Sid pulled the covers up over their naked bodies.

"See?" the voice asked. "Did you see that technique? I told you he had exceptional delivery."

"I don't know…" the second voice replied. "I mean, if this is what he's got for the downtown girls, what's he saving for when he meets his wife?"

Sid poked his head out from under the covers and glared at the two. "She is my wife! We got married today, and you're interrupting our wedding night."

The two exchanged worried looks and typed furiously on their datapads.

Sid paused. "You're from the 51^st century, aren't you?"

The taller one nodded.

"I knew it!" Sid swore. "Get out of here!" 51s are obsessed with 'ancient sex.' Perverts.

The pair vanished.

Why were they so surprised that Hazel was my wife? Shouldn't they know?

She cleared her throat and turned his head to look back at her. "Remember why we're here, dear."

"Oh, right. Sorry."

Sid ran into an alley and ducked behind a dumpster. This traveler had been hard to shake. Why the hell do they follow me, study me? What have I done that was interesting enough? Certainly nothing he could think of. Hell, who am I kidding? I've never done anything right, let alone important. I'm a loser. Unemployed. Useless.

He hoped he could think of anything that would life his spirits, but he couldn't. He couldn't figure out why Hazel wanted to marry him, either. He wasn't all that lovable, or good looking. All he had was technique that impressed sex-obsessed 51s.

Small comfort.

The one that was following him stepped in front of the dumpster, but hadn't seen Sid yet. This chrononaut was different. He looked exactly like Sid, like a twin. And he was drunk. He seemed like he could barely stand.

Sid kicked, knocking the man's feet from underneath him. He hit his head hard on the dumpster on the way down. Sid jumped on his chest.

"Hey!" the man protested. "What did you do that for? All I did was come to watch!"

Sid pressed his knee to the man's chin. "Who are you? Why do you look like me?"

The man laughed. "Because I am you! I'm from the future!"

A pair of time travelers blinked in. They moved to the side of the alley and pointed their camera at them.

Sid said, "Prove it."

The man paused, blearily. "You've got this wart that won't go away, but you don't want anybody to know where it is. You're embarrassed about it. You won't show your doctor. Not even Hazel knows in your time."

Sid paused, the guilt obvious on his face. "What did you come to watch?"

Future Sid grinned. "You're gonna break time, today."

"What do you mean, 'break' time?"

Three more travelers appeared.

Future Sid closed his eyes. "Broken, as in 'doesn't work right anymore.' All the experts insist Einstein had it right, that you couldn't go backwards until you snapped the flow with a paradox. Now, every time a person goes back, time is fixed, again, from that point in history, backwards. You can't change anything. Try to shoot Kennedy. You'll miss. I know, I tried. It's just more of the 'magic bullet' mystique. Can't burn the draft copy Declaration of Independence on Jefferson's desk. It's now fireproof, somehow." He shrugged. "I don't know why."

A large traveler with a handlebar mustache leaned in close and took a picture. "Thanks."

Future Sid made a retching noise and Sid dove off just in time before most of half a bottle of scotch found it's way to the past's pavement.

A piece of paper was thrust into Sid hand. "Can I have your autograph?"

"What a mess," said a familiar voice behind him.

"Hazel?" both Sids said in unison.

"Yes, Hazel," She pulled a handgun from a pocket.

A half-dozen temporal tourists appeared and lined up with the others.

Future Sid shook his head. "What're you doing? You can't shoot anybody here."

She smiled. "Yes, I can." She shot Future Sid in the chest. He hit the ground dead.

Sid dropped to his knees beside Future Sid's body. He looked so strange dead. "Oh, honey. You killed me. I'll never have a future."

"Sure you will. You invented time travel. It happened already for me. He was from the future, so I could kill him. That doesn't break any rules."

What looked like a class trip blinked in.

"But why'd you kill me, er, him?"

She frowned and pointed the gun at Sid. "You were sleeping around on me."

"N-No," Sid stammered, "I didn't. He must have done that, not me. I've only slept with you in the last three years, and I can't go back in time, so that's all there is."

"I know," Hazel said. "That's why I came back to do it with you before you cheated on me."

Sid's head reeled. "You cheated on me with me?"

"Excuse me," said a traveler, "could you turn to the side a little? My kid can't see."

"Yes." She walked forward and placed the gun against his head. She leaned close and whispered in his ear. "There's something you need to know. I'm pregnant, and it's yours. Yours, not his."

"I thought you couldn't do that."

A steady stream of travelers popped in, too many to count.

"Me, too. Then I found out that I could affect things in the past. Witch Hazel was named after me. I realized that I was a part of the paradox, the one who really caused it, because when I pull this trigger, you'll die. You're dead, so you can't go on to invent time travel, but you already did. Paradox. Everything works like it's supposed to."

Sid heard the sound of the bullet. As his vision narrowed to a tunnel, he was struck by all the flash bulbs from the cameras going off.

It was like he was a rock star.

A Time/Space Traffic Control Specialist calls out, "Sir, we have a situation here."

"What now?" demands the overworked Supervisor

"We have 3 incoming Not-OUr-Time-Zoners all vectoring in on the same time line!"

The supervisor states, "What do they think we are, a major time port? We're a small regional port. Some one gave these incomings NOUTZers the wrong Planck coordinates. We're not equipped for the necessary recalculations."

Then he questions in a lighter tone designed to keep things calm, "I wonder if this is going to be worse than when we got two of the same identity from different time lines last year? You should have seen their faces as they stared at each other."

Light laughing is heard all around.

