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You embark upon a career as an explorer and guide for big-game hunters. It suits you. Besides, your Mesozoic experiences have prepared you for anything modern-day menaces can throw at you.

EPILOGUE

Time sweeps onward, as it always does. Some people and events are remembered too harshly, and others with great generosity. This is true no matter how tirelessly you work to bolster your legacy.

When the media gets wind of your having saved Vance from a horrific death in the Cretaceous, you're widely acclaimed as a genuine hero and praised for your courage and quick action. Well done, indeed!

You show key journalists the evidence proving you're the real inventor of the time machine and the first true time traveler. You have an open-and-shut case. Despite his wealthy and powerful father's unstinting efforts, Darien Vance gains a reputation as a scoundrel who stole your invention. Many people take satisfaction in learning that the spoiled little rich kid didn't get away with it.

To your utter amazement, your intrepid exploration of the Late Cretaceous make you a household name and worldwide phenomenon whose daring feats form the basis for a reputation as solid as Mesozoic rock, akin to that of Neil Armstrong. You find it hard to be surrounded by people, to be the center of attention so much of the time.

Your enemy, Darien Vance, resumes his carefree, luxurious lifestyle, while cutting off all contact with you. For years, you follow news stories about him. He never discusses his trip to the Late Cretaceous. And he never goes back.

Oh, and as for that romance you kindled with your best friend from childhood…well, there's nothing like adversity to cement those bonds. You and Brett get your first apartment together. Nevertheless, when you're out camping, you're wont to stare at the vast sky late at night. Sometimes you spot an occasional airplane or satellite, or the dim glow of a city in the distance, and instead of finding these small traces of civilization reassuring, you turn over that big what-if: What if you and Brett had made a new life for yourselves back there?

Some nights, you wake up having dreamed of hearing, "Kub! Kub-kub-kub."

Ah, but those dinosaurs—the duckbills and the pterosaurs and the kazoo-heads and yes, even the triceratopses. You'll always have the dinosaurs.

End