Per 
"Damn it! It's broken again?"
"Have you tried shaking it around?"
"Are you insane? Do you know how many people die in vending machine accidents per year?"
"Isn't it, like, when it chops off your hand when you stick it in the drawer thing? To reach through and take stuff without paying for it?"
"It doesn't do that, you idiot."
Rsr. Daniels knew that Rsr. Sam needed his daily infusion of Cheetos in order to function for the rest of the day. Unfortunately, it seems that the Foundation blew its vending machine budget on saving the world again, because the bag now dangled by its corner off of the cheap vending machine spring.
Out of the corner of his eye, Rsr. Daniels could see Cpl. Thomas approaching them. Daniels felt some part of him groan at the sight of the goatee-wearing security guard. Didn't he have anywhere to be?
"Vending machine problems again, boys?" Cpl. Thomas could barely hide the smirk on his face.
"Thomas, can you call the maintenance guys and tell them to open this piece?" Rsr. Sam kicked the vending machine, but the Cheetos stood their ground.
"I don't need to call them. I have the key to solving your problems." Cpl. Thomas drew SCP-005 from his back pocket. He spun it around by its end on his finger, like it was a common car key.
Rsr. Daniels was shocked. "No way! How did you get that?"
"I have Level 4 clearance, didn't you know?"
"No, you don't."
"Yeah, I don't." Cpl. Thomas slipped the key into the keyhole. As he turned it, a click was heard from within the vending machine.
Instead of opening the vending machine, however, SCP-005 started glowing. Rsr. Daniels stepped back from the machine, expecting an explosion. He heard a loud cawing from inside his head as a holographic bird emerged from the key.
"Congratulations!" the holographic bird screeched. It came from inside of Rsr. Daniels' head; he could tell the other two could hear it too. "You have used Thoth's Key to the Multiverse to unlock literally everything that could ever be unlocked! You get one free travel through time!"
"I don't want to travel through time," Cpl. Thomas protested.
Ignoring his resistance, a soft orange bubble of energy enveloped the trio. Before anyone could tell anything had happened, all of them— including the vending machine— had vanished from consensus reality.
Rsr. Daniels knocked to the floor. The soft orange seemed to ebb and flow, like a river made entirely of Aunt Jemima's maple syrup. Daniels stood up; there seemed to be an invisible floor in whatever kind of space this was.
“What the hell? I just said I didn’t want to travel through time.” Thomas said. He didn't seem angry or scared at all; he just seemed confused.
Sam tried to break out of the bubble by running into the edge with his shoulder. The collision threw him to the ground with a resonating thud. "Damn it!" he yelled.
"What did you do, Thomas?" Daniels asked. His knees popped as he stood. "Where are we going?"
The key was still glowing and the holographic bird still hovered above it. It was almost like the bird was gliding in some kind of strong wind.
"Which time period do you want to see?" the bird screeched. It sounded like fingers on a chalkboard, but shaped into actual words.
"You know what, I want to meet Napoleon," Sam said. He ran his greasy fingers through where his hair used to be. "As a history buff, I've always seen him as a role model."
"That's boring," Thomas said in response. "I want to see the black plague. I don't want to see people die. I just think it would be interesting."
"Why should we go back in time? I want to see the future," Daniel punctuated with a burp. The time travel was making him carsick. "They probably have some flying cars, right? That'd be sick."
As soon as Daniels answered, the bird nodded. A whistling sound came from the distance. The orange bubble disintegrated slowly around them, leaving the three sitting on sandy dirt ground. Around them were towering plateaus, the sun almost straight above. In the local area, Daniels could make out cactus, tumbleweeds, and some buildings in the distance.
"I can't believe we got marooned," Thomas said disappointingly.
"Look, all we need to do is find some people, and we'll be fine!" Sam said. He stood up and started to look around. "Say, where did that vending machine go?"
"I can see some kind of town, way over there," Daniels pointed out. Across the desert, they could see some kind of plywood village. There couldn't be more than 10 or 20 buildings. Daniels could almost make out a sign saying "saloon here!"
"So, we're in the wild west?" Sam said. He took off his shoe to empty the sand out of it. "I think none of us said 'wild west' when the key asked us where we wanted to go."
"What if it decided to make a compromise?" Daniels posed. "I said the future. You said Napoleon. Thomas said the Black Plague. What if it averaged it all up, and decided that the Wild West was the best midpoint?"
"Welcome to the year 3044 A.D!" screeched the bird hovering above SCP-005. Somehow, the vending machine had survived the trip. "Note that multiple requests were input into the mainframe. I elected to select the most important among you."
Sam opened his mouth; he was aghast. "Most important? I'm sorry, who's the one about to make Senior Researcher here?"
"You've been saying that for the past five years, Sam," Daniels pointed out.
"It's only because Dr. Calvin doesn't like me!"
"I can't imagine why," Cpl. Thomas injected. He pinched his nose and waved his hand in front of it, referencing Rsr. Sam's horrifying stench.
The bickering distracted them from the robot emerging from the desert wastes. It looked sort of like a vacuum cleaner with legs and a face, wearing a cowboy hat and spurred boots. In the place of a face, it had two lightbulbs for eyes and an air vent in the shape of a smile.
"Hello travelers, where is your travel license?" The robot tipped his hat to the trio.
"A travel license? What the hell is that?" Sam stepped forward. The time travel had finally loosened the Cheetos from the vending machine; Sam had begun to munch on them.
"Ah, I see. Drifters." The robot made a sighing noise that sounded more like a car backfiring. "Let's go have a Coke while we sort this out." The cowboy shape shifted into a horse and went to the Saloon down into the town.
