movie.act3p2

scenes xliii-lxiv

Royal Valley's Big Gamble

           “This should be close enough,” Kiza said a few feet from where his vehicle was parked, on an air landing zone at the edge of a public lot. He went to its cargo hold and took out two protected cases, one of them quite large—though he had no difficulty holding both with his augmented arms. “Hopefully nine hours is enough time to find Yosuke. Like I said… he is shy. Not at all like his television persona.”

           “This is a nice park,” Laurie commented as she and the others took in the sight of a large greenspace by one of the ancient, main roads that brought people into the city. “Good view of all the skyscrapers, too. And the weird… sorta surreal advertisements.”

           “What used to be here?” Lucy asked Kiza. “I’m sure I’d figure it out eventually.”

           “The… community center?” Wes guessed.

           “Oh. Very good,” Kiza said. “You know well the layout of Royal Valley.”

           “Heh, well… I have recreated it in city-building sims several times over the years.”

           “Mr. Colton, as my hands are full… If you would take us back to 2024?”

           “Uh, sure.” Wes took out his quartz. “But why not just go straight to 1956?”

           “I am about to deploy experimental, proprietary time travel technology. I need to make sure there are no prying eyes that would understand what they are seeing. And here, we are out in the open. The building in your own time can provide us some cover.”

           “Well… okay, then. Sorry your visit to the future was so short, Luce,” Wes said and dialed in a time and date. “Would’ve been cool to go up to a space station together.”

           She replied, “Not sure I’m ready for that. The park rides still make me nauseous.”

           Wes opened up a portal, and everyone took turns going through—himself going in last after giving the 29^th century one more look, hoping he’d see it again one day.

           It was just past dawn on the other side. A cool, dry, and quiet early morning. The community center wouldn’t open for a few hours yet, and the parking lot was empty.

           “Monday, the morning after we last spoke to December,” Wes explained. “Guess we’re not gonna be here very long, though. So, Kiza, what’s in the big box?”

           The Suto Dynamics CEO looked around to make sure no one was lurking nearby and no cameras had an eye on the front of the big building, and then put down the large case and popped it open. Everyone got a good look inside, but it was Wes’ eyes that grew the largest… when he began to realize what the five long things of plastic, on their sides and tucked between foam inserts, must have been.

           “Ooooh, don’t tell me…” Wes touched one of them, and looked up at Kiza to make sure it was okay to pull it out. He’d picked a bright cyan one, and upon seeing the colorful geometric designs on its flat top, turned absolutely giddy. “Psssh! They really are hoverboards! Hell yes! And! We’ll even be using them in the 1950s! Oh, Kiza, you are a man after my own heart. I never thought I’d be living Back to the Future II dreams…”

           Lucy, Jace, and Laurie took others out, choosing olive green, navy blue, and hot pink boards, respectfully. Jace was the first to test their capabilities after he found the touch-activated glass panel on the side of his and dropped it to the ground—and, as expected, it stopped about six inches off the pavement and quietly stayed in the air.

           “My son’s collection of boards,” Kiza explained. “He keeps them pristine. They are the only things he likes more than sitcoms from your era. Try not to break them.” He noticed that all four of the locals were already staring at him a little sheepishly. “Oh. Do these looks mean… None of you have skateboarded? No?! Not even you, Wes and Lucy? You are children of the 1990s, are you not? Was this not the ‘cool’ thing to do?”

           “No one in my circle ever really… got around to it,” Wes admitted.

           “But we will likely have to keep close to a moving car, in a dangerous world of the past where people and objects are unyielding—they crushed even the robots we sent in, if they got in their way.” Kiza let out a long sigh, but then seemed calmed by the feel of the lovely morning air. “I suppose we can spare an hour for a crash course. It is not so difficult, to bend your knees and lean forward or back to adjust speed. I will show you.”

           “I’m sure we’ll get the hang of it,” Wes tried to reassure Kiza. “I taught Jace how to ride a bike pretty quickly when we were doing our thing. He took right to it.”

           “Aw, you did?” Lucy replied. “Er, hold on… I taught him when he was eight!”

           “I guess you didn’t in the timeline where Warren wasn’t around… Speaking of, should we maybe go get him in 2026? He usually ends up being a big help.”

           “Let’s give him a break,” Jace insisted. “He deserves to forget and get some rest.”

           “It’s actually been a while since I did this myself…” Kiza said, taking out the jet-black board and stepping onto it with wobbly legs as it hovered. “Ah… This brings me back to the days of defying my own father, and getting in trouble across Kita.”

           “Hey, you should find time to ride around with Yosuke,” Lucy said, partly in jest.

           “That… could actually be nice…” Kiza said longingly. “For now, let’s begin.”

           “Okay, Lucy and Laurie, that’s enough…” Wes groaned, as he and Jace held their boards by the building’s doors where Kiza was setting up his horizon-breaching gizmo.

           “Oh, fine,” Lucy said and ended her third hoverboard race with Laurie midway across the parking lot. “I guess we probably should stop before anyone comes by and realizes that these… don’t have wheels. Not sure skateboarding is allowed here, either. I’d say we all did pretty well, though! And I think you’re a natural, Lor.”

           “I am already pretty good at rollerblading…” Laurie kicked the board up into her arms. “But these obviously have autopilot things going on. They got built-in AI?”

           “Yes,” Kiza answered. “Though Yosuke keeps their input at the lowest setting.”

           Wes, studying the strangely-shaped gizmo, remarked, “So… the time crystals are made out of quartz, and that thing looks like an hourglass. I sense a… time theme.”

           “Purely a coincidence.” Kiza finished setting up what looked like a metal cage in the aforementioned shape, by placing his quartz right in the middle of the device where it snapped in place. “Tiny particles of matter and antimatter collide around the crystal and create a microscopic blackhole. Its implosion allows the quartz to send us past the barrier. I put in the date as usual, and all we have to do is hold onto part of the frame.”

           “Uh, neat. Do we go through the blackhole ourselves? … Will that, um… hurt?”

           Kiza grinned. “Only the crystal does. Then, we teleport with it as we would when traveling without a portal. It is remarkably simple, actually. Before the incident up on the station, we were merely unaware of the math and physics. Now, is everyone ready?”

