In 1996 less than half of all American high school students had ever used the Internet.
Facebook would not be invented until several years in the future.
Emma & Josh are about to log on to their futures.
Emma Nelson is a junior in high school. Her dad recently gave her his computer. As she was setting up her new computer, Josh Templeton, her next door neighbor, comes over. Ever since November, things have been tense between Emma and Josh. They used to spend lots of time together, but not in the last six months.
"My mom wanted me to bring this over," he says, holding up a CD-ROM. "American Online gives you a hundred free hours if you sign up. It came in the mail last week."
It takes 97 minutes to download, so Emma goes for a run. Afterwards she restarts her computer and dials into AOL. Her modem crackles and beeps. She re-enters her email and password.
For about twenty seconds, my monitor freezes. The then white box snaps into a tiny blue dot and a new webpage fades in. It has a blue banner running across the top that says "Facebook." A column down the center of the screen is labeled "News Feed" and under that are tiny photos of people I don't recognize.
Emma finds a small picture of a woman with the name Emma Nelson Jones.
At first she thinks Josh has tried to pull a fast one, but she soon learns the truth. She and Josh make a pact.
"Let's make a deal to only look at it together," he says.
Emma learns that in the future she is not happy, and Josh's future is happy and successful. But each time they look at Facebook, the future has changed. They soon realize that what they do now affects their ever-changing future.
"Before you look," I say, holding tight to the chair, "you have to promise not to tweak the future unless it's absolutely terrible. Even then, we need to discuss it first."
As Emma and Josh learn about their future, they are forced to confront other issues that lead to what happened six months ago.
Rating: 8 out of 10 stars
* mild language, sexual situations
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