It's always disconcerting to wake up after a strange dream like that, in the passenger seat of Alex's IS 350. Not just because Alex's A/C didn't work and I woke up with a pretty dry throat; it was literally disconcerting to not even have remembered falling asleep. The travelling to Virgina, the Tiffany thing, and all that, was way too obscure for even Dark Dimension Snowbaroo to pull off. Plus, I don't even think it made much sense, because our own Isaac could fabricate circuit chips just fine. Dreams, I tell you...

Alex didn't immediately realize I was awake, and I'm not sure whether that was a good or a bad thing. I was able to scan the backseat a bit and ensured that we were, in fact, alone. Why I wanted to glean that info, I really don't know. Maybe I was shaken up by the fact that the whole Instagram message thing really was a real fact, and Alex had never addressed that. Perhaps she was more than well-aware of my crush and wanted to put distance between us or something. Still didn't explain why I was a few bad subconscious movements away from resting my head on her shoulder, in her car's front seat. Pop music simmered over the speakers, or hip hop, and it had a pretty good groove going on from what I could discern. Alex was known for that good energetic music anyhow, and it was a wonder she didn't spin Duran Duran more often. Or Madonna.

"Have you ever felt like you need to write a love letter to your past?"

Alex's words made me leap out of my skin, literally. I jumped more than a bit, praying that this was actually reality and not one of those movie dream-in-a-dream scenarios. Luckily, the hardness of the glovebox hitting my in the knees, or vice versa, as I freaked seemed to indicate that this was actually happening. Alove letter? This must have been a dream in and of itself; there was nopossible explanation for Alex, her Lexus 350 – this, I may have mentioned, wasthe "cool way" to say "Lexus IS 350" – and the words "love letter" all beingput in place. Tricky, crafty brain...

"Wil said this place would jog back some memories," she narrated, looking straight out of the windshield casually, as if she were driving around Dark Dimension or somewhere familiar. But as I unwrapped my blurry after-nap vision, I came to see her truth.

"This is Devon." My statement was still a bit groggily delivered, and sounded pretty lame, but the feeling of nostalgia seeped in like water in a basement that's already been FlexSealed to death.

"Wil said you grew up near here, right?"

The dots connected, like those stellar movements Isaac's always geeking out on. Wil and I had gotten to a point where he, Isaac, and I were sort of speaking the same language. Orv to a lesser extent, because he didn't enjoy talking as much as Wil, I don't think. Nostalgia was a number-one topic, but Wil, George, Freddy, and even Ben were the type who you could talk to like uncles. Like Nick, my real uncle, they would listen to what you had to say and impart a bit that you hadn't considered or that wasn't all too far removed in a generational sense. I mean, George and Ben were, but not Wil or Frederick. So that's how I came to tell Wil a touch more about living in Connecticut, before I moved to Dark Dimension, New York. 

"I grew up in Stratford; Devon's in Milford, across some kind of river." My reply was formed just as I realized we were about to ford said river. Well, "ford" is a bit loose of a way to describe Alex roaring across the most oddly cool bridge and port harbor I knew of, in her 2006 or 2007 IS 350.

The bridge was known as the Washington Bridge or something, but locals just called it the "Devon Bridge." It was grooved on the top and was able to become a drawbridge so large-masted sailboats could pass through and dock in the water space boxed in by the Devon Bridge, the much more impressive Moses-Wheeler bridge that carried both cars on the highway and train tracks, a grassy shore to the right, in Milford, and a BJ's parking lot on the left, in Stratford. There were docks down there, mainly filled with smaller boats of a decent to generally nice disposition, although they only occupied one small half of the boxed-in section of water.

One look at it, and I knew why Wil had suggested Alex take me there. If that's in fact what he did. Just as I was about to announce this to Alex, I noticed another tip-off that Wil – or both brothers – had been there; the small electronics box on top of Alex's dashboard. It was, amazingly, lower-tech than the ones that Wil and Orv obsessed over with Back to the Future; just a few simple analog dials on a black sheet metal box. But I knew it was a way for them to retrofit time-warping experimental tech, having seen the similar box they'd given to Isaac when he wanted to try warping back in time to advance science or something. Actually, I think he did. And then George got it for his truck, and somehow everything got altered. Like that bridge, it ended up getting named after him, just because he boated across it back in the 1700s? He told us a lot of stories from that time period, and was really bent about the fact that, upon his return to Dark Dimension Snowbaroo, a ton of stuff bore his name. Still didn't explain how the math textbooks I read after Isaac's time-warping triumph didn't seem all too different, even though he kept pointing out little things and telling me that he'd changed math and physics and all that stuff people hate in school for the better. Maybe the box Wil had given him didn't work right?

