They all exchanged nervous glances. I had hit a nerve.
“What is it you want to do, Tucker?” Tori asked.
I smiled and said, “I want to cheat.”
I had been forming the plan for months, trying to think of every possible scenario and pitfall. When I laid it out to the others, they quickly embraced it. Even Kent. They each may have had different reasons for agreeing to my vision, but the main thing was that they were with me. I knew they would be. It was the right thing to do. The only thing.
We had saved the world once. We were going to try to do it again.
The plan started with school. From that moment on we became the most dedicated students imaginable. Even me. It was all geared toward getting us into college, where the real work began. Kent took business courses. Olivia studied marketing. Tori took a double major in physics and chemistry. I studied political science and went to law school. We all received advance degrees to prepare us for the most important step.
We were going to cheat the system.
The four of us formed a company. At first, it was all about investment. That’s where the cheating came in. We knew where the money was going to be, eventually. IBM, Xerox, Microsoft, Apple, Walmart, Intel. In the ’60s the phrase “Made in Japan” had a negative connotation, but we knew that wouldn’t last. Sony, Toyota, Datsun (that became Nissan) were all companies we knew were going to be major players. We even invested in ExxonMobil (though it was called Esso back then).
There was no guarantee that any of those companies would develop the exact same way they had back in our other world, but it was a safe bet because we knew that no matter what happened, there would be a need for the products they created. We didn’t interfere, we invested. Quietly. What began with money we earned from after-school jobs slowly grew into a fortune.
An immense freakin’ fortune.
With that kind of money we had the freedom to use it for whatever we wanted, and what we wanted was the Holy Grail. Our main goal was to find an energy source to replace fossil fuels. We hired visionaries: physicists, chemists, biologists, and even sociologists. They worked for decades trying to find the practical alternative to fossil fuels and nuclear energy.
They struck gold with hydrogen. It is one of nature’s simplest elements. Our “H” team worked for decades to find a way to create a hydrogen fuel that didn’t require the use of fossil fuels or nuclear power to produce. It was clean, it reduced the world’s reliance on fossil fuels, and it only took a few billion dollars of our not-so-hard-earned cash to create.
It was a patented process that ended up making us even more money than all of our cheating did. Though making money was never the point. Most everything we earned was plowed right back into research and development. Once we got to the point where we could no longer predict future investments it didn’t matter, for we had hundreds of our own patents in place and it kept our production humming. Soon, over half the world’s cars ran on hydrogen fuel, as well as the power plants that provided electricity throughout the grid.
Simply put, we had done it.
We made a difference.
The ultimate result of what we achieved won’t be known for centuries, and since we didn’t have a Bridge to the future, we could only speculate. But all signs pointed to the fact that we had cracked the nut. We had set the world on a better course than the one that led to the horror of Olivia’s time.
Of course it wasn’t all work. We had lives to live.
Kent and Olivia got married.
Not to each other.
As much as they loved each other, I think they were too much alike. They both had big personalities and loved living the life of people who had fame and money. Oh yes, creating a revolutionary new source of power brought us fame. Kent had more girlfriends than I could count, but he finally married a girl who both fed his ego and kept him in line. Not an easy task.
Olivia married an Olympic skier. They travelled the world together and were on the cover of every sports and style magazine that existed. They had two kids who were both as beautiful and athletic as their parents.
Tori and I got married too.
To each other.
I think I fell in love with her the moment I first saw her on Pemberwick Island with her long curly hair and her University of Southern Maine baseball cap. She wasn’t like the other girls. Getting her to talk was next to impossible and I think that was because she actually had more to say than the other kids and knew they wouldn’t understand. But I did. I often wonder if we would have ended up together if not for the Retro invasion. It’s odd to find a silver lining in the nightmare we lived through, but if there was one, that was it.
Tori and I had a beautiful daughter who knows she will always be able to rely on us and trust us. It was everything to Tori that our little girl knew she had two parents who would always be there to love her. I couldn’t be prouder. Of both of them.
I’m not exactly sure what happened to Mr. Feit. He dropped off the face of the earth. Part of me wondered if the Army had him executed, or locked away for life, but that didn’t seem right. They had no evidence of the part he played in the atrocities. In fact, those atrocities never actually happened. Not in this world.
It was more likely that Feit had simply been released and forgotten, just as they had done with us. I’d often scour the newspapers and later the Internet, searching for signs of anybody who was having as much success in the stock market as we were. That would have been the tipoff. I didn’t find a thing. If he was still alive it meant he wasn’t as smart as I thought he was, or way smarter than I could have imagined.
