By his twenty-fifth birthday, Jim knew exactly how he was going to die. Twenty-three years from now, he would be bludgeoned to death with a frying pan after drinking the last beer of his already extremely annoyed erstwhile room-mate.

“Wow, just as good as I remembered. I tell you, these things are impossible to find. I can’t remember if we have any Devil Dogs left, do we?” Jim quickly hid the frying pan behind his back as his elder self turned to face him.

“No. We don’t” Jim grumbled. “We… I haven’t had one of those in years.”

“Funny, neither have I.” His own, grayed, balding visage boomed with laughter at his own joke. "Thanks again for letting me stay here until that whole temporal nexus thing gets fixed. Someone in R&D is going to get fired, or possibly not hired. " Old Jim looked confused. “I’m not sure how HR would deal with this sort of thing.”

Jim ignored the second half of his future dilemma. “I don’t believe I had a choice”.

“You’re not upset about missing that date with Beth, are you?”