That night, Ivan decided that, despite the party the night before and everyone's extremely sated state, he wasn't going to let HALF rest on its laurels. He wanted every last tree on campus toilet-papered before the night was out. He dispatched Tyler and Brandon to do the deed while he took care of the guard on patrol. This Ivan accomplished by taking magickal control of the golf cart the guy was driving around in. The poor guard was taken for quite a ride, and when he finally managed to jump out of the cart, it started chasing him. Finally, the seemingly haunted vehicle ditched into the lake. When retrieved later, it would prove to have "HALF" literally etched into its windshield. While Ivan was playing gremlin, the other two boys completed their task, being careful to do an especially good job (complete with origami) on the tree that stood in the front yard of the headmistress' residence.

Meanwhile, as the youngest member of the group (and a teleporter to boot), Jasmine had been dispatched to lay in a monstrous supply of candy by trick-or-treating throughout the nearby town. She returned with six bags of sugary junk, of which she immediately claimed a third as her fee for being "capo di tutti candy." The rest was distributed based on personal preferences; everyone still being full from dinner, most of it was set aside for later.

The next morning, the maintenance staff had its hands full undoing the boys' toilet-papering job. At lunch, the headmistress made another "We are not amused" announcement over the PA system, asking for information leading to the apprehension of members of HALF -- who would immediately be expelled upon identification. The kids laughed that off, knowing that most of their parents would happily involve the school in a decade of litigation for daring to threaten their offspring with expulsion. Ivan began to worry that the administration would attempt to plant a mole within HALF -- or, perhaps just as bad, that other students unfettered by the same ethical principles would begin to pull truly dangerous copycat pranks. He insisted, however, that the pressure had to be kept on until the administration realized that the only way to end the group's reign of mockery was to relax the new rules and regulations.

About halfway through the meal, the group was joined by Caitlin Summers, the suicidal girl Tyler had been counseling two nights before. When not actively seeking to do away with herself, Caitlin proved to be quite convivial, especially when the subject turned to art, her personal specialty -- as evidenced by the dried paint on her fingers and uniform skirt.

Later in the meal, Ivan and Corinna were discussing their upcoming play. Ivan was surprised to learn that Corinna was already "off book" (i.e., practicing her lines without reading them from the script) -- he'd thought he would have her beaten in that area because of his eidetic memory. Turned out Corinna had *always* wanted to play Mephistopheles in _Faust_, and had learned the lines long before. Ivan was forced to admit that Corinna offered new surprises at every turn. She assured him that what he'd seen so far was only the tip of the iceberg. "Stick with me and I'll show you plenty of things you haven't seen yet." Corinna's body language made it clear that she wasn't talking just about the craft of acting, or even about their shared love of subversion. Covering himself with a smooth "Oh, I'll bet you will," Ivan quickly excused himself and left the table before his monstrous state of sexual arousal became embarrassingly obvious.Once again he was forced to consider whether he could possibly manage to bang Corinna without completely sabotaging his chances with Mel.

That evening, Jasmine was fooling around on her computer when her roommate came in, obviously quite perturbed about something. At first, Jasmine figured that Mel was mad at Ivan for his obvious attraction to Corinna. But no; Mel had of course noticed the flirtation, but she was pretty sure it was only that. She even turned down Jasmine's renewed offer to spy on Ivan for her and make sure he was behaving himself. No, the fella who had Mel so royally hacked off was the girls' shared interest, Tyler. It seemed she'd come upon him "counseling" Caitlin Summers -- using the radical new therapeutic technique of sticking his tongue down her throat. Jasmine was unpleasantly surprised to hear *that*, to be sure. And that wasn't all. Mel had actually confronted Tyler about his fickleness -- after all, a week before he'd declared what seemed to be genuine feelings for *her*. Tyler's response? "Hey, what did you expect me to do . . . pine?" The Complete and Total Jerk factor on *that* was so high that even Jasmine began to feel sorry for her sometime rival. Mel allowed that she had no real right to be angry, since she hadn't actually pursued anything with Tyler since he'd been back, but still -- "A week ago he says he loves me, and now he's off doing *that* with another girl!" Jasmine shook Mel's hand and welcomed her to the club. Then the two spent the next several hours sugar-coating their sorrows with Jasmine's copious supply of candy and throwing darts at a picture of Tyler (specially chosen to bear his most infuriating smirk).

