The robot exhaled acidic fumes. Beams of heat shot out of its fingers. The heroine led, sealing herself in a safe. Yuri looked across to his sister. Her young face was buried in their father's shirt. The robot placed its hand against the metal of the safe. The movie switched to a shot of the girl, where a faint orange patch was growing brighter and brighter on the safe wall. It was Yuri's favourite part of the movie; where the hero decapitated the robot, rescued the girl, and they lived happily ever after. He often thought back to the movie as he got older. It was never meant to play out in real life, and the robots were certainly never meant to have won.

The next morning, Yuri left the Homestead as the sun rose. It was ghostly outside. Mist poured down the hills, gathering thickly on the lake.

Barry was waiting for him by the lakeshore. Two massive, four-legged creatures stood beside him. Clad in thick harnesses, they were longer than the Beetle, and much taller than it. The horses, one brown, and one speckled white, pawed at the ground restlessly as the sun lit up the lake like a mirror.

"It's not going to be pretty," Barry warned. "The metal you've got wedged under the car is going to scrape pretty badly."

The thrusters, Yuri realized. "How bad?" he asked.

"Like cheese in a grater."

The screeching, squealing of the thrusters rang in Yuri's ears for hours afterward. To their credit, the clydesdales were very well-natured about it. Once the car was tucked into the garage of an unoccupied lakefront house, Barry left him alone, saying only: "You're a good guy, Yuri. A good guy. I'm real sorry about the whole situation you're in." He seemed strangely emotional to Yuri. Maybe he had been more affected by the awful noise.

He unwedged his helmet from the windscreen, alone, he began cleaning the Beetle. Many hours, and countless buckets of water later, her red body shone under the lights. He looked at the broken, bastardized craft. It would never fly again. Not without parts.

A hazy idea began to form. The salvage crew would have a map of Wastelands. There had to be a timezone with spare parts and scrap metal. His stomach twisted when he thought to silver territory. It would certainly be futuristic enough. Like the future, it would also be fairly deadly.

He slumped in the driver's seat, playing with the console. Sparks flew from the dashboard. When they cleared he realized that the Comms line was open, a decided lack of static on the line. He listened to footsteps pacing; there was someone out there! Yuri donned his cracked helmet. "Hello?" The footsteps neared, and there was an abrupt flick. Static hushed through the speakers again.

Surrounding the car was a workbench, stocked with primitive supply of tools. Fishing poles, saws, and shovels hung from nails in the walls. Yuri moved through the house. In the bedroom, there was a box filled only with 'Moving Pictures,' the book the hunchback had read from.

Elaine knocked on the garage door. She carried a plate loaded with sandwiches.They shared them.

"Elaine, can I ask you something?" he asked.

"Ask away, dear,"

"People at the funeral, they kept glaring at your stomach. I couldn't help wondering-"

Elaine's arms cradled her belly protectively. "Someone's told you about the ninety-six theory, haven't they?"

He nodded.

"It used to just be coincidence that whenever someone passed, another person came stumbling out of the mist. But when wee Wurlitzer was born, Ariana passed not two minutes later. It wasn't a coincidence after that," she looked at him fiercely. "I'll do what I have to do, to stop an innocent from dying."

Yuri wished the death upon Frank; he didn't seem particularly innocent. Then he remembered that the two were married.

She left shortly after.

Yuri looked to his beetle. In resignation, he pulled a copy of 'Moving Pictures' from its box, slouched inside her, turning to page one.

Yuri was entranced by the novel. It was ridiculous. Fantastic. Impossible. When the sun started beneath the hills, he returned to the Homestead. The pink sign illuminated the front steps. It was cheering. People flowed in from their jobs to eat together. The Homestead was the one place that didn't seem completely lost to time. He didn't think he'd ever get used to women wearing trousers. He was somewhat ashamed that his eyes lingered after them as the sauntered by. He ate dinner at his usual table.

A girl walked towards him. A white top clung to her upper body, matching her pale skin and cropped white hair. He tried not to stare at her black, scandalously tight pants. She sat at the far side of the table, produced yet another ubiquitous copy of 'Moving Pictures' and began to read.

Yuri couldn't tell what had shocked him more, her pants, or her metal arm. The silvery metal moved as if were actually part of her own body as she turned the pages. This was Gledria: the woman Barry had told him about. He stared at her some more.

She marked her spot in the book with a rectangular card, marked 'Google play,' before snapping it closed. She met his gaze with her wide, jade-coloured eyes. "What year is it, where you're from?"

"2815," Yuri replied.

"And which is it that you've never seen: paper or a woman?" she asked accusingly.

Yuri felt blood flush his cheeks.

She smiled at him widely. "I'm Gledria, you must be Yuri."

"How-"

"There's only so many new people here: news gets around fast."

Yuri spend the remainder of the night with the outspoken salvage crew girl. Her metallic hand was warm as she pulled him onto the dance floor. There was something intoxicating about dancing, Yuri thought, or perhaps it was the sweet drinks that she frequently brought him. The world started to sway delightfully. Her hair flashed around the delicate features of her face in time with the strange music box. A metal name was stuck to the front of the fantastically colourful machine: 'Wurlitzer.' Rust gnawed the edges of the nameplate.

Gledria drew him close with her metal arm, nodding towards the machine. "I found this baby out in the Wastelands. It took me ages to find a working speaker for it."

"You fixed it?"

"I'm from 2470, resurrecting the Wurlitzer was as easy as cake pieces."

"What?"

She wrinkled her nose. 'I don't get it either, but Elaine uses it all the time. It means easy."

