“Look, I want to stop Ransik as much as you do. But we’re going to need help. We have no money, no place to live. How are we going to survive?” Lucas, along with the other Time Force officers, was back at the beach for a second night, searching through the rubble of their ship for anything more they could use.

“We can do just fine on our own,” Jen answered. She cut off any further argument by walking away. Lucas sat down with Katie, exchanging a look of growing hopelessness with her. None of them noticed that Trip was nowhere in sight.

Mr. Alan Collins, Wes’s father, was entertaining again. As always, it was business instead of pleasure. Or maybe they were the same thing to him. Wes felt like a prize horse as his father trotted him out and showed him off proudly to his guests.

“I’d like you all to meet my son, Wesley. Someday he’ll be taking over Bio-Lab. And I’m sure he’ll want to get to know each of you.” Collins put an arm around Wes’s shoulders.

After the obligatory handshakes and small talk, Collins ushered his guests into the living room for cocktails. Wes, feeling unable to stand another moment of chitchat, beckoned him aside. “I’ll be there in a minute, Dad.”

“Okay. But don’t be long. This is important.”

Wes walked slowly outside, to the back patio. Standing there, looking at the flower gardens, the pool, and beyond that to the ocean in the distance, he took a deep breath of the soft spring air. The view was lovely, especially in the rosy light of sunset. But to Wes it felt hollow, as he remembered Jen’s accusing voice.

“Name one thing you were willing to give up everything for. Something that wasn’t easy. Something you couldn’t buy.”

He had never taken his position as heir apparent to Bio-Lab very seriously, but had always accepted it as inevitable. Now it suddenly seemed meaningless. He had taken his job as a junior executive, jumping ranks above more experienced people, without really thinking about it. And he had taken every opportunity to avoid work and responsibility. He remembered the hostile and contemptuous looks he sometimes caught at work, and the remarks he could tell people sometimes exchanged about him behind his back. For the first time he felt that their envious attitude was justified. What had he done to deserve any of it, except be born into the right family?

Seeing movement, he turned, expecting to be summoned back to the party. Instead he saw green hair and an anxious face. Smiling, he went to greet his unexpected visitor.

“Hey. What are you doing here?” he asked.

“Hi. My name’s Trip. I had to talk to you, apologize for what Jen said.”

They sat on a stone bench in the garden. “She thinks I’m nothing but a spoiled brat,” Wes said despondently. “I don’t know. Maybe she’s right.”

“No, she’s not right.” Trip added with a smile, “I have a way of knowing these things.” At Wes’s puzzled look he went on, “I’m genetically enhanced for intelligence and mechanical ability. And also I’m kind of… psychic, or telepathic. Or both.”

“You mean you can read my mind?” Wes asked, alarmed.

“No. I just get hunches, have feelings about things, and people. I’m usually right.” He looked directly into Wes’s eyes. “And I feel that you’re a good person. You want to help. You just haven’t been in a situation where you had to fight for a good cause before.”

Wes smiled, and then sobered again. “That’s not what Jen thinks.”

“Let me show you something.” Trip took out what looked like a small round metal bar bent in half. He unfolded it into a right angle and pressed a tiny button on the joint. A square, three-dimensional picture formed, framed by the sides of the device. It was of Jen, smiling warmly, and a man….

“Hey, that’s me!” Wes exclaimed.

“No. That’s Alex.” The young man in the picture looked exactly like Wes, except that his hair was a little darker and straighter, his eyes were darker, and his expression, even smiling, was more serious than Wes’s usually was.

“Alex and Jen were going to get married. They gave all of us these pictures when they got engaged. He was a Time Force officer, one of the best. When the morphers were developed, he was the first Power Ranger,” Trip continued. “In the time we come from, Ransik is one of our most wanted criminals. The most dangerous mutants look up to him as a leader. And Alex was the one who brought him in.

“Ransik had broken into a Time Force research facility, looking for time travel technology and information. Alex went in after him alone, as the Red Ranger. We didn’t think anyone could beat Ransik in a fight, but Alex did it. He captured Ransik without anyone getting hurt.

“Alex proposed to Jen during the trial. They were both so happy. Jen was showing all of us her ring just before the verdict was announced. They hadn’t had much time together while we were tracking Ransik down, and they figured now they could make up for it.

“Ransik was convicted and sentenced to confinement for life. You should have seen the way he looked at us, especially Alex, before they took him away. It was scary.

“Jen, Lucas, Katie, and I were assigned to take him to prison. We knew the mutants might try to rescue him, so there were decoy transports, too, and Alex escorted one of them. Lucas was driving, Jen was in the van watching Ransik, and Katie and I were riding vectorcycles. We were a couple of hours out when we saw a wrecked car in the road, and a woman lying in front of it. We made the mistake of stopping to help.

“The woman was Nadira. She’s Ransik’s daughter. As soon as we were off-guard, trying to see if she was hurt, she stunned us with a blaster.

