Present Dr. Wily's Story:

Past Me was so full of himself that nothing even I could have said that night would have convinced him that his scheme was going to flop - and could never have done anything other than flop. Not even if I'd smacked him over the head with this book here, like you dearly wished you could do to me a few minutes ago. Take a look at it, if you like. Not the most thrilling reading, and quantum physics was never an area of interest for me, but there's a part around the middle about the Grandfather Paradox which you'll find relevant.

On the other hand, I'm judging by the way you're glaring at me that you'd prefer the TLDR version.

If you travel back in time, whether all your memories are intact or not, you cannot do anything that would prevent your current self from coming into existence. You cannot kill your parents or grandparents or your creator or what have you, let alone your own past self. Otherwise, your past self could not have become your present self to travel back in time and… you get the idea. To prevent the creation of a paradox, the universe itself will conspire to stop you. Hey, don't ask me how it works. I'm only telling you what I've learned through hard-won experience.

But it is possible for your past self to kill your future self. And I'm sure that when Rock gasped "I remember" as he was tied to my desk waiting to be reprogrammed, he was remembering his run-ins with Quint thirty-seven years before.

Quint. That was the name that I gave the new iteration of your brother. You know, I can't remember why I gave him that name. I outfitted him with some new armor, but found that retrofitting a buster arm for him was more difficult than I'd imagined, so I made a hand-held weapon for him instead. A kind of jackhammer, pogo stick fusion. The thing was partially his idea, and I figured he knew what he was doing. He loved it so much he even gave it a name. Sa… Saku something or other. It was a long time ago, and I've forgotten some of the details.

I had high hopes at first that Quint would succeed in destroying Rockman. But he lost every single fight, miserably. He'd lose focus on his target for no identifiable reason, or Saku-whatever-it-was would go on the fritz right at a critical moment. My interest in him waned. He didn't ask me for much, and I didn't often see him around. To be honest, after a while I nearly forgot about him. Then one day, after Rock had been snooping around my compound, I happened to notice that Quint had been gone for a long time. I tried summoning him over the intercom, but he didn't come. I asked the others, but no one had seen him. That's when I checked the security cameras and made a grisly discovery in the boiler room. Quint's body was jammed between the fan blades of one of the large forced draft fans, crushed and partially melted. Someone had removed his helmet, and his face was frozen in an expression of perpetual surprise. When I say "crushed," I mean that he was folded clean in half with his head between his feet and his torso flattened inside the machine. Even I didn't have the skill to repair damage that extensive.

This brutal sight wasn't your brother's usual M.O., but then again I suppose he wasn't always the pacifist he liked to think he was. When two nights ago he said he wanted to forget what he'd done on July 19th, 200X, the suspicions I'd long held were at last confirmed. Rock was the one who had destroyed Quint.

Yes, you heard that right. Thirty-seven years ago, Rock destroyed his own future self.

After Quint was dead, I began to wonder where my plan had gone wrong. I thought of kidnapping Future Rock all over again from the beginning, but it seemed my time machine had disappeared. To this day, I still don't know what happened to it. Soon afterward I learned about the Grandfather Paradox and gave up on the idea altogether.

As the years passed, it slowly dawned on me that my life was shaping up to be just how Future Me had told me, in a general sense, that it would. Rockman was unstoppable. All my ambitions were squelched one after another. I began to feel I was being used as a mere pawn in some much larger game. For a long time I pushed those suspicions away, and I tried to assure myself that I was fully in charge of my fate. But once I'd been in prison for a while, I found myself spending hours pondering over the bits that I could remember of the code Tom and I developed for you - not because I wanted to crack it, but because I felt I had no choice not to. The hours stretched into days, weeks, and months. My mind, my eyes and my hands were moved by a force I couldn't see. I couldn't stop. It was awful, awful. Who was I becoming? Wasn't I still a human being? Didn't I have free will? Wasn't I still me?

When I realized I'd cracked the code, I knew that I was being pushed into the role my younger self had witnessed me take on the night of June 7th, 20XX. I dreaded the upcoming arrival of Past Me, not only because I no longer felt any ill will toward Rock, or because I knew Past Me's plan was doomed to fail. I dreaded it mostly because I hated the fact that I seemed to have no choice in the matter.

And then last summer I was released from prison and my case worker helped me move here. That's when my life really took a turn for the weird. This dingy apartment was just the way I'd seen it when I was Past Me. I tried to rebel against fate by having the movers arrange the furniture in the living room differently than I remembered. But can you believe it, Roll? When I woke up after spending my first night in this dump, I was achy and sore all over, and everything had been pushed into its current place!

My old frail body, forced by the universe to push furniture around in my sleep! Can you imagine? The anger I felt! The violation! Was I frightened? Sure, I was! But I was also defiant. I was determined that the event of June 7th would not come to pass.