Later, Mel went riding with Ivan, and he instructed her on the finer points of building a memory palace to enhance retention in both her academic and magickal studies. He'd always regretted not learning that technique first himself -- but of course, his father had insisted that proper Hermetic discipline required learning things the *hard* way first. Ivan had never put much stock in discipline himself. He also advised Mel that if she was going to join the Celestial Chorus, she'd better be comfortable with her singing voice, as song is a major component of Chorister magick. Mel allowed that she could hum, and hoped that would be enough.

Meanwhile, back in the girls' room, Jasmine was trying to line up a mentor for Mel. She called the only Chorister she knew -- the very busy Beck Horowitz -- and was referred to the slightly-less-busy Sister Mary Elizabeth O'Hara, superior of a local convent that was a Chorister stronghold. The good sister was glad to hear of a new potential student, and set up an appointment to talk to Melanie a few days later. [Compiler's note: For those who caught the last name, yes, the good Sister is also the *biological* sister of Tyler's stepmom Katy O'Hara Cabrell. I'm convinced that "Six Degrees of Katy O'Hara" is a popular pastime among the New York mage community.]

After that, everyone went to bed. And nothing would ever be the same again. . . .

Ivan awoke the next morning feeling funny. He tried to remember if he'd been drunk or stoned the night before, but didn't think so. Then he noticed the redhead in bed next to him. For a moment, he figured he'd finally succumbed to the temptation to sleep wtih Corinna, and wished heartily that he could remember what it had been like. Then he realized that his sleeping companion could not possibly be Corinna. For one thing, though the hair was the right color, it was curly rather than straight. For another, the woman was considerably older than he -- around twenty, he guessed.

Abruptly the woman sat up and shook Ivan, admonishing him that he had to be in court in an hour. Ivan sat up himself -- and immediately realized that something was very different. He was bigger than he should have been. Looking at his hands, he realized that he had somehow gotten older overnight. Checking the mirror, he saw a distinguished-looking man hovering somewhere around thirty. The reflection was undeniably Ivan, but certainly not the Ivan who'd gone to sleep the night before.

While Ivan tried to puzzle out what the heck was going on, the woman was getting dressed. Apparently she had to get home soon or the wrath of "big brother" would fall upon her head. The way she said the words suggested both Orwellian overtones and an actual sibling relationship. However, she figured she still had enough time to grab Ivan some breakfast while *he* was getting dressed. He thanked her, still unable for the life of him to figure out who she was.

After she left, the phone rang. Somewhat trepidatious, Ivan picked it up. The cheerful voice on the other end told him not to worry about going to court; apparently, thanks to his brilliant intimidation tactics, the other side had chosen not to pursue the case. Ivan was gratified to hear that he was a *good* sleazy lawyer, but hoped the guy he was helping wasn't a dope-dealing pedophile or something. The fellow on the other end of the phone line also asked him to drop by the office later, as "Ms. Davis of the Foundation" would be bringing by some papers for Ivan to sign. Hoping he could manage to *find* the office, Ivan agreed.

The woman came back in at that point and handed Ivan a bowl of Fruit Loops. She said that if he wanted to call her later, he should try Alex's number, because she would likely be trying to stay out of "big brother's" sight until he calmed down. Fortunately for Ivan, who had no idea who the hell "Alex" was, she promised to leave a note with the number. The instant she left, Ivan grabbed the note, hoping for some clue to his paramour's identity. She'd signed it "Love, Angelyn."

Angelyn . . . Alex . . . the wrath of Big Brother. . . .

Vague memories of a pair of creepy little redheaded girls on Parents' Weekend. . . .

