How To Live Safely In a Science Fictional Universe

Charles’s manager, Phil, is a computer program who thinks he is a real person with a family. He usually engages in small talk to perpetuate this misconception.

Phil indicates that Charles’s TM-31 is due for a maintenance check. Charles tries to talk his way out of it, but Phil points out that Charles has been away for some time. Charles acquiesces. Phil crashes trying to invite Charles out for drinks.

Charles visits an apartment in Oakland, California, for work. The client, a young woman, is trying to get the attention of her dying grandmother. Charles encourages the woman to leave since she wasn’t actually present for her grandmother’s death. By traveling back in time to attend her grandmother’s death, the woman has opened a porthole into an alternate universe where she was present. This means that the older woman they see isn’t really the grandmother the woman loves.

The woman regrets her failure to visit her grandmother when she was dying. Charles repairs the woman’s time machine while she bids her grandmother goodbye. The woman considers staying in the alternate universe forever, but Charles discourages her, emphasizing that this universe will never be her home.

As soon as they access a time machine, people tend to visit the worst day of their lives in order to confront their regrets.