He thinks to himself, we get the mandate and no funds as we were promised two years ago. We should close all access to NOUTZ except to big port cities.

"Sir what is it about our time/location that drives people here?" Asks one of the specialists. He's the new guy sent TDY to this small port for training. He'll be moving on soon.

The supervisor replies, "We're a small art community. We have less hassles and crime than the bigger Time Port Centers have. As you've seen yourself it's a nice place to relax and just enjoy life. Trouble is, the increase in time dependent populations has caused us to increase the tax base, and "clean up" the downtown center. We're loosing the populations that made this place what it is, and what it was. These boorish time travelers have changed everything."

"I hate these time zoners. It was better when it was strictly open to the rich and politically appointed NOUTZers. They accepted the quaintness of our town and left it as it was. Now that we're commanded to accept all the time lines, it's become a mess. We're opened up to all the time lines and populations. They're mostly ignorant, low class, morons and idiots. This is just too much to take on."

"Okay, specialist," he says, "back to these incoming. Vector 3010 to the next port across the river." The supervisor points to another out lying port. "Can you communicate with those three NOUTZers?"

"No sir, I tried" says the specialist. "The gamma ray black holes that they are using for the energy are of a new type. It's blocking all communications. We only have external non-local com-beacons letting us know location or speed. We haven't been upgraded to get both at once or to communicate. We have no directional override."

"Ah shit," the supervisor exclaims in an uncharacteristic manner. "This is really, not good. Get on the comm immediately. Inform the main control center we have a major situation here. Use the red phone."

"Sir, I did that. We're not getting a response. My guess is someone is not at their terminals. And, no one is backing up. This should have come up red on their screens long before now."

"We're going to have three NOUTZers hitting the same spot with small black hole drivers. Has anyone got a handle on just what we can expect?" asks the supervisor.

A young trainee, ashen faced raises his hand, "Sir, I studied at the university for Advanced Dimensional Direction, and this was a worse case scenario, and…"

The supervisor cuts him off, "Thanks, but you don't have to go on. I think I have an idea."

"Sir, we are three timearcs to convergences," a controller announces.

The supervisor is sweating. This was never supposed to happen.

"Gentlemen and Ladies, we have a situation here. It's worse than the permanent residency we have given to some of these time-independent people. I suggest you call your loved ones and speak to them. This may be your last conversation."

The traffic control center is hushed.

Some are crying. One person asks if this is a training program.

"It's got to be," he exclaims, "it's got to be!"

The supervisor states, "Folks, this is real! We have 3 incoming, vectoring on the same Planck-point, at exactly the same time. Some one screwed up at the vectoring centers. And, we can't make the corrections."

Meanwhile a call from the Main Control Center comes in. It buzzes.

"Two timearcs to convergences," states a voice.

"Put THEM on speaker. I want you all to hear this," commands the Supervisor.

From Main Control, different, frantic voices are heard:

"What is going on?!!!"

"Our sensors pick up a 3 vector impact in your port."

"What the hell is going on?"

"Change their direction by a Planck length. You're supposed to have the control override software!"

"Do it now! What's wrong with you people?"

The supervisor, in his calm training voice, "Roger that. The software was never sent. I called. You told us there was a funding issue. We've been calling to inform you of our situation. Since no one answered, I assumed you had it. We have a disaster on hand."

"One timearc to convergences," is heard.

"You have to be kidding! There has to be a misread in the sensors!" the voice from Main Control is shouting. "I hate these NOUTZers. They've done nothing but screw up our lives since this universal time travel was forced from the future."

"30 seconds to convergences."

"It's been nice boy and girls… it's been nice."

"I wonder why they didn't see this one?" The supervisor says to himself as he sits down, stares out the windows, and waits.

The three time ships arrive at exactly the same moment, in exactly the same geolocation, not off a nanometer. Their programming was perfect. The three controlled back holes escape containment. The containment fields were never designed for this type of impact. There is one blinding glow that is just as quickly extinguished as the black holes consume each other. The now large, single uncontained, rapidly growing, rotating black hole gobbles all matter inflowing. A new universe is blown through one end and rapidly inflates.

The future time lines are cut-off.

Max fumbled with the virtual control pad. He slid his breakfast plate out of the way. The display could be found throughout the apartment on every appliance and various solid surfaces and allowed him to control everything from lights to the food he'd have for breakfast, but he had never found the one built into the kitchen table practical. He was always pushing plates and glasses out of the way to see a show or search for something on the Internet. He flipped through channels and finally stopped on TSNN, the network devoted to monitoring the so-called time sphere. Artifacting splattered across the display as sunlight spilled off the sphere's silver mirror-like finish and momentarily over stimulated the camera's lens. The camera operator was making an adjustment; there was a new swirling opening in the sphere's side and six or seven bald individuals came walking out. They proceeded to a gate in a fence near the edge of the screen, spoke with one of the military personnel stationed there, and then continued off the screen and into the unknown.

"So, you're from the future, huh?" The two strange individuals sitting across the table from Max nodded. They had a plastic look about them, no hair to speak of, pale complexions, perfect teeth, proselytizing smiles. They wore white one-piece jump suits. The one who introduced himself as Maaron seemed older, but Max couldn't really say why.

"Yes, we are," said Maaron, "and we are very honored to be the ones to deliver this wonderful news to you." The second one nodded quickly in agreement, as he seemingly disinfected a small device he had moments earlier held against Max's finger.

