interdimensional investigations initiative - invasion

chapter 3- i think i'm from the future

DEREK JUST STARED at him, though his eyes were squinted down like he wasn't sure if this was the Ryan he knew. For several seconds, nothing happened, and then he turned back to one of the old Last Fantasy games and resumed finding all the uber-powerful secret bosses. They usually spent a lot of time down here, in Derek's hideous basement, talking things over while Derek leveled up.

"I'm serious, dude."

"Prove it," Derek said.

He'd come prepared. "Tomorrow we're going to have a current events discussion... two topics."

"We always have current events, and two topics on Tuesdays. You're gonna have to lie better than that."

He couldn't remember, actually. He had this blurry, wrong feeling burning into his mind that everything happening before him wasn't right, but couldn't remember how or why, or even what was going to happen. The only thing he knew for sure was that the field trip couldn't happen, or he and Derek couldn't go. Either one of those was perfectly acceptable for whatever reason, since Ginny couldn't tell him what was wrong, or wouldn't. Either way, same result: field trip bad.

So he decided to cheat and tell Derek he had come back from the future. In its own way, this actually felt truer than any other lie he could've made up.

"This is even worse than the 'I think I have dragon blood' thing from two years ago," Derek said. "I'm from the future. Sheesh. Just say 'April Fools' and get it over with."

"No no no, listen, one of the discussions was about the TUIST field trip," Ryan said suddenly. "Is, not was. The other one is... hang on..."

"If you try any harder you're going to explode," Derek said.

"It's about the free trade deal! The free trade deal! And somebody mentions the Trans-Pacific Partnership and somebody starts talking about transgender people. Then everybody loses it." He had no idea if this was the truth, but this gambit was already bombing big time. It didn't still the sense that he was actually replaying these days leading up to the Tessera University field trip, but convincing Derek was another story.

Derek huffed out a couple of laughs, then pumped his fist. He'd found the Obsidian Weapon.

Ryan's phone rang. He hated this phone... it was an old slider his mother had gotten from a friend's friend who owned a used electronics shop. Even though it was beaten and scratched up, there was this to say for it: it was basically impossible to break the thing.

He dropped it now, cursed, and picked it up. It was his mother, calling to tell him she was going to be late because his sister Kelly had another orthodontist appointment. He put it on speaker.

"Watch this," he said to Derek.

"Hey, honey," Mom said.

"Hey Mom! Yeah, Kelly's got another orthodontist's appointment and you're going to be late, right? And we're ordering some dinner?"

"Yeah," she said. "Tonight's Chinese. How'd you know?"

"Proves nothing," Derek said quietly, gearing up for the Obsidian fight. Gravity magic was useless apparently, and Dark, so he threw his Priest onto the team. "Unless you're trying to prove that your family's predictable."

"You're going to get two General Tso's chicken, and sweet and sour for Dad, and Kelly wants extra egg rolls. Pork fried rice for us and shrimp fried rice for you."

"Why don't you just call and order then, Mr. President? Or maybe I should just call you General Tso."

Crap, this was backfiring. Derek was never going to believe he was from the future like this. Derek chuckled and beat the Obsidian Weapon like a rented mule.