The year is 2013 and I am teaching my uncle about curved spacetime. He is five years old. We have just finished a fencing lesson. His name is Obi-Wan and he is five years old. When I am born he will be nineteen. When he is twenty and I am celebrating my first birthday, he will put a spell on my in my crib. My name is Max, and I an a field agent for NTIR - the Noetic Temple for Interdimensional Rewilding. I am a chrononaut. "Kaleidoscope!" Obi shouts, and pokes a cardboard tube into my eye. His Padawan braid dangles in front of my nose as I squint into the tube. Obi-Wan is not from a galaxy far far away. He lives in the morass of 21st century urban hyperreality, right in the center of the Black Iron Prison. My job herenow is to prevent his mind from falling into the clutches of the Imperium, because if he's caught by their mind-viruses he won't be able to induct me into NTIR in fifteen year's time. He told me this himself three weeks ago, on my twenty-fourth Yule. Bear with me. The timing all gets really confusing when writing in English, but four-dimensional language wont' exist in time for you to read these words. Beacuse this is not just the fate of my uncle and my employment here - everybody's past and future are at stake. It is the year 2013, and it's our last chance to save the universe from beginning to end. It is 2013, and time as we know it is in danger. It is 2013, and I need your help.