"Okaaaay," Max said letting his skepticism ooze through. The time sphere had appeared twenty years earlier, one day in June in a cornfield in Iowa. It was the size of four city blocks, a giant shiny ball bearing half-buried in the dirt. It, of course, changed everything. Max was about twelve at the time. He remembered watching the cable news channels, the military swarming around the sphere, the rampant fear, the endless speculation, the secret government negotiations with the strange bald people that came out of it, and then the endless conspiracy theories that followed. Max remembered it being very exciting at the time. For five years protesters surrounded the fenced-in sphere. Then it was leaked that some of the country's new-found prosperity was the result of technology from the future. At some point there was a Kumbaya moment, but Max couldn't remember when. He was in high school at the time and wasn't paying much attention anymore. After that the time sphere and its inhabitants who would come and go with a lingering air of celebrity all became pretty much commonplace.

"So what's the wonderful news?" Max asked, making air quotes with his fingers around the word wonderful, assuming these future men would miss his patronizing attempt at humor.

Maaron leaned forward and spoke in a precise oily whisper. "Our genetic test here has confirmed it. You, Max Morton, are one of the chosen ones." He made a strange circular gesture with his hand at the end of this pronouncement. The other man made the same motion, mouthing the words "chosen ones" at the same time.

Max was starting to wish he hadn't answered the door. A boyish awe had given him little opportunity earlier to consider the consequences of inviting them in.

"And what does that mean, exactly?" Max asked.

Maaron sat up straighter; the other time traveler bowed his head and folded his hands. "Three hundred and sixteen years from now, Wilcox comprehended the true nature of space and time. And with this perfect knowledge, he traveled backwards. But then, he created the great paradox. And he could no longer go forward." Maaron stopped and both men looked back at Max.

"Umm… and a… this paradox was…?" Max asked realizing they expected his participation in this strange liturgy.

Maaron continued, "Wilcox fell in love with his own ancestor and, in his arrogance, tried to return with her to his own future."

"Riiiiiight. And what does this have to do with me?" Max was starting to calculate how he could usher them both back to the door. They were rather small and probably frail.

"You, Max Morton, you are one of the ancestors of Wilcox, one of approximately 952 in this generation, but essential as any other and therefore one of the chosen ones." Both time travelers again made the strange circular gesture.

"Okay," Max said raising his voice in irritation. "But what does being a chosen one mean?"

Maaron smiled a broad synthetic smile. "Being chosen means you will not pass away as all others, but instead will join us in the ark where you will be safe… forever."

"What?" Max stood up abruptly in protest. The rush caused him to see large black spots; he clutched at the table to steady himself but only managed to slump back into his seat, barely able to control his limbs.

Maaron's smile slowly contracted and disappeared as he spoke. "You see, Wilcox created the great paradox and it unraveled all time that was to come after it, leaving only oblivion. Believing that in time he could solve this puzzle and find a way to fix that which he had broken, he traveled further back in time, exacerbating the problem. He realized he had to ensure that his ancestors weren't lost to the oblivion he was creating, thus endangering his own existence, and so he constructed the ark and before he passed away he charged his own descendants with the task of finding and securing each of his ancestors. Missing one would doom us all."

Max could hear but not speak. There were more time travelers waiting outside and they helped move Max into a waiting car.

"You were the last we needed in this generation," Maaron said. "Tonight, the ark will move backwards in time fifty more years and tomorrow will never exist."

"And remember to exercise, Gwynn – at least 30 minutes every day," instructed the shortish woman in her 50s, as the trio quickly walked north on 2^nd Street. "If you can't take care of the planet, you can at least take care of your own body."

"I got you here, didn't I," muttered the 20 something woman under her recently liquored breath.

"I'm sorry, Neenee – we didn't hear what you said", inquired the old man standing beside the first questioner. He touched the young woman on her arm, forcing her to turn towards the couple. "I hope you don't mind us calling you ‘Neenee' – it gives us such a hoot!" The elderly couple just laughed and laughed, the frail man throwing his arms about like a seagull in a high wind. He turned to his wife, schmoozing down to her eye level. "I do love these little visits, sweetums, but the heat is just beastly!" He took a silk scarf from a sequined belt tied loosely around his waist, and rubbed it against his forehead, with as much flair as was humanly possible.

"I'll certainly give exercising my best shot," answered Gwynn before sliding into the next dive bar along the street. "At least yours will be the last generation I'll have to deal with."

"Oh, now, don't be that way, Neenee," fussed the elderly woman, keeping the door open long enough for her companion to sashay inside. "You sound as if I'm some kind of disappointment."

"Brian, a drink please," demanded the young woman, hitting the palm of her hand against the counter top.

The bartender turned around, being irked somewhat, but seeing Gwynn's companions, he softened up. "Fuzzy Navel?"

"Make it a Hairy Navel, Brian - If you would be so kind."

"Brian?" shouted Edgar, waving his scarf over the counter. "This can't be…is this him?"

Gwynn shot her descendants a look that she hoped would stop them from saying anything further, but to no avail.

"Well, it does add up. Gwynn Stewart and Greg Cornish. Is your last name Cornish?" she finally demanded.

"No, madam, my last name is ‘Nunnayerbeeswax'… Greg W. Nunnayerbeeswax." The bartender threw his bar towel upon his left shoulder and leaned forward on the counter, exposing a muscular upper body in his tight, white, tee-shirt.

Edgar giggled wildly. "Isn't he just scrumptious, Edweena! I can see why he was the one, NeeNee…you sly old dog. Maybe on our next visit we'll arrive ten minutes early and I'll give you a little competition, Neenee."

Gwynn rolled her eyes, praying quietly for her descendants to just shut the freak up.

"Come on, Gwynn," said the bartender, edging in towards Gwynn with a playful look on his face. "Maybe they have the right idea. It does happen anyway – so why don't we start this line of descendants right here, right now, right on this bar."