           The other four gave one another “let’s do it” looks and each grabbed hold of one of the metal rods that surrounded the hourglass. After a deep breath, Kiza hit the button on top of the gizmo, and it made a warm-up sound like a camera flash before igniting its matter-anti-matter fuel. Just like the old pink quartzes that Wes and Jace had once used, the sensation was… anticlimactic; more of an instant arrival that lacked real feeling—although, there was something mesmerizing about being in a bright, colorful 2024 Royal Valley one moment, and the next, entering a black and white world on a night in 1956, right outside of a glamorous, busy casino adorned with a giant, lit-up vertical marquee.

           “Holy…” Wes murmured. “It… it worked. Wow! Look at everyone’s clothes!” He gawked about at the suits, elegant dresses, and hats on every fella. “I feel like I’m in a classic noir movie.” He then gazed at his grayscale hands. “Still creeped out, though.”

           “Yeah, I’ll never get used to this,” Jace said as he tried to nudge a discarded paper bag on the sidewalk with his foot, which refused to budge. “Be careful, everyone.”

           “I… I feel underdressed,” Lucy said self-consciously. “And really out of time.”

           “They can’t see us, Lucy,” Laurie reminded her and watched a woman go by in a fur coat and pearls. “Mmm… I do admit. High-end 1950s fashion is kinda timeless.”

           “Just look at this boulevard, all the old buildings! Ah!” Lucy gasped as a streetcar went by. “The old trolley system is in its prime and must still have full coverage! And I knew the world was black and white in the old days, just like I said to Mom when she’d make me watch movies from the 40s and 50s…” She looked at the others, who were staring at her. “Oh, what? Come on, Wes, don’t all small kids get that idea the first few times they see a classic film? Anyway. Sorry, Kiza, I bet we need to get moving, right?”

           “Actually…” Kiza squinted at the holographic clock on the quartz that was still in the ‘hourglass’ he held with his left hand. “He might be showing up, right about…”

           A 1950 Cadillac limousine pulled up to the casino entrance, its reflective metal covered in streetlamp and building lights. The chauffeur got out and opened the rear door, and there was no mistaking the identity of the man that emerged first. He was tall and mustached, wore expensive shoes and a pinstripe suit, and looked nothing at all like the frail centenarian Wes and Jace had once seen in a wheelchair back at King Arcade’s groundbreaking. Accompanying him this evening was a shorter, bespectacled man with a bowtie. And he was carrying two very familiar leatherbound briefcases.

           “Hadron McMare and Sherman Miller…” Lucy murmured and leaned in for a closer look—only to be pulled back to safety by Wes. “Two local legends. Right there…”

           “Come along now, Mr. Miller,” Hadron said in his commanding, slightly gravelly Scottish accent. “We don’t want to keep the others waiting, now do we?”

           “I still say that our dealings with these types is a mistake,” Sherman fretted. “You are testing your luck with big city mobsters, Hadron. You know how I feel about that.”

           Royal Valley’s founder and current mayor was undeterred, and Kiza stepped aside as if to let them pass. He gestured for the others to follow them in as the doorman did his job, and the five slipped inside before a door they’d never be able to manipulate closed on their faces—or disturbingly, even crushed them between the frame.

           “You can’t show these men fear, Mr. Miller,” Hadron advised. “Chin up, lad.”

           The interlopers followed Sherman and Hadron through the crowded casino, at a steady pace and with a focus on their own safety—given that getting smacked by a gambler whose movements were immortalized seventy years ago and were unchangeable could easily lead to broken bones, or worse. Fortunately, Hadron’s fame and social standing meant that he stopped, or was stopped, plenty of times to chat with other local elites, or to just grab a drink on his journey to a private room in the back.

           The art deco style building, once lost to time but now made real and visceral again, had all the typical attractions: slot machines, roulette tables, poker and blackjack, dolled-up ladies with drink trays, pillars and walls covered with mirrors, and very few winners. And while many of the people playing, or being played, looked like unsavory types, there were also visitors of lower social standing in less expensive clothes, and off-duty airmen from the airbase that now existed where King Arcade would in forty years.

           “Wow, Wes. Place is even nicer than the casino we went to in Vegas,” Jace said.

           “What?! Wes, you didn’t mention that!” Lucy snapped after dodging a socialite.

           Wes replied, “It was part of a road trip, Luce… I only gambled a little, as a joke.”

           “Why did McMare have Miller bring the bonds into the casino before the first bets were made?” Kiza wondered, his eyes on the briefcases Sherman kept in an iron grip.

           They tailed Hadron and Sherman all the way into the private game room, which featured an ornate baccarat table with pearl inlays. The only people waiting for the duo were the older man playing for the house, known as the banker in this game, and the two men in gray suits who were—stereotypes notwithstanding—definitely mobbed up.

           “There he is, Mr. Mayor himself,” Bill said without leaving his seat. “Here I was starting to think you weren’t gonna show. But you aren’t known for cold feet, are ya?”

           “Mr. Baunder…” Hadron ‘greeted’ him. “And… friend?”

           “Never mind him. Just my card-holding patsy for the evening. We’re playing the game with all four of us tonight. Just you and me is a little dull, don’t you think?”

           “M-me?” Sherman said nervously. “Oh, n-no… Gambling makes me nervous.”

           “Then relax with a drink. I got a few questions for you later on, but I want to get to know you first. And the way I do that, is by placing bets. Now, sit down.”

           “It’s all right, Mr. Miller,” Hadron assured him. “You don’t have to play well.”

           “Ha,” Bill forced a laugh. “And you don’t either, if you don’t want. Mr. Mayor.”

           “They’ve been at it for a half hour,” Kiza said, checking the quartz that length of time later. “And kept it relatively low-stakes, too. Hadron’s playing at something.”

           “I don’t get card games,” Wes admitted, studying the back-and-forth of betting and dealing as Bill and Hadron used different ash trays. “But look at the empty glasses—two for Hadron, six for Bill. Maybe he wants Bill drunk and prone to making mistakes.”

           “I’ve seen baccarat in a show before,” Lucy said, watching the banker deal out another batch of cards on the wooden ‘shoe.’ “It’s a version called punto banco. Any style of the game is mostly luck. Even so, Hadron doesn’t seem to be playing well. You know who else played this, at least in the books? James… Bond! Oh, come on, guys. Nothing?”

           Jace and Laurie, who’d been pacing around the table—the room’s furniture had no give in their cushions and weren’t comfortable at all—suddenly needed to get out of the way of another gorgeous woman in heels bringing over alcohol to the players. Once again, only Bill and his buddy accepted, although Hadron did have a proposal for her.

           “What are you doing after your shift, darling? Hm? How about a private tour of City Hall?” he offered, and she of course had to be both bashful and courteous.

           “Yuck…” Lucy sighed. “He’s married to his second wife right now.”