There was one day, however, when at the beach in Santa Monica I saw a group of old-guy surfers with longboards headed for their cars. One of them was a dead ringer for Feit, right down to the long blond hair and the earring. He was older too, which fit. His hair had as much gray in it as blond. But since many older surfer dudes looked exactly like that I figured I was jumping to conclusions. The guy handed his board off to a friend and jumped behind the wheel of a sweet Maserati. He fired up the powerful engine and tore out of the parking spot with his wheels screeching.
As he flashed by where I was standing, we made eye contact. He smiled and gave me a small salute. As he sped off, I heard him laugh.
I try not to let the memory haunt me.
As much as Kent, Olivia, Tori, and I had our own lives, we never spent much time apart. We were joined together not only by our energy company, but by the bond that we had formed many years before. We were family. We had a goal. We weren’t going to let the world crumble and I believe in our own small way, we succeeded.
Quinn would have been proud.
It was the common desire to fulfill this goal that brought us all to my high school graduation. Or more specifically, the high school graduation of my younger self. The guy who was born in this dimension and had barely squeaked through Greenwich High School.
In this reality, my parents hadn’t moved to Pemberwick Island. There was no need because there was no Bridge to the future, no threat, no Retros. Dad kept his job with the town and my mom started her own accounting firm. They were pretty successful, too. I threw Mom a lot of work through one of our subsidiary companies. She had no idea that if she followed the money it would lead to me. Even if she had, there was no way she would have known that I was an older version of her own son, from a different time and place.
It was my bittersweet secret.
Through the years I kept tabs on young Tucker. He was pretty much the same underachieving, happy kid that I was, no big surprise. He had no idea that he was going to live a life that would make a difference.
He wouldn’t get a hint of that until the day of his graduation.
The day began at our home on Pemberwick Island. Tori and I had purchased the remote property on the north side of the island known as Chinicook. It was the spot where, in anothe
r life and time, her father died trying to protect his beloved island from the invaders that had taken over our world. We built a seaside home and kept the rest of Chinicook as an unspoiled nature preserve, in honor of Mr. Sleeper.
Hours later, Tori, Kent, Olivia, and I sat by ourselves to the far side of the football stands in Cardinal Stadium. Anyone looking at us would think we were the grandparents of a graduate. Or maybe some proud aunts and uncles. They wouldn’t have seen the helicopter that dropped us off behind the school an hour before the ceremony, or the bodyguards who were never far away. You can’t be too careful.
We had done the same thing two years earlier for Kent’s graduation from Arbortown High. We had also been to Arbortown the week before to celebrate the graduation of Tori Sleeper and Quinn Carr. It was both a satisfying and somewhat sad experience for all of us. But we weren’t there just to revel in our own successes.
We were also there on business.
When young Tucker stepped up onto the stage to receive his diploma, Tori squeezed my arm and said, “I wasn’t so sure you could do it.”
I gave her a playful shove and said, “Hey, that kid has potential.”
“I’m counting on it,” she said with a sly smile.
When the ceremony was over, as the beaming parents mingled with the excited graduates, I made my way through the crowd to find Mom, Dad, and Tucker. Though I had seen them from afar many times, I never approached them. Seeing my mom and dad together gave me a mixed feeling of joy and despair. It was wonderful to see them, but I missed them terribly.
“Excuse me, Mr. and Mrs. Pierce,” I said. “Congratulations.”
They looked at me with big, genuine smiles that also had a touch of uncertainty. I guarantee they weren’t so sure about Tucker graduating either, so the day was as much a relief as anything. Or when they saw me, was there some vague sense of recognition?
“Thanks,” Dad said as his smile dropped into a look of confusion.
“Hey, aren’t you—?”
“I am,” I said.
Of course they’d recognize me. Not as the grown version of their own son, but as one of the most powerful people in the world, whose company invented the “H-fuel” that created a new industrial revolution. Together, we had been given more media coverage than most presidents combined.
Mom and Dad looked at me like I was an alien, and in some ways I probably was.
“What can we do for you?” Dad asked.
“I’d like a moment to speak with your son, the graduate,” I said.
“Tucker?” Mom asked, incredulous.
“Do you have another son?” I asked, playfully.
“Uh, yeah, sure. I mean, no. Of course you can talk with him.” She called out, “Tuck! Tucker! C’mere. Somebody wants to talk to you.”
Young Tucker Pierce came bounding over, all smiles and enthusiasm. He walked right up to me and looked me right in the eye.
“Hey, I know you,” he said.
“I’m not surprised,” I replied.
Tucker stuck out his hand and shook mine with a strong, confident grip. With that simple act I had connected with my younger self. It was a good start. Strange, but good.
“Can I have a quiet word with you?” I asked.
