Based on the short story "The Toynbee Convector" by Ray Bradbury. The story was first published in Playboy (January 1984)

Roger Shumway: Mr. Stiles, how do you think you will react when just moments from now, you watch yourself, in effect, flash across the sky in your trip through time.
Craig Bennett Stiles: Gratitude. And love. It is me, isn't it?

Craig Bennett Stiles: It was Toynbee who said, if a people, a civilization, does not rush to meet the future, the future will plow them under. Kill and bury them. Well, I saw the future rushing at me. And it entered my heart and seized my soul. It didn't frighten me, it obsessed me. I had to conquer time, save Mankind.

Roger Shumway: A Golden Age... built on a lie.
Craig Bennett Stiles: You don't understand, do you, son? Every one of us lives our life lying to ourselves. We weave dreams, and then put brains and ideas and flesh and reality beneath the dreams. And what seemed at first to be a lie, it's just a need wishing to be born.

Changes from the short story:

* In the episode, Stiles explains that he made the Convector (somehow) disappear through a stage illusion to convince the gathered reporters and scientists.
* The story notes that the Convector has been sealed away under government guard for the last 100 years, to prevent errant time traveling. No such mention is made of security in the episode, and Stiles appears to simply be keeping it in his warehouse.
* In the episode, Roger goes further to maintain Stiles' deceit, using a projection device that Stiles had created to show an image of the Convector passing overhead as the world looks on.
* In the story, Roger burns Stiles' evidence. In the episode, he throws it into the ocean, paralleling the destruction of Dudley Stone's works in "The Wonderful Death of Dudley Stone".