           “Our drinking, smoking, gambling, conniving founder, everyone,” Wes groaned. “I’d call no politician my hero, but tonight definitely screams… never meet them.”

           Sneaking into the room as she left, a photographer scampered up to one side of the table and got a candid shot with his camera before Hadron had a chance to react.

           “Mr. Mayor! Reporter for the Herald!” he said as he changed flash bulbs. “The city wants to know! Who are you playing with tonight, and how high are the stakes?”

           “Get out of here!” Hadron barked. “I know all the paper’s photographers and reporters, and you aren’t one of them. Sell that picture, and see what happens. Security!”

           Not willing to get into a tussle, the “journalist” fled the room without taking a second picture. Baunder looked amused at first, then annoyed after he took a long drag.

           “How high are the stakes, McMare?” he asked. “Not nearly enough, I’d say. This is boring me. You look bored. And I have places to be. Isn’t it time to make this matter?”

           “Very well…” Hadron gathered the totality of his chips. “Mr. Baunder, tell me, when do you expect Los Angeles to take you back? Surely you must feel foolish, being relegated to a backwater town like this. What did you do, to make your boss so mad?”

           “As the kids say, none of your business,” Bill said as the cards were shuffled. He put out another cigarette and looked over at Sherman. “Speaking of business and brats, what’s with this Desert Tree project you’ve got going on, eh?” he asked with a scoffing tone—getting the attention of the observers. “Modernizing the city with family homes, I get that. You want to give all the little ones lawns to run around on. But then you go and waste all this money digging canals, make the place as big as a Midwest town, and design it like one, too? Seems… a boondoggle, putting something like that in a desert valley.”

           Mr. Miller opened his mouth to speak, but Hadron got in over him, “My friend here is a genius of a civil engineer, studied water management in the Middle East. We’re going to pull off my dream of suburbia, right in Royal Valley, regardless of any doubts.”

           “Sure. Whatever you say, Mr. Mayor,” Bill said with ongoing insincerity. He then checked his cards and grinned. “I admit, I’m no expert. But seems to me that trying’ta put a golf course in the middle of it is the height of hubris. Then again, what do I know?” His smile grew when Hadron revealed his losing hand. “Even Vegas has golf, don’t it?”

           Bill had all the chips, but Hadron wasn’t done. “One last bet. All or nothing.”

           “Hey, ah, I can keep going all night, but you need somethin’ else to put down.”

           “Hadron, we can’t wager the bonds!” Sherman protested as soon as he saw the mayor’s ‘give them here’ gesture. “For God sake, they’re meant to go to investors.”

           Nevertheless, he timidly handed over both briefcases, and Hadron opened them up to show off their contents: hundreds of recently pressed bank-issued certificates.

           “Well now, what do we have here?” Bill asked, very interested.

           “Debt for my Desert Tree ‘Xanadu.’ Worth more than what’s already on the table, at least if you possess some patience. Interest can be paid over the next ten years. Or… hold onto them as long as you can as their value increases. Even we have rainy days.”

           Bill’s smile was wide enough to show his crooked teeth. “All right. One last deal.”

           Sherman whispered sharply, “What are you doing? That’s a third of all the bonds we issued for Desert Tree. If we…” he was hushed by Hadron’s insistent hand-waving.

           Although the result was already known to the time-travelers, the five of them still reflexively became tense as the banker shuffled for the final time and the card pallet was swung over to the play area. In movies, historical moments often got stretched out for suspense, but usually, as was the case tonight, they were surprisingly quick and subtle.

           “Well, Hadron, it was nice playing with you, but we need to get going.” Bill wiped his forehead with a handkerchief as his associate collected both briefcases, and the two stood from their seats. “I suddenly find myself liking this absurdist French game a little more, but next time, let’s play some good old American poker. If you know how.”

           “Are you nervous, Mr. Baunder?” Hadron said, looking utterly unaffected after losing such a fortune. “Perhaps you think your win tonight is… too good to be true?”

           “Nonsense. Big bets are thrilling, is all,” Bill huffed and seemed to be in a hurry.

           With Sherman appearing more confused at this point than shocked, he and Hadron followed Bill to the room’s exit, leaving behind many cigarette butts and empty glasses. Notably, on his way out it looked like Hadron and the banker shared a glance, which might have been a tell that something bigger or planned was going on here.

           “I wouldn’t be surprised, Mr. Baunder,” the mayor called out after him, loudly so that a few other gamblers on the main floor could hear, “if you never get a chance to find your fortune.” He turned to a bewildered Sherman and brushed off some lint on his suit, like he had just finished with some unpleasant business. “Come, Mr. Miller. Now we need to tail our big winner. I’d like to see where he’s bringing his recent windfall.”

           “Y-yes, Mr. McMare…” Sherman replied and wiped off some of his own sweat.

           “I am… so lost,” Wes muttered as they followed the pair out of the casino. “That all felt orchestrated, right? Did he want mobsters to get the bonds? Did he set Bill up?”

           “We know he got half of them back,” Lucy said. “Yet never told anyone…”

           “We can speculate later,” Kiza reminded everyone, “for now, we need to get on our boards and follow McMare… following Baunder. I expect an eventual separation.”

           Once back into the night air, everyone pulled out the hoverboards that they had kept tucked under their arms and dropped them by their feet. At the same time, Hadron and Sherman rushed into the waiting limo, and the rumbling engine of a less-luxurious 1940s car turned into loud revving and squealing tires at the next intersection.

           “W-wait, hold on, one sec!” Wes exclaimed. “Kiza, if solid matter is unstoppable here, what if we run into, like, flying insects while we’re chasing them? Can bugs knock us right off our boards? Or will they behave more like… bullets?”

           “A rational concern…” Kiza replied. “But no need to worry. For some reason, the smallest of creatures do not seem to have been preserved past the horizon.”

           “Really?” Laurie said. “That’s… a little weird. But what about birds?”

           Kiza noticeably flinched, but with no time to waste on such concerns and the limo already on the move, he could only reply with, “Keep your eyes open.”

           “We’re doing a chase thing…” Jace murmured nervously. “That’s a new one.”

           “We should keep an eye on the limo, but stick closer to Bill,” Wes said. “Watch out for people. And stay out of the road as much as you can. Otherwise, be quick!”

           The group rocketed ahead over the sidewalk, dodging pedestrians who would never know they existed. For a few seconds, a thrilling but dangerous chase where the future met the past began. And then… it quite soon and promptly came to a halt. Bill and his driving buddy may have been criminals, but they did respect red lights.

