[ 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 .

Samuel inspected the menu as golden sunlight filtered through the line of ten meter tall Linden trees that marked the unofficial border of the outside patio area of Café de l'insouciance. He had chosen it as it was generally crowded on Sundays with tourists and he used it to soak up the early spring Parisian atmosphere as one of those tourists. He crossed his legs and sat the menu down having decided on a new brunch item marketed as “ Blissful Blueberry Cakes ” and patiently waited for a server to take his order. His observations of a pair of children playing across the street in a grass park were being interrupted by the grating excited voice of a younger man explaining to his table-mate. 
 
 “ I am telling you, what I told you last night was true! ” He exclaimed to his companion who was gingerly sipping on a cup of coffee. 
 
 “ Dude, look. I appreciate you buying the drinks. But hey man, role of wing-man and weaving the story for the ladies ended last night. ” He said in the unmistakable voice of someone coming out of a hangover, “ It's cool man. ” 
 
 “ Nigel, if you do n't believe anything else. ” The young man said with exasperation he stood up and started to write down something on the napkin, “ Just take this to Franco when you go into work, I really had a blast last night but I got to go. ” 
 
 “ Yeah sure man. ” 
 
 Samuel thought nothing of it until the young man moved past him to walk off. Suddenly his guise popped up a ping reply icon in his vision. At first Samuel thought he was seeing things or an old loop-back on his own systems. But it was a foreign address, that responded to near proximity infrared that integrated tattoos responded to. He did a double take with his eyes the same manner one would with the shock of seeing a familiar face in the crowd. 
 
 “ The hell? ” He muttered in surprise as he turned around to look at the table he left from to see Franco who never touched the napkin stand up to leave. Samuel turned around to look down the sidewalk to see the young-man strutting off across the street to the park. “ There is no way anything should causes his guise to respond unless it was another system homesteading, using integrated tattoos. ” He thought as his mind quickly started to run through rational reasons as to explain the ping reply. But the possibilities reduced to one when he walked over to the empty table with the discarded message on a napkin. 
 
 
 
 Samuel knew he was getting fat, his belly had been reaping the pleasures of his tongue from the Parisian cuisines the last eight months. But it wasn ’ t until he was trying to catch up with the spry mystery man who was now three blocks away from him. Samuel shuffled across a side street feeling beads of sweat starting to escape the confines of his stetson that he realized he probably had overindulged. Thankfully, his cocky gate and obnoxiously white sports coat and jeans made him stick out of the crowd to make tracking him easy. 
 
 He thought about the local area map and his guise connected to a local wifi connection pretending to be a smart phone and overlaid his vision with a short cut through a service alley between a set of town houses as the man rounded the block ahead of him. As he slipped through the alley he looked down at the napkin as if to make sure his eyes were not deceiving him as his guise overlying the exact equation for the looped wormhole over it. Samuel now panting hard as he exited the alley exactly as the youth crossed it, nearly ran into him. 
 
 “ Whoa! Hot date? ” He said as he caught Samuel by the shoulders to prevent them from colliding. Lake looked down to see a crumpled napkin an his hand and then met his eyes with Samuel who was looking at him with the sense of purpose of someone who found what they wanted. Lake backed off, already knowing what the napkin was. Just as he was about to turn and make a break for it, his actor popped a message in his vision with a garbled message and the two men stood there starring at each other. 
 
 
 “ Wait, you are telling me they never did it? Come on! ” Lake exclaimed to Samuel six hours later, in which all of it was explaining each others situation. “ I mean, it would explain why the Roth's never recovered their dynasty and why your what is it you call it? Guise? Was running that garbage you call a base cell OS. ” 
 
 Samuel nodded, “ But why Franco? ” said abruptly changing the topic to one he avoid while they compared histories and methods of creating the stable wormhole. 
 
 “ To fix it, ” Lake replied as if he was waiting the entire conversation for Samuel to bring it up, “ All of it. ” He waved a hand over his head. “ You see, the dynasties would have never had a footing if your lot hadnt of capitulated and gave up. ” 
 
 Samuel sat back in his apartments recliner and steepled his fingers, “ My ancestors did n't capitulate when the collapse started. ” 
 
 Lake shook his head and smiled, “ Anyways my boy Frankie, was the key. A fixed point in the time-line of gobbly goo. And while you have been stuffing your face with the local animal's fare. I've been working to prevent that whole damn event from happening in the first place. ” 
 
 Samuel looked at Lake and asked, “ Just how long have you been doing this? ” 
 
 “ Lets just say I haven ’ t been a tourist. Unlike someone. ” 
 
 Samuel scoffed at Lake, “ You can only imagine what it was like. They have no idea how good they have it now. And I rather just live here right before they drive everything to the ground. ” 
 
 Lake's face hardened from the youthful whimsy to that which Samuel recognized all to well from his time, “ I can and I have. ” And while the software between Lake's Actor and Samuel's Guise prevented many functions from communicating, video and pictures of what Lake has done to prevent the future from happening flashed in his vision. 
 
 “ I.. ” Samuel paused mid-sentence as sacrifice, loss, and oddly guilt filled him, “ It's non-linear, it does n't matter what happens. It would change anything. ” 
 
 Lake sunk in his seat and murmured, “ I know. But it mattered to them. ” 
 
 Samuel said something he thought he would never say again, not after what had happen. The lives lost, the hope destroyed. He had long ago decided that his self imposed exile was the final nail to end his miserable existence. Killing himself by going back in time. Not once did he think that someone would happen by chance upon him from a similar reference frame. And one so different. “ Fuck it, these animals have know idea what is coming. I would hit a cat with a car, I'd be a hypocrite I suppose to do nothing. ” 
 
 The worn face of Lake's true age receded suddenly behind a devilish smile and he sprang up from his seat and looked at his new partner. “ Great! Franco was a bust anyways, to think I was putting the future in the hands of someone whose best pick up line was asking bartenders if they knew what a Cleveland steamer was! ” 
 
 Lake clapped his hands and looked around doing a full 360 and focused on Samuel, “ 18 Months from now there should be certain billionare's daughter who is going to find herself lost at sea. You ever para-sailed before? ” 
 
 Samuel's brow furrowed, “ what!? ”
