“Perhaps we should aim a little smaller than changing the entire course of human history on day one? Who knows what effects something like that could have…although maybe none, if you remember my theory.”

“That it would have just been someone else anyway?” Jasper asked.

“Well if you look at the state of Europe at that time, it was a powder keg!” Reginald began to argue.

“Yes, yes, I know.” His friend said, waving away the debate for another time, “You’re right, you should just observe. Like we talked about. No changes that could end with us anywhere but here, now. That’d be some feedback loop, sending you back, resulting in it impossible to send you back? That’d melt a few brains hey, old boy!”

“Yes, quite right.” Reginald said, pushing his glasses up his nose. Suddenly nervous.

“How about satisfying that little boy in you? Dinosaurs?” Jasper suggested.

“Tempting…but I’m not much for running anymore. Wouldn’t want to get eaten…” Reginald smiled, attempting to appear lighthearted about the idea. He stood up, grimacing at the ache in his ankles and the twinge in his back. Their funding hadn’t exactly stretched to comfortable chairs and if sitting was so arduous, hiding from gigantic reptiles in a tropical forest was most certainly out of the question. He tottered stiffly along the rows of equipment, tracing his finger along the polished tabletops.

“Look at all this,” he said, “all the tool’s we basically invented, in order to create that thing. If we were able to share even one of them, we would be heralded as visionaries. Ever regret taking their money? Agreeing to their terms?”

“Reg, stop procrastinating. We don’t have all night! They’ll find out soon enough. Then the chance will be gone, and it’ll be someone else taking the first steps on this proverbial moon.”

They both paused for the barest second and then simultaneously roared with laughter. Reginald slapped the stupid sod rather too hard on the shoulder and wiped the tears from his eyes, chuckling away as his mirth wound down.

“Just to be clear,” He wheezed, “anyone knocks on that door…who ever is closest hits the button and jumps back to the beginning of this conversation, then speeds us along. Deal?”

“Yeah, alright, Reg.” Jasper said, rubbing his own eyes dry, “Sorry. its late. I’m not a half-wit, I promise.”

“Bah! You’ve always been a pleb!” Reginald laughed, patting the man a couple more times on the shoulder.

They both thought in silence for a few minutes. It wasn’t uncommon in their field to spend time exploring their own thoughts before lending them voice. Reginald was the first to speak up, his voice soft and conspiratorial.

“What about the other plan?” He ventured.

Jasper sighed and leaned back in his chair, placing both of his hands on the back of his head and stretching out his elbows.

“We never really entertained it before.” He said, evading the question.

“We should consider it now though, right? Now that its possible?”

“Well, I can confirm that when you go back, you’ll enter your own body of the time. I appeared right here, behind the same eyes, just as I was the previous minute. Except with knowledge of the sixty seconds to come. I knew everything you said, everything that happened, because I had already lived it. So that rules out any kind of ‘meeting yourself’ paradox.”

“So I could do it. Take the knowledge of this final product back to the younger versions of us? The poor sods who worked out of your aunts damp garage those first few years. I could save us thirty years of labour, simply returning with the solution?” Reginald asked.

“Wouldn’t that mean all of that work never happened though? So how could you return with a solution that had never been developed? Except that it would still exist, just without the work having been done? Isn’t that an issue?” Jasper asked.

Reginald slapped an open palm to his forehead and swore in the only way his wife had ever allowed.

“Biscuits!” He gasped, “Madeline. I met her while we were spending all that time at your aunts place. She and Maddie’s mother, they were friends. If I change this, none of that will happen. I’d never meet her. I can’t have that.”

“You could wait? Until after you meet? Reveal it then?”

“No. It wouldn’t work. What would she see in me now? I’m an old man! She was so full of life back then, so adventurous and bright. And I…I was so hell bent on my dreams, so passionate…”

“You’ll be in your old body you dolt!” Jasper laughed, “She’ll still see you as you were!”

“Will she?” Reginald snapped, “I don’t think so. Maybe in my face. My body. But I’m so different now. She will see it. She always saw it…always saw me.”

“I miss her too.”

“Its tempting though, ain’t it?” Reginald smiled, “She was a firecracker, no doubt about that. Or hey! What about Samantha. She admitted not so long ago she always had a crush on me back then. Maybe I could, you know, make that happen a little different? Before I ever meet Maddie?”

“Reg! You’re a dog!” Jasper cackled, “You’ve got my mind running now! All those missed chances…”

“Ah, to correct all the dumb things we moron’s did! Spare ourselves these thirty something years of struggle! Wouldn’t it be something!?”

“Sure would, Reg. Sure would. It wasn’t all bad though. Most of it, for sure. The lifetime of poverty and stress, chasing a dream straight out of a science fiction novel. Most people still think we are crazy, you know? But it wasn’t all bad. Not all of it.”

“No. Not all of it, old friend. Not at all.”

Silence reigned again and Reginald dumped himself back down into his chair. It had started as a gentle lowering, and ended with the uncontrolled drop of a man who should have been in bed hours ago.

“So,” Jasper said, hand back on his chin, muffling his words, “Dinosaurs are out, Hitler can live his sordid life. We commit to doing the work, for Maddie. What else is there? Maybe you go small, just drop in, grab a newspaper and come back?”

“Newspapers can be forged. Preserved. Its no kind of proof. Always thought that was stupid.” Reginald yawned.

“Well, whatever! Make it Napoleon’s hat for all I care! Just do a quick fly-by. No harm, no foul.”

“That’s what I think I’m coming to,” Reginald said, “I don’t think there’s any action I could take that wouldn’t cause harm. Future or past. I know you’ve thought on it as much as I have, Jasper.”

“A damn sight more, I should imagine.” He scowled.

“Can we really hand over something as powerful as this to our government benefactors? Will they sit around a table and talk like we are now, or will they just hit go and send some meat head with a machine gun leaping headfirst into disaster?”

“I think we both know that answer to that one,” Jasper said, rolling his eyes, “What are you saying here, Reg?”

“I’m saying I’ve had a good life. I’m an old man and I’ve certainly made my share of mistakes. But I own my past. I treasure it. I wouldn’t give it up. Not a second with Maddie. Not my children or my grand babies. Not a minute of the time I’ve spent with you on this project. You damn fool. Would we really rewrite all that we’ve become? Because make no mistake, any single butterfly would do it!”

“You’re a sentimental jackass,” Jasper said, shaking his head, “But damn it if you aren’t right.”

“So what do we do then?” Reginald asked, lost for the answer himself. His mind foggy and wanting little more than his pillow.

“We do this.” Jasper said, leaning forward. The old man wobbled, putting all his slight weight on one hand against the table. With the other, he grasped a fistful of wires and half a circuit board and yanked hard, turning all their hard work into a mess of nothing.

“Alas, prototype number seven-hundred-and-forty-two is another failure. I do keep count.” He smiled, “So, back to it tomorrow? We’ll need to begin designs for the next one.”

“Yeah, alright, old friend. We’ll start again tomorrow.” Reginald nodded, the relief washing over him and suddenly making him exhausted.

They both stood slowly, fighting their own aches and pains, then wandered side by side toward the doors they had entered together every morning of their adult lives. Reginald slapped a hand to the old dolt’s shoulder, nodded his goodbye, and they both moved apart, heading home through the night.