Convincing people that time travel is possible is one thing. Convincing them to actually do it is another.

Chapter 2 — Spreadsheet and Pizza 

Recruiting the remaining members of our crew took less time than expected. Convincing them we were serious was another matter entirely.

We ended up in a small pizza joint tucked behind the bar district, the kind of place where the tables had been there longer than any of us had been alive. Since none of us had anywhere else to be, we ordered a large pizza. The place was quiet, with only three other patrons, all of them seated far enough away to mind their own business.

First, we brought everyone up to speed.

It took a while to convince them that Xela had genuinely found a way to tear a hole in time. Lucas nearly choked on his soda when he realized we weren’t speaking metaphorically. Jesse stopped chewing entirely and stared at the ceiling, as if reconsidering every life choice that had led him to this moment.

Second, we discussed whether we should actually go.

Every one of us agreed, pretty quickly, that it was insane.

Every one of us also agreed it was an opportunity we couldn’t ignore.

If we were going to step through, we would do it properly—with preparation, planning, and a destination that wasn’t obviously underwater. None of us wanted to drown before making our first discovery.

Our next concern was time. Specifically, when we would arrive.

Mark was quick to point out the problem.

“Ammonites don’t narrow things down much,” he said, deadpan. “They existed for three hundred million years. That’s like finding a penny and trying to guess what decade it was dropped.”

If we could identify a species and match it to a known fossil record, we could get a rough estimate. But that would require luck and a portal that hit the same era twice.

Xela wasn’t entirely sure her device would return us to the exact same time period every time. Even an approximation, though, would help us prepare.

We were also taking something else for granted: that the device returned us to the same location in Earth’s history, not merely the same coordinates in space. If it were space-locked instead of Earth-locked, the portal should have opened into vacuum, not water.

Since the building hadn’t instantly imploded, we assumed it was Earth-locked. The presence of an ocean suggested a range of roughly 100 to 66 million years ago. Supporting that theory was the lens assembly Xela used, which incorporated local limestone: material formed at the bottom of the Western Interior Seaway.

We would later learn how flawed that assumption was.

But that explanation can wait.

Sadly the original documents have been lost as such later tables are all that can be found in the appendix. 

By the end of it, I had two spreadsheets open, three calculators running, and a slice of pizza slowly congealing beside my laptop. No one spoke at first, not out of fear, but because the numbers were too heavy to joke over yet.

“Okay,” I said finally, scrolling. “Forty pounds per person. That’s the line between prepared survivalists and prehistoric snack cakes. Hopefully.”

Mark leaned forward and tapped the weight column. “And if we’re wrong about the time period, none of this matters. If we land in the wrong layer and it’s full of giant amphibians instead of dinosaurs”

“Then we improvise,” Lucas said, mouth full of crust. “Surely we can make this much crap work. Worst case, something eats us and gets indigestion from all the metal.”

Jesse didn’t look up from the first aid supply page. “If any of you die from something preventable, I’m not saving you. I’ll just write death by stupidity in my report.”

“Is that an official medical term?” August asked.

“It will be,” Jesse replied.

“He will be the best medical professional on the planet,” I added. “So yeah. It's official."

Lucas highlighted another cell. “Do we really need three axes? We haven’t even bought one yet.”

“Yes,” Mark said instantly. “We need a backup axe for the backup axe.”

“Why would anyone lose an axe?” Lucas asked.

Mark didn’t answer. Which was suspicious.

He stared at the tools list like it had personally betrayed him. “…Please put rope on there. A lot of rope.”

“It’s already on there,” I said. “But the good kind is expensive, and I’ll be damned if I trust my life to budget rope.”

“I don’t care,” Mark replied, voice flat. “I have regretted not having enough rope.”

August shot me a withering look, a clear warning not to make the poorly hidden sex joke forming in my brain.

Lucas looked up from googling kayak weight capacity. “If a giant bug eats me, tell people I died doing what I loved.”

“What,” Jesse said. “Screaming?”

Lucas did not deny this.

We worked in silence for a minute before August finally asked, quietly, “Do you think we’re actually coming back?”

I paused my typing.

“We’re going to prepare like we are,” I said. “And if we don’t… at least we won’t die because we forgot an axe.”

The table went quiet again until Jesse cleared his throat.

“Okay. But if any of you lick a plant or an animal ‘to see what it tastes like,’ I’m letting natural selection win.”

Lucas slowly closed a tab labeled Edible Plants of the Mesozoic.

By the time the waiter announced they were closing, we had:

Three half-finished spreadsheets

Fifteen tabs of gear we couldn’t afford

And a sinking realization that our lives now depended on discount outdoor equipment

We dumped crumpled bills and change onto the table, grabbed our laptops, and stepped into the night.

No one said it out loud, but the thought hung over all of us:

We had just budgeted our own survival.

And none of us were sure the math was good enough.

So we turned toward the lab, carrying the smell of pizza with us and mentally preparing to dissect a creature that hadn’t been around for millions of years.

We had no idea how much we’d already gotten wrong.

Not yet.