Wil and Orv landed on the cover of Time magazine and became the Smithsonian's posterboys, but nobody really knew that it was actually Wil and Orv, because they used a clever disguise when time travelling; they never allowed themselves to be pictured without their paperboy caps – in Wil's case – or their bowler hats – in Orv's case. Nobody had yet to see the connection between the dudes who teamed up to fly kites around in some sand dunes back in the 1900s and the dudes who could fix A to Z on a Snowbaroo Outrun and make stuff levitate, so I think we were in the clear. As long as nobody saw them in their hats...

The weird thing about time travel was, even if Ben and Frederick had yet to do it, they still had already done it as per historical standards. Who knows, maybe Ben would go on to win all of those four major golf tournaments he was always talking about; he said guys didn't practice their game enough back in that day, so it was plausible. Imagine the Hawk of the dealership going back in time just to beat everyone at golf, that would be awesome...

So yeah, I guess I spaced a bit. Alex had swung back around and was taking the car towards the Stratford side of the Devon bridge again, and was now aiming for that BJ's parking lot. To park, like this was typical.

"Let's get out," she suggested, like this was normal. The dial read a touch above the 2010 decade, so I was relatively sure we'd landed in 2012 or 2013, a touch before I moved out with my folks.

We had parked beneath some sprig-looking tree that was probably only a few inches in trunk diameter and looked like some kind of youngster. A pear tree, maybe? The morning was around ten or eleven in time, with a warm feeling and a nearly clear blue sky. I had no bearing on the day of the week, but it must've been a Saturday, because Saturdays always have that feeling. Hands down, Saturdays always feel inherently like their own thing, separate from any other day. It's like those birds that just "know" where South is because of that magnetic thingy in their heads. 

Alex rounded the Lexus' trunk and came to face me. It was disconcertingly odd that she wouldn't move around the front of the car, like she normally did, or why her face was cranked to ten on the smile factor.

"Is everything cool?" I questioned, shutting the passenger door and crossing my arms over my chest in scrutiny. I hadn't anticipated that I'd wake up from a dream, taken hostage by a temporal shift.

Was this another elaborate play to get me to kick a soccer ball around with Alex?

"I hope so," she jabbed, in a heartening sort of way. "I just drove twelve years to bring you back here!"

And with that, we went into BJ's.

Of all the things I remember most about that area, I really didn't have any connection to BJ's besides its being a building that stood there. Yet Alex was determined to bring me inside and show me how awesome the year 2012 was. The only thing I remembered about it so fondly was that bridge and harbor, the song "Call Me Maybe," and the Olympics. I mean, otherwise, 2012 wasn't a super awesome year for my family. A good deal of loss, mainly. I didn't think that Wil would have suggested this year, which further added to my growing fears about what could be lurking in this time period. And who was supposed to do the thing? Like, when everyone else had warped back – besides that time we caught Nathan hitchhiking and then dumped him a few episodes later – they all contributed some big thing and made their being in the present, working at a Snowbaroo dealership really strange. What did I have to do? Ford a river? Fly a kite thing? Do math?

Or watch, as the biggest new flat screen TV – HD, not 4K – displayed this wicked scene as some chick head-bumped a soccer ball into a goal. USA versus Canada, the readout was.

"Whew, that must've hurt," I chuckled, as Alex guided me towards this pallet of car batteries. Apparently, we were out of juice?

I was thinking about my uncle, Nick, and how he used to play soccer and head-butt stuff all the time. I wondered if that translated into police work.

"It didn't really feel too bad," Alex smoothly reported.

I thought the oncoming stumble was due to a mis-tied shoelace, but Alex seemed to think otherwise.

"Just be cool, okay? There's a lot of people here."

"Where were we last night?" I wondered aloud, thinking about the dream, the dozens of coffees... and the unmistakable cabin of a Darebus A330. The answer came. "British Airways..."

True to Alex's advice, I tried not to melt down. She could have been a bit less conspicuous, having her hair tied up just like in that clip; throw a slim pink hairband and jersey on, and she'd look just as recognizable as George or Isaac. Probably even more so, because she actually belonged in this time period.

"That isn't going to be one of those weird time travel things where I see myself when I was younger or I see someone I know, right?" Panic began to set in; how long had I been in the past? Had we really been in London? Had Alex really done what I think she just did on that TV?

Even though it was a bit more strained than usual, Alex smiled at me. "I wanted you to see that, Grisly."

"So it was staged?" I pointed back to where the offending screen sat. "That was you."

