Me₃ clicked forward one last slide, showing a dizzying serpents’ lair of timelines. “You,” he said to Me₂, “and I are going back to the accident. You hang off in the bushes; I’ll intervene and then jump back. She’ll follow me, and you can go and live out your life. You,” he said, pointing to me, “on the other hand…in that briefcase is the vaccine and the information required to find Latrodecta when the time comes. But you need to get far, far away in time, just to be safe. Get a time in the past in mind. Got one?”

“Yeah,” I replied, swallowing hard. “I got it.”

Me₂ stood up. “One for the road, eh?” he toasted, then downed the rest of his drink rapidly.

Me₃ turned off the projector. “When the deed is done…” he quietly suggested, “…let’s meet at Fick’s, and toast the undoing of this disaster.” He bade Me₂ come over, and then put his hands on the both of us. “’Till next time,” he sadly said.

I wished I hadn’t thought about Mr. Criske’s tenth-grade Ancient World History class.