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  Connie actually went out to meet him. I couldn’t hear them talk, but all the gestures and movements seemed right—a rerun of the day before. Good continuity. Just like last time, Russ 2.0 offered over the “Take the Leap” script, and Connie accepted it, reluctantly. It almost tore me in half watching them this second time, knowing what torture I’d soon put Connie through, all over again.

  But that was how the story played out. Had to be. It was the only way to avoid triggering some paradox that would erase my existence. Or worse, open a black hole in the mid-Atlantic seaboard, sucking the whole galaxy into dark-energy nothingness.

  Hypothetically.

  As they turned to leave, Connie looked back at his window, at me.

  I flinched away from view, thinking he’d just screwed up and created the first major discrepancy. But then I remembered that Connie actually had looked back at the house that first time. And when I called him out for it, he claimed it was déjà vu.

  My mind was really reeling now. Maybe all of this had already been accounted for. Maybe when I was in Russ 2.0’s place, another version of me was here in this bedroom, hoping Connie wouldn’t alter a thing. Could be the real reason Connie was so nervous all day.

  A strange loop, playing over and over again, always exactly the same.

  But, no. There was an important change after all. This time, Connie had failed to do his usual last-minute home safety check. He was too distracted by bigger problems. Plus, Connie’s clock read 8:01, which meant our wake-up call had gotten Russ 2.0 out the door ahead of schedule. At this rate, he and 2.0 would get to school ten minutes early, not ten minutes late. Other Russ would make morning broadcast on time, and that fact alone would tilt his day in a whole new direction.

  The paradox was already in motion.

  I SPRAWLED across Connie’s bed and considered.

  It took ten minutes for me to decide that the worst option was to be left alone with my thoughts like this. The universe zoomed to a tight focus. Stuck in a dark bedroom all day, waiting to blip out of existence or spontaneously evaporate or who knows what. I was a pioneer, but the thrill of discovery was so much weaker than the threat of nonexistence, of death. I kept touching things just be sure my fingers were still there. I couldn’t catch my breath or lower my heart rate. Couldn’t quiet the existential dread and just chill out.

  Just to distract myself, I un-paused Dragon Rage 2 and tried to play, but the controls were wonky. My dragon kept dive-bombing into the same castle turret, over and over. Extra lives depleted. Game Over.

  I tried to sleep. Staring up at Connie’s universe model I wished I’d learned the stars and moons so I could apologize to each of them by name for throwing everything off balance. How could I be so crucial when I was so insignificant?

  The house phone rang five times before an answering machine in Connie’s mother’s bedroom picked it up. Her recorded greeting echoed down the hall—you’ve reached the Bower residence—but nobody left a message.

  The quiet was like a hidden intruder. I kept thinking:

  One chance to make things right. This is the real leap.

  Video Russ was future-me so I had to believe he had reasons for sending me back in time. I had no idea how he did it, but why seemed clear enough. He wanted me to fix my mistakes, his mistakes, our mistakes. And his advice had been a warning. It was clear to me now. Don’t sit around in Connie’s room and squander this one shot. Do something, and screw the paradoxes.

  So I decided to focus on the one change I could make without leaving Connie’s house. From his computer, I downloaded the draft of my Cape Twilight Blues spec script, gave it a good read-through. I mean, it was fiction, so what could be the harm in messing around with it? Nothing in the real world would be affected. I could escape my universe, fall into make-believe Cape Twilight, and leave my massive worries behind.

  The structure was solid, all the major characters got equal screen time, and a single thematic base note echoed across all the plotlines. The sugary life lesson didn’t get obvious until the last act. But, all in all, it was a trite little ditty. If I were Bobby Keene-Parker, I would’ve tossed this chum bucket overboard, too. Even if I had actually read it.

  But now I had some critical insight from Keene-Parker himself. I had some ammo. See, I’d been studying broadcasting and media long enough to know that every actor has an emotional scab. If you pick at it just right, you’ll get him screaming in no time, but you have to find it first. Five minutes with Bobby and I had found his scab. It was right there on that lighter of his. The Kindling.

