I remember the drive here, every twist and turn stored in my brain. I know the freeway is nearby—or at least, it was in our time. There should be a mini-mart or a gas station near the exit. I start walking. “This way.”

“How do you know this is the right direction?” Chris asks, catching up with me.

“You got a better idea?”

He snorts but doesn’t say anything else. The five of us head down the empty road, while the rising sun struggles to peek out from the dark clouds.

Another egg-shaped car shoots past us but slows at the corner to turn right. On the back window there’s a shiny red, white, and blue bumper sticker that says, REELECT NGUYEN, followed by a year. A year that makes me stop dead in my tracks.

Because it’s thirty years in the future. Not ten.

01:06

01:06

I stare after the car, the numbers lingering in my brain long after they’ve disappeared from sight. “Was that…?” I can’t say it. I’m finding it hard to breathe. “The car. The sticker. The year.”

“It can’t be,” Adam says, his voice low. “It must be a joke or something. Like those Yoda for President stickers. There’s no way…”

“Thirty. Years.” Chris shakes his head. “Thirty fucking years. Not ten. Thirty. Holy shit.”

All five of us are rooted to this spot in the middle of the road, gazing after a car that is long gone, hoping for answers. Zoe leans against the fence, her arms wrapped around herself, whispering, “Oh God,” again and again.

Trent stands beside her with his mouth hanging open. “This is seriously messed up,” he finally says.

“Okay, let’s not panic,” Adam says, running a hand through his dark hair. “We just need to think this through. Assuming the sticker is real, that means we’re at least thirty years in the future. Or more, if it’s an old sticker, although it looked shiny and wasn’t peeling off or anything. Dr. Walters said they thought we would be going ten years forward, but maybe they weren’t sure how far the accelerator would send us in the future.”

“Or the machine malfunctioned,” Chris says.

I think of the conversation I overheard between the scientists. “Or they lied to us.”

“Why would they do that?” Zoe asks.

Adam and I lock eyes, but he gives a tiny shake of his head. He doesn’t want me to tell them what I heard. Fine. It would probably freak them out even more.

“How the hell should we know?” Chris asks, saving me from having to answer. “They didn’t tell us shit. Who knows what else they’re hiding?”

Trent nods. “No kidding. They just went, ‘Hey, guys, you’re going to the future. See ya later,’ and sent us on our way. Not cool.”