* Oh my God, I'm boning Tyler's little sister! *

Suddenly acutely paranoid, Ivan decided that he'd better learn as much as he could about his situation before a full-grown and very perturbed professional assassin showed up on his doorstep for a little chat. Wandering through his tastefully-appointed apartment -- which, a glance out the window told him, was in Manhattan -- he found his study. The desk calendar identified the date as November second, 2014, precisely fifteen years ahead of Ivan's memory. A financial logbook on the desk showed that Ivan's clientele were mainly low-paying scumbags. The lion's share of his income seemed to come in the form of regular checks from something called the Brighton Foundation. Ivan decided there had to be something odd about this "Foundation" if they were willing to pay so handsomely for the services of someone who was otherwise a fairly small-time mouthpiece. A trip to his office would likely shed more light on matters, especially once the mysterious Ms. Davis showed up with the latest paperwork.

Returning to his room to get dressed, Ivan found himself wondering what in the world had transported his mind fifteen years into his own future . . . and whether he was the only one so affected.

Meanwhile. . . .

Jasmine awoke to an insistent knocking on her bedroom door. Groggily sitting up, she found herself in a huge four-poster bed -- and in a body with certain features not supported by the model she'd gone to sleep in. Either puberty happened a lot faster than she'd been led to believe, or Something Was Up.

Calling out to silence the pounding on the door, she went to the bedroom mirror -- and beheld the reflection of a stunningly beautiful woman in her mid-twenties. Was this the future? Naturally, the first thing Jasmine checked was her left ring finger. Sure enough, there was a wedding ring, along with a ruby engagement ring that instantly quelled all fears of surprises in the spousal department. As further proof, several pictures on the dresser showed the older Jasmine -- the body she was wearing now -- posing next to a tall, dark, devastatingly handsome man who could only be a grown-up Tyler Elliot. Jasmine still wasn't sure what was going on, but she knew she liked it. Then she noticed that in one of the pictures, the older versions of herself and Tyler were kneeling on either side of another person. A smaller person. With pigtails.

[In the profound words of Elizabeth Bowden, "Having a kid makes you Mom and Dad. That's not part of the fairy tale."]

Jasmine let out a scream worthy of Macaulay Culkin. The person who'd been banging on the door stuck her head in, and proved to be a teenage girl who identified herself as Katya. The part of Jasmine's mind that *wasn't* paralyzed with fear of parenthood immediately began filtering data with computerlike precision: Katya. Ekaterina Rodochenko. Daughter of Mikhail Rodochenko and Ryan Elliot. Tyler's youngest sister. Age in 1999, not quite two. I'm older, she's older. Makes sense. Check. This person is not our husband or child. We can deal with this person.

Snapping out of it, Jasmine tried to reassure Katya that she was all right. The girl didn't entirely seem to buy it, but appeared to be more happy that Jasmine was awake then she was concerned about Jasmine's mental state. Apparently Jasmine had overslept, and it was the housekeeper's day off, and Katya had already had to field several business calls and direct them on to Jasmine's staff, and if this kept up she was going to have to start getting paid. Oh, and she had gotten Lise up and off to school, you're welcome, no problem, now get down here and start living your life so I don't have to, thank you very much.

Deciding she'd better get dressed, Jasmine went to the bedroom closet. Her half seemed about equally divided between extremely casual outfits and formal gowns. The other half, presumably Tyler's, was almost all business suits, with perhaps more in the way of weapons and ammunition than one would generally find in an executive's closet. She put on jeans and a sweatshirt (slogan: MATHEMATICIANS DO IT BY THE NUMBERS) and headed downstairs.

 Her breakfast was already laid out, presumably by the ever-helpful Katya, and Katya herself was chowing down. She gave Jasmine a rundown of the day. Tyler would be getting home from his business trip shortly. A Mr. Pirello wanted an update on the software Jasmine was writing for him. And of course, The Benefit (capital letters audible) would be that night. Looking over her sister-in-law's choice of clothing with an amused shake of her head, Katya reminded Jasmine that since the family no longer trusted Jasmine not to show up for such things in casual attire, Katya would be helping her dress later that afternoon.