"I'm with you," laughed Gwynn with obvious delight. She was on her knees now on the bar stool, crawling onto the counter, beginning to undo her belt buckle.

The old woman was obviously upset by this turn of events. "Well I never," she exclaimed before leading Edward out of the dive bar.

Gwynn quickly settled back onto her bar stool. "Yeah, I'll bet you never, and certainly not with him!" Those sitting around the bar laughed quietly at the spectacle.

Greg had moved to help other customers at the far end of the bar, but after a bit, he moved down the counter and smiled at Gwynn. "Did I make your drink strong enough?"

She looked up at him and nodded. "The drink is working its magic, one more time."

"They make you crazy don't they? – the future people."

"My…OUR…descendants are just so annoying. People in the old days didn't know how good they had it when everyone stayed in their own time."

"It's probably just because it's June 9^th back here. You know how crazy they are about HIS birthday 150 years from now."

"Yeah, what's that about? He's a gay pirate after all."

"He says he's not gay," said Greg.

"Even with the little sunglasses and the whole Mad Hatter thing?"

"He has kids," said Greg, shrugging his shoulders. "Your guess is as good as mine."

"Well, if he has kids, I hope his descendants are making him as miserable as mine are making me."

"The ones that make me nuts are the ones that try to blend in, just watching me, not saying anything." Greg looked nervously around the bar.

A light appeared at a corner of the bar, starting out as big as a pen light, eventually widening into a hole in the fabric of time 6 foot wide.

"Great-great-grandma Gwynn!" shouted the three people who stepped out, all headed for the woman at the bar.

Without warning, Gwynn got off her bar stool and walked towards the new arrivals. The new trio excitedly held out their elbows in greeting when Gwynn pushed passed them, jumping into the time portal, which closed immediately.

As the trio in the bar began to fade into non-existence, half-a-dozen other patrons did the same.

The Visitors began to descend upon Old Dimebox, Texas in late April. By August, temperatures were hot—-and so were the tempers of the locals. Time travelers had become a fixed feature in the world's sinking cities, places like New Orleans and Venice. They were drawn to war zones, such as the never ending conflict in the Congo. They took lots of pictures of barefoot children with swollen bellies—-but they never, ever offered the kids money or even a bite to eat. They claimed that they were not allowed to "get involved", for fear of changing the future.

By summer's end, Old Dimebox was no longer recognizable. The Visitors were everywhere. They camped in people's meadows, without asking permission, setting up ugly little tents that looked like enormous cow patties. A few of the older residents said that it was just like Woostock, except more hippies and less music.

It was only a matter of time before one of the locals snapped.

William Henry McAllister, known to his friends as Barefoot McAllister, was late for a meeting with the bank. He had finally persuaded the loan officer to renegotiate the mortgage on his solar farm. With electricity prices rising, in large part due to the Visitors' demands for power to run their strange machines, McAllister's farm should have been in the black. However, it had been an unusually rainy summer in central Texas.

At twelve thirty, he attempted to drive his pickup truck down the dirt road that bisected his property. A hundred yards from the highway, the electric engine died—even though he had charged it up fully the night before.

He sat there, gripping the steering wheel in both hands, sweat trickling down his brow into his eyes. The set of his shoulders would have warned his friends and neighbors that he had reached the boiling point. The time travelers, so knowledgeable in some ways, were ignorant when it came to most social customs.

A Visitor approached the driver's side of the pick up. The sun flashed off the shiny metallic fabric of his close fitting hooded jump suit. For some reason, all the Visitors in Old Dimebox wore those suits, though when they traveled to other parts of the world, they tried to dress like the natives.

"Morning," the Visitor said in a ridiculous imitation of a Texas drawl. "Looks like Felix got hungry last night." He indicated his "dog", a small robot which walked on four legs but which bore no other resemblance to man's best friend.

Had the Visitor said "Sorry" and maybe punctuated that word with a sheepish grin, McAllister would have swallowed his anger and let it pass. However, the Visitor just stared at him through those outlandish goggles they all wore.

Barefoot snapped. He grabbed his shotgun and fired it at the robot which had just cost him his farm. The pellets did not even dint the "dog's" hide. So, McAllister pointed the weapon at the Visitor and blew his head off.

They held his trial in November. It should have been hunting season in central Texas, and they should have had trouble forming a jury of McAllister's peers. However, wild animals were protected, now that there were so few of them left. The only way a buck would get shot nowadays was if some school kid decided to take its picture.

At four thirty on Monday afternoon, the attorneys wrapped up their arguments. The jurors barely listened. They all knew what had provoked Barefoot. Each of them had been forced to contend with arrogant Visitors, and they were pissed. It took them three days to decide their fellow townsman's fate, but only because they could not figure out a good reason to find him Not Guilty—-he had already told the court that he intended to blow the Visitor's head off and yes, he had a pretty good idea that would kill a man from the future the same way it would kill someone from the present.

When the foreman read the jury's decision "We find the defendant not guilty of the crime of murder, because how can you kill someone who ain't been born yet?" the locals were jubilant. No matter how hard the judge pressed his electronic gavel button, they would not stop celebrating. McAllister was carried from the courtroom on the shoulders of his friends and neighbors. Even the banker was there, promising to take care of his mortgage problems. It was the best day in Barefoot's life—

Unfortunately, it was also his last. When word reached the future (in a matter of nanoseconds) about the jury's ruling and its implication for Visitors—

"You know how savage those primitives are," said the Prime Minister of North America, Risa Elizondro McMasters Smith. "If they find out that one of their courts has sanctioned murder, it will be open season on time travelers. I consider this an act of war. You know what to do," she told the Army Chief of Staff with a significant look.

