For a Limited Time Only (The Time Traveler's Passport)

by Peng Shepherd

Ohio,

Ohio mentioned

“Explain it to me again,” I’d said after our third beer. “You think you can get me an interview, but the company doesn’t exist yet.” “Right,” she’d replied. “Not until 2070.”

The reality is, you just can’t do that. You can’t change things. Try, and the whole system collapses. In the models, it looks like a cake pulled out of the oven too early. We have three research labs dedicated to those calculations, to working out exactly how much you can alter without destroying the universe, and it’s this. It’s Oracle. Just substituting one product for another.

Humanity actually invents time travel—and all we can use it for is optimum product placement and unbeatable competitor intelligence.

Oracle has two main departments: Past and Futures. Including Vik and me, there are probably fifty employees in Past, and I have no idea how many in Futures, other than Theresa. Most of them, we’ll never meet, because they haven’t even been hired yet.

“Well, any plans after this?” I finally ask. “Long weekend, in the now.” Our present, I mean—August 2040.

As long as I don’t put it into words, everything is fine. None of it has happened yet.

“Love. Death. It doesn’t matter.” He turns back to the bar. “We can’t change it. All we have is the time.”

“This is it?” I wail, unable to bear it. “This is what’s left?” 36 “Everything is left,” he insists. “You’ll see.” “How can you say that?” I ask. “When we know how it’s going to end?” My older self reaches to steady me, and I look at him at last. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” he says. “For you, it doesn’t have to.”

Even someday, much later—when I’m too old to conceal it up close—there will still be more moments. Smaller ones, but just as precious.