“Hey, look what I found!” Trip ran into the main clock tower room, back from the attic, where he liked to search through the discarded rubbish looking for something interesting. He was waving an instant camera. “It’s an antique camera!”

“That’s not an antique,” Wes said, laughing. “It’s only ten or fifteen years old, probably.”

“I found film too. You think it still works?”

“Try it.” Wes took the camera and showed Trip how to load the film. He took a picture, waited for it to develop, and peeled it apart. The finished photograph was slightly washed-out and the colors were a little off, but Trip exclaimed over it in delight. He grabbed the camera.

“Lucas, Katie! Let me take your picture!” They were glad to oblige, especially Lucas, who wanted to be in every shot. They clowned cheerfully, filling the tower with laughter and even tempting Jen to pose. Wes daringly kissed her as Trip snapped a picture.

But when the film was gone and the pictures put away, Jen had business to discuss with Wes.

“We’re taking too long,” she said. “Every day we spend here, we risk distorting the timeline further. Just our presence here is a disruption, even without whatever Ransik’s doing. We’ve already made a major mistake by giving Bio-Lab the information they needed to make that serum.”

“But we had to do it. We couldn’t let all those people die,” Wes said.

“I know. We had to save their lives, and we prevented the change in history Venomark would have caused. But now Bio-Lab has the serum. It has other applications that they’ll find out about if they research it. There could be disastrous effects.”

“What kind of other applications?”

“I’m sorry,” Jen said with an apologetic look. “I can’t tell you. We can’t risk anyone in this time even knowing about it.”

Wes was silent for a minute, and then faced Jen again, his expression serious. “I’ll go to Bio-Lab. See what I can do.”

Wes got into Bio-Lab and into Dr. Zaskin’s laboratory with little trouble. Most of the people there knew him, and didn’t think twice about seeing him there. He had come late in the day and found the laboratory empty. Immediately he found a computer that was still logged on and began going through the files on the Venomark serum.

A few minutes later he stopped. He could delete what he could find, but there were dozens of files, maybe hundreds, and he realized he had no idea where the backups were stored. All he would accomplish would be to inconvenience the scientists. Not to mention the fact that destroying Bio-Lab’s records would be illegal. His father probably would not have him arrested. Or maybe he would.

In frustration, he found a carrying case and loaded it with all the samples of serum he could find, putting them in a carton. Picking it up, he turned to the door, and almost dropped his burden as Eric stepped into view.

“Just because you’re the boss’s son doesn’t mean you can walk in and take whatever you want,” Eric said, eyeing him coldly.

Wes took a shaky breath. “Eric, listen to me. This serum is from the future. It shouldn’t be here, in this time. We can’t let my dad do more research on it.”

“That serum is Bio-Lab property. It’s my job to protect it.” The old edge of antagonism was in Eric’s voice.

Before Wes could respond, he heard his father’s voice. Collins stepped through the doorway, saying, “We’d better hurry, Eric, we don’t want to be late.” He patted Eric on the shoulder before seeing Wes, smiling, then looking dismayed as he took in the contents of the box Wes was carrying and his guilty expression. “Wesley -- what are you doing?” he asked.

“Dad, thanks for helping with the serum. But now you have to drop the research on it. If you keep using it -- there could be bad results.”

“What are you talking about? What results?”

“I can’t tell you.” Wes felt sharply how inadequate that sounded.

“I’m sorry, son. If you can’t give me any better reason than that, I’m not going to pass up this opportunity.”

“Dad… please, trust me.”

“You have to understand, this serum has so much potential...”

“You want to make more money from it.”

“I’m sorry,” Collins said again. He nodded to Eric, who stepped forward to take the box. Reluctantly Wes let it go. Eric looked him coldly in the eyes before carrying it to a counter. Angry and disappointed, Wes started for the door.

“Wesley…” He stopped and looked back at his father. But there was nothing to say. He left without another word.

The attack on Bio-Lab came early the next day. A large force of cyclobots invaded the main building, swarming through the corridors and laboratories. They attacked scientists, bureaucrats, clericals, equipment, and furniture indiscriminately, scattering confusion everywhere.