           “Ah, then again,” Wes said as he hovered near the right taillight of the mobster’s curvy sedan, “it is still city traffic. And the speed limit here is only thirty in this era.”

           “Even so, don’t let your guard down,” Kiza warned. “A sudden burst of a speed, an unexpected turn down a side street—it could still be easy to lose them.”

           The light changed, and the mobsters made a right. Bike lanes weren’t around yet and vehicles drove close to the crowded sidewalk, so it was tricky to keep near the target.

           After another turn, Wes realized their direction. “They’re heading downtown.” He looked back at the limo, a few cars away. “We don’t know if they’ve realized they’re being tailed yet, either. If, or once they do, they might start driving crazy-like.”

           Jace groaned. “Thinking about it, I hate escort and ‘follow the bad guy’ missions.”

           “Same here, bud. Banes of games. I’ll never ask my team to code one.”

           “If we’re going downtown, it’s only going to get even more crowded,” Lucy said. “Remember, Wes—Royal Valley grew faster than most cities; its roads lagged behind the development. I’ve seen old pictures of how the central streets could get… Pedestrians just walking around cars, right through traffic without a care.”

           “Oh, man, that could be a deathtrap for us!” Laurie worried.

           “There is a vehicle that both people and drivers should give a wide berth,” Kiza noted, and looked around. “The streetcars. The safest thing for us might be to grab onto the back of one, towards the sides. As long as we’re ready to let go at any moment.”

           “Not a bad idea…” Wes said. “Or, hey, what about just flying over everything?”

           “The hoverboards are restricted to half a meter in altitude. Safety feature.”

           Shortly after the night’s big winners made a final left turn towards Main Street and were back on a wider road that had streetcar rails going down its center, everyone slowed down for a moment to let a trolley pass, and then grabbed onto the rear bumper as the vehicle seemingly “plowed” through the heavy traffic and made things easier. Jace and Wes were on the left side, Lucy and Laurie the right, and Kiza stuck to the middle.

           “Luce, still got an eye on them?” Wes asked over the road and rail noise.

           “Yeah!” she called back, and glanced over her shoulder. “Hadron’s close, too.”

           “Wes, look,” Jace said as they reached another urban block, pointing at Royal Valley’s original movie theater that had a line for the box office. “It’s The Queen, in its glory days. It looks… elegant. Oh, cool—I didn’t know it used to have neon lights!”

           “Heh. She’s a beaut, all right. And only two screens…” He looked at the marquee as the streetcar passed it. “The Man Who Knew Too Much, and… Godzilla.”

           “Ah!” Kiza couldn’t help but chuckle as his own mood seemed to lighten. “One of Japan’s national icons. Of course, the localized version is… quite a bit different.”

           “You’ll like the view on this side, too!” Lucy said, and the other three looked over after the streetcar arrived at one of its stops. “Wes, doesn’t that become the old arcade?”

           “I, uh… I think so, yeah!” he replied excitedly and took in the sight of a neon-lit diner called Midge’s, which clearly catered to the younger crowds with its jukebox and pinball machines. For now, it was a popular hangout spot for teenage guys in letterman jackets or jerseys, and girls in bobby socks and shirtwaist dresses being treated to and sharing milkshakes. “Okay, Jace. Now, lemme tell you about 1950s teens.”

           “Please, don’t get started,” Jace grumbled. “And as if you’d know that much!”

           “Everyone off,” Lucy reported. “Our mafiosos just turned onto Kettle.”

           “Kettle?” Wes said as everyone let go of the trolley and navigated through red light traffic, back to the sidewalk. “Don’t like the sound of that; means faster speeds.”

           “We can always start assuming where they might be going as we keep on them for longer,” Kiza stated. “If we leave downtown, we eliminate many possible destinations.”

           They stopped again after another block of travel and, while waiting, looked over at a nearby TV shop. Despite it being closed for the day, two old tubes were still on for potential customers. I Love Lucy played on one; the other had Walter Conkrite reporting on the recently signed Highway Act that would create the country’s interstate system.

           “I hope you guys don’t romanticize the 50s too much,” Laurie spoke up. “I’m trying really hard not to talk about the inequality, leaded gasoline, the Korean War…”

           Lucy insisted, “Tell us later, Lor. But I am interested to hear what you know.”

           The car abruptly pulled into an alleyway. The five travelers hit the air brakes and turned to watch Bill and his buddy quickly get out of their old vehicle and use the side entrance near a dumpster to duck into a nearby restaurant. Wes looked up at the black and white glow of the neon signage to see that it was an Italian place, technically.

           “Hey. It’s Cosmo’s,” he said as they waited for a teenage couple already heading out to open the door for them. “Oldest pizza place in the valley. New York style.”

           “I think I’ve been here a few times over the years…” Jace mentioned.

           “Yeah, I always preferred Mediterro’s price-to-pie ratio, but me and the gang stopped in every now and then in high school. Wonder what he’s doing here.”

           The place’s door was thankfully one that closed slowly, so they all had time to slip inside. A checkerboard floor, plushy pleather booths flanking tables with chrome trims, and giant pies under heat lamps—what wasn’t there to love about a pizzeria?

           Wes tried to take a whiff, but ended up disappointed. “Wish smell existed here…”

           “Bill?! I don’t need any more trouble from you!” the only employee on shift, an older man, shouted at him from behind the counter as the mobster emerged from the back. He then eyed his associate’s briefcases. “God sake. What are you into this time?”

           “Quiet!” Mr. Baunder snapped, and wiped more sweat from his face. He pulled out a handful of casino chips from his jacket pocket and put them on the counter. “Take them. I didn’t have a chance to cash out, but they’re worth more than what I’m asking.”

           “And what are you asking, Bill? Last time you were here, I got a shakedown later!”

           “I need to use your phone, in private, and borrow your car for the night… Well?!”

           The pizza guy put his hands up in resignation, dragged his rotary phone over for Bill, and headed back into what must’ve been his office as the panicking mobster dialed.

           “… Hey, it’s me,” he said after a few rings—the voice on the other end too quiet for the observers to hear. “I think I just got my out, if the boss can still see reason. Yeah, I need you to set it up. I can’t run and hide no more. He takes what I can give ’im, or he don’t. I’m done livin’ like this. Meet at that, ah, Mansion Street. I’ll be in a red Bel Air.”

           “Mansion Street…” Lucy murmured. “He’s going to Desert Tree?”

