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characters: Eckels, Travis, Safari Leader, Lesperance, Billings, Kramer
conflict: Eckels steps on a butterfly which alters the future.
setting: 2055 -
Eckels mentions how glad he is that Keith won the presidential election.
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Eckels pays $10,000 for a safari through time to kill a dinosaur.
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Eckels and the crew travel back in time in the Machine to meet the Tyrannosaurus Rex.
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Travis explains how killing off one animal from the past can change the entire future. If one mouse dies, it can lead to the death of a fox, then a lion, then a caveman who will starve because he couldn't hunt a tiger, and that will lead to a nonexistent human civilization.
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Lesperance explains how they don't alter the future by killing the dinosaurs because he keeps track of their habits, routines, and life span long before the kill and marks them with red paint. If they didn't kill of the creature, it would have already died a few minutes later by a tree or drown in a tar pit.
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The crew sees the Tyrannosaurus Rex up ahead with the red paint. Eckles loses his confidence and does not want to kill the dinosaur. He blindly walks onto the forbidden path, which he was warned could change the future. The rest of the men kill the dinosaur by shooting it in the eye.
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After Travis sees Eckels sitting alone in the Machine with dirt on his shoes, he becomes furious at him for stepping off the path. As a punishment, Travis makes Eckels retrieve the bullets from the Tyrannosaurus Rex. He warns Eckels that if he changed the future, he will kill him.
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The Machine takes them back home into the present day and they could tell something was wrong.
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The men realize Eckels had changed the future by stepping on a butterfly when walking off the path. Deutscher had won the election, not Keith.
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Travis keeps his promise and shoots Eckels. A sound of thunder is heard.