Lucy: tell me who this is.
Unknown: I’m u. 10 years in the future. 

 All the prisoners were transferred off the island, only that’s not what happened—not at all. 

 One sandaled foot was outthrust. The caption below the figure admonished the viewer to “Keep on Truckin’” 

 “Lookee here, it’s good you know what this thing is, but where in hell did it come from?”
“The early Cretaceous. One hundred twenty million years ago,” Peter said.
Sometimes real smart people can be a little dense. 

 This is the reinvented baby. It doesn’t poop. It is also a time machine. 

 Well honestly, to me ma’am, it looked like a flying locomotive. 

 “You are a problem,” Death finally said. “You were scheduled to die seventy years ago, during World War II, but since you hadn’t yet been born, I skipped the appointment.” 

 Was it always this way? 

 That question is beyond me. Try asking Mozart. 

 What happened in Hatcher’s room? 

 Trapped in most of these layers were visible figures—some of them blurred, but some of them so clear and vivid that when they were looking in his direction, as if from a wide window in the side of a building, he attempted to gain their attention by waving. None responded in any definitive way, although here and there the possibility that they might have seen him certainly seemed to be there.
The vast majority of these figures appeared to be ordinary people engaged in ordinary activities—fixing or eating dinner, housecleaning, working in offices, factories, on farms—but occasionally he’d see something indicating that an unusual event was occurring or had recently occurred. A man lying on his back, people gathered around, some attending to the fallen figure but most bearing witness. A couple being chased by a crowd. A woman in obvious anguish, screaming in a foreign language. A blurred figure in freefall from a tall building. 

 Who are you? I mean, you’re me, but I’m me, too. How can there be two me’s? It’s not scientifically possible. You are not scientifically possible! 

 Rich? Rich?! 

 Now Spider’s new boss, Mr. J.K. Patel, wanted him to figure out how to bring in more business by offering a paradox resolution service as well. 

 “This web site, Bob,” he said to me, shaking the snow off his black beret, sitting down beside me at the bar, ”it’s a time travel site. Time travel?” 

1. Something Real (Apr/May 2012) Asimov’s
2. At Palomar (Jul 2013) Asimov’s

 But I have to admit I’m not real sure what’s going on here. 

 This is the story of the nightmare that took hold of my life. 

 It doesn’t need to be anything fancy—one of those ones from the kits in the back of Popular Mechanics will do fine. But the point is that you need one. If you don’t have one, then forget about it. There’s nothing you can do. 

 Okay, Bob, why won’t my parachute work? And does everyone in the future dress like a cucumber? 

 This is now my new favorite moment in human history. 

 Time traveler—hello? 

 I'm afraid . . . of digging deeper into myself. 

 Grandma and I have a theory about how John Carter found his way to Mars. We think we can explain it with Schrödinger’s equation. 

 Edison Lee: So do me a favor. In forty-two years don’t let me “borrow” your tools without your knowledge to build this stupid time machine.
1972 Dad: I’m such a horrible father.
Edison Lee: And buy more chocolate milk. 

 Stormtoopers don’t know anything about lasers or time travel. They’re blue collar workers. 

 Wait a minute—if Stanley don’t stay here in the past . . . ah choo! . . . ahhhh! . . . there’ll be no town here in the future! 

 That’s how they beat the time-skew problem: Not Very would express sentiments and opinions aloud, then shuffle through the images to find those which contained (and had always already contained) Unlike Themselves’ responses. 

 I do not have to be a physicist, and I certainly am not one, to recall Einstein’s words: “The distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubborn, persistent illusion.” 

 . . . happier than Christopher Columbus with speedboats. 

  Hey. They’re comin’. Yeah, British. Later. 

 Being the future inventors of time travel wasn’t all bad, of course. It was great to know that we’d never lose anything, never go to a movie that turned out to be a stinker, never buy a book we wouldn’t want to finish, never go out to a restaurant where the service was lousy, and never get stuck in a traffic jam, because we’d always be warned away, beforehand. It was terrific to have some future version of myself pop in just as I was about to irritate my wife with some inconsiderate comment and tell me, “It would be a really bad idea to say that.” 

 It’s just that I was kind of hoping that when I grew up I’d look like Brad Pitt, not Opie. 

 Man Customer: Relativity’s the best.
Woman Customer: I’m sorry, but Time’s Arrow is much better. 

 The man in the dark suit has become the most talked-about mystery man in the world. Who is he? Where did he come from? He appeared and unquestionably saved the life of one President but inadvertently—we presume inadvertently—caused the death of another. 

 Send future guy home. Destroy time machine. 

 Interviewer: Professor Bonkers, is it true you’ve invented a time machine?
Professor: That is correct.
Interviewer: How long did it take you?
Professor: The rest of my life. I actually finished it 47 years from now, and then when I was done, I jumped into my time machine and came back here to today in it. 

 And yet it didn’t happen like that. 

 If I hurt myself, it changes your body; so, does what I do now change your memory? 

 To her all times are one, all distances are one. 

 We didn’t have any other rules, just the two. 

 What if these German spies see that Astounding has suddenly stopped publishing anything about atomic bombs? What would they do? They’d think we were hiding something. 

 Mr. Watson, come here—I want to see you. 

 You have a team to vet your ideas. Bring them in on this! 

 We do not think the Marx Brothers are funny. 

 Repair the time loop! Save Glendale! 

 Living space is tough to find, though—there just aren’t many places in any city of any time that will stay overlooked for the duration. The invisible spaces of Babylon in 1700BC would already be staked out and claimed by whoever was taking refuge there. 

 See that carving? It’s been dated all the way back to the Cretacious period. Which is weird, ’cause who could have carved it? No humans were around 145 million years ago, just dinosaurs. 

 Skirmishes with Purity were no laughing matter, and any traveler who showed the slightest inclination toward interfering with the past would find his or her license permanently removed.
But it made for a good story. 

 You invented a time machine to come back and . . . 

 If I stopped now, I was thinking, the rest of my life would be a tragedy, I would be forever anticipating what was written, or trying . . . hopelessly, yes, there was nothing in the research then that said I had any hope . . . to change it. I would be living without hope. I could do that. But the important thing was what that burden would do to Alice . . . If I was going to be allowed to keep Alice, after what I’d seen.