 Wondering what she had done to lose authorization to dress herself, Jasmine suddenly found herself shocked back to reality by the sensation of an arm around her shoulders. It was another teenager -- a boy -- and when he offered her a flower, Jasmine belatedly recognized him as the older version of Katya's twin Victor, who had already picked up that habit as a two-year-old. Apparently, despite Katya's embarrassed disapproval of the little ritual, the flower thing had become a running joke between Victor and Jasmine in the time between then and now. *At least he doesn't chew on them first anymore,* was Jasmine's thought.

 Angelyn zipped through about then, all packed and ready to flee to her sister's place before Tyler got home. By this time, Jasmine was getting pretty good at figuring out who her housemates were . . . but she wasn't quite prepared for Angelyn to mention her affair with Ivan. She promised to talk to Tyler and try to keep him from going completely (and perhaps literally) ballistic, though she wasn't quite sure how she could manage that -- especially if the Tyler who showed up was the older version.

  After breakfast, Jasmine decided it was about time to figure out when and where she was. A bit of wandering around produced the where: this was the Elliot home she remembered, though extensively redecorated. Ryan's old office had become Tyler's, as demonstrated by the very masculine atmosphere of the room and the prominent Anubis motif. A bit more searching uncovered *her* office, which in 1999 had been a guest bedroom. Stepping inside, she found the room almost filled with incomprehensible electronic equipment. The centerpiece was an incredibly sleek-looking, obviously advanced computer. *Her* incredibly sleek-looking, obviously advanced computer. Jasmine decided then and there that she *loved* the future. And then the thing had to go and ask for a password.

 Meanwhile. . . .

  Ivan had managed to make it to his office. Apparently he was a partner in the law firm of Michaels, Neville, Sheridan, and Mack. By checking door plaques, he had figured out his partners' given names. Recognizing them on sight would still be a problem, but he'd figure out a way around that when the situation came up. In the meantime, he was going through his files, boning up on recent cases so that he wouldn't be caught out in discussions around the water cooler . . . assuming he could find the water cooler.

  Looking up that most recent case, he found that his intimidating tactics had persuaded the State of New York to back off on its prosecution of his client. Yes! He was sticking it to The Man, and getting paid for it. The thought warmed his iconoclastic little heart.

  Now to find out about this Brighton Foundation. The file folder on *that* one was incredibly huge, as Ivan had expected. He skimmed the documents, looking for clues to the Foundation's goals and the identities of its directors. Educational and charity work, supported by donations from the very wealthy, seemed to be the Foundation's primary thrust. While Ivan hadn't yet come across a concise list of the people in charge of the Foundation, certain names kept recurring in the documents, some of which he recognized. Solomon. Elliot. Cabrell. Marks. Davis.

  At that moment the receptionist buzzed Ivan to let him know that Ms. Davis herself had arrived with the paperwork. Deciding that a talk with someone obviously highly-placed in the Foundation might shed some more light on the subject, Ivan told the receptionist to send her in . . . and promptly received quite a shock.

  Ms. Davis was the 2014 version of Melanie Safford. And the name change could only mean she was married, obviously to someone other than Ivan. He said as much, with obvious disappointment in his voice, surprise momentarily overriding both his usual charm and the imperative not to let on that he was a man out of time.

  Naturally, Ms. Davis was a bit taken aback. Well, of course she was married. She'd been married for quite some time, to a man she'd known since high school. She and Ivan had sort of dated for awhile in seventh grade, of course, but he had dumped her before the year was even out. That was ancient history in their friendship, and she wasn't sure why Ivan was acting so shocked about it now.

So he told her. Having been a mage for more than half her life, and quite accustomed to odd situations, Mel took in stride Ivan's tale of being mentally displaced into the future. She was sorry he'd found out about the fate of their relationship this way, but thought he should take heart in the fact that they were still friends all these years later. That did cheer him a little, as did learning that he'd taken up with Corinna afterwards, in fact several times off and on, and that he *still* had the occasional liaison with the starlet when she was in town.