  Daddy issues: Movie Mogul Marv Parker, Bobby’s sire, was a certified tyrant.

  I switched my episode title from “Daylight Saving” to “Honor Thy Father.” The new title was just pretentious enough to make Bobby see Emmy Award angels prancing around his head. And that trigger word, “father,” was right there to bait him.

  Old version: the boyfriend of Bobby’s character gets accepted to Stanford, prompting a gut-wrenching decision about their budding relationship—whether to stick it out or break it off. They decide to give transatlantic love a chance. Yawn, I know.

  Revision: Reece’s (Bobby’s character’s) deadbeat father comes back into town, and Reece comes out to his dad about being gay. The old man has a bigoted hissy fit, so Bobby gets to pitch a tearjerker speech about tolerance and forgiveness. But get this: the speech is really about Bobby needing to forgive Pops for his parental desertion and general douchebaggery. Chewy subtext!

  In the last scene there’s a small step toward reconciliation, but nothing too final. THE END.

  The house phone did three sets of ringing while I wrote, but I ignored it.

  Took me two straight hours to edit the Bobby/Reece scenes. Boilerplate dialog, I just had to hit the right dramatic beats and turns. I didn’t change a word in the rest of the script. No need. This script was designed to please Bobby, nobody else. All I needed was to get his attention.

  I would’ve finished faster, but my email system kept chiming new mail every few minutes. I checked them and then re-marked them as “unread” so I wouldn’t mess with space-time, though it hardly mattered because the fresh messages were all gibberish, every one. A mash-up of algebra and wingdings, error messages saying the graphics couldn’t be displayed.

  It got so relentless, I had to log off and close the web browser.

  The next time the phone rang I decided it had to be Connie trying to reach me. Any contact between us seemed like it would be against his rules, but he’d know better than me if there were loopholes. I eased open his mother’s bedroom door and saw the cordless phone on her dresser. I couldn’t resist. I picked up the receiver but didn’t say anything, and all I got was garbled pings and whines, like when you dial a fax machine by accident.

  Back in Connie’s room, his stereo turned itself on and scanned randomly through radio stations. I had to unplug it to make it stop.

  After hours of chafing, I finally put on the cleanest pair of Connie’s tighty-whities I could find. He owned no boxers. I slipped the jeans back on, belted them to my waist. Flip-flops too big for my feet, and a blue Dr. Who TARDIS t-shirt that draped halfway down to my knees. I plucked a twenty from Connie’s R2-D2 piggy bank, fully intending to pay it back.

  When I tried to print my Cape Twilight script, half the pages slid blank white onto the tray. I ran the print job five more times before I got at least one clean copy of every page. Ate through a whole ream of paper.

  The phone kept ringing and ringing. My email logged itself back in and chimed a new message every five seconds. I’d dealt with way too much tech weirdness in the last few hours to dismiss this as coincidence. The video game, the email, the phone, the Pastime Project app…

  Somehow, Video Russ was reaching out again. Reminding me, egging me on.

  And the message was: if you don’t get out, I’ll drive you nuts.

  It was either Video Russ, or whoever convinced him to send that video (because I didn’t see myself glea
ning any revolutionary time-travel know-how any time soon). It didn’t take a huge leap of logic to guess that someone with the tech to warp a live human through time could also disrupt telecommunications, email systems, and video game platforms at will.

  Whatever was going to happen was happing now. No point in pretending I could prevent it. My double existence in this place was somehow not impossible, and bigger changes weren’t going to make it any less real.

  I had to do it. Step out and take my chances, fix the mistakes I made the first time I lived through this day, without involving Connie or Paige or especially Russ 2.0. It was time to take over my life, just like Video Russ suggested. And for that, I needed to get to school and steal my cell phone from myself.

  RUSS 2.0 may have beaten the morning bell, but I was more than five hours late for class. I couldn’t just waltz past the front office or risk getting nabbed by one of the roving volunteer hall monitors. Couldn’t take the chance of being recognized or questioned, either.