It was an unofficial action, of course. As far as anyone would ever know, the maze of underground gas wells and pipelines which crisscrossed the state of Texas just decided to explode, with the worst damage centered in Old Dimebox. An enormous fireball, the size of Tokyo Tower II shot up into the blue, cloudless Texas autumn sky, incinerating millions of locals—-and destroying all records of Barefoot McAllister's trial.

The Visitors, who had come to Old Dimebox specifically to witness the worst natural gas disaster in history, were safe inside their shock absorbent temperature controlled shelters and flame retardant suits. They got some excellent footage of the explosion and its aftermath, and then they packed up and headed home—blissfully unaware of their own role in the disaster which had leveled the two hundred year old Texas town.

(Note: The original document was found at Archaeological Site 0732-9324. This is the best translation we have, rendered into the modern alphabet. Fortunately, though written, it was never delivered, as it would have immediately led to the premature discovery of the Time Travel Historian's Society had it been found).

To His Imperial Majesty:

I have, over the past hour, met at least fifteen people who claim to be visitors from the future. This claim, of course, is ludicrous; it does not take a genius to see that these men are all spies. I suspect that most of them are Russian in origin, but I have no proof of that other than that one of them mentioned Moscow when engaged in conversation.

As I was badly outnumbered, I felt that my humble self would be of more use to the Emperor in warning him of these invaders than in killing them immediately; I could not, myself, have stopped more than two of them before being killed, and the others may have at that point hidden, unknown to the loyal subjects of your Imperial majesty.

I had been on my way to pay a visit to my sister, here in Shima Surgical Clinic, where she was undergoing treatment for an ankle which she had carelessly sprained the day before (that is, the fifth of August) when I met them. There were large numbers of them, walking along the pavements and the streets, and, much like ghosts, through the walls and other people. This latter behaviour in particular was extremely shocking, but it quickly became clear to me that they were neither demons nor ancestors. One of them pointed to me and said something in a strange language (I presume that this was Russian, but as I have never heard Russian I cannot be certain), and within moments all fifteen had surrounded me and were asking the strangest questions.

I know that it is often surprising what spies for the enemy would want to know, but I fail to see what enquiring as to the nature of this humble servant's latest meal, or the amount that one would pay for a fresh egg, is of any particular use to the Russians - or anyone else, for that matter. I have prepared a full list of the questions that were asked, which I shall enclose within this letter. No doubt they only asked whether this was indeed 1945 in order to support their ludicrous tale.

As a loyal servant of my Emperor, I naturally refused to make any word of answer, at which they fell to argument, first with me and then, as I remained silent, with each other. They claimed to be researchers from the far future; however, this they were evidently not, for any researchers from the far future would naturally also be subjects of your Imperial majesty's honoured descendants and, when I asked which Emperor was reigning in their age, they said that there was no Emperor.

Having thus satisfied myself that they could not be what they claimed, I managed to escape from them and hurried to the hospital. I noted the clock as I came in: 8:00, August the sixth. At the time, I also noted a radio report indicating that a few enemy planes had been sighted, no doubt too few to be on any mission but reconnaissance.

I do believe, however, that these ghostly spies are important to the plans of our enemies, and I thus must urge your Imperial majesty to act swiftly in dealing with this new outrage. I also suspect that the existence of these ghostly spies is the reason why the enemies of the Empire have not yet bombed this fair Imperial city of Hiroshima.

The last thing Steve Brannon needed today, of all days, was for one of the time travelers – "temporal observers" some called them – to show up. Alternately praying for good luck and mildly cursing the ubiquity of the observers, whose observing was getting pretty darned annoying of late, Steve drove his sputtering '93 Corolla through town to his fiancé Jill's house.

It was a fine, spring morning – sunny, bright, and beginning to warm nicely. Steve was dropping by before work, not his usual style, to spring the big question on Jill. He was hoping to catch the observers off-guard, make his move while they were still sleeping, or whatever it was they did when they weren't interfering in every single moment of the world's waking life.

At first the observers had freaked everybody out, scared the pants off of them. It was a pretty good shock to learn that the 33^rd century had figured out time travel, but luckily they weren't malignant beings at all, just seemed like regular people – with odd clothing styles.

After a few months, their daily, constant emerging as if from nowhere and their incessant watching and recording became mundane – if still unsettling at times. They would unexpectedly appear in your kitchen while you were trying to butter toast, materialize in your cubicle at work, in a flash fill up all the empty seats at a ball game.

But disasters, oh, boy, that was their favorite. They loved disasters. If there was the least little fender bender, there they were. Any kind of crime – zillions of them. Tornadoes, hurricanes, snow flurries, a dust devil – they were all over it. Maybe there will be a fifty-car crash this morning (with no injuries), Steve fantasized as he neared Jill's house.

"Yieee!" he suddenly cried out.

There was one, right in the seat next to him. A female. Wearing some sort of costume that barely hid the parts that were ordinarily, or supposed to be, hidden – at least here in the early twenty-first century.

"Who the heck is that?" Jill demanded to know the minute she opened her front door to Steve and the highly observable observer.

"I can explain," Steve said lamely.

He was hoping Jill would understand he had nothing to do with the presence of the curvy temporally vacationing one.

"You'd best, buster," Jill frowned as the lovely observer smiled shyly.

Steve considered taking his shirt off and putting it on the woman but he didn't know that he could even do that.

