“Hey, thanks for meeting me here,” I said to the beautiful girl sitting across from me.

Blossom smiled. Her smile could melt the hardest of hearts. Since she had her baby and with all the end of school crap, I hadn’t seen her much. Now that we’ve graduated from high school our lives don’t cross much. Well, they didn’t cross much before either. Now that I think about it, I think when she was Mason she tried to avoid me until we time traveled together. Her voice was almost musical, “No problem, Spence. You sounded pretty excited over the phone.”

I’ll admit that I have a bit of a crush on her now. But she seems to be pretty solidly dating Troy these days. Knowing who she used to be, it still shocked me when she did things like she was doing while we were sitting down at the outdoor table at Rosa’s. She had opened her blouse and was just as casual and natural as can be was nursing her baby on her breast.

Before continuing, I studied her for a another moment as I took a long slow slug from my soda. Like I said, Blossom was gorgeous, and unabashedly, naturally so. She looked and moved as if she’d been born female. It didn’t take her long to learn about hair and make-up. I would almost think that all that just comes from being a girl except none of that rubbed off on me when I was a girl eight hundred fifteen years from now.

In fact, even though we didn’t have access to make-up, Blossom always managed to have her hair fresh and gorgeous every day. But then she was actually trying to impress her Master. I just wanted to kick my Master in the groin. In fact, I actually did once. I didn’t think his wife, Mary was ever going to stop laughing.

I leaned across the table and spoke in a lower tone, “I am excited. I’ve done it Mason… I mean Blossom. I just need a few more tests and adjustments.”

Wrinkling her brow, Blossom asked, “Done what Spence? I heard that the fire department had to come to your house last week.” She took a sip of her iced tea. “Twice.”

I grinned broadly, “I built a new time machine. Better than the last one and I think I fixed the problem that swaps genders.”

Looking puzzled, Blossom said, “But I thought the Feds took all your files and notes.”

Grinning again, I pulled a thumb-drive from my pants pocket and dangled it in front of her. “Backups chickie. Backups! And I made improvements. Power is all solid state, so there’s almost no drift.”

Blossom suddenly looked tense. She quietly asked, “Can you go back? Back to the future?”

I leaned back in my seat. “You mean back to that beautiful summer eight hundred and fifteen years from now?” I shook my head, “No gorgeous. We can’t go back to that point in time. But I believe I do have better control now.”

Blossom forced a smile after looking wistful for a moment. She said, “Still. That’s great Spence! Maybe you can just go forward a bit and see if Troy ever asks me to marry him.”

I squinted at Blossom, “You want to marry that twerp?”

Looking indignant, Blossom said, “Hey. He’s nice. He has a job and everything.”

I gave a dismissive wave. “Jobs, schmobs. I just built the ticket to my success.”

Blossom smiled at me, “I sure hope so, Spence. You certainly deserve it. It was so unfair for the government to take your machine like that.”

I started to stand up, “Well, that’s not happening again! Anyway, I wanted you to be the first to know.”

Blossom smiled again, “Thanks for letting me know. I’d come watch but…” she pointed at her baby, “I need to stay clear of large explosions.” She then laughed.

The machine was humming. It was sounding pretty smooth. Nothing erratic or strange sounding at all. I checked the gauges and computer screens for the zillionth time. Everything nominal. Everything looking really good. Deankooncies was nowhere to be seen.

Spence old boy, I said to myself. Today you make history. Again.

I stood beside the machine watching the lights and monitors and listening to its sweet, steady hum. I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths. I set the displacement knob at just one second into the future. Baby steps.

I hit the start button and the oscillations began to ramp up. To myself, I said, “Three, two one… Let’s jam!” and stepped inside the chamber.

There was a sudden electric arc, the heavy smell of ozone, a loud clap and then…a violent jolt.

“Oh shit!”

Troy turned to me, with more than little annoyance clouding his otherwise handsome features, “Blossom. Seriously. I want to have our own family one day. I’m begging you to put that baby up for adoption.”

I looked down at the other baby nursing at my breasts and nuzzled her, “No I couldn’t, could I sweet little Spunky-girl!>”