  The gym was my secret entrance, easy enough, but classes were in session so I had to reach my locker by stealth. I peered around every corner, ducked into bathrooms, hurried down hallways and around stairwells. Connie’s oversized flip-flops slowed me down and made an awful fwap fwap racket, too.

  At this moment, unless events were completely off track, Russ 2.0 would be in English and desperately wondering whether Savannah texted him her decision about the video shoot yet. Not for another twenty-five minutes but, unfortunately, he was about to lose his chance to find that out.

  One minute before the period bell, I reached my locker, opened it, and took custody of the cell phone. I knew exactly the anguish 2.0 would go through when he discovered it missing. Robbing myself caused a strange rush of guilt, like I was already being punished for my actions. But it was for a noble cause: helping him/me avoid several of his/my worst blunders ever.

  The bell rang, the classroom doors swung open, and students poured into the halls. 2.0 would take about a minute to get here. For cover, I snagged a spare hoodie before I shut my locker door, then rushed down a stairwell I almost never used.

  The broadcasting studio was empty and dark. Mr. Yes’s office gave off the only light, and he was sitting in there with his lunch, just as I expected. Just as he took a sip from his thermos, I knocked on the open door, and the noise made him swallow his drink down the wrong tube.

  “Sorry about that, Mr. Yes,” I said with a wince.

  He waved it off as he coughed red-faced into his wastepaper basket. A sandwich and a bag of pretzels sat untouched on his desk. He must’ve already felt crappy, but he didn’t look nearly as sick as I knew he soon would.

  “I have to do some last minute pick-up shots this afternoon,” I explained, “and my camera-person fell through, so I was wondering if I might be able to check out one of the school’s cameras, bring it back Monday?”

  “No,” Mr. Yesterly choked.

  My gut clenched. Something had gone wrong. I was suddenly sure 2.0’s early arrival gave him extra time to screw up any diplomacy with Mr. Yes. I was convinced Yesterly was pissed, and Savannah probably never even got her invitation to the Silver Bullet. I should’ve listened to Video Russ, locked 2.0 in a closet somewhere, and taken over right from the start.

  “No—” Mr. Yesterly repeated, gasping. “No problem.”

  “Oh,” I said. “No problem.”

  “Sorry—water in my throat. Just fill out the release form and recharge the battery when you’re done. What happened to you?” He dabbed his own left eye to show what he meant.

  My shiner. Dead giveaway I wasn’t the other Russ.

  “Gym class,” I said. “Got shouldered in the face during flag football. That’s why I’m wearing my gym clothes. My head was so rattled, I forgot to change.”

  He could’ve asked why my gym outfit included oversized jeans and flip-flops, but Yes wasn’t in the interrogative mood. “Ouch,” he said. “Stay safe, right? You’ve got a video project due to me first thing Monday. No more extensions, got it?”

  “Right,” I said.

  I would’ve done a fist-pump if I could’ve gotten away with it. My time line had changed, and it had veered down a positive path. Somehow 2.0 managed to get the Monday extension without having to collide with Mr. Yes outside the men’s room after school. Probably because the other me showed up, got the morning announcements prepped, and ran a flawless show like he was supposed to. After all that responsibility, Mr. Yes couldn’t help but give him an extension.

  Now it was on me to return the favor.

  “Mr. Yes? Sorry for saying this, but you’re not looking so great.”

  “Not myself today, that’s for sure.”

  “You should take an early day—maybe go see your doctor.”

  “It’s that obvious, huh?”

  I was wary of saying too much, but I had to convince him. “You should, you know, be careful of your blood sugar.”

  He cocked his head. “My blood sugar?”

  “Watch your insulin or whatever.”

  “Russ—what makes you think I’m diabetic?”

  “You’re not?”

  “Not that I know of. Did someone give you the impression I was?”

