The Time Machine Did It by John Swartzwelder Page A

space/time continuum.”
    “That’s what I was thinking.”
    He went on and on about how
delicate space and time was, but frankly I didn’t buy it. I mean, if you think
it’s so easy to change the course of world events, try it. You don’t need a
time machine. You’re already living in somebody’s past and somebody else’s
future. Just step on a bug or something and see what that gets you. See if now
you were never born, or suddenly now there’s fifty Hitlers in your bathroom,
crapping all over everything. It ain’t going to happen. Anyway, that’s what I
figured.
    Now that I knew what the time
machine looked like, all I had to do was escape and find it. Then I could
probably take the rest of the day off.

CHAPTER TEN
    It was harder to
break out of that place than I thought it would be. Now I know how nuclear
bombs feel. Those walls are thick. Damn thick. The old Burly Shove didn’t work
at all. Neither did the Burly Nose Ram. So I decided to get tricky.
    First I tried going through the
ventilation duct, but I just ended up inside a huge air conditioner. I’m told
they could hear my screams all over the building, coming out of all those
little vents, and that many people in the building found this annoying. A
number of them had to turn their TVs up. I try to keep it down in situations
like that, but sometimes you just can’t.
    Then I convinced all the other
prisoners to help me build a big fire, explaining that we would all be able to
escape when the criminals smelled the smoke, panicked, and opened the door. I
forgot how airtight those Civil Defense places are. Nobody smelled any smoke
except us. And we smelled it too well.
    The other prisoners didn’t have
anything else to put out the fire with, so they used me. Then they stubbed me
out and tossed me in the corner. That’s what you get for trying to be a leader.
Sometimes I don’t know why we leaders bother.
    By this time I was pretty much out
of escape ideas. That’s the way it usually is with me. Once I’ve climbed into
something and set fire to something else, I’m done. I always read about people
in these situations suddenly saying “I’ve got a plan”. And they do! And it’s
great! Where do they get all these plans, that’s what I want to know. I never
have any plans. And why didn’t they think of a plan before, so they wouldn’t be
in this fix? I don’t get it.
    I checked with Groggins to see if
he could think of anything. Maybe he was one of those guys with all the plans.
To my amazement, he not only had a plan, he already had an escape device built.
I was impressed. This was just outstanding.
    The crooks had set up a small lab
down there for Groggins to work on inventions for them. In his spare time he
had been secretly working on an escape device for himself. It was a teleporting
machine like they have in Star Trek. In fact, he said he got the idea and the
design by watching an episode of Star Trek. He said he did most of his research
in this way - by reading science fiction books and watching monster movies, and
so on. I looked at him like he was nuts. He noticed the look and immediately
got defensive.
    “I realize my methods are
unconventional. Some people think I’m mad. But you don’t, do you?”
    “Sure.”
    He felt I might not be looking at
the thing from the right angle. “I might just be ahead of my time. People often
mistake genius for insanity. That might be what’s happening here.”
    “You’re the screwiest guy I’ve
ever met.”
    He decided I didn’t fully
understand how his technique worked. That was the problem. He took a moment to
explain.
    “All the real worthwhile
inventions have already been thought of by hack science fiction writers,” he
informed me. “I’m surprised no one has actually sat down and tried to build any
of the stuff they write about. A lot of it is really easy to make.
Disintegrating rays, invisibility potions, time machines; the hard thing isn’t
developing these inventions, it’s