When choosing a computer, one should keep the needs of their future self in mind.

Future You won’t really pay attention when you make him watch the evidence playing on the 14-inch high-definition screen in front of him. He’ll shuffle his feet a bit, drum his fingers on the desk, and twist his mouth nervously the way you do sometimes. After all, he’s you. From the future.

When the video you captured with the built-in webcam on your laptop stops, Future You breathes in deeply and crosses his arms. “I was afraid this might happen,” he says with a sigh.

“Afraid what might happen?” you ask. “Afraid that you’d get caught infecting my computer with malware and porn bots?”

Future You shakes his head. “That’s not me, dude. That’s you. Er, I mean us. Clearly, it’s another future you that’s found his way into this timeline. Only, you know, probably evil and stuff. That groovy mustache of his is a pretty good indicator that he’s from a future where you go bad.”

“Uh huh.” You’ve been checking the browser history every morning since Future You started using your Asus 14" Core i7 Laptop to “study up on history” as he calls it. Unfortunately, instead of taking advantage of the 8GB DDR3 memory and 2.8 GHz Intel Core i7-2640M dual-core processor to learn lessons from the past, he seems mostly interested in online pornography’s past. “You mean the mustache that falls off midway through all that hard, wide-eyed staring and heavy breathing, right?”

He leans back in your office chair and stretches as he puts his hands behind his head. “It was bound to happen, I guess. In an infinite multiverse of limitless possibilities, there’s always a chance an evil you who can’t grow facial hair properly might travel back in time to junk up your laptop and watch filth using the Intel Wireless Display connection to your HDTV. Just be glad he didn’t come from some awful lizardman universe. He probably would’ve eaten our faces off while we slept.”

There were a few things in the browser history that have kept you up a few nights, though. A search query for time paradoxes. More than a few web sites for a company called Ten Horns Robotics. And a Facebook profile for a very attractive woman you’ve never met. That one comes up the most. “Well, I guess I’ll just change my password so he can’t get in,” you tell Future You. “That way if he wants access to a Windows 7 Home Premium machine, he can get a job and get one himself. Think that’ll work?”

“Nah, brah,” Future You says. “He’s you, remember? He knows all your passwords because you already thought of them. Or something. I’m not sure how it works, but I wouldn’t try it.”

“I see.”

“Yeah, best thing to do is probably buy Evil Future You his own Asus 14" Core i7 Laptop, leave it out for him to steal, and let him do his thing down at a coffee shop or library. I mean, yeah, he’s clearly evil, but I doubt anything too bad will happen. ‘Cause I’m here, so you know this timeline turns out pretty rad.”

“Right,” you tell him with a huff. “Of course.”

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