           Bill’s movements became erratic, making it tougher to stay close as they followed him out through the back of Cosmo’s and into the employee parking lot. He and his pal got into a classic Chevy and peeled out onto Kettle as soon as the engine roared to life.

           “Did he lose Hadron?” Wes was the first to speak once they were boarding over Kettle Road, which in this time period, only had two lanes in either direction, and was rapidly transitioning from smaller businesses and gas stations to old farmland as traffic volume diminished and the posted speed limit rose to 45. “Anyone see the mayor?”

           Everyone looked around as safely as they could from the side of the road, with Jace replying, “Those might be his limo’s headlights back there, but I’m not sure.”

           “Bill’s really picking up speed!” Laurie said anxiously. “If we know where he’s going, maybe we could slow down? We don’t need to be right on him anymore, right?”

           Kiza answered, “We don’t have to be as close, but we’d still want to arrive, I’d say, within a minute after he does. Who knows how fast this meeting will be?”

           When she looked over her shoulder again to try and spot the limo, Laurie noticed something else: two pairs of headlights approaching faster than all the others.

           “Jace… Jace, watch out!” she exclaimed loudly and yanked at his arm.

           Though not in it, he’d been the one closest to the street, and Laurie pulled him to safety just before a hot-rodding punk in a Plymouth Fury would’ve never-knowingly run into him as his tires brushed at the dirt bordering the pedestrian-unfriendly road. In the other lane, a mean-looking Pontiac GTO tore by as well, barely changing lanes in time to avoid smashing into Bill’s new car—even despite already going quite fast himself.

           Laurie’s natural talent on the board meant that she was able to quickly stabilize herself and slow down without falling off, but when she pulled Jace sideways, his feet slipped out of their straps, and his board cut power and came to a skidding halt on the asphalt. He had lost enough speed first to reduce the severity, but his shoes still hit the dirt faster than his legs could respond, and he took a tumble next to a power pole.

           “Assholes!” Laurie uncharacteristically yelled at the racers who were long gone.

           “Jace! You okay?!” Lucy yelled back after the other three came to a stop.

           “I… I think so…” he shouted with a groan. “Feels like skinned knees…”

           “Keep going. I have to be a mom,” Lucy told Wes and Kiza. “We’ll catch up as soon as we can. And, Wes, don’t take stupid risks. Just… stay at a safe speed, got it?”

           “Damn it…” Wes huffed and reluctantly got up to speed again alongside Kiza. As his eyes locked back onto the Bel Air, he told Mr. Suto, “He’s not my kid, but I feel guilty any time he gets hurt. He’s tough; he’ll be okay, but I always feel it’s my fault.”

           “That it is more of a good than bad thing. You care about your nephew.”

           “I mean, yeah… But maybe I should stop dragging him through time with me.”

           “Wes. Haven’t you been paying attention? I may not know much about what you two have been through, but I can tell he loves exploring the past with you. Our children are more interested in history, especially their parents’, than we give them credit for.”

           “You really think so…?” Wes looked around again, seeing farmland on one side, and streetlights, construction equipment, and a long dry canal on the other. “I can almost visualize the neighborhood, the way it will be… Jace, and all his friends—and me, Luce and all our friends—we grew up in Desert Tree. It was, and still is our playground. I had no idea that the Mafia and a casino game were a small part of its story.”

           “In the true present, it petitions annually to break off and become its own small city. Royal Valley refuses to let go, but… who knows? Maybe one day, it will.”

           “Cool…” Wes slowed as Bill turned into the developing subdivision, and where the traffic was now pretty light. “We’re here. Hope we don’t see someone get whacked.”

           Relying mostly on moonlight to navigate over recently paved roads—and getting a peek at the rest of the network that was currently just flattened dirt lanes—they caught up to Bill shortly after he had arrived at Mansion Street and its half-built cottages.

           “I also didn’t know that these little houses were the oldest in the neighborhood,” Wes said, and a realization hit him. “Oh, I think I get it now! They must’ve started out as homes for, like, the foremen and their families, the big shots on the development crew.”

           “Seems sensible,” Kiza replied as they pulled up to where Bill had parked.

           Mr. Baunder and his lackey stepped out of the car and met with a third mobster, who was better dressed and seemed much more put-together than the other two. His suit was dark, his shoes were nice, and he smoked a cigar with an air of authority. But more telling than anything was the Chrysler New Yorker luxury car he stood by.

           “What are ya hoping for, Billy boy?” the wisest of the three guys asked coolly. “It’s going to take more than just paying off debts to get back in good graces.”

           “I-I know,” Bill stuttered. “B-but I made a killing tonight, you see. S-show ’im.”

           The patsy brought over one of the briefcases and opened it for the made man. He squinted at it in the darkness, the fire in his cigar the brightest light nearby.

           “What am I looking at, Billy boy? It’s a bit dark, but it doesn’t look like cash.”

           “Bonds. L-lots of bank notes. Debt for this mud hole the Scot and his ‘genius’ are trying to build out here. And t-this is only half of ’em. Other half comes later.”

           Mildly interested, the guy who seemed to be a middle man or associate for a big boss type took out his lighter and used its flame to examine the treasure.

           “Hey, guys,” Lucy said from behind, startling Wes. “What’d we miss?”

           “Agh, Lucy!” Wes huffed. “Watching two mobsters handle this much money in the middle of nowhere and in the dark does not make me feel safe, even if we are. Sort of…” He looked at Jace, back on his board but not as steadily. “You okay, bud?”

           “Uh-huh,” he assured Wes, albeit half-heartedly. “Had worse. Didn’t rip my jeans, at least. I didn’t think Mom still carried some bandages everywhere she went…”

           “We did get into a lot of scrapes running around as kids,” Laurie reminded him.

           Wes replied, “Anyway. Here we are among cottages, watching a Mafia handoff. Bill’s trying to bargain his way out of something, and…” he paused when the higher-up guy locked the case and became its owner, “now it looks like we’re about done here.”

           “I don’t know what good these’ll do you today, but we can see how the boss is feeling,” the senior member of the family said and gestured for Bill to get into his car.

           Bill whispered something to his pal, who returned to their loaner. Four headlights lit up the night, and the group followed them to Desert Tree’s exit, where they watched as the New Yorker headed back towards the city, and the Bel Air, further down Kettle.

           “And with that, the treasure is split in half,” Lucy said. “But who do we choose?”

           The five hesitated for a moment, unsure which direction to go—or if they’d need to take a big risk and split up themselves. As history would have it, their decision was made for them when a third pair of headlights nearly blinded everyone, from a limo that had been parked on the side of the road right by the Desert Tree construction entrance.

