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MAN: Sure this thing is gonna work? Your time machine has cost the U.S. Government a pretty penny, doctor. The Chrono-logger is hardly a time machine in the sense of a vehicle, but rather a subatomic drill designed to bore a tunnel in the fabric of space-time. As to cost, I think the alleviation of untold human suffering throughout history is ample justification, General. It'll also give our red buddies overseas a thing or two to think about. But to answer your first question, there is only one way to find out. You're certain we're safe, doctor? I'm not certain of anything, Hugo, but the chrono-magnetic field we've generated should protect us. Doctor, I-- I'm frightened. Have a gumball. It'll calm your nerves. [loud roaring ] KEVIN: You didn't need to come. Gwen and I could've handled this alone. It's nothing, really. BEN: Doesn't sound like nothing. Weird noises, unearthly lights, rumors of weird creatures out here? Yeah, the dudes I heard it from aren't totally reliable. Isn't that, like, a big bad-boy thing to do -- come out here to the ghost town to drag-race? How should I know? I just know them from auto shop. Grandpa Max said Los Soledad used to be a big military base back in the '50s. Some kind of research facility. Yeah. Must've been some pretty serious research. Check out these walls. no way in. No way. These weren't here. [tires screech ] GWEN: Did anyone notice some of them are vaguely person-shaped? Weird. Maybe something -- I don't know -- burned through the wall. Like what? The same thing that burned these weird trails everywhere. Look. BEN: This is a bird. And these are lizard bones. They're fossilized. And they're not the only thing. It's like someone turned this slate into sand just by standing on it. He was probably on hold. The trail goes to the police station, then to those -- I guess they're apartments. KEVIN: Just to review, someone stood here a million years ago and then walked to those buildings that were built You are not helping. These could be signs of serious DNAlien activity, and it's up to us -- DNAliens are not doing this. Does that look like DNAlien to you? KEVIN: Finally something worth the gas. Chromastone! Look out! Gone. At least the building it destroyed wasn't the library. You really love the books. She's saying we have to research, find out what that thing is. All we know so far is that it's looking for something here on the base. GWEN: These films are really corroded, but it looks like this base was built for some kind of time experiment called project Paradox. Who wouldn't pick the desert outside Bellwood to do top-secret research? They built it here because of the huge quartz deposits. Quartz time? Maybe they were trying to build the world's biggest wristwatch. BEN: His name's been censored. Whoever he was, his paradox theory was the basis of some kind of experimental tunnel through time. KEVIN: Looks like my place after that big party I threw last weekend. Look. That thing has been here, too. Only one trail. It either came in here and vanished Or it was born here. [loud rumbling ] Swampfire! Got you. "Swampfire." That takes me back. Or is it forward? It's so hard to tell, Ben. Have we met? How do you know my name? Have we met yet,I suppose the question was. Hey, it's that dork from the photo, the paradox guy. You haven't changed at all in 50 years. Oh, considerably more than that. Gumball? No, thanks. Who are you? What's your name? You just read my file. I was rather hoping you could tell me. It slipped my mind several hundred years ago. Did he just say "several hundred years"? Did you just say -- hey. By the way, you didn't happen to see a space-time anomaly around here, did you -- about ye big, incredibly destructive, virtually unstoppable? No, I must've been thinking of another moment. Ta-ta! Where'd he He's out there. He's obviously connected to that creature. We need to talk to him. KEVIN: Oh, yeah, we'll talk. Right after the pounding! Huh? Was I in there? That was public property, you know. How does he move so fast? You mean, how do I move so quickly? It's called "walking." Strolling, really. That's better. Easy on the jacket. It's 1,200 years old. Anyway, thanks. "Thanks"? For what? Well, I had a feeling if we made a loud enough racket, he'd show up. Finally something we can hit. Oh, I really don't think that's a good idea. GWEN: Those trails. They're not burn marks. They'reage. The creature accelerates time. Very good. KEVIN: Not so fast, ugly! Aah! [gasps ] Kevin! GWEN: Kevin! Just touching that thing aged him 60, 80 years. We've got to get him to a hospital. What are you doing? Get your hands off me. Come on, Kevin, we're gonna get you some help. What do you mean, "help"? I'm gonna kick that thing's keister! Oy! Are you okay? My back is killing me. My legs ache. And what's up with these shoes? Is it too much to ask for a little support? GWEN: He's like a real irritable, short-tempered, crotchety old man. Why are you whispering?! In other words, aside from the male-pattern baldness, he's pretty much the same as always. Come on, old man. I'll take those. What do you think you're doing? Driving. Don't even think about it. You don't have a license. Grandpa Max taught me, and it's an emergency. You're nearsighted, arthritic, your reflexes are shot, and you're trying to unlock a cactus. [engine turns over, revs ] You should've gone out with me when I was young and handsome. You were too immature. What about now? Too old. Whoops! It's not a bumper car! GWEN: Back up, back up, back up! Ben, on the right! [tires screeching ] No! No! Not the car! Not the car! Hang on. [tires screeching ] You are never driving my car again! True. PROFESSOR: Where have you been? You were supposed to get here six seconds ago. Or it this thing running fast? Who are you, anyway? What are you doing here? What is that creature? Can you fix my car? There's something different about you. Is it your hair? Yeah, I'm parting it down the middle now, and I also got real old! Don't talk to me about old. I walk in eternity. Well, you better start running in eternity, smart guy! Hmm. You might slow us down. I need to fix that. We'll come back right over there. Kevin. I can't believe it. You're good as new. Well, my back still hurts a little. If I could just lean on you All right, professor, if you wouldn't mind fixing my car. How exactly do you expect me to do that? I'm a time traveler, not a body shop. Regressing a car would break all the chronal laws of