"I'm just talking to myself out loud.”

The head doctor signaled with his hands, causing two new doctors to restrain me.  They forced me into a straight jacket, injected me with something, and started to drag me towards the door.

Older me just stood there watching the scene unfold.  I yelled out for him to do something, anything to get me out of here.  He hardly reacted at all.  The room started to move as my vision got blurry, and then there was blackness.

When I awoke the straight jacket was off and I was hooked up to a machine.  I instinctually attempted to blink myself out of there, but the injection was not the good kind, just as this machine I was hooked up to was not the time travel machine from before.  A blood pressure cuff was on my right arm, and two long tubes were clipped to my midsection.  My left hand was secured to the armrest of the chair I was tied to, with my ring and pointer fingers clipped to a cold metal plate.  Before I had much of chance to figure out what this was all for, my new nemesis entered the room and sat at the controls of the machine.

"Have you ever taken a polygraph test before?"

Ahhh.  The fabled lie detector.  The truth protector.  Inadmissible in court but good enough for plea-bargaining, police use, and interviews for government jobs.  And apparently for suspected time travelers as well.  Strange name for a machine, as a lie isn't really something that is detectable.  It's really more of a discomfort detector seeking out tell tale signs of deception. 

"I said, have you ever taken a polygraph test before?"

"No, I have not," I responded.

"Answer only yes or no, please.  Are you 28 years old?"

"Yes."

"Do you know where you are?"

"Somewhat."

"Answer only yes or no."

"Then give me a question with a yes or no answer."

"Were you talking to yourself before being removed from the other room?"

"Yes," was my response.  And it still wasn't even a lie.

"Have you talked to yourself before?"

"Yes."

"Do you talk to yourself often?"

"No."

"What did you tell yourself?"

"No."

"What?"

"No.  I'm only allowed to answer yes or no, right?"

The doctor gave me a look of equal parts anger and disgust.  Being a smartass wasn't going over particularly well.  Or maybe it was, as he then released me from the machine and the chair.  He even let me stand up.

Then came the lecture.  "I know what's going on, and this is going to be successful with or without your help.  With your help will be better for both of us.  So are you going to cooperate or not?"

My first instinct was to assume he was bluffing, as I certainly didn't know what was going on.

"Tell me what's going on and I'll tell you if I'll help."

The doctor took a long look at me with pursed lips.  It seemed he couldn't quite get a read on me, but eventually decided he had nothing to lose since I was his captive.

"I believe you when you say you were talking to yourself.  My primary interest is in which self you were talking to, and how."

He waited for a response from me.  Getting none, he continued.

"A thoughtful man may have an internal debate with himself inside his own head.  An angry man may speak to himself aloud out of frustration.  A crazy man may speak to himself aloud for attention.  But you weren't talking to yourself in any of those fashions.  You were having a normal, logical discussion with another known entity.  Don't try to hide it, I could tell.  Why do you think I let the conversation go on for so long?"

I supposed he was smarter than he looked.  But he still hadn't explained what he wanted.

"I'm not quite getting how I can be helpful," I said.

"What were you talking about?  How can we make it happen?"

I declined to answer.

"Fine, play that way," he said as he walked over to retrieve something from a table on the far side of the room.  He returned with a tape recorder.  "I can play too.  I already know half of the conversation."

With that he pushed play.  I heard the following crackle out of the speaker.

"I can't, but you can.  So you can undo it?"  (Pause)  "Great.  We've got a free play now to do whatever we want."  (Pause)  "So how about you give me a booster shot and I'll be on my way?"  (Pause)  “What happened to it?”  (Pause)  “But you showed it to me after...”  (Pause)  "So why don't you go back and get it, and then meet me here tomorrow for my shot?" (Pause) "So you want me to just wait it out, hoping I have a chance to steal a syringe like you did?  They don’t even have that kind of syringe yet."  (Short pause)  "Are you even serious?"

The doctor stopped the tape and stared intently at me.

"Shall I play it again, or do you understand what I know?"

"Play it again," I said as I felt my pockets for their contents.  Wallet, keys, phone.  Good.

The doctor sighed as he rewound the tape and played it back for me one more time.  I knew it was my conversation with myself from before, but hoped that taken out of context the one sided version could be spun to mean something different.  And somehow I think it might have done just that.

Stopping the tape once more, the doctor repeated his question.  "Do you understand what I know?"

"Yes.  I'll confess," I said, trying to sound as remorseful as possible.

"Excellent.  I'm listening."

"You caught me trying to plan a break out.  I called my stepbrother on my cellphone.  His name is Nelson, and he is going to try to break me out tomorrow."