           “It’s McMare. He stayed on them the whole time,” Kiza surmised as the limo took off—and made it clear who Hadron was always more interested in. “He’s going after Baunder! Then it’s his partner we need to follow. Now, before we lose him!”

           “Aw,” Wes sighed. “I’m more invested in finding out what happens to Bill, too.”

           “I think we all are, but that half, we probably already found,” Lucy emphasized.

           “He must be heading to Kettlebrook,” Kiza said. “For now, it still has its own personality, would feel separate from the rest of the city, and is little more than houses.”

           “Yeah…” Wes thought. “The mall’s not even being built yet. I wonder if…”

           “You got an idea where he’s going?” Laurie asked.

           Wes waited before responding, and upon seeing the car make a left at the third intersection past the construction entrance, he replied, “It’s a crazy coincidence that I’m saying this, but I think he’s meeting someone else, or staying at the Royal Valley Inn!”

           “Where we just stayed?!” Jace exclaimed. “Oh, man, what are the odds?”

           The five hoverboarded into a familiar parking lot, full of era-appropriate metal beasts, and dismounted right before Bill’s buddy walked in through the front entrance with the missing half of the bonds. Like the exterior, the building looked just about the same inside, although the lobby was cleaner and its furniture brand-new.

The receptionist too busy with customers to notice the man returning, the group tailed him to his first-floor room at the end of the hall, where he took an old-style brass key out of his smoking jacket pocket. Wes, however, stopped everyone in their tracks.

           “He’s in a hurry and feels followed; he’s going to close the door too fast for us.”

           And the nervous guest did just that a second later—if anyone had tried to sneak in with him, they would’ve lost a limb, or worse, between the door and the frame.

           “Don’t worry. I can get us in that room,” Kiza assured. “Wes, take us to 2024?”

           “Gladly,” he puffed and got out his blue quartz. “My eyes need to see color again.” He tapped in a date and made a portal, its azure glow really popping in the monochrome world. “I actually chose 2023, to be extra safe. September, at noon. Should be empty?”

           After Wes went first and checked the hallway, the others stepped through. Some of the cleaning staff were further down the hall, but their backs were facing them. After giving the room door a knock to be certain of vacancy, Kiza touched his watch’s display.

           “I do prefer these newer, for you, NFC locks,” he noted as he pressed his watch against the reader and its screen lit up with a key graphic. “Easier to hack than the older ones that read a magnetic strip. We still have to stick in a programmable card for those.”

           “Time travelers need to break in a lot, huh? But can’t your arms just bust us in?”

           “Please, Wes. Breaking the handle or door would be rude; I’m a professional.”

           “The hallway, like, looks exactly the same…” Jace muttered as the door unlocked.

           “People do enjoy that old-timey look,” Lucy replied and shut it behind them.

           “Right…” Kiza said after checking the pink quartz inside the gizmo. “Everyone, grab on just like the last time. It’ll take us to a minute after he got into the room.”

           “Okay,” Laurie exhaled and gripped the device. “We’re close. I can feel it.”

           The return to the 1956 version of the hotel just as instantaneous and surprisingly easy as the first time they had traveled past the horizon, the five arrived in a room that now felt forbidden; almost like an out-of-bounds location in a video game.

           “Never would’ve gotten in here using only three dimensions…” Wes remarked cleverly, at least in his mind, and turned to see the associate take off his tie by the bed.

           He tossed it away, grumbled angrily to himself, and for the first time that night, his pursuers heard him speak when he said, “Bill, you idiot. I’m washing my hands of all this. I’ll leave the valley for good, first thing in the morning.” He looked at the briefcase on the bed, moaned, and ruffled his hair fretfully. “Well, I’m gonna assume you won’t be gettin’ a chance to cash this motherlode, so… Just in case I ever come back…”

           This was the pivotal moment that the team had fought to see all night. Keeping still and quiet in the corner of the room, they watched the guest search around the wall above the bed’s headboard until he found a little spot he could slip a fingernail under. Being careful with his hands, he steadily pried off a sizeable wooden panel that blended in with the rest of the wall and even held a landscape painting. In the hidden alcove were a couple of long shelves; home to a few knives, a revolver, dusty old bottles of booze, a wad of bills—that the guy pocketed right away—and just enough space for the case.

           “Too bad, Bill,” he grunted as he jammed the bonds inside. “You and me maybe could’a gone places. If not for the fact that you always were too damn stupid.”

           He made a feeble attempt to put the board back up, but didn’t care enough to do it right away. Instead, he dropped it on the bed, waved it off, and went to the bathroom. As the shower began to run, everyone walked over for a closer look at the stash.

           “Those are… probably Prohibition era drinks…” Lucy assumed.

           “What all do you think this room was used for…?” Jace asked, looking around.

           Wes said, “No idea. But I have learned, that old Royal Valley was corrupt as hell.”

           “Likely not much more than things were elsewhere,” Kiza stated. “Almost done.”

           Leaving the distant past for good this time, Wes brought the team into the room as it existed in their modern era. Without needing any words, they held their breath as he went over to the bed’s headboard, found the place to pry, and opened up the secret compartment. Rather remarkably, it looked just as it had sixty-seven years ago.

           Wes sighed in relief. “Cubby must’ve been forgotten by everyone who knew of it.”

           “Just like that, we have the whole treasure? But what about Yosuke?” Jace asked.

           “It’ll be like looking for a malfunctioning mod on a PC game—a binary search, we call it. But instead, we cut time in half with each jump to narrow down when he found this.” He put the board back, adding, “It’s what you might’ve had to do in the manor.”

           “Sounds like it’d work,” Lucy affirmed. “Let’s stick to… Mondays at noon?”

           “Should minimize the risk of surprising guests, but I’ll check each time. Let’s go.”

           And so, they did—and the process was actually quite quick. It began with a portal to 2024, sometime before the bonds arrived at the bank. Not unexpectedly, Yosuke had taken them by this starting point. Board goes back up, another jump, four months ago. The treasure was in place. Two months ahead, April. Still there. Into May, gone. Wes covered it up again, and they took a portal to two weeks prior. The lucky streak of the room being empty persisted, and the briefcase was missing. Four days ahead, gone. Two days back, there again. One day ahead, early May, gone. They were getting excited.

           “We’re so close!” Lucy said giddily. “Wes, take us to the evening before!”

           “I am, Lucy. I hope this little rock has enough charges left. It’s pretty warm.”

