Time travel is real—and used for high-end tourism. Every moment of the past is open to visitors, and no matter what they do then, everything now waits for them, thanks to the sure hand of an experienced time travel technician. Come spend a day behind the controls of the time machine, and discover why, this day of all days, it’s time for this technician to make a change. Because sometimes, time travel is more than just an adventure. Sometimes, it’s a moral imperative.
—from publicity material
We are told we did not wipe out history. Instead we learned that reality branched at the juncture of the future meeting the past. Whether a new reality was created at the juncture or we plugged into one that already existed is still unresolved and, as a practical matter, immaterial. The point is that our present cannot and will not be changed by time travelers—they will change a reality we are not connected to in any way, except at the specific retrieval intervals.

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  1. 3 Days, 9 Months, 27 Years by John Scalzi (Amazon Original Stories, November 2025) [ebook].
    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . written by John Scalzi
  2. 3 Days, 9 Months, 27 Years by John Scalzi (Brilliance, November 2025) [audio].
    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . written by John Scalzi
    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . narrated by Malcolm Hillgartner