Page 5 of Harbinger of Destiny

Everybody was wearing the loose-fitting and somewhat shapeless pants that were common in 2085.

As the line moved along rather swiftly, Joshua noticed the signs that were placed along the line. They contained a little bit more information about the time-travel program than Timothy had revealed.

“You will be sent back to March 2025 and be given six months to convince the woman assigned to you to travel back to 2085 with you,” Joshua read. “The one-week training will start on Monday and prepare you for your time in the past. Thank you for your service to humankind.”

“It’s like a paid vacation, and I won’t even have to take time off from my studies,” Timothy said.

“What do you mean? You’re gonna be gone for six months.”

“Yeah, in the past. But when I come back, I’m coming back a day after I leave. Didn’t you read that in the letter you got? It’s basically just a one-week commitment. We travel to the past after the one-week orientation, and we’ll come back here the day after, even though we’ll have spent six months in the past.”

“Now I get it,” Joshua said. And maybe that was just what he needed: a six-month break from this world to get over Kelly. At the same time, he’d only be gone for a week, so his parents would barely have time to miss him. And he’d be serving humankind and do his part to repopulate the world. But…

“Do you think we’ll have to marry the woman we bring back?” Joshua asked.

The guy in front of Joshua and Timothy turned around. “I heard that that’s not a requirement. All we need to do, is to bring one back.”

Joshua nodded. That suited him fine. “But we can fuck her, right?”

Timothy chuckled. “We’d better. I’m not going six months without sex.”

Joshua nodded in agreement. “Yeah, me neither.”

He thought about his current situation. He had nothing to lose. He had no girlfriend, and his parents would be disappointed that there would be no little Fletcher babies in the near future. His next semester didn’t start for another two months, and the idea that he would nurse his broken heart for the next few months without anything to keep his mind off it, was unbearable. Why not get over Kelly while he was in the past, and then return as a new man, his feelings for Kelly eradicated? He needed a rebound relationship anyway, and could dump the woman once he was back. And since he wasn’t expected to marry the girl he brought back, he didn’t care who she was. Well, as long as she was fuckable enough.

By the time Joshua reached the front of the line, he’d made his decision.

“Name and Global ID Number?”

He recited both to the woman in the white lab coat who sat at a high table over which a hologram hovered.

“Ah, here you are,” she said and tapped something on the virtual keyboard. “You didn’t do your pre-registration.”

“Uhm, yeah, I must have forgotten. It’s not a problem, is it? I really want to be part of this.”

She looked him up and down, when her gaze caught on his pants. “Well, I guess at least you came prepared.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

He was ready for this adventure. An adventure in an era where everything seemed so much easier. He couldn’t wait for this exciting journey into the past.

3

ONLY THE LONELY

Santa Monica, Monday, March 24, 2025

Amy Brooks stuffed her books and papers into her backpack and slung it over her shoulder. Before she could head to the door, several of the other students at the Santa Monica Community College had already risen from their seats and were blocking the aisle.

“Excuse me,” she said and tried to squeeze past them, but they didn’t budge. “Can I please get through?”

Jennifer glanced over her shoulder. “Can’t you see that we’re having a conversation?”

“I have to catch my bus.”

But Jennifer clearly didn’t care. Amy doubted that she’d ever been on a bus. After all, she had a car, something Amy could only dream of. But that’s all it was, a dream.

She barely had enough money to pay for a tiny room in an apartment she shared with five others. She’d lived there for a year now, ever since she’d turned eighteen and had thus aged out of the foster care system. She was on her own. Her parents, two drug addicts who should have never had a child, deserted her when she was four, and ever since then she’d been passed from one foster family to the next.