All my attempts to contact your family to warn you, however, failed. My phone stopped working every time I tried to call you. My texts didn't go through. Even the hand-written letters I sent in the post came back marked "insufficient postage," their stamps ripped off by unseen fingers. I even hired a taxi to try to visit you, only to find that I'd become mute when I tried to utter your address to the driver.

The sole exception was that day I saw Tom face to face in court, just an hour before he was fated to suffer his second stroke. I suppose the only reason the universe allowed that encounter to happen was because it was going to make no difference to the outcome anyway. Tom, as it turned out, didn't act on my warning soon enough, and then it was too late.

Or… did fate strike Tom down that day precisely because I'd managed to warn him? Ten years ago I could never have entertained woo-woo thoughts like that. But after what I've endured recently, Roll, I no longer recognize this universe we're living in. And I confess it frightens me.

Well, the day came when Tom's final appeal to keep you was overturned and I received the visit from Past Me which I'd long feared. An entire day of non-stop deja-vu. I felt I was floating above myself, watching rather than participating. The suggestion I made to my past self about capturing Rock was forced out of me.

When that plan was put into action two nights ago, I participated as an unwilling puppet. There were a few minor things I had control over - passing that handkerchief to Rock, for example, and also granting him his final wish. And I did succeed in getting in a few barbs at Past Me. But for the rest of it - my hands fastening those knots, and my fingers on the keyboard erasing or altering line after line of your brother's code - I was moved by an outside force.

And I've told you how my pompous younger self saw your brother's demise, but from my point of view it was quite different. It was… sad, and pointless. It's a great relief that it's all over and I'm in control of myself again - rather, at least, that I feel in control, since I've learned free will is an illusion. But my back's been aching ever since, and do I need to mention how inconsiderate it was of Past Me to create his return portal in my bathroom? Until it fades, I have to walk down to the convenience store every time I need to take a leak.

My jaw was half-open, my back was pressed hard against the chair, and my hands were squeezing the armrests with so much force that my fingers ached. Dr. Wily's cold blue eyes studied me from above the rim of his teacup. I didn't have a clue what to say to him. You're vile? I can't wait 'till you're dead? I'd like to see you get crushed in a forced draft fan?

I couldn't bear looking at his stupid face any longer, so instead I stared at the decals spelling "STNAIG" on Rock's jersey. Seen upside-down, they were arched toward me like an eyeless Cheshire-cat grin. I bunched up the fabric in my hands and bowed my head. My brain was awash with confusion, none of which had anything to do with deliberating over the true-ness or false-ness of Dr. Wily's stories. Fantastic though they were, I accepted the two accounts at face value. It was the unfairness of it all that got me. And, also…

"I didn't blame him," I blurted out.

"Pardon?" Dr. Wily raised one wiry grey eyebrow at me.

"I didn't blame him for Dr. Light's stroke."

Dr. Wily leaned forward and curled his mouth into an almost too-deliberate frown. "Oh, of course you didn't," he said. "I wonder why Rock would say such a horrible thing?"

I wiped furiously at my eyes. "He wasn't difficult. He had nothing to be sorry for. He was perfect. Completely perfect."

"You could tell him all that yourself," Dr. Wily said, "if you succeed in bringing him back."

"Shut up," I said. "I know what you're trying to do. But if you think I need to be guilted into going through that portal, you're wrong."

"You'll go, then?"

I raised my head. "I will.

"I have no sympathy for you," I said, as an afterthought. "You deserve everything you've suffered and more."

A disturbing old memory, which may or may not have existed until two nights ago, pushed its way to the forefront of my mind. My brother of thirty-seven years before frantically pulling me by the hand into the woods and saying I have to tell you something. I'm so scared. Keep it a secret from Dr. Light. Please. Please?

Then me saying you're frightening me, Rock. Nevertheless I hold out my pinky finger to him, and he hooks it with his own. Up until then we've never broken a promise to each other, or refused to make a promise. This particular promise is a tall order, but I'm not going to ruin our streak now.

I think I killed someone, he says.

His eyes are huge, and he's shaking. I grab his shoulders and try to steady him. I don't know what else to do. I want him to snap out of it. I don't realize yet that he'll never be quite the same. He'll never speak about it again, but it'll haunt him for the rest of his life. When Past and Future Dr. Wily capture him, it'll be one of the memories he can't wait to get rid of.

I didn't mean to do it, he says, clinging at my arms. I didn't want to do it. But he kept coming at me… he just wouldn't stop, and then I kicked him off - I shouldn't have - and… there was this awful sound and…

And the weirdest thing is, I saw his face after and… I don't know what it means, but...

He looked... exactly like me.