“Uh, yeah, sure,” Tucker said.
He gave Mom and Dad a curious look and followed me off.
I led him to the side of the football stands. On our way I saw Kent give me a big smile and a thumbs-up. Tori stood next to him with her arm draped through his. They both looked as proud as if their own kid had just graduated. Or maybe they were just enjoying the odd scene, as I had enjoyed it when they had done the same thing with their younger selves.
When we got to the side of the stands, Tucker stopped and faced me with confidence.
“What’s this about?” he asked.
“What are your college plans?” I asked.
For the first time, Tucker looked unsure.
“I got accepted to a few schools,” he said with a dismissive shrug. “Not sure why, my grades aren’t the best. But I’m planning to go to community college. It’s a whole lot cheaper.”
“You’ve heard of my company, right?” I asked.
Tucker laughed. “Uh, yeah. I’m not from Mars.”
“Well we offer scholarships to students we feel deserve encouragement and support,” I said. “Full ride to the school of your choice. Including grad school.”
Tucker’s eyes grew wide. “And you’re telling me this because . . . ?”
“We’ve been watching you, Tucker, and we think you have a promising future.”
Tucker blinked, he smiled, he frowned, he chuckled nervously, and then he looked around as if there might be a hidden camera somewhere.
“Are you sure you’ve got the right guy?” he asked. “Tucker Pierce?”
“We’ve got the right guy,” I said.
“What’s the catch?” he asked.
“No catch,” I replied. “The only thing we ask is that after graduation, you give serious consideration to joining us. We have offices all over the world and a wide variety of opportunities for someone who—”
“Yes,” Tucker said with total conviction. “You’re offering me a free ride to college and all I have to do is consider working for the most important people who ever existed? Why would I turn that down?”
I shrugged and said, “I don’t know. You could be an idiot.”
We both laughed at that. Of course we did. We had the same sense of humor.
“This isn’t a joke?” he asked.
“Talk to your parents about it. Someone will be in contact with you tomorrow to outline the program. I truly hope you’ll take us up on this offer. I think you would be a very valuable asset.”
Tucker stuck out his hand to shake. “I’ll do exactly that,” he said. “But I’m pretty sure I know what’s going to happen.”
“Do you?” I asked. “It’s not easy predicting the future.”
“Oh I think this one isn’t so hard. Thank you. Thank you very much.”
Tucker turned and ran off, melting into the crowd, probably to find Mom and Dad.
We had had similar conversations with young Kent, Tori . . . and Quinn. Young Kent was in his second year at Cornell. Quinn had been accepted early admittance to MIT and Tori was all about going to the city. She wanted to attend NYU.
Young Tucker was right. Sometimes you can predict the future. If events played out the way we expected, one day these five young people would form the nucleus of the next generation of visionaries who would run our company. We needed young people with new ideas. People who thought like us. Who better to choose than . . . us?
Olivia stepped up to me and put her arm through mine. “What did he say?”
“He’ll accept,” I said. “He’s a smart kid, though he doesn’t know it yet.”
Olivia gave me a kiss on the cheek and said, “Oh he knows it. He just doesn’t like to brag.”
“Hey, get your hands off my man,” Tori said with a smile as she walked up with Kent.
“He’s my man too,” Olivia said, chuckling.
“What about me?” Kent said.
“You, I have doubts about,” Olivia said. “But I’ll keep you around if I have to.”
“How do you feel?” Tori asked me.
“I feel old,” I said. “And incredibly alive.”
Kent scanned the field that was still swarming with students and said, “I guess our work here is done.”
“Nah,” I said. “We’re just getting started. Let’s go home.”
We turned toward the helicopter that would take us back to Pemberwick Island, away from our past, and straight into our future.
“Sir?” came an excited voice.
We all looked back to see Young Tucker running up to us.
�
��Change your mind already?” I asked.
“No, I just wanted to make sure. I mean. In case we don’t get a call tomorrow. Do you have a business card or something?”
Kent, Tori, and Olivia laughed.
I dug into my pocket and handed my younger self a card.
“What’s the matter?” I asked. “Don’t you trust me?”
“For the record,” Tucker said. “Not really.”
That got another laugh.
“Smart,” I said. “I promise we’ll be in touch.”
The four of us strode away from the field and the helicopter that was powering up.
I took one last look at the stadium to see that Tucker hadn’t moved. He stood alone, staring at my business card as if it were some rare treasure that might disappear if he took his eyes off of it.
It was a simple card with only a few words.
SYLO
Today. Tomorrow. Forever.
Sequentia yconomus libertate te ex inferis obedianter.
We were the guardians.
We were SYLO.
THE END
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