 Then Mel realized that Ivan knew nothing of the Foundation or of the all-important benefit dinner that evening. He reassured her that he'd already picked up some knowledge from his files, and she hastened to provide the rest. The Brighton Foundation was, on the surface, the charity organization it appeared to be. Mel herself supervised most of the group's overt projects. However, the Foundation's true purpose was more esoteric: nothing less than long-range subversion of the Technocratic hold on reality. All of the senior staff were mages. Besides Ivan and Mel, there was Martin Solomon (the Rabbi's son), who handled the behind-the-scenes administration, and the Elliots (Tyler and Jasmine), who were the Foundation's public face. (Ivan was of course not at all surprised to hear of that marriage, but he *was* surprised -- and noted it down as future blackmail material -- when Mel told him it had actually been something of a shotgun wedding.) The benefit dinner was the Foundation's primary yearly fundraiser, and nothing could be allowed to go wrong. Fortunately, Tyler would be handling the actual public speaking chores at the dinner, so all Ivan had to do was mingle without making it entirely obvious that he didn't know who anyone was.

 Meanwhile. . . .

  Jasmine was really starting to *hate* the future. There was no way she was going to be able to brute-force her way into her older self's computer system, so she was just going to have to guess the damned password. She'd already gone through all the names she knew without success. Many of her favorite passwords in her own time had been mathematical permutations of her own birthdate or Tyler's, so she tried those . . . but no luck. Then she remembered (with a shudder) that she had a daughter, looked up *her* birthday, and added that to her little math game. Finally, the system acknowledged her.

  Once active, the computer turned out to be fairly intelligent, even responding to voice commands. She asked for information on herself -- and got reams. Fortunately, the machine was quite happy to rework that into a hyperlinked form, with only the most basic information on the top level. Jasmine skimmed the vital statistics -- cringing a bit when she noticed that her wedding date had come only seven months before her daughter's birth, and both when she was/would be sixteen -- and saw a link to her journal. Asking the machine for the last three months, she settled down to read.

  Apparently she was running a small software company out of her home, and doing quite well for herself, even without counting her husband's vast fortune. The actual programming work was over Jasmine's head; apparently her older self had ventured far onto the frontiers of theoretical mathematics, and had returned with a number of eminently practical discoveries. If there was conflict in her life, it seemed to be between her notion of the proper lifestyle for a bleeding-edge young computer geek -- casual clothes, junk food, and a laid-back attitude -- and that expected of a wealthy wife in her position. In a recent act of passive-aggressive protest, she had shown up to a "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous"-type photo shoot in jeans and a T-shirt with a particularly suggestive slogan, which explained Katya's statement that the family no longer trusted her to dress herself. On a related note, the journal recorded a number of arguments between herself and Tyler over the fact that the news media seemed to treat her more as one of her husband's prized possessions than as a successful businesswoman in her own right (not to mention the HONEST-TO-GOD FUCKING GENIUS part).

  And speaking of husbands, the Man Himself arrived just then, looking oddly . . . adrift. The first thing out of his mouth was "What year was it when you went to bed last night?" Jasmine told him, and Tyler was visibly relieved. He explained that he'd woken up on a plane circling JFK airport, in his adult body, reading a People magazine with his cousin Corinna -- oops, sorry, "Academy Award winner Corinna Marks" -- on the cover. He'd run into Katya downstairs, and she'd reminded him about his speech at the benefit that evening. What speech at what benefit, he still had no idea. Jasmine told him what she knew, and suggested that he probably had notes for his speech somewhere. Checking his briefcase, he found a set of scribbled notes that was at first incomprehensible until he realized it was written in French; his older self had been visiting Paris on his trip, and had probably just written in that language unconsciously.

