Chapter 1 – "Rewind"
Ethan Cole's head pounded like a malfunctioning drum machine. He blinked against a harsh morning light—too bright, too golden—and tried to move. His body felt weightless and foreign. Nothing hurt except the space behind his eyes, where a storm of half‑remembered code and half‑written sentences raged.
He forced himself upright. The room was impossibly small, all wood‑panel walls and avocado‑green carpet. A ceiling fan spun overhead, its pull‑chain swinging like a pendulum. Smoke curled from an ashtray on the worn desk. A transistor radio murmured in the corner, broadcasting Top 40 hits in tinny mono.
Ethan pressed a hand to his temple. Memories flickered: the VR rig's sparks, the scream of collapsing circuitry… and then the rush of falling through time. He'd been 35, in his cramped L.A. apartment, debugging a graphics routine. The next instant, he'd crashed through decades and landed here—July 1970, according to the calendar tacked above the desk.
He stood, swaying. The clothes on his back were wrong: stiff polyester slacks, a button‑down shirt with a wide collar. His reflection in the mirror showed a gaunt, boyish face—seventeen years old, dark circles under alert eyes. Ethan's breath caught. He touched his jaw. He looked like his high‑school self.
A knock rattled the door.
"Ethan? You comin' down for breakfast?"
He swallowed. The voice was his mother's—though younger, fresher—calling from the hallway. The smell of frying bacon drifted in.
He had two choices: panic, or play along. He took a deep breath and nodded at his reflection.
"Yeah,"
he mumbled.
"I'll be right down."
In the kitchen, Mom flipped eggs in a T‑shape frying pan. Dad glanced up from the morning paper.
"You okay, sport? You look like you got hit by a truck."
He folded the paper: no sign of Silicon Valley fortunes or world‑changing headlines—only reports of Nixon's policies and the space program.
Ethan forced a smile. "Just a headache."
He slid into a vinyl chair. The coffee was strong, bitter—nothing like the artisanal roasts of 2024, but it grounded him.
As he ate, he scanned the room: rotary phone, woodgrain Formica table, a TV console with rabbit‑ear antennas. He could almost laugh. This was primitive. Yet in his head lay the designs for microprocessors, graphical user interfaces, even network protocols. He could build an Apple‑style personal computer in his garage and sell it for pocket change. But first—capital.
He closed his eyes. He remembered the novels: the folding fences and cloned dinosaurs of Jurassic Park, the boy wizard's first letter from Hogwarts, the whispered secrets of Da Vinci's code. He'd authored none of them—but he knew them word for word. Under the right pen name, these stories would sell like wildfire.
Ethan's heart rate steadied. He was seventeen again, but armed with fifty years of culture, technology, and business lore. He would publish those future‑blockbusters, quietly amass seed money, and then launch NeonForge—the company that would fuse computing, gaming, and entertainment into one unstoppable force.
He opened his notebook—lined, college‑ruled, stamped "1970." On the first blank page he wrote:
> To‑Do List:
1. Draft "Jurassic Park." (as "Michael Crichton")
2. Set up P.O. box for royalty checks.
3. Research microchip fabrication.
4. Build garage lab.
His pen hovered. Outside, the low hum of a world on the brink of change whispered through the open window. Ethan smiled. History wasn't fixed. He was about to rewrite it.
And it all started today.