           He opened a portal to eight at the previous night; this time, things were dark on the other side. No one was ready for what happened next, thinking they’d surely need at least a few more jumps. But, in a room lit by a single lamp, the panel was already off the wall. Seconds after emerging, they turned their heads and saw the briefcase, open on the other twin bed—and a boy in a hoodie, sitting on the covers where he’d been counting the bonds. Now he was just staring back with big eyes at the time travelers, nonplussed.

           He then spluttered out, “Otōsan?”

           “My son…” Kiza murmured breathlessly. They all watched as the boy took out a pink quartz and jumped before they had a chance to talk, with Kiza yelling, “Yosuke!”

           “Gah, damn it,” Wes grumbled and got ready to fire up his quartz again. “Kiza, is there any way to track him? Or… could we just go back a minute and try again?”

           “Wes, hold on a sec,” Jace murmured as an epiphany hit him. “Look at the room. It’s not lived in, and there’s no personal things around at all. He isn’t staying here now.”

           “What are you getting at, Jace?”

           “I saw him at the hotel, very briefly, when we were making plans. That’s when and where he came from. Unk, take us to Halloween, ’99, after our dinner. Like… at seven.”

           After a shrug, Wes made one more portal. When they went through it, a slightly younger Yosuke was caught off guard while eating instant ramen at the table of a messy room as the TV blasted. His surprise wore off fast again, but this time, Kiza grabbed his son’s arm before he could press the quartz, and it fell to the floor when his hand opened.

           “Yosuke!” Kiza said sternly but lovingly as the boy struggled in his grip, and Wes shut off the Halloween Nick special and grabbed the quartz. “Yosuke, stop! Please. It’s okay…” He gave the scared kid a bear hug to calm him down. “Shhh… I’m not mad…”

           The others watched quietly, giving the two a moment. Kiza showered his time-runaway son with assurances and platitudes, and steadily, the former child star relaxed.

           “D-Dad, I… I’m s-sorry…” he whimpered, seeming nothing like his confident-cool Kaito counterpart. “I j-just… I got to l-live my dream and be in a s-show, but it… it ended… And I didn’t want it to! It wasn’t supposed to be over so fast, s-so, I…”

           “We know, Yosuke. There’s so much to talk about, but… let’s get you back home first. We’ve all been looking for you.” He moved aside. “These people helped.”

           Yosuke looked at the four temporal locals, and now not quite as scared, sat up a bit in his chair. He stared at Jace for longer, then said, “Hey… I recognize you from the vending machines. Um. Why do you all have my hoverboards? Who are you guys?”

           “Fans!” Lucy threw up her arms peppily, getting flat stares from the others.

           “Oh… Hold on,” Kiza groaned a little after remembering that he had kept a grip on his gizmo this entire time. “Agh. I may have held onto it too tightly.” He needed to use his other hand to pry his fingers free, getting a nervous laugh from Yosuke. “Yes, yes, very funny. Now, give me the other one, or you will really be in trouble.”

           Already in better spirits, Yosuke hopped off the chair, went to the closet, and took out the stolen sister unit. But as he handed it over, he suddenly looked a bit distant.

           “Dad… I, um… I saw some messed up things in 1956… Mafia… things…”

           “I see.” Kiza patted his kid’s hair. “Perhaps, then… a dose of memory serum.”

           The elevator doors opened up right into the penthouse, and the party of six returned to Kiza’s apartment. He looked close to bursting after holding in the secret of the big present waiting for his son at home. Yosuke saw it as soon as he set foot in the living room, or what was left of it. At first, he was quiet and very still as he studied it.

           “No… way…” he mumbled excitedly. “Is that a replica of the No it All! set?!”

           “Hehe,” Kiza tried to keep his composure, “go up there and see what happens.”

           Yosuke ran over and leapt onto the set, at which point Kiza gave the apartment’s AI a hand gesture to dim the room lights, turn on the studio’s, “shut the blinds,” and start up the theme song. For a moment, Yosuke closed his eyes in bliss and sang along with the opening tune, reveling in glory days that, in kid time, seemed long ago. With Lucy unsurprisingly enjoying this the most, she and the others found empty seats among the mannequins where they could watch an unscripted episode for an audience of five.

           “Kaito!” Alicia said after emerging from the ‘kitchen’ following the guitar riff. He gawked at her and was left speechless. “Okay, buster, how do you explain this one?”

           “I… I, um…” Yosuke looked back and forth at his real dad and Alicia. “Elise?”

           “Elise?” Alicia replied, and her hologram generated a video cassette with the tape off its spools and in a big mess. “Oh, I get it—you’re trying to blame this on some girl in your class named Elise, huh? I know you’ve been watching my workout tapes again!”

           Yosuke looked at his dad one more time, and seemed to figure out what all this was. He smirked, got into character, and replied, “You probably think I just like to see the ladies in their spandex, don’t you, ’Leesh? But you’re wrooong, sis!” He flexed his arm muscles. “I am legit bulking up to impress the chicks in gym class. Check out these guns!” he said with a smarmy smile, and relished the strong canned laughter response.

           “I think that’s even worse!” Alicia gagged. “Mom! Dad! Kaito broke my tape!”

           The parents rushed in from the dining room like they’d been waiting right behind the wall, with Dad scolding him, “Kaito, how many times have we told you to ask for permission before borrowing your sister’s things? Would you like it if she took and then broke your stuff? You need to apologize, and figure out a way to make this up to her.”

           “Eh.” Kaito shrugged. “Hm. No. In fact, you guys can bite this beefed-up butt.”

           Kaito’s family all covered their mouths, and the audience reacted with a mix of gasps and laughter. He then jumped off the stage, immediately pausing the scene.

           “Dad, this is amazing!” he exclaimed and did his own hand gesture to bring up the lights again. “I’m going to play with this every day. I would’ve come home if I knew…”

           “Glad you like it, Yosuke. But Kaito was never quite that, ah… obstinate.”

           “Y-you… watched the show?” His eyes grew. “It got preserved?”

           “Every episode. And the generative program for this was trained on them, too.”

           Kaito beamed. “Hehe. The team never let me be that edgy or rude. I thought it’d be funny to try it out!” He looked at the others. “You guys really liked my show?”

           Lucy answered for the others to spare them from forcing out fake compliments, “I loved it when I was your age! It was a big part of my own little rebellious awakening.”

           Wes finally put the briefcases on the floor, adding, “You’re lucky to have a dad that would do everything he did to find you. Your complicated trail didn’t make it easy.”