Alex's grin morphed into a more genuine one, with a true splash of embarrassment. "Yep...yeah."

"Head-butting a goal in the Olympics."

Her reluctance to comment on this was helped by my blunder. "It's called 'heading,' Grisly," she corrected, rolling her eyes sweetly and smirking. Like a typical, everyday, sporty girl. Only Alex wasn't.

And no longer was it just my standards that she'd surpassed; Alex was high level. Really high level.

Yet here I was, buying a Duracell car battery with her in BJ's in Stratford, Connecticut, time travelling back to this moment so I could witness her in action? Was that the whole point? Was it a power trip?

"I have to call Wil."

Before Alex could stop me, or bolt after me at lightning speed as she was doing across the instant replay on the myriad of TVs for sale in the bulk club store, I was back out in the parking lot, trying to understand what was happening. Wil and Orv had that slick AT&T plan that I bought into, plus the fact that Wil and Orv still used those cool Palm Pilot style phones, almost like Blackberries but modern. They actually had physical keypad buttons and stuff, even though they had a screen and shape like a smartphone. That was a plus of emulating the purchases of your mentors; I just wondered if I could make the world's first transtemporal phone call. Funnily, the phone was the only thing that sort of matched the time period, besides Alex's car and, apparently, her soccer savvy.

Orv answered on the third ring. Wil hadn't picked up, and since he never created a voicemail message, I had no way of knowing if I'd properly connected with him. Thankfully, Orv's phone and plan were the same as Wil's. They must've got the twin bros package.

"Grisly? Why haven't we seen you on the lot today?"

"Hi Orv! Oh goodness, it's good to hear your voice!"

I could almost see Orv on the other line, cringing at how desperate and weird I sounded.

"Listen, you guys watch Back to the Future like nobody's business..."

As I talked, I could hear Wil's voice – almost identical to Orv's but sounding more distant from the phone – saying something.

"What did Wil say?" I asked, interrupting my own question. 

Orv came back into the receiver with a sigh. "Alright, we're coming to get you."

And with that, Orv terminated the first transtemporal phone call in history.

Like a misbehaving brat, I sat next to Alex's IS350 under the shade of the adjacent pear tree that populated the grassy parking lot median thing Alex had parked next to. Knowing Wil and Orv, they would be either taking an Outrun to come get us, or getting into Wil's Jealousy, putting one of those black boxes on the dash, hooking in all the little connector things, fueling up the tank with gasoline and the other with jet fuel, and coming to 2012. August 7th, a Tuesday, according to my phone. Darn it, off by three days.

I kept my eye peeled for the hovering Jealousy, figuring that even though we were travelling through time and whatnot, the brothers couldn't help but use their flying machine to make us all the more obvious.

"So, do you feel like talking?" Alex's voice caught my ear as she placed the battery down on the ground in front of the vehicle. Once again, it was hard to look at her and discern what her game was. Literally, because her game was part of the whole thing I was struggling with comprehending.

"Was that really you? Did you actually do that?" It was impossible that Alex would've gone to Dark Dimension, coached some high school soccer, worked at Dark Dimension Snowbaroo, and done all that after being an Olympian.

"We win gold this Thursday," Alex remarked, popping the car's hood and casually prophesying the future.

"With your help, I assume." The retort I made was coupled as best as I could with a knowing smile. It felt weird to be talking to Alex now. Really weird, like I was imposing on her or unworthy.

"I actually could've done a lot better; I didn't score all game." Lifting the battery into the engine bay, Alex self-critiqued her appearance in a gold medal Olympics soccer match as nonchalantly as someone who was assessing how much time they could save on their commute. 

The discussion, oddly, was then interrupted by a particularly loud Snowbaroo TRX pulling near to us on the other side of the grassy curb divider thing.

"2012 was not a good look on the TRX," Alex sighed, suddenly bringing our dialogue right back to everyday work. Snowbaroo, and Snowbaroo history.

"I think the Hawkeye and the newer ones are best, up until the newest ones. I think the newest generation is kind of rough." Putting my hands behind my head, I slumped more to the ground, eyeing the air and wondering when the brothers were going to care to warp into this year. "I just conducted the world's first transtemporal phone call."

With a gentle slam of the car's hood, Alex's face reappeared in my frame of vision. "You must be proud."

Why did she keep giving me these perfect openings? "Not as proud as you must be of all that."

I didn't want to be harping on it, but I pointed back towards the store anyhow. Alex's literal shrug-off response was another odd adage of what seemed to be a bit of blushing humility. Still, I wondered how much more Alex was holding back, and why she'd wanted me to see this in the first place. Why take me to Devon? Or was it because I told Wil I associated that place with the 2012 games? 

