Famer's story writing debate Round #2 Draferman VS TUF

As they sat in the machine, Ed merely stared at Steve. The commotion outside had dissipated, and now there was only silence. Finally, Ed spoke. "Do you want to tell me what is really going on here? I know you're not my Steve, but I imagine that you are working on the same theories and principles for this contraption, right?" "Yes." "While I really haven't understood one word you've said about this whole concept, I do remember you, him - whatever - saying that you can't go back in time before when the machine was first activated. So how can prevent the machine from being built?" Steve sat there in silence for a moment. "I'm waiting." "I have a hypothesis. The machine is like a train car. Only it doesn't move in any of the three spatial dimensions; it moves only in the time dimension. It goes back and forth, from beginning to end and any point in between. It can't deviate from that. Are you with me so far?" Ed nodded. "We are the riders of this train car. Imagine you were on an actual train car and it was heading, full speed toward the end of the track. When you get there, the train stops but the occupants..." "...are thrown from the train," Ed finished. "Exactly. It's about momentum." Ed jerked up, banging his head on the top of the machine. "Are you insane?! Are you trying to kill us?!" "Ed, sit down, calm down. I know it is a risky maneuver but it is the only way to get us to travel in time before the existence of the machine. We need to, essentially, launch ourselves further back in time than the machine is capable of going." Ed sat back down. "And what, exactly, are the risks?" "I couldn't say. Like I said, this is merely a hypothesis. There's a possibility that nothing will happen at all." "Or that we could die." Steve shrugged, but didn't deny it. "There's another caveat. Since we're going back in time before the machine exists, we have no way of coming back. This is a one-way trip." Ed's face turned red, but before he could rail against this new development a loud screeching sound filled the inside of the machine. Steve grasped whatever he could, bracing himself. Ed followed suit. They but shut their eyes tight as they waited for whatever may come. Suddenly, it went quiet. There was no crash, or jerking. The machine was still there and there was no apparent harm to either of them. Hesitantly, they opened their eyes. Suddenly, there was a knocking sound on the outside of the machine and a muffled, "Hello?" The door to the machine opened and light filled the cabin. Steve and Ed stepped outside of the machine, their eyes adjusting to the light. They were still in the junkyard. Before them stood Avery Piccot and half a dozen armed men. He was grinning, clapping his hands together and rubbing them. "Through the many versions of you that we have had the pleasure of dealing with, a consistent factor has been your arrogance. Almost every single one of you tries to escape using this machine. Did you think that we would not have put in precautions against this? Perhaps you do not give us enough credit. Rest assured that we understand this machine far better than you realize." Avery snapped his fingers and the men closed in on Ed and Steve, escorting them back to their prison cell. The walk back was in silence, Steve hanging his head dejectedly. Ed looked ahead, with an occasional furious glance to Steve. When they were shut inside the cell again, they sat against opposite walls, not speaking. After a few hours, the door to the cell opened, and a tall man, of Indian ethnicity stepped in. His clothes were not as tattered as everyone else's, though he was skinny enough to make malnutrition a serious diagnosis. His hair was long and scraggly, and he wore thin rimmed glasses. He looked right at Steve. "Good afternoon, Mr. Driscoll. I am Dr. Vaskar. I am your assistant." "Assistant?" Vaskar smiled a genuinely friendly smile. "Yes, you 'left' before you could be fully briefed. Mr. Piccot has a position of importance and is charged with making sure this plan is directed efficiently, but I am afraid that he does not fully grasp the necessary concepts. If you will forgive the immodesty, allow me to assure you that I am well educated in technical and scientific matters relevant here. But, first, I must fill in some gaps in your understanding of the situation. "As you know, rather than there being a single timeline, which is irrevocably altered due to temporal disturbances, there are an infinitude of timelines. The time machine, then, rather than simply going back and forth in time, takes users to these other timelines. The only restriction has appeared to be that the timelines that are traveled to are identical up until the point in time that the traveler appears, then diverge. This, I'm sure, you already know. "What you don't know is that some anomaly in the operation of the machine cause one of your iterations, to travel to a timeline that was not identical in history when compared to the origination point. This accident brought that iteration here. We call this iteration 'Steve-Prime'. "We are not particularly fond of strangers here and Steve-Prime was quickly apprehended by our employer." Vaskar paused, closing his eyes and lowering his head slightly in apparent reverence. He then continued. "While you may consider us simplistic and savage, there are those of us who understood the full implications of this accident!" Vaskar began to speak more passionately now. "Time travel, in and of itself, is a powerful tool, allowing you to choose whatever future you want. But the ability to travel to completely different parallel universes? The possibilities are literally endless! You are no longer bound by the history of your own timeline. You can go to a universe where you are emperor, or king, where they've found a cure for all disease, or a pill to make you immortal! You can, indirectly, shape reality to your whim by simply selecting the reality of your desire!" Vaskar composed himself. "And that is where you come in. Steve-Prime was treated well, and had no objections to helping us, so long as it got him home. However, he was unable to perform this mission, and our employer got patient, and killed him. Very sad. However, we did learn enough of the machine to make our own alterations. We turned the machine into kind of a temporal net. When activated, anyone else using a similar machine in any other universe is redirected here. We have used this ability to pull other Steves from other universes here, in the hopes that one would be able to help us." "We want you to find out how the original accident occurred, and then configure the machine to be able to travel across universes in this manner on demand. We have kept copious notes on your copies' work as well as the internal logs of the machine. Hopefully, with all of this data, we can puzzle out a solution." Vaskar stood up. "Your friend..." Vaskar motioned to Ed, "...is of little use to us academically, though I understand you have some emotional attachment to him. For now, he stays here. Please, come with me." Steve stood up, still processing all of this and followed Vaskar out of the cell, giving a look over his shoulder at Ed. Ed was staring at the ground and wouldn't meet his gaze. Vaskar led Steve to a small shack outside. They entered. The shack was designed almost identically to the one he had behind his house back home. This was no doubt due to the direction of one of his previous iterations. In the middle was a table open which were piles and piles of documents. Vaskar spoke behind him. "Your notes. I suggest you familiarize yourself with them. Time is short."