They sat back at their table. "Get this," Gledria said. "There are actually wires. Wires, on the insides of that thing. It's so primitive. But that mutant Frank hates the thing almost as much as he hates me. I couldn't resist fixing it up after that. I even convinced Toa to help carve out a new set of wooden panels: all Maori-like. The first time that dense megabyte saw it fixed up, he almost had a heart attack."

Yuri thought back to his Beetle, which definitely relied on wires to work. He wondered what the 2400's were like. The height of civilisation. Wireless. Just before the invention of the time-bomb, and the consequent decimation of the world.

"Frank seems a little-"

"-like his motherboard is plugged too far up his own arse?" she asked, green eyes gleaming.

Yuri spluttered, sending his drink splattering across the table.

As the night drew to an admittedly blurry close, Gledria drew him outside.

Frank leant over the bar as they left, clapping his hands together and bowing. "To a long and prosperous life, ninety six."

Yuri ignored him, focused entirely on his female companion.

"Is the future nice?" she asked him when they were alone. "It was always meant to be nice."

Yuri thought back to the Earth he knew. The bleak, dying dead-lands. The irradiated, acidified water seeping further into the protective dome every year. That the oldest person he knew was forty-four years old. Yuri looked into her green, hopeful eyes, and knew the answer.

"Yes," he lied, as they moved in to kiss.

Sun broke through the curtain-less windows of the bedroom. Yuri screwed up his eyes, and rolled away from the blinding light. Gledria lay entangled in the blankets beside him. He picked up her copy of 'Moving Pictures' from the floor, not wanting to wake her, but also unable to get back to sleep in the blinding sunlight reflecting off the lake. He passed Gledria's bookmark proudly. The card was dated with 2015 expiry, to the value of $20,000.

When Gledria woke, she gazed at him, doe eyed.

"You're reading my book," she said, smiling.

"It's the best thing I've ever read," Yuri said. "I finally know why everyone keeps going about elephants."

"You like it that much, huh?"

"Gledria, I love this book. So entirely, that I want that creepy hunchback to read at my funeral."

Her smile faded like the sun passing behind a cloud.

"Did I say something wrong?"

She shook her head. "It's just not fair."

"I don't understand-"

Yuri trailed off as the bedroom door creaked open. He gave an indignant yell, pulling the bed sheets over his nakedness. A hooded figure stood in the doorway.

"What are you doing?" Yuri asked. "Get out of here!"

"I'm sorry," the figure said.

There was something so eerily familiar about that voice.

"About what?" Yuri asked.

"About what happens next."

They stepped into the room, and removed the hood. Yuri stared. That's impossible. He'd seen that face reflected in the mirror for the past 24 years of his life. He popped zits off that skin. Yuri's mouth gaped open. They were identical, except for the jagged scar running from the man's eye to jaw.

"Gledria-" Yuri turned to her for reassurance.

She smiled sadly at him. "This is the way it has to be. I'm sorry."

Without uttering another word, she gathered her clothes and left. He heard the being bolted shut from the other side. It was suddenly very hard to breathe.

"I owe you an explanation," his doppelganger said.

"You're me!"

"I'm afraid," the other Yuri said, "that you are me. I'm fifty-two days older than you are."

"How?"

"This sad place used to be New Zealand; there's a reason it doesn't appear on any maps in our time. It was hit by a time bomb and completely obliterated, over three-hundred years ago. Except here, of course. In the eye of the storm; this place is a literal wound in the time-space continuum."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"There isn't much time, but I want you to know that one day, I'll save us." The scar-faced man sat on the corner of the rumpled bed. "These people just want normal lives. But you keep crashing into the lake, like a broken record. Every four days, you crash; and every four days, I have to clean up your mess. I salvage whatever I can from your ships: scrap metal, fuel cells. One day, I will find the aerial island, and save our people."

"I can help," Yuri protested, a lump forming in his throat.

Cruelty shone in his eyes. "I don't want your help." He pulled a snapped DVD from his pocket. It gleamed in the sunlight, the edge stained with dried blood.

Yuri searched for a weapon. Save for some pillows, the only object near him was the book. He tossed it at his assailant, followed by himself. After all, no one expected to be tackled by a naked, slightly younger version of themselves.

He pushed his doppelganger to the floor, and made a mad rush for the door. Clothes weren't a priority. He'd streak through the town if necessary. He remembered the gun in his medkit. If he could just get there- the door didn't move as he pulled at it. Fingers locked into his hair and yanked downwards. Yuri kicked frantically behind him. Off balance, he fell to the floor.

Yuri fought to be on top, forcing the silvery shard away from his body. His attacker punched his shoulder. Pain seared through the wound. Yuri reeled backwards. In the same instant, his assailant turned his momentum around, pinning Yuri beneath him. The eyes of his attacker were voids of madness.

Yuri struggled under the heavy body of his older self, as warm fingers closed around his throat. With his face pushed into the dusty floor, he saw a crack of lightning illuminate the sky. A small aircraft feathered though the air. It was red. Smoking. That me! I'm in that Beetle! And here. And trying to strangle myself.  Black spotted his vision.

"You wouldn't kill me," Yuri gasped.

"It's funny," the other said. "You say that every time."

There were bells. Great tolling bells, as intense pain ruptured his skull.

Yuri thumped the dashboard impatiently. The altimeter still read 0, glowing with an eerie red halo. That was impossible: it would be suicide to fly so low. He squinted into the distance.

He wasn't expecting to hit a lemon tree.

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