"Grisly, if you think I brought you here just to show off, I would be really hurt." Alex levelled her oceanic eyes at me as she assumed a seat beside me on the curb, our feet resting beneath the frame of the silver Lexus. "I just thought you might want to know; didn't you read my autobiography?"

Truthfully, I didn't get past the whole segment where Alex described growing up in California and playing soccer and getting the Lexus brand-new from some place out in Pheonix, Arizona with her dad.

"I didn't get to the later parts," I admitted, hoping my regret came through. I really was enjoying the read, but I suppose part of me also dreaded what I now knew; Alex was leaps and bounds beyond me. Famous, talented, and oddly residing in Dark Dimension, New York – probably because we had awful Internet and most people wouldn't recognize her?

"I've played in the 2012, 2016, and 2020 games," Alex went on, looking at me and sort of sighing, like it took a toll to tell me. "I've also played in the 2011, 2015, 2019, and 2023 World Cups."

"Man..." I breathed, "this blows George's Delaware River thing out of the water."

"He actually did that, right?" I looked to Alex as I added this bit, remembering how excited George was about crossing that river in some blizzard on a little dinghy rowboat and snuck an attack on some dudes. Thanks to his time warp, another thing he had to put up with was this huge painting made after the fact, showing George perched on one of the rowboats and immortalizing the event.

"He says he did, and George is a more reliable source than Isaac."

"Oh yeah!" I chimed once again, glad to be laughing along with Alex and breaking some of the tensions. Laughing with a world champion soccer player, who would've thought? Then again, our boss was the namesake of, like, a city, a state, a ton of businesses, a species of tree or something, and tons and tons of bridges. Rivers were his jam, it seemed – or at least, crossing them. "Isaac would tell you he created all of math and science and then some."

"Well, he did lay the foundation for our modern physical mechanics systems, and calculus."

"But is his last name... what was that guy... the one with the apple and stuff. Newtown?" I was coming up short of an answer, probably because time warping made stuff weird. It was weird to consider that Isaac technically influenced history back so long ago yet used the modern era as a jumping-off point, and by so doing, had already been written into history before he'd actually gone back?

"Newton," she informed me, in a sort of way like a teacher might. "Isaac Newton."

"Not Asimov? We're sure his name is 'Isaac Newton?'"

"You've known Isaac long enough to know his last name is 'Newton,' Grisly. Wow, do you even remember my last name?"

"Morgan," I rattled off easily. "Alex Morgan."

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***

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Wil and Orv took forever to reach us, but at least they brought food. I was getting hungry sitting in Alex's car, listening to the radio – since 2012 had some great airplay – and apologizing to Alex for getting the brothers to come and warp to us. I would've called them back, but I risked some sort of time fabric expulsion if I called Wil and Orv while they were warping. Hadn't time travel advanced to the point where you could call someone like you could nowadays with planes? C'mon already; aviation caught up a long time ago with cell phones and calling from planes and stuff. I knew full-well that we could've been back in Dark Dimension already, eating cold cut sandwiches around that round table rotunda thing that doubled as a place to fan out brochures and schmooze with customers. But had we left now, now that we had enough battery juice to power the cigarette-lighter power plug for the time warping box meter thing, Wil and Orv would've initiated some sort of time travel emergency and all the rest of the crew would've showed up to look for us.

When Wil and Orv warped, they did it over the Sound. Long Island Sound has a history for many industrial triumphs, including the building and testing of Sikorsky helicopters, Sikorsky flying boats, Corsair fighter planes, discharge of toxic waste, dumping of the stuff you now put in your recycling can, and the cultivation of one of the most potently sulphuric smell ever. And now, it played host to Wil's flying Jealousy sedan. There was still evidence that Wil got a bit overzealous and clipped the marsh outside of Stratford's airport, because as he drove in, I noticed a bunch of that marsh grass stuff and some cattails stuck in the wheel wells and Active Aero components.

I thought of mentioning that I once flew their glider kite powered box kite-looking plane over the marsh in Microsoft Flight Simulator, but then Wil would probably try to sue Microsoft or get royalties from it or something. No wait, didn't the brothers already play MSFS? Maybe they already worked out a deal? And after we had our fill of the brothers'homemade lemon meringue tarts and a thermos of coffee – the first thermos inhistory to keep hot contents hot for over a decade – we were right back to DarkDimension aboard Alex's IS 350. I hoped Wil wouldn't be mad, but I paid off thejet fuel he used anyway, just in case.