  Yeah, you, I wanted to say. But I couldn’t accuse him of lying about being a diabetic because he wouldn’t actually be telling his lie for another hour and a half. In fact, I pretty much just ensured that he wouldn’t end up having that conversation with me at all.

  “I guess I was thinking of someone else,” I said.

  “Someone else, huh?”

  I could see Mr. Yes didn’t buy it, but we were in a standoff.

  “All I’m saying is—it looks like it might be worse than just your average flu bug. My Mom’s in the pharmaceutical business, so, you know, I hear about these things.”

  “Okay. Right,” Mr. Yes said. “I’ll get it checked out.”

  The mention of my mother, Madeline Belmont, put Mr. Yes on his own dark little cloud. Creepy, but effective, because it gave me a chance to slip away without further questioning. I’m not sure he even registered I was gone until I left the studio, camera case in hand. I had a plan to carry through.

  SOMEHOW I had to get in contact with Conrad, but there were two Horace Vales wandering the halls of Port City Academy. If no divergences had happened yet, one of me was still in the cafeteria with Connie, so I couldn’t exactly make a double showing at my own lunch period, even if, after something like fifteen hours of fasting, I was hungry enough to eat those gray green beans all over again.

  Instead, I loitered in the East Hall, a “free zone” just off the cafeteria, where upperclassmen on their lunch break were allowed to mill around and socialize after mealtime. It was mostly just the Future Runway Models of America who refused to eat or even sit within sniffing distance of food.

  Ten minutes until 1 p.m., the milestone moment when Savannah sends the text agreeing to meet me at the Silver Bullet Diner for videotaping. Fierce jitters. You’d think the second time around I’d be more confident, but I couldn’t be sure 2.0 had laid the groundwork just right. Very possible he blew it with Savannah because of some unforeseen variable, and now I wasn’t going to get that text at all.

  When my phone buzzed seven minutes early, it was Connie, not Savannah. For privacy, I crouched into an auditorium side-exit alcove and read his text:

  testing. r u there?

  I considered not answering, but I’d already obliterated Connie’s former past. I texted:

  yep

  who? someone stole russs phone, he wrote.

  me, real russ

  ?

  from the future! I wrote. I could erase the texts later if they needed redaction.

  ur here? stole his phone???

  my phone too. is 2.0 with u?

  no. just left, looking for his phone! where r u?

  I started to type, but then the implications of Connie’s comment sank in.

  2.0 was on the loose.

  I gl
anced around the corner and, sure enough, I got walloped by another bout of metaphysical double vision. Because there he was, Russ 2.0, stalking up the hall toward me.

  One look at his zombie posture and I could see how stricken with worry he was. I’d probably look like that if my phone went AWOL right before I was destined to get my first text (and maybe only text ever) from Savannah Lark.

  Even if my day was looking up, his was sucking rotten limes.

  I popped my head back into the alcove and yanked the hood over it. The phone never buzzed as loudly as it did just then.

  Connie: where r u?? I didn’t type back until I was sure 2.0 had walked well past my hiding spot. free zone, third alcove, I wrote.

  I left the borrowed HD camera in the alcove so Connie wouldn’t see it when he came out to meet me. No need to tip him off about what I planned to do. I made sure Russ 2.0 was out of sight and then eased back into the open, cool and collected, hooking a finger through a belt loop on my jeans to keep them from sliding down.

  Twenty-odd students filled the hall, arranged in their cliques. None of them looked at me like I was the ghost of the kid that just passed by a few seconds earlier. Nobody noticed me at all. I wasn’t part of their circle of friends, so I didn’t exist.

  But Connie noticed me right off. He stepped out of the cafeteria, glancing up and down from his phone display, like he was following my coordinates by GPS. He rushed over and whispered, “I knew it was you as soon as his phone disappeared. And you’re wearing my t-shirt.”

  The hoodie was unzipped far enough to show off the TARDIS. I decided not to mention the unmentionables I was also forced to borrow and said instead, “You didn’t tell me he was gonna mosey right past here.”

  “Oh God, did he see you?”

  “Obviously not.”