Typewriter Time Machine isn’t just a story about time travel. It’s a story about how the future influences the past as much as the past guides the future. It’s also a reflection on how cynicism and apathy eats away at the best ideas and the best of intentions.
Life at an online survey company takes its toll on Edwin and Wes, whose run-ins with an eccentric building tenant sparks curiosity about messages on a bathroom stall, particularly one about finding a cartoon icon by the name of Kilroy. When they’re relocated to an office, known for being the site of a fifteen year-old suicide, they enter a room that still exists in 1999. Using one of the messages from the bathroom stall, Edwin types it on an old typewriter in the room, sending them back in time to moments before the man was to take his life. The man, his name Morris Lester, had been given the typewriter by the same eccentric building tenant and realizes that the insane talk of time travel was actually true.
Edwin, Wes and Moe set out to find the eccentric man, but he finds them, introducing himself as Don Cervantes and explaining the nature of time travel. He explains that he needs their help to protect the past from being completely forgotten. The Fog has been sucking good memories from the world, leaving people dispirited and hopeless. Don Cervantes sends them further back in time to find a man by the name of Randall Sunshine before they can object to the mission. Randall Sunshine was supposed to explain their undisclosed purpose, but he’s vanished. They meet his flirtatious 16 year old daughter who’s been looking for him or months and who offers to help them find Kilroy and defeat the Fog.
The time travelers cross paths with the light of the all-seeing eye, used to draw memories from the past like a black hole. Hidden behind the eye are guardians of the most promising ideals and symbols, including the man who’s been spreading the image of Kilroy. The man, who turns out to be Wes’ grandfather, reveals secrets that connect all the characters to other guardians of great ideas, except for Edwin. Believing they’ve earned their passage back home since they’d accomplished their mission, they find Don Cervantes and ask to go home. But the Don Cervantes convinces them that the Fog has grown in power and will be responsible for countless tragedies if no one steps up for timeless ideas like peace and love.
Returning to the fight, Edwin and Wes join the others in fighting for a future that doesn’t keep getting worse. Upon finally meeting Randall Sunshine, Edwin realize his abilities match Randall’s and that he can give people hope even when logic dictates there is none. In a world overcome with hopelessness, Wes and Edwin prove themselves worthy match for the Fog, safeguarding the best ideas to become time travel heroes.