  Tyler's relief was short-lived, though, as he was immediately thrown back into shock by the arrival of his daughter, who'd just gotten home from school. Like Jasmine, he'd seen pictures of her (while going through his wallet on the plane) -- but neither of the two "parents" was prepared for the reality. They looked at each other, and then at Lise, and then at each other, and then at Lise. . . . Finally the little girl spoke up to ask if anything was wrong. Tyler and Jasmine managed to blame their distraction on the busy evening ahead of them -- though the kid didn't seem entirely convinced -- and worked on getting into their roles, asking Lise about her day at school. Her reply was vague and dismissive, like any good child's, though she did say that she'd gotten three tests back and aced them all. After Lise excused herself to change out of her school uniform, Tyler reported that their child appeared already to be Awakened. Jasmine wondered if they should tell Lise the truth about the current situation, rather than letting her think that two kids not much older than herself were her parents. Tyler didn't think that was such a good plan: "What would *we* try to get away with, if we knew our parents had been replaced by kids who didn't know what they were doing?" Jasmine was forced to agree that Lise was best left ignorant, if only for their sake.

 Meanwhile. . . .

  Ivan, having some time on his hands before the benefit, had succumbed to the great temptation of the time traveler. He was presently ensconced in the New York Public Library, reading up on sports scores and stock market reports for the past fifteen years. If he managed to get back to his own time, then by the *next* time 2014 rolled around, Ivan intended to be a man of absolutely stupendous means.

  Ivan also spent some time trying to figure out why he was in the future. If he was inhabiting his own future body, he decided, then the consciousness that normally belonged in that body must be inhabiting *his* body, back in 1999. Which meant that Future Ivan just might have left some kind of message for him in the past. After checking all the most logical locations with no success, however, he was forced to conclude that Future Ivan was either very forgetful, or just an asshole. Probably the latter. And then he began to worry. If his older self -- an adult man with Ivan's monstrous ego and . . . unique . . . moral compass, plus an additional fifteen years of magickal study -- was presently living in *his* hormone-laden, newly fourteen-year-old body, on a prep-school campus filled with impressionable young girls and presided over by an increasingly fascistic administration . . . Ivan might just return to his proper time to find himself expelled, in prison, or dead. He began to consider *staying* in the future. After all, he had a successful law practice without ever having had to attend law school; he was being thoroughly overpaid to perform piddling legal duties for Tyler's do-gooder foundation; he had already gotten through his apparently inevitable breakup with Melanie and had emerged as her good friend; and he was boffing a movie star on a semi-regular basis. Life was good.

 Meanwhile. . . .

  Katya had collected Jasmine for her metamorphosis into a proper member of her social class. At one point, Jasmine had been left sitting alone with her hair in curlers, and was beginning to understand why her older self hated these social functions. Then Tyler came back in and declared with no preliminaries that he was an asshole. He'd been in his office, looking over his older self's affairs, and had found that the Tyler of 2014 was an even more ruthless businessman than he had expected. Somewhat worried, Jasmine asked if the "asshole" label extended to his personal life as well. He didn't think he was quite as bad in that arena, though he too had found evidence of their recent marital arguments, and had been told about Angelyn's having fled in fear of his legendary temper, though he had no idea what *that* was all about. After making sure that Tyler understood that his "little" sister was a consenting adult, with more life experience than either of them, Jasmine explained about Angelyn's affair with Ivan. He wasn't happy about the news, but didn't seem immediately homicidal, either.

  Tyler had also found out why there were so many people living in their house. Apparently Ryan Elliot had gone into semi-retirement, still occasionally dabbling in fashion design but leaving the business end of her empire under Tyler's direction. She and Mikhail were presently traveling the world, as incredibly wealthy retired folks are wont to do, so the house more or less belonged to Tyler, Jasmine, and their daughter. Katya and Victor were still living on the premises because it was their parents' house and they were still in high school. Alex had her own home, but Angelyn was living with her brother's family while she attended college (at least when she wasn't hiding out at Alex's).

  Just before leaving, Tyler gave Jasmine several very odd looks. When she asked him what was up, he was at first reluctant to answer, but finally said "I'm just going to say one thing; don't take this the wrong way."

Then he looked her up, looked her down, and pronounced an appreciative "Damn. . . ."

