A Cheat Code To Time

Hold on, you’re stepping on my toe! Now, listen. Listen up, goddammit. I have worked for twenty years to be here at this place, in this moment right now. And you are not going to fuck this up for me. I hired you to do a job, and it was to stand next to me while I do some complicated shit. I need you to focus only on me for the next..seventy-six seconds.

Now what’s coming down that hallway at us right now is bad. I can’t lie to you. Those creatures howling and growling are coming right at us. They were put here to prevent us from doing what I am about to do.

Now pay attention. I’m going to put this key in this lock. And the way time keys work, see, is that in the past, thirty-seven years ago, I also put this key into this lock, but from the other side. And doing that started a process that has led to this moment. It will be the same second of the same day at a time of year and revolution where the Earth is in the exact same stellar position as when I put that key in this lock thirty-seven years ago.

Christ, they’re getting closer now. Hear ‘em growling like gators? Nobody knows what they are. We’ll be the first to see ‘em. That ain’t nothing. Now, don’t distract me. I’ve got... fifty-nine seconds left. And all this temporal alignment of physical objects at multiple points in time adds up to a second shot. If these keys enter the lock from both sides and have the same relative positions in physical space but originating from different points in time, the person holding these keys in both periods will merge into a new persona that will be awarded a third key.

It’s a cheat code for time. The third key is a choice. Go anywhere in time for all the time you need. The keyholder chooses. And I’m going back to the night I first made love to my long-dead wife. I want to fuck her one more time and fall asleep in her arms, and tell her I’ll love her forever because I do. And I might repeat that night forever and ever, over and over, a pulsing beacon of my love that will never fade in intensity.

Okay, seven seconds. Now, I need you to go stand in front of that door and slow down what’s coming through. Give me a chance to get this done.

Three seconds.

Two.

Here we go.