As they walked into town, Rsr. Daniels realized that he looked very out of place. Everyone was wearing old-fashioned, yet somehow modern, dresses and suits. The sand itself seemed to radiate heat; even with his loafers, Daniels could still feel the heat.
Once they entered the saloon, they sat down at a booth while the cowboy robot went to the counter. The whole place smelled of motor oil and looked like someone had put some chairs in a cardboard box. Everyone around them whispered in hushed tones, talking about the newcomers. Daniels almost immediately noticed how uncomfortable seats were in the future. It was like he was sitting on gravel.
A man, also dressed as a cowboy, stood from his seat at the bar. He was giving Rsr. Daniels the evil eye.
"Whach y’all doin’ round these parts?" He started towards the three men. Daniels was petrified in his seat.
"Yah know we don’t like your kind." He came closer. Daniels could clearly make out his cybernetic teeth. His legs squeaked when he moved them.
"You know, we’re not quite sure what you're talking about," Sam said, laughing.
Daniels shook his head. They were definitely going to die. The guy smashed his bottle against the table, shattering it and turning it into a weapon.
"Woah there! These here men are time travelers! They don’t know ‘bout the war." The robot stood up to stop the ensuing fight.
"Who said we don’t?" said Thomas. Sam gave him the stink-eye from across the table.
"Ya' fuckin' dummy, they's obviously spies!" The rogue cowboy tries to get past the robot. More men started to get up to fight upon hearing the word "spies".
"Listen here, Frank. If you lay a finger on these fellows, I'm afraid I'll have to arrest you."
"You're not even a real cop, Cowboybot 9000!" Frank stabbed the bottle into Rsr. Sam's shoulder, causing him to scream.
Cowboybot 9000 took Frank by the shoulder and lobbed him across the bar. This gave everyone else the precedence to stand up, take out their laser pistols, and fire like all hell broke loose. While Cowboybot 9000 fought the tavern dwellers, Rsr. Daniels and Cpl. Thomas dragged Rsr. Sam outside; it was a two-man job to carry him.
"Call an ambulance!" Rsr. Sam yelled.
"It's the future," Thomas replied, "ambulances don't exist anymore."
"How do you keep knowing this stuff?" The sound of a something shattering in two echoed from inside of the tavern, as the fight inside dragged on.
"It's an educated guess," Thomas replied. "Have you ever seen an ambulance?"
"What do you mean?"
They were interrupted by Cowboybot 9000 emerging from the tavern, covered from head to toe in blood and oil. He took off his hat and cleaned it with a futuristic water-spray device. "You need a hospital."
"No shit, Sherlock!" Sam yelled. He clutched the bottle-wound in his shoulder.
"We need to get out of here. Quick, gentlemen, help me drag the fat man to the hospital."
"Hey!"
Rsr. Sam awoke lying in what he presumed to be a hospital bed. What else would explain the morphine needle in his arm? When he opened his eyes, he saw the Cowboybot 9000, except its smile had been replaced by a frown. It was being restrained by Rsr. Daniels and Cpl. Thomas, preventing it from whaling on Rsr. Sam's bedridden body. It released a scream of rage, which Rsr. Sam didn't even know robots could do.
"Why didn't you tell me you were Foundation personnel?" it yelled. "That would've made things so much easier!"
"Calm down, gearbox! Why does it matter?" Sam tried to stand up, but his shoulder wound still hurt.
The robot turned to Cpl. Thomas. "You still have the key, right?"
"Of course." Cpl. Thomas spun SCP-005 around on the end of his finger again.
"That key is the most important anomaly in the history of the universe." Cowboybot 9000 took off his hat, as if to mourn.
"What do you mean?" Rsr. Daniels asked.
"You see, it all started 2014 years ago. Humanity, previously undisturbed, had finally been contacted by aliens. These aliens… they were kind of dicks. They wanted to carpet bomb the planet so that they could build a space Chuck E. Cheese's here, or something. But they didn't want to kill anyone smarter than them, so they gave us a test. They sent down their mightiest lock and told us 'if you can unlock this, you live.'
"Of course, we looked for SCP-005. But it turns out a few idiots stole it, and no one knew where they were! So we tried to unlock the lock, but it turns out we're dumbasses if you put us on a cosmic scale, and no one could open it. That's when the War started, and—"
"Oh. My. God," moaned Thomas. "Who the fuck asked?"
“These three dipshits, they’re us, aren't they?” Daniels shook his head.
A cyborg nurse came in on the group with a small gray tray. The four fell silent.
“How are we doing today?” She set the tray down, and started to unwrap a rather large needle.
“We are doing alright.” The robot spoke before the others could formulate a sentence.
“That's good. Ok Sam, this is going to hurt quite a bit despite the Morphine drip.” The nurse walked over to Sam's left shoulder and pushed the needle into it. Sam screamed and writhed in pain.
“Unfortunately technology has yet to cut the pain, but at least you will be out of here soon!” She smiled before leaving the room. Sam was still crying and rolling around. Thomas and Daniels watched in awe as the muscles and flesh melted back over bloody wounds. While it healed it made a hissing sound just a little quieter than Sams screaming. Sam slowly stopped screaming and crying.
Rsr. Daniels, Rsr. Sam and Cpl. Thomas reappeared in their own time, right where they had been stolen from.
"I hate time travel," Cpl. Thomas complained. He dusted off SCP-005 on his guard uniform. "Everyone's always trying to shoot you for doing it."
"Hey," Rsr. Sam said, "it's still 7:23. That's the time we left. Finally, I'll be early to work for once!"
Rsr. Daniels didn't respond to the bad joke. He had already seen Dr. Gregory, the site's research director, approaching them with a beyond-angry look worn on his face. Before anyone could answer any questions, he asked one of this own:
"Where the hell is the vending machine‽"