 Shortly thereafter . . . .

  It was time for the benefit. Ivan caught a cab to the Ritz-Carlton, where the shindig was being held. Inside, he caught sight of Mel and was introduced to her husband, a towering pro football player named Rashon Davis. After a bit of small talk with them, he saw the Cabrell twins come in, and corralled Angelyn for a chat. Neither had yet encountered Tyler, and they had some hope that he wouldn't try to kill them at the dinner.

Just to be on the safe side, Ivan proposed that perhaps their fling hadn't been such a good idea in the first place. Turned out Angelyn had been thinking the same thing, and they agreed to break it off to avoid further problems.

  And then Corinna Marks swept into the room, trailing a cloud of admirers and instantly becoming the center of attention. Ivan made two resolutions: First, he was going to bed the woman that very night; and second, if and when he got back to his own time in one piece, he was finally going to take his quasi-relationship with Mel off life support and succumb to Corinna's charms, as God (or the Devil) apparently intended.

  Sending her escort to grab drinks for the two of them, Corinna approached Ivan. He congratulated her on her movie stardom, and shared her devious glee at being considered a role model for young people. Asking after Corinna's date, Ivan learned that he was a Hollywood stuntman -- "dumb as a brick, the poor dear, but *such* an acrobat!" Assuming a conspiratorial tone, Corinna allowed that she could probably manage to ditch "the poor dear" if Ivan was up for a rendezvous later that night. And boy, was he up. . . .

 Meanwhile . . . .

  Tyler, Jasmine, Katya, and Victor, all nattily attired, were in a limo on their way to the benefit. Lise had thankfully been left in the care of a sitter. The two teens seemed very happy to see Tyler and Jasmine being so friendly with each other; apparently that kind of behavior had not been common between them in some time. That worried the time-displaced kids a bit, and made them glad they didn't have to deal with their older selves -- or worse, each other's -- but they managed to pass off the change as a recent renewal of affections in their marriage.

  Arriving at the hotel, the Elliots linked up with Ivan, and quickly learned that he, too, was the 1999 version. The threesome tried to figure out what had caused their situation. Based on the various time-travel and body-switching movies she'd seen, Jasmine figured that they must be in the future for some purpose, perhaps tied to the benefit itself (which seemed to be the key event of the day). Ivan mentioned his theory that their adult selves had similarly been displaced into their young bodies back in 1999. He thought perhaps Jasmine had it backwards: maybe it wasn't their presence in the future that was important, but their adult selves' presence in the past, to deal with some crisis their kid selves could never have faced. Perhaps their adult selves had even caused the switch, deliberately displacing the kid versions to a time free of major incidents. In that case, *their* sole task would consist of waiting for the switch back, and trying not to mess things up too badly in the meantime. Both theories sounded plausible, and they didn't yet have enough information to decide between them, so they'd just have to wait and see.

  Around that time, Martin Solomon appeared to usher everyone toward the head table for dinner. Before they could eat, though, Tyler would have to give his big fundraising speech. Introduced by Martin, he took the stage and quickly warmed to his material, actually feeling some pride in the accomplishments of an organization that would not exist for years by his reckoning.

  After that, everyone ate. Surprisingly, the food was well above the rubber-chicken level, Martin having grown discriminating in his choice of caterers over the years. All too soon, though, it was time to go back to mingling. Tyler was cornered by a former oil baron who'd recently gotten into alternative energy sources and seemed poised to talk about them for hours. Ivan schmoozed his way into several conversations with people whose names he didn't know, but mostly kept an impatient eye on Corinna, who was dispensing autographs and other tokens of her royal favor to her adoring public. Jasmine encountered Angelyn -- apparently her closest friend in this future time -- and tried to ask after the state of her marriage without sounding entirely clueless. Angelyn opined that her older brother had a tendency to treat his family and friends as if they were his employees, but believed that he really did live for his wife and daughter, even if he didn't always make that obvious. And hey, at least Jasmine had *gotten* to marry the man of her dreams. It came out then that Angelyn, too, had had a lifelong crush on a childhood friend -- none other than Martin Solomon -- but her free-spirited nature had never quite captured the interest of the conservative second-generation rabbi.(Editor's Note: Actually, Martin is a 3rd generation rabbi.) The recent announcement of Martin's engagement to another woman had been the catalyst for Angelyn's fling with Ivan.