"I…I…came over early to ask you …" he instead muttered to Jill.

"What" she asked, placing one arm on her hip in a, Steve thought, rather defiant manner.

The observer smiled and winked at Steve and turned so that both he and Jill could see her classic profile.

"Uh…," Steve tried again.

"Get it out, mister," Jill prompted him. This wasn't going how Steve had imagined.

Not knowing what else to do, he impulsively pulled a small box out of his pocket and thrust it at Jill.

"What's this?" she asked.

"O…open it?" Steve said meekly.

The observer wiggled her shoulders seductively and tossed back her blue-hued mane of hair. Steve was briefly mesmerized. Briefly. He was brought back to his own real time by the impact of the box he'd handed to Jill. It careened off his chest and hit the floor, the engagement ring coming out of the box and sliding across the floor. The observer aimed some sort of device at the skidding ring and then a flash went off.

Great, Steve thought, now there's a record of my idiocy up in the 33^rd century.

He quickly retrieved the ring but as he turned towards Jill's door again, she slammed it shut. Hard.

For some reason, Steve checked his watch.

"Oh, my God," he exclaimed. "I'm gonna be late to work and I have to give a presentation."

He raced to his car and jumped in. The blue-haired 33^rd century babe reappeared beside him, blinking into view like a projected hologram. Man, that was bugging him. Steve turned angrily towards the observer but she just smiled sweetly, pressed something and vanished. He thought she might have mouthed "sorry" just as she disappeared – might have, who knew?

Racing towards work, Steve tried to remember how he was going to open the presentation and how, if he did well, he was going to approach his boss about a raise. Jill would forgive him, maybe, if he could get a promotion or more money at work.

His cell phone rang just as he was pulling into a parking space at work. It was his mother. Jill had called her. Told her everything. Told her about the hot temporal observer. His mother was adamant. He had to stop screwing his life up, bringing a space alien with him to propose to his girlfriend of all things.

"Bye, mom," he said finally, dropping his phone to make it seem he'd lost cell service.

He would apologize to her and Jill later. Alone, hopefully.

"Okay," he said to himself. "Straighten up. Go get ‘em."

"Oh, no," Steve wailed, looking in the rear view mirror, "not again."

There were two new observers in the back seat, dressed like businessmen – even carrying briefcases. They smiled at Steve in the mirror.

"Please," Steve begged, "I've got a presentation to give. I'm gonna ask for a raise."

"No problem, Stevie," he easily read the lips of one of the observers, "It'll be fun. You'll see."

With a deep sigh, Steve leaned his head against the steering wheel causing the horn to wail. He made no effort stop it. In the back seat, the observers looked at each other and shrugged. If Steve could have seen their lips again he could have read them one last time.

"Boy," the one who had spoken to Steve before said to his partner, "they sure are a touchy bunch, these primitive earthlings."

"They sure are," his partner agreed, "very touchy indeed."

Starship Clearwater, 3.5 million metric tons of human ingenuity and brilliance, tacked galactic south until its proper motion matched that of its white dwarf engine star, Clydesdale.

"We're in position," said Stocking, the pilot.

Dr. Gregg Kavet, Clearwater's director, nodded. "Ready to give old Mother Nature a pinch?" he asked the ship's resident astrophysicist, Dr. Sing Tzu.

The Asian man nodded and Kavet said, "All right, give Clydesdale the reins."

Outside, the star field adjacent and about 0.2 AU from Clydesdale began to ripple and waver as if viewed through a hazy atmosphere. Almost at once the white dwarf began falling towards the depression Clearwater had created in spacetime, like a marble rolling down a drain.

"Extrusion point projected with minimal power loss," said Tzu without looking up from his holo-panel. "Tidal stresses are well within shear tolerance."

Clearwater rumbled, floor plates shaking like an old-fashioned subway car, as Clydesdale's gravity coaxed it into motion. Although the ship and crew had made this type of jump several times before, Kavet always got butterflies at this point. Of course, if any of the jumps Clearwater had made deserved a fluttery stomach, it was this one.

Where the previous time shifts had been to significant periods in Sol System's past, and those of only a few million years at most, this one would be Clearwater' greatest feat to date.

Its mission was two-fold. First, solve the Paradox of Youth at the center of the Milky Way. Second, and related to the first, find out what started the event dubbed Spinbirth by its discoverer, Ted Figgen, one hundred fourteen years ago in the year 2018.

Figgen, an astrophysicist, determined that the Milky Way had begun to flatten and become a spiral galaxy almost exactly 7.2 billion years before present day. This very precise calculation, though proven and refined by later astronomers, baffled scientists of every stripe.

Coupled with the Paradox of Youth — the existence of many young stars at the Milky Way's center — Spinbirth had become one of modern man's greatest mysteries, and one that had remained unsolvable until the creation of Clearwater. Now humanity would have its answers.

Kavet smiled at the thought. It reminded him of a poem by one of his favorite 21^st century authors who had chided man for dreaming of traveling time since he was already a time traveler, moving from moment to moment into infinity.

"Insertion," said Tzu.

Clydesdale proceeded out of the rip in spacetime like a fiery pinball, Clearwater coasting in its wake.

"Let's have a look," said Kavet.

The bridge environment disappeared, replaced by a 360 degree view of the star field.

"What the hell?" said Kavet.

Stars crowded every part of visible space about Clearwater, flooding the ship's polarized screens with light.

Alarms began to wail.

"Radiation warning," said Clearwater's AI in a cool, male voice.

The deck shook violently. Stocking did something at his post and it lessened, though the hull still trembled.