“When he saw what was happening, Lucas started up again, but Frax -- the robot -- was there too, in a helicopter, and he started shooting at the van. They wrecked it, and Lucas was knocked out. Ransik got loose. Jen followed him and tried to stop them, but she couldn’t even stay on her feet. I could hear Ransik laughing.”

Trip paused for a moment, his face reflecting the horror he must have felt.

“When we recovered, they were gone. We had failed in our mission. We contacted our commanding officer, Captain Logan. He was furious. And Jen was so upset. She hates to fail at anything. And Lucas yelled at me, because I didn’t see it coming. I can’t see everything.

“Our cycles were wrecked, along with the van, so we were walking back to the city when Alex contacted us. He said Ransik had broken into a Time Force holding prison, and he was going after him. Jen was desperate to get there and help him. We stopped some poor guy on the highway and took his car.

“When we got to the prison, Alex was already there. He had gone in alone as the Red Ranger. As soon as we went in, we could hear them fighting up on the roof. We got up there as fast as we could, but...” Trip paused again, blinking.

“We saw Ransik had Alex helpless, in a choke hold. He waited until we could see, then he let Alex go and blasted him in the back at full power. The suit couldn’t take the stress and Alex collapsed and demorphed -- turned back to normal. Then Ransik shot him again. Jen was screaming like.... We all ran over to him. Ransik ran back down into the building.

“Jen took Alex in her arms....” Trip stopped again. Embarrassed, Wes said nothing and waited for him to control himself. After a minute he went on.

“It was terrible. Jen was crying… Alex made her promise she’d go after Ransik. He said Ransik had gotten a time travel device somehow, and bragged he was going back to make sure Time Force never existed. He gave her his morpher and told her where the other morphers were and said we should use them.

“He told Jen he loved her. And then... Alex was gone.”

“So that’s why Jen acted that way. She probably can’t stand to look at me,” Wes said softly.

“It’s not your fault you look like Alex. She knows that, but she can’t help how she feels.”

“So go on. How did you get here?”

Trip continued his story. “Ransik stole a ship from the prison and took three other mutants with him, along with Frax and Nadira. They opened a timehole and went through it.

“We hurried back to headquarters as soon as the police and medics got there. Jen took the morphers, and I got Circuit -- our computer -- and we all got whatever equipment we could think of. I got into the computer system and found out what time and location our instruments said Ransik had gone to. Jen wanted to steal a timeship and go right away. Lucas didn’t want to but he gave in.

“We got into the timeship and started to activate the timehole. Captain Logan came on the communicator and ordered us to stop. He said the timestream was showing distortion and we might not make it through. Jen said that meant Ransik had changed the past and we had to go through now while we had the chance. Captain Logan didn’t like it but he had to agree.

“We had a rough trip. It’s always hard to travel back in time, against the natural direction. It’s a lot easier to go forward. And the timestream distortion made things a lot worse. All of us except Lucas passed out. The ship broke up and crashed on a beach, a few miles north of Silver Hills. I don’t know how Lucas got us down alive, but he did. We came to and grabbed as much stuff as we could, and got out just before the engine exploded.

“When we recovered, we took the morphers and locked them to our DNA. Then we started to look for Ransik. We have scanning devices that can detect mutant DNA and they showed a mutant downtown. When we ran into Nadira we found out the morphers wouldn’t work without someone to use the red one, which was still locked to Alex’s DNA. I was able to modify it to accept someone similar to Alex. And you pretty much know the rest.”

“Maybe this is a dumb question, but why didn’t you just go back a few hours and stop Ransik from escaping?”

Trip smiled. “I would’ve asked the same thing. It takes exponentially more energy to go back a short time than a long time.”

“I don’t understand.”

“We travel through time by opening a wormhole from one point in space-time to another. The dimension of time has to be folded to do it, and the shorter the time jump, the tighter the fold has to be. That takes energy. Going back a millisecond would take most of the energy in the universe. We can’t jump less than about a hundred fifty years.”

“How are you going to get home?”

“Our communicator was damaged, but if I can fix it, we can contact our own time. Then if we can stop Ransik from changing history, Time Force can send another ship for us.”

“Wesley!” They were interrupted by Mr. Collins’ voice, calling from a balcony overlooking the pool. Wes jumped up guiltily and walked out to where his father could see him.

“There you are. You said you were only going to be a minute.”

“Sorry, Dad,” Wes said. “I’ll be right there.”

“Hurry up. We’re about to go in to dinner.”

Wes turned back to the garden. Trip was gone. He sighed and headed for the door.

Throughout dinner, Wes smiled and chatted on autopilot. His thoughts were with those four people from the future, stranded and alone, with an almost impossible but vital mission. He was determined to do something to help them, despite Jen’s attitude. And by the time their guests left, he had a plan.