She blinked into our office just as we were pulling the cancelled Britney dates from our database. “Quick!” she exclaimed. “You must post these dates for Fuel and Seal on the Internet before all hell breaks loose!”

“Sounds serious,” we replied. “But how will posting these dates on the Net affect the future? Will it prevent a war? Bring peace and harmony to humanity? End the current glut of reality TV shows?”

“Nothing so easy,” she said as the glow of time travel slowly diminished around her person. “But if you post these dates, you’ll help prevent the William Hung tribute album to Ray Charles, thereby eliminating the cause for the global cultural riots of 2008. Hmmm… Better add these dates for Nick Lowe as well. You never can be too careful.”

“Say no more,” we answered as we slammed the itineraries into our system. “There. Done. Anything else?”

“Just these dates for Rasputina, Papa Roach and Martin Simpson,” she replied, pulling several routing sheets from her purse. “Added together, these dates will help ensure that Britney Spears overcomes her knee problems and continues to tour well into 2094.”

“Wait a second,” we said, which, when you think of it, is kind of a dumb thing to say to a time traveler. “Britney is still going to be performing 90 years from now?”

“You bet,” she answered. “Although it won’t be the original Britney. But, thanks to cloning, Britneys II, III and IV will all be as good as the original.”

“Cloning? You mean the governments of the world are going to reverse their positions on cloning? How can that be? Almost everyone agrees that cloning is unethical.”

“Oh, cloning will still be considered a scientific no-no,” said the Lady From The Future. “However, due to the uprising caused by the 2035 Rolling Stones tour and the millions of children traumatized by seeing Keith Richards up close and personal, the world governments will band together and make an exception when it comes to cloning musical artists while they’re still young and easy to look at. They’ll start by cloning the jambands.”

“Cloned jambands? You’ve got to be kidding.”

“Oh, no,” she replied. “In fact, the cloned jambands will bring about an era of peace and tranquility for the next 100 years. Phish IV, The String Cheese Incident VII, moe. XXIII – Concerts featuring hours upon hours of guitar solos and improvisations will establish a ‘peace’ groove that will extend clear into the next century. That is, until all the jamband clones decide to retire, leaving their fans to wander the streets looking for food and Zig Zags. After all, for every reaction…”

“There’s an opposite reaction,” we said as we finished her sentence. “Anything else we can do to build a better tomorrow?”

“That’s about it,” she said as she reached into her purse, pulled out her iPod and punched in the temporal coordinates to return her to the future. “Sorry for cutting out so quickly, but I don’t want to be late for the Guns N’ Roses CD release party scheduled for 2025.”

“You’re kidding,” we said to her. “Axl won’t finish the recording of Chinese Democracy until 2025? That’s 21 years from now.”

“Don’t be silly. Axl will have Chinese Democracy in the can two or three months from now,” said the Lady From the Future as the time continuum vortex opened up to engulf her. “However, the liner notes for the CD. Now that’s another story.”