A moment of escape

However, instead of answering his question, Thomas continued looking at his watch. Jorge soon got his answer though as behind Thomas, the time machine appeared at a corner and out popped another Thomas and himself (Older!Thomas and Older!Jorge for simplicity). Jorge was at a complete loss for words as the two versions moved the machine in front of the door.

"I told you that your past self would be shocked," said Older!Thomas as he sighed from pushing the time machine.

"Yeah, you were right," Older!Jorge begrudgingly said. Looking at his past (or present?) self, he said, "I don't know how he did it but you're one step closer to being a free man."

Still not accepting this new reality before him, Jorge asked, "But how did you get past security? Time travel is one thing, but I can't even wrap my head around how this is happening."

"The teleportation device that was hidden in the lightbulb, that was basically the whole key to your escape." Older!Thomas said as Older!Jorge freed Jorge from his chair.

As Jorge got up from his chair, the sound of the door banging startled the four signifying that their window of opportunity was closing. "Why didn't you just escape with the time machine?" Jorge asked.

"I can answer that," Older!Thomas said. "I used the teleportation device first to grab your keys then to go back for you to teleport us to the time museum where the time machine was collecting dust. But we're running out of time, just know that they're tracking our physical bodies in time but not you guys." pointing to Thomas, Older!Thomas continued, "I left a message on the smartwatch your wearing just get on the time machine, we'll be fine."

As the two present people entered the time machine, Jorge asked Thomas, "Did you plan all of this?"

"No, my only contribution was how I to get inside this room," Thomas said. "But I did say that I owed you a favor."

Jorge nodded as he set up the time machine and disappeared from the room.