"Clydesdale has fallen into the gravity well of a red giant about 3 AU from our current position," said Tzu.

"Collision course?" asked Kavet. His heart was racing, but he couldn't let it show. No need to worry the junior crew members.

"No," said Tzu. "It's safe, but I don't like our chances surviving that much heat and radiation. I suggest we unhitch now and move out into deeper waters."

"Do it."

Clearwater veered away from its engine star and the deck ceased its tremors. After a few seconds the warbling alarm stopped and the AI sounded an all clear.

Kavet stared at the star field, dotted with white, yellow, and red suns.

"Are we in the right when?" he asked.

"Yes," said Tzu. "And the right place. We're about a thousand light years from galactic center. You can see it there." He pointed at a bright halo of light circling a black sphere.

"What's with all this then? I don't see enough —" Kavet froze. "Tzu, did I just see a star appear?"

"I saw that too," said Stocking.

"And another," said Tzu.

"Dr. Kavet," said Stocking, his voice awed, "we're detecting a massive number of vessels in the area.

"How many is massive?"

Stocking paused, staring at his instruments as if he could change them by dint of will. When they didn't, he said, "Hundreds of millions, sir."

"What?"

"He is correct," said Tzu, a bit of Japanese accent creeping into his voice. "I'm detecting roughly the same number of stars."

Kavet felt sweat bead his forehead.

"Tzu, any chance we can catch Clydesdale and go home?"

Tzu shook his head. "We need flat space for that — no intervening gravity wells."

Kavet scanned the star field. The place was lousy with stars.

"What the hell is happening here?" he asked.

Tzu left his science station to walk across the bridge, his eyes fixed on Sagittarius A, the super massive black hole at galactic center.

Kavet knew the man too well not to recognize a sudden insight. He waited while his science officer studied the heart of their galaxy.

"Spinbirth," breathed Tzu. "We cause it — are causing it."

"We who?"

"We, as in every sentient civilization in the galaxy that manages to create time travel. We all come here to see what happened. We come here and we cause it by emptying the galaxy's outer shell, moving all these stars to the center, not only creating the spin, but simultaneously setting up the Paradox of Youth."

Several more stars, one a main sequence like Sol, popped into existence in the field.

"How do we get back to our future?" asked Kavet, fearing the answer.

Tzu turned to face the director, silent for a moment.

"One second at a time."

"In 1914 the Archduke of Austria and his wife, while on their Gräf & Stift tourer, were attacked by a group of assassins, among whom there was also Princip, a member of Young Bosnia. A grenade was thrown at their car, but the Archduke deflected the bomb and some conspirators were detained, but Princip evaded their search…"

His Superior's voice resonated inside the examination room. Frank sat at the desk,listening in silence to that report, while the tester kept telling the facts occurred in Sarajevo just before World War I.

"The Archduke survived the assault, but the same day his wife decided to visit the wounded at the local hospital. Anyway, General Potiorek ordered the motorcade take an alternate route not to enter the city centre, but Leopold, their driver, took a wrong turn onto a side street. When the General remonstrated with Leopold, the tourer began backing up, but, cause of weird circumstances, Princip, who was still on the run, spotted them nearby. He approached their car at once and fired his gun against the Archduke and his wife, too. Both of them died…"

Frank's blue eyes stared at his Superior's face: fifty-one but looking almost ten years younger, the sides of his grey hair kept short, six feet tall(one foot taller than him) with a big nose, the middle-aged tester wore a brown suit. He had the same look you could have got a glimpse of in a fellow servant garbed in a livery from another time…

"What did you gather from this case study?" his Superior asked the student, good looking features and a typical crew cut.

"The Society for the Right Time Course intervened there…"Frank answered.

"Correct! Our sworn enemies tried to save the heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne, just to make the premises for the beginning of WWI never come true…"

"Yes," the fair-haired boy nodded. He knew the real examination was still to begin for him…

"Now, just to make me understand you are ready for the work laying ahead of you, show me your deductive reasoning…"

"Of course…" that was the moment his three-year training period at the School for the Right Time Course had been instructing Frank for.

"I say that things were arranged so that the assassin and the Archduke had to run into each other again in that precise point, after the first failed attempt at assassination…and our connection on-site, that day, was the driver who kept history back on tracks on behalf of the Society, as the unfortunate turn the car made is an ascertained historical fact…"

"Yes, good… really a perfect choice for any time agent there…"

"Definitely. Moreover, the name of that driver was Leopold and Leopold was you!"

The Superior smiled "Not exactly, my young boy…actually I acted as the "controller" of the driver's mind at the right time, but Leopold never knew or remembered what he did…Anyway, well done! You noticed the driver was the only matter to focus upon!"

"I made it thanks to your teachings…"Frank acknowledged, relieved for his exploit.

"Undoubtedly, you proved the money our Society spent in your training produced the expected results…now you are ready to be part of one team of ours, travelling back in time to put things in order where our adversaries tried to change past history, modifying the events for a different reality more favourable to fit their own purposes…in the field you just need to be adaptable, clever at spotting an enemy time agent(and there are usually many of them in the surroundings at the same time…) playing as a villager or working under cover…

"I'll help you wherever possible…in the following days we'll deepen our inquiring into some unpredictable historical facts of the past where our Society intervened to put everything in the right place…

"For example, in 1098, when the besieging First Crusaders, after entering Muslim Antioch, were besieged by another massive Turkish army. When the few starving Christians went out of the town for a decisive battle, according to legend, an army of Angels came to their aid…Well, maybe we used some exaggerated special effects there…" the Superior smirked "Or we could examine two time missions especially suited to save Christianity and Islam, too. You know, two Great Khans of the Mongols curiously died during the Middle Ages, the first when Christianity - in Europe - was on the point of yielding to the advancing Mongols from the eastern steppes, and the second in 1260, when Islam was on the brink of complete defeat because of the same warriors…In both cases the Mongol Generals had left with most of their troops to vote in a new Great Khan, so their remaining armies weren't capable of keeping their new occupancies abroad…"

"Not to speak of the mysterious voice an ancient Roman heard in 390 B.C., warning him of the oncoming attack by the Gauls…" Frank added.

