Dear Sir or Madam,

Your application, dated January 8 2025, for one-time retrotemporal use (100 years or less) of chronoporter Alpha has been approved. Please report personally to Time Travel London at your convenience to set up an appointment with one of our schedulers.

Sincerely, TTL Inc.

My eyes wandered to the edge of the screen, confirming that today was in fact only January 5th, before I read the postscript:

Please note that, due to Novikov regulations, pre-approved applications must still be written and submitted.

Bloody timelords. I didn’t even want to use the damned thing, and now I had three days to come up with a good idea… Then another thought crossed my mind. If I was already approved, then I could be as ludicrous as I wanted.

Instead of starting a new message, I tapped the reply button — let their e-mail servers choke on that causal chain — and began to write.

To whom it may concern,

I require use of a time machine to go back and make Hitler have a funny moustache…