"Yassin?"
The voice hit like a thunderclap.
The man standing before him had the sharp cheekbones and fire-lit eyes of someone who had seen revolutions bloom and burn. He was dressed like a character from a film noir: a tailored pinstripe suit, worn but well-kept, black leather shoes dusty with Casablanca's grit, a red tarbouche angled just enough to look casual.
"I… sorry, do I know you?" Yassin stammered.
The man's brow furrowed. "You don't remember me? I'm Khalid… Khalid El Mouradi."
Yassin's stomach flipped. That name. His grandfather's name. But this wasn't the soft-spoken, silver-haired man who had raised him. This version of Khalid was in his prime—sharp-eyed, broad-shouldered, and brimming with the energy of a man constantly on the edge of action.
"You must be mistaken," Yassin managed. "I'm just a traveler. From Tangier."
Khalid tilted his head, skeptical. "Odd traveler. Strange shoes. Stranger watch."
Yassin looked down at his sneakers. Nikes. A dead giveaway.
Before he could react, a whistle pierced the air. Two colonial officers rounded the corner, white uniforms crisp, rifles slung over shoulders.
"Papiers! Vos papiers!"
Yassin froze.
Khalid didn't. He grabbed Yassin's arm and yanked him into a run.
They darted through the medina's labyrinthine alleys, past spice vendors, butchers, fabric stalls. Narrow lanes and uneven cobblestones forced them into a frantic dance of dodging, slipping, sprinting.
Yassin's heart pounded as shouts echoed behind them.
After what felt like an hour, they ducked behind a stall stacked with earthenware jars. Khalid knocked on a nearby wooden door: three knocks, pause, two knocks.
A teenage boy opened. Khalid murmured a few words. The boy nodded and stepped aside.
Inside: dim light, thick rugs, the scent of mint and paper. A modest living space had been turned into a hideout—books in Arabic and French, maps with red pins, a tattered Moroccan flag pinned discreetly behind shelves.
Yassin collapsed on a cushion, panting.
Khalid didn't speak until the boy brought tea.
"You're not from Tangier," he said. "You speak like a Casablanca native, but not like we do now. You've got the accent of someone who's lived through more technology than politics."
Yassin rubbed his temples. "I don't know how I got here."
Khalid sat back, studying him. "The watch?"
Yassin showed it. The antique pocket watch shimmered faintly, as if still carrying the residue of whatever had brought him here.
"My father wore a watch just like that during the Rif War," Khalid said. "Said it had a spirit inside. He passed it to me before he disappeared. I wore it through protests in Fès and Rabat. Then I lost it."
Yassin blinked. "My grandfather gave it to me. But… that's you."
Khalid's eyes darkened. "If what you say is true, then we have bigger problems."
A pause.
"You said your name is Yassin?"
"Yassin El Mouradi."
Khalid laughed, but without humor. "My brother just named his unborn son that."
Later that night, in a back room lit by oil lamps, Khalid debriefed the others.
"This is Hakim," Khalid said, gesturing to a man in his late thirties with an engineer's hands and a revolutionary's scowl. "And this is Samira."
Samira stood against the wall, arms crossed. She wore a faded blouse and wide trousers, her hair tied in a scarf. Her gaze was steady, unreadable.
"We're part of the Resistance," Khalid said. "We don't carry a name. Names are targets. We operate in cells. Small units. Independent, but coordinated."
"What do you actually do?" Yassin asked.
"Disrupt," Samira replied. "Sabotage. Smuggle. Spread the truth. Print flyers when we can afford ink. Set fires when we can't."
"And you just… trust me?"
"No," Khalid said. "But I trust my gut. And you ran like someone who doesn't know the rules here. That makes you dangerous, but not an enemy."
Hakim added, "We have an opportunity. The colonial administration is planning to move arms through the port. A French convoy. We want to delay it. Long enough to draw attention to the Sultan's exile."
Yassin looked at the crude map of the port laid across the table. "You're planning to attack them?"
"Not head-on," Khalid said. "We hit a checkpoint. Disable the lead vehicle. Scatter their schedule. A delay is a message."
"I'm not a soldier," Yassin said. "I write code. I design apps."
Samira leaned forward. "But you're from the future. That means you know what comes next."
Yassin hesitated. "Kind of. I know Morocco becomes independent in '56. I know the French leave, and the king comes back. But I don't know the details. History doesn't record everything."
"Then help us make history," Samira said.
For the next three days, Yassin stayed hidden in the safehouse.
He learned to walk with the crowd, to avoid eye contact with police, to listen when the walls had ears. Khalid showed him how to spot informants—men who stayed too still, who watched too closely.
Samira taught him how to carry a message folded in bread, how to burn it in less than five seconds.
Hakim handed him a radio. "We hijack the French frequency once a week. You said you worked with electronics. Think you can improve the signal?"
Yassin spent the night rewiring the transmitter. It wasn't perfect, but it boosted range by a few kilometers. Enough to reach nearby cells.
On the fourth night, the mission came.
Under cover of darkness, the team moved through the industrial district. Khalid led them to an alley near the port. The checkpoint was up ahead: three trucks, five guards.
They didn't need to win.
They just needed to interrupt.
Hakim set the charge—homemade, wrapped in scrap cloth. Timed to detonate under the lead truck's wheel.
Yassin waited with Samira in a building across the street, crouched behind crates of unused copper wire.
"I shouldn't be here," he whispered.
She looked at him. "You are here. That's enough."
The explosion tore through the silence. A burst of fire, shouting, the crack of rifles. Yassin's ears rang as the team scattered. Khalid waved them toward a sewer grate.
Minutes later, they emerged half a kilometer away, soaked, coughing, but alive.
Back at the safehouse, they listened to the radio.
French announcers described the incident as a 'mechanical failure.' But they knew better. So did the Resistance.
Yassin sat with Khalid on the rooftop, watching dawn break over Casablanca.
"This city's changing," Khalid said. "Faster than the French want to admit."
Yassin nodded. "You're risking your life every day. For a country that doesn't even exist yet."
"It exists," Khalid said. "In every mother who hides her son's pamphlets. In every worker who tears down a French poster. In every man who lights a fire instead of bowing his head."
Silence passed between them.
"Do you think the watch brought me here for this?" Yassin asked.
Khalid shrugged. "Maybe. Or maybe it just reminded you where you came from."
Below, the call to prayer echoed through the city.
Yassin closed his eyes.
And whispered, "Allahu akbar."