West

"Yes!"

"I have a time machine."

"No way!"

"Way way."

"Why didn't you say something before?" With the line between reality and the imaginary blurred, I was so excited, I was barely able to get off my stool without falling. "Then why haven't we gone back? C'mon, Carter. The past is waiting." I took his arm and pulled him through the crowd to the warm night outside. "Where did you park it?"

Carter laughed and caught himself against a pillar on the porch. "I didn't park it! It's in my lab."

"Okay, then, let's go there. We can rescue people and come back by morning, right, like on Doctor Who?" I made my way down the stairs. A thrill worked its way through my drunken haze. The idea of saving a million people, of seeing what Tombstone looked like almost two hundred years ago, was the most incredible adventure my drunken mind had ever gone on.

"You need brain chips first."

I laughed, nearly collapsing. "Like potato chips in my brain!"

He tripped and sprawled onto the sidewalk. Quakes of laughter tore through us both, and we stayed on the ground until we were able to walk again.

Helping one another up, we started walking, arm in arm. "You … are amazing, Josie," he said. "They told me so and now I know."

I looked up at him, his handsome profile outlined in the moonlight. "Who told you?"

"Oh. No one."

"You're so weird, Carter."

"Josie, wait." He faced me, as serious as could be. "It really is an honor to meet you. A great honor."

"Thank you, Carter." I held out my hand and shook his rigorously. "It's an honor to meet you, too. Let's go to your lab."

"Yes, let's!"

Together, we half walked, half staggered back to the storefront where I took the survey earlier. It took four attempts before he was able to unlock the door and pushed it open.

Brilliant light spilled out into the night, too bright to see into the room.

"It's … there," he said proudly. "My lab. Your brain chips."

A tingle of awareness slid through me, one that warned me I was wandering around in the middle of the night with a complete stranger. It just as quickly fizzled, replaced by the comfortable warmth of being drunk and the idea of time traveling like Doctor Who.

"Let's go," I said and strode into the light.

I squinted to see what was inside.

And then the world went dark.