Rufus had seven hundred years of history to save, and a printout of a high school attendance sheet to do it with. He stood at the top of the wide marble staircase inside his estate, the future stretched around him in white towers and quiet gardens. Down in the entry hall, the time booth waited, its clockwork dials ticking soft green light against the tiles. The Elders had told him the prophecy that morning. Two slackers. One song. A utopia that lived or died on his pick. He walked down the stairs holding the printout. Forty-two names. Forty-two boys at a school called San Dimas High, in a year called 1988. He had watched them all through the archive lens for a week. He had narrowed the list to six. He could not narrow it further. He spread the papers on the marble step and knelt. He crossed off a boy who had already enlisted. He crossed off a boy whose grades were climbing. Prophecy said the two would be failing history. He crossed off two more who spoke in full sentences. That left two names. Bill. Ted. He read the names again. He had chosen them three times this week and unchosen them three times. They were loud. They were kind to strangers. They failed every test. They played air guitar in the hallway during fire drills. The archive showed them writing one song, badly, over and over, for two years. A sound came up the staircase behind him. Wet hooves on marble. Rufus turned. The dead horse the Elders kept in the garden had wandered inside again, ribs showing through gray hide, one eye rolled back. It climbed two steps and stopped. It stared at the printout. Then it lowered its ruined mouth and nudged the page with Bill and Ted's names. Rufus stared at the horse. The horse stared back. In the archives, the Elders said the beast had been ridden by the first believer, a girl who heard the song when it was only a hum in the air. She had died. The horse had not, quite. It knew the music the way a compass knows north. Rufus picked up the page. "Them," he said. "You're sure." The horse breathed on his hand. That was answer enough. He crossed to the booth and opened the door. The dials spun up. He set the year to 1988 and the place to San Dimas. He keyed in the two names. The booth hummed. Green light climbed the glass. Then the panel above the receiver blinked red. A new date appeared under his fingers. Not the date he had chosen. Two days earlier. A warning script scrolled across the readout: HISTORY REPORT DUE. FAILURE IMMINENT. SUBJECTS WILL BE SEPARATED BY SUNDOWN. Rufus gripped the receiver. He had picked his pair. Now he had forty-eight hours to reach them before the school pulled them apart forever.