text: [Themes: sci-fi]
  
  As soon as my future self returns after sending me to the future, I appear behind him. He turns around and says "welcome back."
  
  He is twitching. This is definately the guy.
  
  "You were expecting me?"
  
  "Of course. I learned to do it, so it was quite obvious you would as well."
  
  "I have seen what you will do. Do you know what you're going to do?"
  
  "Whatever I must."
  
  "Did you know that you'll kill the Imperfects?"
  
  He pauses for a little moment and then says "then they gave me no choice. You have been to the future, my future. You have seen what I am fighting for."
  
  "And the people you're going to kill? All those innocents?"
  
  "And what about the innocents that die in the war? Innocents killed by their own governments? Innocent kind people forced to fight for their lives because of the ignorance and stupidity of others? What about them?"
  
  "That doesn't give you the right to kill..."
  
  "Why not? Why not kill the ignorant ones that caused all this? Are they not to blame? Is that not the fate they deserve, Karma? You saw what is going to happen. You witnessed a future where heroes were killed for standing up for what's right. I sent you there to show you the truth. Did you learn nothing?"
  
  "Is that why you sent me there? To show me what was going to happen?"
  
  "In part, yes. I knew you'd learn to time travel eventually and that you'd return as soon as you did."
  
  "You knew? I guess that's what you did? If I'm encountering myself from the future, then surely, you must have encountered yourself from the future once."
  
  "No. That is not how time works. The universe does not expect time travel. I never encountered myself from the future, and if I had, I would have let him continue his work and go back to the future."
  
  "Go back to the future? Why? If you'd truly agree with him, then why wouldn't you just stay and support him?"
  
  "That's the second reason I sent you away. The universe consists of a certain amount of energies, systematically growing, but constantly reusing its energies for everything that it consists of. Rain evaporates and turns to clouds, clouds then morph into rain or snow and go back to the earth, where they refil the waters, or the snow melts. Either way, they turn to water again, just to evaporate all over again. An antilope eats grass, and then gets eaten by a lion. The lion dies of old age and turns to dirt. From the dirt, grass grows and antilopes eat the grass, and are then eaten by other lions. Everything is recycled. But when we time-travel, we don't use energies from the point of time we are going to, we take the energies we consist of from our point in time and are constructed of the very same energies once we arrive."
  
  "What does that..."
  
  "What that means is that right now, the universe consists of too much energy, as we are both at the very same moment. When I replaced you, my energies fulfilled the gap the lack of your energies created, and your energies did the same when you took my place in the prison."
  
  "And what happens then?"
  
  "Eventually, the universe collapses. I considered killing you, to make sure you couldn't interfere with my work, but if I did that, your energies would still exist in this universe, spread around as you had evaporated. Rain would have become clouds, and if I did that, I wouldn't be able to send the correct amount of energies out of this universe to create a suitable gap for me to fulfil. Besides, we are the same person. Surely, you must agree with me. Let me stay, and return to the future. Perhaps there is still something you can do to fix it."
  
  > Disagree.
  "I have experienced much in my life-time, considering how short it is. Three years ago, I was freed from that vat. I hadn't experienced anything, my ideology wasn't developed, and since then, I have soaked information, constantly trying to determine what I think 'right' is. But no matter how much I have changed, no matter what I believed in, I always swore to myself I would never cross this threshold. I have always promised myself never to become a tyrant."
  
  "You think I've crossed that line? I've not."
  
  "You're basically saying 'do what I want you to or die'. How is that not tyranny?"
  
  "I am not doing this for selfish reasons. I am doing this for the good of mankind. Do you want a third world war? Do you want Eve to die? Do you want to have to kill innocent people or watch other innocent people die?"
  
  "What I want is irrelevant. You can't just force people to agree with you!"
  
  "The world is full of idiots, and it is destroying itself. If I have to be aggressive to make sure the society doesn't eat itself up, then I will."
  
  "You think this justifies a massacre?"
  
  "I am older, I am more experienced. I know how the world works and what is necessary far better than you do. What you need to learn is that evil is sometimes necessary to achieve good results. You don't have to like it, but that's how it is. Before you proclaim me a villain, let me show you what I mean" he says, grabs gently around my hand and transports both of us through time.
  
  > Continue.
  We appear on the second floor of an ordinary house. It looks like it's around 1994, which would make it approximately 70 years ago.
  
  Future Baryon enters a room, where the lights are turned off, and I see a small boy sleeping in the bed there.
  
  "What is this?"
  
  "This is a bedroom. In five hours, this boy's alarm clock will ring, waking him up in time for his first day at school. There, he will grow an affinity for mathematics, and then later on, for science. He will graduate with examplary grades, and marry a co-worker of his, named Georgia. The two of them will have a daughter, and she will be named Dorothy. He becomes the head of the bio-division of Gorgon labs, working with Michael Thorne, and educating him in genetic modification. The boy will then help the police apprehend Thorne once it has become clear that he has been abusing his position, and shortly after that, religious extremists will burn down the lab, along with Georgia and Dorothy. He will make sure everyone believes he died in the fire as well, and makes a secret Gorgon labs facility in the desert his own private lab. There, he developes project Eden, but I think you know the story from this point."
  
  "Meckard?"
  
  "Yes. This is a six year old Henry Meckard. He teaches Thorne all he needs to create his monstrosities, us included. He has part in the Reanimator incident and he starts project: Eden. You can end it, all of it. All you need to do is kill a currently innocent six year old boy."
  
  "Why are you..."
  
  "I'm trying to teach you, show you my point. If you kill him, you acknowledge that evil is often necessary to achieve good results."
  
  > kill Meckard (agree with him).
  I channel myself into Meckard and kill him as painlessly as I can. Future Baryon smiles and says "see? You killed him while he was innocent, to stop everything he will create."
  
  "Why are we still here? Shouldn't we fade?"
  
  "As I said. The universe doesn't expect time travel. We won't be created in the future, but we still exist. We have created a new time-line, although we are still part of our own."
  
  I nod and teleport myself back to the future. He's right. I need to stay out of his way while he makes everything better.