From the Gifted Hand of Mr. Victor Price, Author and Inventor: Of Machineries and Metals, an Account of a Conversation By Victor Price

Said my dearest friend, Mr. Smith, to me yesterday in the Basement laboratory:

"My dearest Mr. Price, though thy Hand and Mind are quick, it seems you have invented little of use in times most recent. Why can you not build for me a Time Machine, that we might travel forward… or back, perhaps!… But no, for the Knowledge of those who have come before this time lives on, and likewise the Events and Goings-On which they did experience. Hence, to travel to Times Past seems without a point: Instead, my dearest Victor, let us off to the Future, and bear witness to a World of Technology! Imagine, my friend, the wonders to which we will be so eagerly exposed! Men will travel about at great speeds, with monstrous metal wings as arms: The sun shall be held up in the sky by a wire as long as the Earth is wide, and thus there shall never be night! Oh, Victor, imagine! The excitement!"

My good friend Mr. Smith tends toward exaggeration, and hence his agitation did increase until he grew red in the face, and veins which once were hidden under the skin of his neck and fore-head became visible as the light of day. I caught him as he lost consciousness, as usual, and dragged his body onto the chair where, when capable, he spends his hours reading famous works of literature - most written by me - and sipping gently at a cup of his special Nerve-Soothing Tonic. As Mr. Smith lay motionless in his chair, drooling and making small noises reminiscent of a spring brook, my thoughts turned to his proposition just minutes before. "A Time Machine, indeed!", pondered my exceptionally quick brain: "It just may work!"

Immediately, I grasped the nearest pen, which by the way was fashioned most professionally by one V. Price (me!), and also happened to be a crayon of greenish color, and a sheet of finely pressed paper from the far-off land of Nambizania, no doubt stomped flat by the calloused feet of a noble native tribe, which by coincidence was infact my friend Smith's personal journal. With these two objects in hand, I did proceed to plan that contraption, which (though dreamt up by the good Mr. Smith, who was now groaning and twisting his head about, casting bits of drool upon my carpet) should be designed, implemented, built, and indeed claimed by me, Mr. Victor Price!

Thus did I begin the creation of my Time Machine, hunched over a desk deep within the bowels of my secret laboratory, where I was sure that not light of day nor that annoying dog could bother me. I was disappointed to learn that there would be neither rain nor lightning that night, since a generous amount of cackling in a maniacal tone usually assists with my creative impulses. I should have to cackle anyway, I decided, despite the lack of flashing, dramatic lightning and crashing thunder.

As I sketched several designs, cackling periodically (quietly, of course, so as not to wake Mr. Smith, who was sure to be in a cross mood!), I sensed a well of frustration growing within my gut. There was something missing, I thought to myself. Though, what could it be? I had included references for a Control Lever, with which the pilot of the Machine could choose to travel either forward or backward in time: I had included an auto-matic Flotation Device, for use in the event of travel to a time in which my house had been engulfed in the nearest ocean (which one, I am not sure…): I had assured myself that there were no less than five exits to the craft, two toward the front, two above the wings, and one in the rear. I even remembered to include the Cyclotron, which one Mr. Clark once taught me how to construct using little more than the contents of a crate I keep in the attic, right beside those ominous, glaring portraits of my Grandfather Orson.

I was briefly tempted to speak with my close and unconscious friend Mr. Smith, who was no doubt laying awkwardly on the floor by now, which would of course aid in his grumpiness, due to the soreness of joints with which he should surely be inflicted upon his awakening. Perhaps, I pondered, he would know what it was that I had left out of my near-perfect design. He had, after all, thought of the device to begin with…

With surprising strength and fury, I slapped my own hand across my face, forgetting momentarily that I was grasping a screw-driver. As I nursed my newfound wound, I thought to myself: "No, you fool! Mr. Smith cannot be trusted! He shall certainly attempt to steal your plan, and shall build a Time Machine of his own, most likely much nicer-looking and functionally superior! He must not know of your plans!"

My mind was right! Mr. Smith had once double-crossed me when he dreamt up a flying contraption in one of his feverish fits, the plans to which I stole while he was away at the Doctor getting a prescription filled. I built a magnificent flying machine, the very sight of which surely should have struck wonder into the hearts of all who beheld it. But instead, that scheming Mr. Smith built another flying device, borne from his same plans, which worked perfectly and looked "much less like a child's plaything", as one observer put it. It was a foul move indeed, and it seemed revenge was in order.

Thus, I planned on...