Story 250: Change of Plans

The flash of light nearly gave me a heart attack - I'd been working on my invention for nine hours straight and if there had been an electrical short that fried anything I would have cried. Instead, a strange man was standing there.
"Pleasure to meet you, Robert. You're quite famous in 2018."
"Um. No, I'm not."
The man looked confused. "Excuse me?"
"It's... it's 2018 right now, nearly halfway over actually, and I'm not famous at all."

He pulled off his goggles and sighed. "Right, no. I mean, here in 2018 you're... I mean you will be, before I came back to 2018, where you're... going to... shit. Look I said it wrong, okay? I didn't mean to say you're famous in 2018. Hang on. Can I get a do-over? I mean of course I can, I'm a fucking time traveler. Okay this won't have happened in just a second. Let me just..." He started tapping at some sort of device on his wrist, but was interrupted by a flash of light and another version of himself arriving.
"Pleasure to meet you, Robert. You're quite famous in 2093. I... fuck. Shit, wait, why am I still here?"

"I haven't left yet, asshole. You came back too late."
"You mean early. Because you're still here."
"No, late. Because you're supposed to go back to before I even arrive."
"Right. That's what I meant. Wait, then why did you say 'still here'? You should have said 'here already' or something."
"Jesus, seriously? You're the one that said that. Anyway, look, you have to... erase yourself or something."
"Fuck that, you do it."
"I was here first!"
"Right. I'm older, that means you're the leftover one."
I couldn't take it anymore. "Both of you, shut up. You, the one that got here first. What exactly am I famous for?"
"The time machine you're building."

"Oh. Huh. Well, let me show that to you, I guess. Come here." The two came closer, and I went to my toolbox. I pulled out my gun and managed to shoot them both before they could do anything, then dragged the bodies over to the drain in the floor so they wouldn't make too much of a mess. Pulling off the strange devices on their wrists, I walked back to my workbench. "Sorry fellas, but up until now I was working on a food delivery drone." But hey, who am I to mess with history? If I'm going to be famous for time travel I might as well get to work reverse-engineering it.