"…but Rome's authorities did not believe him and so the Gauls entered the city easily…"

"Exactly! But now it's late…see you in the common dining room at 8:00 PM to discuss this matter…"

When the Superior had left, the boy knew that - as a new "time agent" - finally he could have the chance to damage the Society's instrumentations in that time as an under cover infiltrator from the distant future…

What could his Superior ever think of him if just he had known Frank came from another time, when the same Society had decided this historical period (and even that middle-aged man) had to be changed or wiped out whatever the cost?

It was a simple reversal in beliefs on time-policy; these were the orders!

One day, who knows, maybe, the same Society could decide to wipe out Frank himself, too, and that whole intrigue, according to some new political system…

I'd been a cop for eleven years when the first time travelers started showing up. So I remember things like lotteries, casinos and numbers rackets. It was March, right after I got my gold shield, when some geek kid at M.I.T. ‘cracks' the time barrier and starts all this. They can't go back to any time before she does her little experiment, or we'd have been tripping over these bastards throughout all of recorded history.

My story is the same as most cops my age. Divorced, no kids, no close family, just The Job. These, and the fact that I was booked on a flight that crashed made me a perfect candidate for the Time Cops. One way or another, my old life was over, I was out of the timeline. They made me an offer I couldn't refuse.

I ain't bitchin', though.

I'm still kickin', I'm still on The Job, and the medical coverage in the 30th Century is outstanding. Only problem I have is the time travelers, themselves. I hate those guys. And now here I am one. Go figure.

The 21^st Century is as primitive a time as crooks can get to, so they think the pickings are pretty easy. They keep tellin' me that I can't change history. I mean I really can't. Nothin' any time traveler does has any effect on the timeline. There's a lot of fun to be had, if you have the right attitude. And hey, any time I screw-up, I can just go back and fix it. Problem is, so can the perp, or sometimes, his family.

Last Tuesday, for instance. I went back to my time—when I was still a real cop—to pick-up some 25^th who got himself nabbed by the locals trying to steal a bunch of comic books. The collector lived in a trailer park and kept his stash under his bed. Don't know how the perp found out about ‘em, but he decided to help himself to a few of the choice bits. He has to leave a few of the good ones, of course. If he stole ‘em all, he wouldn't have been able to find out that the Collector used to keep these things under his bed. Get it?

The perp had all kinds of 25^th—Century burglary gear, none of which impressed the neighbor's Doberman. Guy's lucky he still has a crotch.

So I show up at the Station with my ID out, and ready to lead the perp—and ALL his futuristic gear—off to his time to face charges. When I see myself, already leading him out. Only I'm bulked-up, I look like Schwarzenagger, all of a sudden.

"Oh Crap," is all I got to say. The Sh@t is about to hit the fan.

Been there, done that, got the scars to prove it. "Schwarzenagger" equals body armor. A future me had come in twenty minutes early to start this little dance. In this job, I've run into myself way too many times to let it bother me.

I didn't notice the lady across the street until she opened-up with the plasma pistol. By the 25^th, those things are pretty small. I've shot ‘em, and they are mean, loud, and have a kick like a mule. I have to tell you she's a better shot than I will ever be. I—body armor me—went down like I'd been forced to watch C-SPAN.

"Mom?" The perp yells. "No!" People are running and screaming in all directions, and the little stunner I carry is barely clear of the holster, when another future me in body armor steps out of the alley behind her and raises his…uh… my stunner and says something that I can't hear. The perp, cuffs and all, is running across the street towards us… them and it's clear he ain't gonna make it. The UPS driver locked the brakes, but it wasn't going to be enough.

Out of nowhere, an older version of the mom—prison tattoos and all—comes barreling-in like a linebacker and knocks the perp out of the way. The truck swats her like a fly. From the way she skitters down the pavement, it looks like she's wearing some kind of kinetic shock memory fabric. It's why there ain't no bullets outside of museums, after the late 23^rd. She'll hurt, but she'll live.

Just for safety, I stun the perp before he can stand up and then hear my own voice calling for help. Mom-one has him—me—pinned up against a wall and is punching him in the head. She is one tough broad, that one. She's going at him like Muhammad Ali just heard somebody disrespect his hairdo. I try the stunner but she's wearing something that disperses the field. I must forget that when I go back to take her after she shoots the other me with the plasma pistol.

Now I'm the one dodging traffic as I run across the road to pull my own ass out of the fire.

Before I get there, another—much older—version of the son runs up and tackles her.

‘Ma, you're just making it worse," I hear him say as I run up and stun them both with close range head shots.

By now, the local cops are piling out of the building. Don't forget, this whole mess happened right in front of a police station. Only they got real guns drawn.

I show my ID and have them start lining up the bodies on the sidewalk.

Perp one and mom one go with me. Perp two and mom two haven't committed any crimes that I know of, so I'll let body armor me—the one without the bloody face—deal with them.

I look at bloody face me and he just grins like an idiot. Good thing they can fix teeth in the 30th.

Neither one of us is gonna want to write this FUBAR up.