Eric was in his office when Miller ran in to alert him personally. He sent Miller to get Mr. Collins to safety, grabbed his headset and beret, and ran out to take charge. What he found was chaos, cyclobots, and destruction. The Guardians were putting up a good fight but the odds were against them. Eric quickly morphed and joined in, speedily disposing of the robots he found as he tried to discover what their target was. But they seemed to be attacking everywhere with no real purpose.

Whether it was the Guardians’ efforts or the Quantum Ranger’s appearance, the tide seemed to turn and the cyclobots began to retreat. Eric pursued them out of the building into the parking lot, destroying as many as he could. Then he spotted the real enemy.

Ransik was running up a stairway leading from the main parking lot to the street. He was carrying a case which Eric recognized as the one Wes had packed with serum vials the night before. Eric ran after him, leaping past him to land on the top of the stairway.

“That’s far enough, Rancid,” he challenged.

“That’s Ransik!”

“Whatever. You’re not getting away with this.”

“Try and stop me!” Ransik leaped from the stairway back down to the parking lot and started to run.

Eric jumped after him, landing in his path again. He charged, punching at Ransik only to have the blow blocked effortlessly. With a jump, he hit Ransik with a kick, driving him back. But Ransik was on the attack again instantly, knocking him off-balance. They exchanged a series of punches, the fight almost too fast to follow. Eric realized Ransik was at least a match for him, even hampered by the carrying case that he still held. When Ransik pushed him back with a hard elbow to the ribs, he reached for the Quantum Defender. But the mutant was faster; he drew his own blaster before Eric could clear his holster, and fired.

Eric went down, head reeling and body helpless. As he struggled to move, the suit gave out and he demorphed with a painful sensation like a massive electrical shock. Gasping for breath, he tried in vain to get up, after a moment managing to lift his head. Ransik was standing over him, blaster in hand, laughing softly. Eric glared at him in rage and fear and struggled harder. If he was going to be blasted into the next world by this freak, he wanted to be fighting back.

They were interrupted by three energy beams striking Ransik. They both turned to see three Guardians running toward them, blasters aimed.

“Get back! Watch out!” Eric shouted at them. They stopped but held their aim on Ransik. The mutant leader looked at them with an arrogant smile, apparently unaffected by the blasts. Behind them, more Guardians were approaching at a run. A police car sped through the parking lot toward them.

To Eric’s intense relief, instead of attacking Ransik reached for his belt and vanished in a burst of light, along with all the working cyclobots in sight. The Guardians who had come to Eric’s rescue ran to him and helped him up.

“I’m all right,” he growled. Stiffly, he started back to the building. The attack appeared to be over, leaving wrecked cyclobots, damaged cars and equipment, and dazed people in its wake. Drawing his Guardian blaster, Eric cautiously went about checking the cyclobots. He heard sirens as several ambulances sped in, followed by fire trucks and more police cars. Smoke had started to come from the laboratory section.

Eric checked inside, now receiving reports from his people throughout the building. Their attackers had indeed gone, leaving heavy damage and several casualties. Firefighters were getting a small fire in the main laboratory under control. He walked back outside and watched, feeling anger and increasing dismay, as the stretchers started to come out. He knew all these people, and was responsible for their safety, but he and the Silver Guardians had failed to protect them.

But the worst was yet to come. Eric’s heart sank as he saw Alan Collins and Michael Zaskin wheeled out, Zaskin conscious but Collins looking very seriously injured if not dead. He hurried to help load the stretchers into an ambulance, then after a final radio check with Miller got in with them.

“It was Ransik. He was after the serum. He made me tell him where it was. Alan tried to stop him, and one of the cyclobots shot him.” Michael Zaskin, suffering from cracked ribs and an injured leg, was telling his story to Eric in a hoarse and strained voice as the ambulance rushed them to the hospital. “Alan said if he knew that serum would help him, he would have poured it down the drain.”

“Maybe that’s why Wes tried to get rid of it. Damn it. If he would have just told us…” Eric said, half to himself.

“He set my lab on fire…”

“Don’t worry. The fire’s out.” Eric looked over at Collins, still unconscious with two paramedics monitoring him. A confusion of emotions rose up in him; anxiety, fear, an unwilling acknowledgement of how much Collins had come to mean to him personally, an uncomfortably selfish concern about his own future at Bio-Lab if Collins should die. He welcomed the interruption of their arrival at the hospital emergency room.