space-time and -- Okay! Enough! I want answers -- now. Same old Ben Tennyson. You're even more like yourself now than you were in the future, which, for obvious reasons, I can't really tell you about. You want me to hurt him? What can you tell us, MisterParadox? Paradox. Oh, yes, that'll do. That'll do very nicely. I'll tell you my story in a way you can understand -- with a beginning, middle, and end. We'll start in the middle. Los Soledad was built entirely because of my ingenious theory -- a time tunnel utilizing the properties I discovered in quartz crystals which would allow us access to past and future events. KEVIN: Yeah, well, for a genius, looks like you blew it. PARADOX: You don't know the half of it. Some tiny miscalculation on my part destabilized the experiment and ripped a hole in the fabric of reality. I was hurled into the event horizon. I must've spent I didn't age or need to sleep or eat. Just exist. KEVIN: [ chuckles ] Sounds pretty boring. PARADOX: At first I went mad, of course, but after a few millennia, I got bored with that, too, and went sane -- very sane. I began to learn. I now have total understanding of the space-time continuum, allowing me to travel anywhere and anywhen I want, within reason. So, where's your time machine? He doesn't have a time machine. He has a map in his head. Exactly. I know where all the shortcuts are. I've spent a dozen lifetimes crisscrossing the time stream, making it a better place. And how does that pay? At the moment, not even in job satisfaction. You see, I recently discovered that some kind of extradimensional creature is going to wreak havoc across the universe. BEN: So? Way you talk, you take on monsters like this all the time. Why is this one so bad? Because unlike the thousands of foes I faced before, this extradimensional creature came into our plane of reality the moment my experiment went awry. Oh. So, just to be clear, it's your fault. This creature hasn't been lurking around here for 50 years. We would know about it. Time is like a river. It moves, flows, and bends. I accidentally set off a depth charge in that river. The creature I released was blasted 50 years through time to your present, doing this to your future. GWEN: But all it's doing is messing up an old army base. Why is that a problem at all? Why not just leave it alone? That's a better question for the man on the moon. What? Who's the man on the moon? I am. We're on the moon. No, we're on the moon in your distant future. What?! How are we not suffocating? Good question. Not remotely the point, though. Imagine what the Earth would look like in 200 years, say, with that time monster wandering all over it, aging everything that crossed its path to dust. For those of you with no imagination, the Earth is up there. You brought us to the worst possible version of the future. No. Should I fail to stop that creature, this is your best possible future. Not a pretty sight, is it? What are you doing here? I'm allowing myself to feel the full impact of my failure. Okay. Who's he? He's a parallel paradox. Young Ben has an innate sense of transtemporal metaphysics, which will serve him well in his future -- or should I say "past." And I drive good, too. We can breathe on the moon in the future, but you can't fix my car? What should I do? Well, obviously not what I did. But whatever you do, you better do it quickly. Time is running out. Why come back here? Why don't we travel back in time and stop the time experiment from ever happening? Isn't it just like an energy being to think outside temporal conventions? I'm not an energy -- The experiment that releases the creature also unsticks me in time, and that must happen because [chuckles] in all modesty You save the world dozens of times. Hundreds, actually. In fact, on one occasion, you and I worked together to save the entire univ-- never mind. It should be here any -- [loud rumbling ] You could set your watch by it. Jetray! They hit it? Doesn't everything age into oblivion as soon as they touch it? Gumballs last a really long time. Look under your desk at school. Now, get back! Let go! He'll age you into dust! I exist outside of time. Well, I can still feel the eons passing. Paradox, take us back to the accident -- now. But I told you! Just do it! Kevin, Gwen -- the lab. Quick! You just keep that thing occupied. K-keep it occupied? I'm a time-traveling hero. I don't keep things occupied. GENERAL: Sure this thing is gonna work? Your time machine has cost the U.S. Government a pretty penny, doctor. As to cost, I think the alleviation of untold human suffering throughout history is ample justification, General. Why would it use the phone? What? The creature. It tried to use the pay phone. Then it went to the police station, then the dorms. It didn't act like some unfathomable transdimensional creature. It did everything a normal person would do If they suddenly found themselves in an abandoned military base. [time tunnel whirring ] Look there. The assistant. Aah! [ yelling ] Ben, you'll get sucked in along with him! I need to put on a little weight. [loud roaring ] Humongousaur! Whoa! Trust me. This beats the alternative. Hugo! Of course. If it were a snake, it would've bit me. But don't look so smug. I would've figured it out eventually. You had 100,000 years! PARADOX: Well, I have to admit it. I'm impressed. All those centuries trapped in the Event Horizon, and it never occurred to me that the accident wasn't my fault. You're much smarter than you were when I met you later. ThanksI guess. What happened to him, your assistant? I lived my life. Hugo! How are you? Well, you look the same, and I haven't seen you in 50 years. Well, I haven't seen you in but you don't look that bad. How was your life? Good, a good life. But I'm -- I'm sorry about the experiment. I ruined everything. I never got to time-travel. Would you still like to? Yes. I'm not afraid anymore. Glad to hear it. How about I give you a behind-the-scenes look at eternity? At least he's got company now. Oh, and thanks for stranding us out here in the middle of nowhere! Come on. We've got a long walk home. Oh, ho, ho, ho! Stoked! It looks like new. It doesn't just look like new. It is new. It's factory-new from 30 years ago. Paradox, I take back everything I was about to say about you. "Kevin, try to keep in mind that if this car comes into contact with anything else from 1976, it will explode like antimatter. Enjoy! Paradox." He's kidding, right? That's some kind of time-travel joke, right? Isn't itguys?
