[ WP ] Two time travelers appear in the present day , claiming to both come from the same year . Both of them describe radically different versions of the future .

Allard leaned against a wall and licked his ice cream cone. It was his first taste of ice-cream, and although his taste buds swooned in ecstasy, he wondered if it was really worth all the trouble. He had read about it in books before, mentioned in passing, as if this were a luxury that even the most common folk felt was totally ordinary. First of all, a bitter autumn wind funneled through the buildings and directly into his face, perpetually trying to fling the tribly from his head. The ice cream froze his insides and the wind froze his outsides, and he since he came from a time where ice was limited only to the nobility, and the thermostat on the world was set far too high for comfort, he had not anticipated its remarkable cooling effects or its seasonal nature. Second, it took him nearly fifteen minutes to navigate through the different denominations of currency until finally the near-homicidal mother of three behind the counter counted out his change for him. It seemed an exorbitant amount of money considering he came from a time and place where one thumb-nail sized bit of metal got you a perfectly edible rat on a stick. The despondent look on her face worsened by degrees as he asked to the woman to explain every flavor and topping in the menu. Not only that, but the high priest who had flung him back in time seemed to have miscalculated the appropriate fashion for the era and everyone stared at him as if he had just escaped a mental institute. 
 
 Still, he thought, as he crunched on the waffle cone, he could at least cross that off his list. He would later make a small entry in his travel journal that it was enjoyable, but somewhat overrated. He shivered and waited. He checked the double-faced watch on his wrist. Crewe should be arriving shortly. According to the Priest, at least, who had somehow contacted the other reality through some invention of his and arranged this rendezvous. If he got the calculation correct, that was. Curtis, the last poor bastard to volunteer for the Priest ’ s experiments, had gone back to the wrong year and no one had ever heard from him again. Although Allard personally suspected that the man had decided he rather liked the past and got lost on purpose. Most people agreed that the past was better without ever going there. 
 
 A yellow car came screaming down the road and the door popped open. A man dressed in a glittery, studded dance suit came tumbling out. The cab driver unleashed a string of curses through the open door, pulled it shut, and roared away. 
 
 The man pulled himself off the concrete like a chewed stick of gum and looked around. Allard decided this must be Crewe. He looked suitably disoriented. Allard walked up and introduced himself. 
 
 “ Hello, ” he said. “ You must be Crewe. ” 
 
 The man squinted at Allard. 
 
 “ Ah, yes. Sorry about the entry. No one told me you ’ re not allowed to change your clothes in one of those things. ” 
 
 They shook hands as if they had learned the tradition from reading a textbook, but had never gotten the chance to actually practice the custom, which was true. 
 
 “ Is that what they told you to wear? ” Allard asked. 
 
 “ No, they made me where some type of a suit. It felt like I was being strangled. Far too many layers, no freedom of motion. I traded someone for this one. It breathes much better. It is a bit nippy though. ” 
 
 “ How was the trip? ” 
 
 “ Rough. Very rough. And yours? ” 
 
 “ Well, rough I guess is the right way to describe it. ” 
 
 “ Rather unnerving, isn ’ t it? Feels like someone split your brain in two, stuck it in a microwave for a few minutes, and put it back in upside down. ” 
 
 Allard did n't know what a microwave was, and neither did Crewe, but they had both read about them, so Allard nodded in recognition. “ How are things in your side of the present? ” 
 
 “ Not very good. Rather upsetting, really. Everyone ’ s dying out. Most people live in the simulators, their minds attached to computers and no one ’ s reproducing. ” 
 
 “ That ’ s more or less what the priest told me. ” 
 
 “ The priest. That ’ s your version of a scientist, right? ” 
 
 Allard shrugged. 
 
 “ I heard you guys are having a rough go of it as well. ” 
 
 “ Yes, except we have the opposite problem as you. Everyone ’ s a complete savage. Fuedalism, I think is fancy word for it. A few nukes too many and half the world ’ s a wasteland. ” 
 
 “ This is the right place, isn ’ t it? ” 
 
 They both turned to look at the White House. They examined it for a long time, compared it to the images in the books they had studied. 
 
 “ It looks pretty majestic, ” Crewe said. “ This must be the place. ” 
 
 “ Should we come up with some kind of a plan, go over what we ’ re going to say? ” 
 
 “ Probably, but I ’ m always better when I wing it. I think I ’ ll say something about outlawing simulators, or at least pass a law the tells people they have to take a break and fertilize each other every once in a while. ” 
 
 “ I think I ’ ll tell him this whole nuke affair is a real bad deal. It ’ s not going to work out for anyone in the end. ” 
 
 “ Sounds reasonable enough. Let ’ s do it then, shall we? ” 
 
 The two men walked up the brightly lit building, the King ’ s castle in this strange, mysterious land. Allard wondered how long it would take before they got an audience, how the king would take it when they finally did. They would show him the two possible realities that would result from the world ’ s current idiocy if they didn ’ t start using their heads. He thought they had some good points. All they would have to do was apologize for their strange clothing and tell him what he had to do, and then they might give birth to a better future, a happy medium between the two. One where there was still ice cream and people didn ’ t live inside computers, where people had running water and toilets, but the toilets were n't built into the seats so people still had to get up and interact with each other. Allard smiled, contemplating that world as he knocked on the front door. 