By the time the Time Force Rangers were alerted by Circuit and arrived at Bio-Lab headquarters, the attack was over. They rode up to see Silver Guardians, fire trucks, and police still on the scene but obviously in control of the situation. Stopping at the side of the street above the parking lot they debated what to do.

“I’m not scanning any mutants here now. Eric and the Guardians can handle this,” Jen said. “We might as well go home.”

“Maybe we should see if they need help inside,” Wes objected. Turning to Jen for an answer, he saw her staring intently down the street. The others followed her gaze. Wes turned to see a man approaching them on a vectorcycle, identical in design to theirs. He was wearing a white jumpsuit uniform, the same uniform Jen and the others had been wearing the first time Wes had seen them.

The man pulled over near them, parked, and dismounted. He walked closer, reached up, and removed his helmet. Through his own shock, Wes dimly heard his friends gasp aloud, and heard Jen whimper softly. The man was wearing Wes’s face, with darker hair and eyes and a more serious expression, but his face. And the only possible explanation was impossible. Alex was dead.

Jen climbed off her cycle unsteadily and demorphed. She stepped closer to the man, and asked in a thin voice, “Alex?”

He nodded. “Hello, Jennifer. Lucas, Trip, Katie.” He looked at Wes. “And you must be Wes.”

The others demorphed also and Wes did the same. Jen took another step and suddenly threw herself at Alex, hugging him tightly and crying in a trembling voice, “Alex! You’re alive! I thought you were gone forever!” He returned the embrace with more restraint. The others clustered around them, touching Alex, exclaiming and questioning in low voices.

Wes hung back, the sight of Jen and Alex stabbing him with an almost overwhelmingly painful jealousy. He looked away.

“How is this possible? How did you survive Ransik’s attack? We were sure you were… gone,” Jen asked.

“History has changed, remember,” Alex answered. “Our time as you experienced it no longer exists. If you say I died – your version of me must have died. In the new reality, I didn’t.”

“Have we succeeded? Does Time Force exist again? It must, you’re wearing the uniform,” Lucas said.

“Yes, your mission has succeeded, for now. But the timestream is still very unstable. It could revert easily, if the next few days don’t go the way they should. That’s why I’m here.”

“What did we do that fixed things? Where’s your timeship? What’s going to happen in the next few days? What’s our time like now?” Trip asked eagerly.

Alex smiled. “My ship is on the beach where yours crashed. The rest will take a while to explain. We’ll go to your headquarters, and I’ll tell you all about it.”

As they turned to their vectorcycles, Alex spoke again. “Not you, Wes.”

“What do you mean?” Wes asked, trying to keep hostility out of his voice.

“You belong to this time. I can’t allow you to hear some of the things I need to discuss with my team. And… there’s another reason.” He paused for a moment and continued in a softer voice. “I know this will be a shock for you. I’m taking over as Red Ranger.”

“What? Why? Wes is a great Red Ranger. Why change the team?” Trip questioned indignantly.

“Wes, your place is at Bio-Lab. You must help get it through the problems it will face soon.”

Wes smiled disbelievingly. “Maybe that was my place, but I’ve made my own life now. And Bio-Lab isn’t part of it.”

Alex went on relentlessly. “You must fulfill your destiny and take over Bio-Lab now because -- tomorrow your father will die.”

Wes stared at him in shocked dismay. Then he smiled again, a little uncertainly. “That’s crazy. I saw my dad last night. He was fine.”

“He may have been fine last night, but….”

They all jumped slightly as Wes’s morpher bleeped. With a sudden sinking feeling, Wes raised it to his face hesitantly and acknowledged, “Yes?”

“Wes? It’s Eric.”

“Eric. I hear you,” Wes answered, his dread increasing.

“Bio-Lab was attacked today. Your father was injured. I’m sorry, but you should get to Silver Hills Hospital as soon as you can. It looks… real bad.”

“Oh, God,” Wes said softly. He stared at Alex numbly.

“I’m sorry,” Alex said. He looked pointedly at the morpher and held his hand out. Dazed and stricken, his life turned upside down in a few minutes, Wes took it off and handed it over. He turned blindly to his vectorcycle. He heard Jen call his name, looked back at her for a moment, and then mounted the cycle and drove away, heading for the hospital.