I can at least partially piece it together: He could still travel mentally while Old Wes was screwing things up, so he likely jumped to the André in this decade, told him what was going on while he was working on the door and the radio signal it requires, and…”

           Once again, it clicked for Wes before Warren finished. “He designed the door-broadcast system to override quartz travel, so when I eventually went to 1995 and stayed a year… I could erase everything the malicious, old me did.” The boys looked at him expectantly for a few seconds. “I recognized the daemon’s domain. I don’t know how it got inside, but that was the chronosphere test chamber from the lab videos.”

           “I only saw the place once,” Charlie said. “It must’ve been pulled into null spacetime during the lab accident. Also no idea how the daemon critter got in, though.”

           “Null spacetime? That sounds self-explanatory, but what exactly…”

           “It’s what you think. I read André’s papers after I revived the project. It’s just a dark, timeless void, basically. Based off of what Warren told me, that’s where the test chamber is now. I gotta wonder, how your other self managed to escape from there.”

           “Uh… It just hit me. You didn’t say kids back there, right? Like… plural?”

           “You didn’t tell him yet?” Charlie asked as he eyed Warren. “God's sake, dude. I didn’t want to be the one to spring that on him! You said he’d be all filled in already.”

           “Warren?” Wes replied, the tremor in his hand still getting worse, just as it had been since the beginning of all the revelations. “What else are you keeping from me?”

           Without his mask, Warren had to close his eyes to partially conceal his emotions as he shakily answered, “I was… trying to save this until last, for that extra push if you were being stubborn, or hesitated to make me real again, just because maybe I got on your nerves too much. I have… I have a little sister, Dad. Sally. She’s shy, really smart, and loves building Lego sets with you. I haven’t seen her for so long—my other dad only took me on his time-trips. I’ve always tried to be a good brother and watch out for her, and the only way I can… If you don’t give this up for me, do it for her… P-please.”

           Wes went quiet, and turned to stare out at the store ahead. It would be closing very soon, and Wessy had already left at some point during all the real talk.

           “Looks like this is it, old buddy,” Charlie spoke up. “Seems a ton is riding on you making a choice tonight, right here in this Toys ‘R’ Us parking lot. Crazy how things can turn out, huh? Look, it’s great that the past happened, but you can’t let it be some heavy anchor to the rest of your life. That’s just my life wisdom… or whatever. Do what you want. I’m not about drama, and I did my part, so I’m out.” Charlie turned to go back to his own impatient uncle, but not before adding, “Wish I still had a second chance.”

           “Wes. I know it’s tough,” Jace said. “Believe me, I wish you could keep the Toy Run. All the times you told me about it, how happy it made you, how much it defined your childhood… But is there even really a choice here? You have kids.”

           “I couldn’t fix it with your other self around,” Warren added as Charlie and his uncle drove off into the night. “I can’t go back to ’86 to undo the hack—he did it at the time horizon back then, to make sure it was permanent. Is that still who you are? Dad?”

           “Just give me a minute, okay?” Wes blurted out. “This isn’t… This isn’t easy.”

           “Are you serious?” Warren replied with abrupt anger. “Are you freaking for real right now? After all we’ve been through, you still need a ‘minute?’ What about Sally—”

           Unsure of where it came from, Wes burst, “Sally can wait! This is… too much.”

           Warren took a step back in indignation, restrained himself from firing back, and then thought a moment. “W-wait… Isn’t that a… Oh. You asshole. Oasis lyrics? Really? They don’t even make sense! You know what, why did I even get my hopes up? It’s no wonder I grew to hate you. You’re ready to betray your own kids for some fame and cheap plastic! See, Jace? See what he’s capable of? He doesn’t care about anyone other—”

           “I’ll do it,” Wes said, emotionlessly. “Of course, I will. What kind of… horrible dad did I become, even thinking about keeping that trade? I only needed a few seconds to dwell on what I’m about to give up, and how it changed my life. This means that I’ll only get close to being remembered, leaving a mark. Now I’ll disappear, like most of the kids I grew up with. As if I was never there… And I still turn out miserable in the end.”

           Surprised by Wes, Warren replied, “You do leave a mark. This gets you a family, Jared as a business partner, your own company… You just have to try and be happy.”

           Sinking into his own world, Wes closed himself off and shuffled off towards the store lifelessly. Whether he felt guilt, despair, self-loathing, confusion, or all of those emotions at once, he was far from ready to share any thoughts with the boys.

           “Jace, why don’t you go in there, watch him from a distance?” Warren suggested.

           “Are you worried about him? I’ve never seen him get like that…”

           “I just want to make sure he, you know, actually trashes the form.”

           Jace scowled. “Can’t trust him, can you? I know it’s your life on the line, but you were pretty hard on him just now. I’ll follow him in, but for different reasons.”

           That was good enough for Warren, and Jace left him alone with the car.

           “Good evening, sir,” the nearest employee to the entrance greeted a languid Wes as he drifted inside. “We’ll be closing in five minutes, so try to… Um, are you okay?”

           “Uh-huh…” Wes barely acknowledged and floated on by.

           His glassy eyes took in the sight of all the colorful toys, the dozens of variations of games, action figures, and stuffed animals that he had once piled into a shopping cart on national TV. He wondered how quickly that memory would disappear after he did the unthinkable thing he was about to do. He hadn’t expected to even go into the store tonight. He thought he’d be heading home right now, with a big grin on his face.

           He soon arrived at the cardboard drop box for the 1996 Nickelodeon Toy Run, having never forgotten its location in the store, and looked at his trembling hand. To accomplish the mission, he’d have to shut off his brain; it was like closing his olfactory senses to swallow a rotting fish. Just get it over with, he thought, Warren deserves to exist.

           After making sure none of the employees in the emptying store were looking, he took the lid off the box, peered in and spotted his submission form on top of a pile of papers dropped in by hopeful children, then held his breath and plucked it out. At least Wessy wouldn’t have to know. For a few weeks, he could hold onto hope, too.

           Wes gazed at his name in his youthful messy hand writing, before crumpling it up in his big, worn, adult hand. Dreams were shattered, but they were never meant to be.

           “Wes?” Jace said from behind him, and he turned around to look at his nephew.

           “Jace… I did it…” Wes stared at his balled-up fist. “Just like that. Easy…”

           “Your hand isn’t shaking anymore. But you won’t… try again next year, right?”

           Wes shook his head. “I’m not as interested in toys after sixth grade. The Toy Run wouldn’t be a thought in my head by then, if I didn’t win… Why’d you come in?”

           “Well… I just remembered I still need to get a gift for Jared’s birthday tomorrow. And I also figured that you could use one of these, if you did the right thing…”

           Wes was surprised by his nephew upon receiving a hug. He needed a moment to think about how to respond—with a hearty sigh and a few pats on Jace’s back.

           “Sorry you lost something this big,” he told his uncle. “But I’ve seen how much Warren and Sally missed their dad when I was back home. And Sadie, too…”

           As they searched for a gift, Wes tossed the form into a trash can to alter fate. He did wonder, though. If I had all of that, what made me want to change the past in the first place?