did you want from Roman’s room?” Ash was leaning forward in his seat now, drumming his fingers against his knee.
“The Professor’s textbooks went missing around the time Roman left, didn’t they?” Willis said. “We always thought they were lost in the earthquake, but seeing as Roman stole a bunch of other stuff from the Professor’s office, I didn’t think it was that much of a stretch to assume he’d steal these, too.”
With a flourish, Willis stepped aside, revealing a small stack of moldy-looking textbooks.
There was a beat of silence.
“They won’t turn you into a genius overnight,” Willis said to Zora apologetically. “But I thought they might help you with some of the math in your dad’s journal.”
Zora pressed her hands together. She looked like she might cry. “Willis . . . ,” she said in a strangled voice. And then, as though she no longer trusted herself to speak, she crossed the kitchen and took his giant face in her hands, planting a kiss right on his mouth.
Willis’s face went red.
“Well,” he said, clearing his throat. “That was completely unnecessary.”
LOG ENTRY—JUNE 21, 2074
13:40 HOURS
THE WORKSHOP
According to Greek myth, a woman named Cassandra was gifted with the ability to see the future when the god Apollo caught sight of her and determined her to be of extraordinary beauty.
When Cassandra rebuffed Apollo’s advances, he cursed her with something particularly cruel in punishment: Cassandra would be able to see the future, but no one would believe what she saw.
I feel a bit of camaraderie with Cassandra just now, and so I feel it only fitting to name this mission in her honor.
I give you:
Mission: Cassandra 1
Objective: Attempt to alter the future.
For my first experiment, I think it wise to start small. I want to look into the idea of personal choice as it relates to predestination. Or, put colloquially, I’d like to determine whether I can change my own choices.
I believe that proving or disproving this will be relatively easy. I will simply travel one day into the future and observe myself as I make my way through my day-to-day life. I’ll keep careful notes of what I do and where I go, and then I will return to my present timeline. I will have twenty-four hours to change just one thing from what I previously observed.
Just one choice.
I’ll update on my return.
UPDATE—
JUNE 22, 2074
14:51 HOURS
I’m writing this from the “future”—one day in the future, to be exact. I traveled twenty-four hours forward, and landed the Second Star a few blocks away from the workshop so that present me wouldn’t see future me arrive.
That’s already a contradiction. Because the present me that exists in the future would already know that I’m here, wouldn’t he? Because I already went back?
That line of thinking is making my brain hurt, so back to the task at hand. I stayed out of sight and observed what “I” did over the last hour so that I might intentionally make a different choice when faced with the same options tomorrow (that is this) morning. This is what I discovered:
07:00 hours—Woke up and ate normal breakfast of black coffee, one orange, and a bowl of oatmeal with brown sugar. Have small argument with Natasha, who’s annoyed that I’ve been working so diligently over the winter holiday.
07:30 hours—Get Zora up for school and make her breakfast.
08:30 hours—Drive Zora to school. A car accident on I-5 caused major delays, which resulted in us being twenty-five minutes late for Zora’s first class. I promise her a milkshake if she “forgets” to tell that piece of information to her mother.
09:45 hours—Return to the workshop, where I spend the next several hours going over my notes from the previous day. I admit that this is a little strange to watch. The “notes” I’m going over are the notes that I’m writing right now. I’m watching myself go over the same notes in the future, even as I move my hand to write them. Extraordinary.
14:23 hours—Break for lunch. Natasha has informed me that there’s leftover roast chicken in the fridge, but I leave the workshop to get a burrito from the taco truck down the street instead. Shh.
. . . And that brings us to where we are now. I have to admit, it’s excruciatingly boring to watch myself live an entire day. It’s occurring to me that I’m not a very interesting person.
In any case, I have enough data now to continue with my experiment, and so it’s time to go home.