  After awhile, Corinna had satisfied her celebrity obligations. Sending the stuntman on home with an excuse of exhaustion, she collected Ivan, and the two departed for his apartment and a night of Freaky Circus Sex. While Corinna was getting undressed, Ivan realized that he just might wake up the next morning in his own time. Deciding to be nicer to Future Ivan than the old bastard had been to him, he wrote out a note and taped it to the alarm clock.

"Dear Future Ivan," it read. "The woman in bed with you is Corinna, not Angelyn; try not to mix them up. Tyler may or may not still be seeking to kill you, so don't drop your guard just yet. The benefit went well. No other major changes that I know of. Had a nice time in your body. Love, Past Ivan."

Then Corinna emerged, and it was time to start tying each other down and doing unspeakably kinky things to each other. Ah, the hard life of a rake-hell. . . .

 A little later, after briefly attempting to dance with only limited success, Tyler and Jasmine also made their farewells, collected Katya and Victor, and headed home. They had decided, after some discussion, that they'd better sleep in the same bed, to avoid starting even worse rumors of their marital alienation. Not having gotten even so much as a peck on the cheek so far in this preview of married life, Jasmine was kind of hoping that her frankly gorgeous adult body would elicit some kind of amorous attention from her "husband" -- not *sex* or anything, necessarily, but *something*. Unfortunately, she emerged from the bathroom to find Tyler literally hiding beneath the sheets, afraid that his still-adolescent psyche would drive him to do something Unspeakably Disgusting if he so much as looked at her.

  So the two just sat and talked for awhile (well, Jasmine sat; Tyler cowered). Eventually the topic of Caitlin Summers came up; Tyler was disturbed to hear that Mel and Jasmine had been throwing darts at his picture. With 20/20 hindsight, he justified his lack of pining over Melanie by pointing out that apparently they never had gotten together, and defended his smooching of Caitlin by insisting that she had come on to him, and he couldn't very well refuse. (A mistake, that, which sent him diving back beneath the covers when Jasmine asked if he would give in so easily to *any* girl who showed an interest, present company included.)

  Eventually, figuring that she wasn't actually going to get any *physical* affection from Tyler that night, Jasmine switched tactics and decided to go the mental route. Recently, disturbed by Tyler's artificial nonchalance when confronted about serious issues, she had been honing her empathic skills in hopes of getting a more direct read on him. Now, asking Tyler to close his eyes and relax -- and promising not to come near him -- she gathered together every memory and feeling about Tyler that she could scrape up, enclosed them in the telepathic equivalent of gift wrap, and passed them on to him, indicating that he could return the "present" if he felt so inclined. Tyler once again showed his tendency to respond in smartass fashion to serious gestures -- commenting that Jasmine sure had a dirty mind for a nine-year-old -- but did return the favor a few minutes later, after doing his best (with only limited success) to edit out the very recent "consuming desire" addition to the package. And then they went to sleep, still on completely opposite edges of their huge four-poster bed.

  Ivan, meanwhile, was still having the time of his life. He had decided somewhere along the way that he was glad he'd managed to sleep with the adult version of Corinna before the younger version -- if only so that he could one day have the pleasure of *teaching* the young Corinna some of the exotic techniques and scenarios that her older self was now happily practicing upon him. Finally, after hours of decadent pleasure, the lovers too succumbed to exhaustion.

  And that was it for the session, as folks were finding themselves in serious need of sleep in real life as well. Next time, we'll have the continuation of the kids' adventures in the future (and, just maybe, the revelation of what the heck is going on), plus we'll finally get to look in on the adult characters, who are indeed inhabiting their own young bodies in 1999. I know *I* can't wait. . . .