           Yosuke somberly stared at his hoverboard case. “I’m sorry for all the trouble. I know what I did was dangerous, but no one makes shows like the old sitcoms anymore. I didn’t know where or when else to go. And I really liked the late 1990s, too.”

           Laurie crossed her arms. “You and our friend Nyra should chat sometime.”

           After glancing back at the set and his castmates’ frozen shocked faces, Kaito turned to his father and sighed. “Dad… If you were searching for me, and if me time-traveling to make a show was so bad, you knew where you could’ve found me.”

           Kiza put a hand on his shoulder. “I could have pulled you out of the past while your show was being filmed—or earlier, and shut the whole thing down before it even began. But I saw how genuinely happy you were under Kaito’s face, and I didn’t want to take this away from you if I could help it. No matter what you want to do with your life, you showed me that you have creativity and drive that I could not be prouder of.”

           “Really?” Yosuke smiled again, but then gazed at the floor. “We’re going to have so much fun with the thing you made, but it’s just a game. It’s still not fair. Why’d it all have to end? Or… if it had to, I at least wanted to give the story a real ending. Through a movie, or just a final episode. I think Elise, and George and Zora wanted to, as well.”

           Jace rubbed his chin. “Hey, Yosuke. Hope isn’t totally lost…” He grinned. “Ask your dad to tell you all about ‘Mr. 90’s.’ There’s already a shot at a revival.”

           Yosuke now looked a little confused, so Kiza ruffled his hair and said, “We’ll get to that later. But first… Sorry, Son, you can’t ‘no’ your way out of a proper lecture.”

           Back on the Halloween night of 1999, at nine this time, a portal opened up near the end of Zach’s long driveway, and Jace and Laurie hopped through. Sunlight poured across the gravel from a distant future version of a Desert Tree afternoon, and the two turned to the adults and a guilty-looking Yosuke, standing in a park where the domain of the neighborhood’s former prince once existed. To be safe, Wes kept the goodbye brief.

           “Okay, guys—go enjoy scary move night. Kiza thinks this debrief and dressing-down will just take a couple of hours. Oh, and… it’s okay if you close your eyes.”

           “Poor Yosuke…” Jace muttered as soon as the portal closed in front of them.

           “What do you mean ‘poor,’ Jace?” Laurie groaned. “Think of all the stuff he did!”

           “I know, Lor. But, it’s me.” He shrugged. “I feel bad when others get detention.”

           They began their walk to Zach’s, with Laurie asking, “Any idea what’s going to be playing tonight, that’s bad enough to make us want to close our eyes?”

           “Nah. If it’s R-rated, well, we’ve already watched a few of those together. Hey, um… Thanks for saving me. I know we have each other’s backs, but I gotta say it.”

           “Of course. How are the knees? Your walking seems a little stiff.”

           “Ah, they’ll be fine. Nothing compared to some of the things I’ve lived through.”

           Jace soon hit the doorbell, and they heard approaching footsteps after a moment.

           “You’re too late!” Zach’s voice shouted before he reached the little foyer. “Candy bowl is emp-tee. Kids are just too greedy these…” he opened the door, “Jason! Lara! You actually made it! Come in, we were about to start. Everyone was hoping to see you again.”

           Zach led them into the big living room, where the whole gang was either on the twin sofas or the carpet with pillows. The lights were off, but the large TV still provided plenty of illumination, from the glow of a settings menu for the DVD player. Spread all over the glass coffee table was a dense and colorful layer of Halloween candy.

           “Hey, guys!” Sadie was the first to give them an excited greeting, and picked out a Jolly Rancher. “Wes and Colin both dumped out their hauls into one big batch for us.”

           “Yeah, dig in,” Wes, sitting next to Colin, encouraged. “We got way too much.”

           “I see that,” Laurie said. “How’d it go? I recently did my own last trick-or-treat.”

           “All right,” Wes muttered. “I’ll miss it… Anyway. Z, what’re we watching?”

           Zach held up a DVD case for everyone to see. “My dad bought this one a couple weeks ago, and said I should ‘definitely check it out.’ Got no idea what this ‘thing’ is.”

           “Oh… Oh, no…” Ash said squeamishly not long into the movie, as most of her friends had similar visceral reactions. “Urk. That is so gross. Okay, what is that?!”

           “The poor dog!” Colin sniveled and covered his eyes. “This is worse than Alien.”

           “Colin?” Millie said unflinchingly from her spot next to Celeste, the only other of two kids mostly toughing out a hard watch. “Got news for you. That was never a dog.”

           “Mill, how can you watch this stuff so casually?” Arthur winced. “It’s nasty!”

           Millie shrugged, and smirked. “I saw it last Halloween with my dad. The practical effects are pretty good, right? Oh, you guys are gonna love the scene near the end, with the blood tests. Heh. You might never trust your friends again.”

           “How much blood is gonna be in this movie?” Jared groaned and cringed.

           “This… is one of those ‘rite of passage’ films, isn’t it?” Wes muttered and also turned away, though not without some glimpses back at the screen. “Why do we make ourselves watch things like this? Okay…” he puffed out. “At least that scene’s over.”

           As the night wore on and the kids watched the events in Antarctica get worse by the minute, Jace looked around the room at the large circle of friends who thought they were drifting apart, and to be fair would a little bit in the coming years. But he knew that there was no way it’d last in any universe; they meant too much to each other.

           “Ugh…” Laurie grumbled. “Disgusting. I feel like I’ve lost a big chunk of my innocence over the past ninety minutes. Not telling my parents I saw this one…”

           “You have to admit, the suspense is good,” Celeste stated. “But if anyone starts making creature noises right now, I really might end up hitting you.”

           “Hey, Wes,” Zach called over to him. “Bet you’ll never forget this Halloween.”

           Wes’ ‘nothing matters’ façade suddenly and finally seemed to slip just a little as he replied, “I, uh… I don’t think I’ll forget any of the ones I had with you guys.”

           “Aw, Wes!” Sadie said warmly. “I knew you were still in there.”

           “I dunno if High School Wes could say that, Sadie…” Colin cautioned. “Unless…”

           “He’s one of the things!” Jared laughed, and got yet another “shut up” from Wes.

           “Shh, quiet!” Millie urged everyone. “The big scene is starting.”

           “Hey, Jace,” Laurie whispered next to him on the floor. “You’re taking this well.”

           He replied contentedly, “The movie? Just nice to be with friends. Also, I need to stop thinking about sitcoms for a while… and this, is as far as you can get from them.”