Chapter 3: Whose Victory?

Every night at 20:00, the same two guards waited at the west block dorms to scan the same ID cards to allow the same individual prisoners into their identical rooms for the night. They would then patrol the area until midnight, taking the first shift.

The engineer looked at his shoes as he walked, right hand in his pocket, before widening his eyes, freezing. He used his left hand to check his other pocket and found nothing, swallowing back nothing, throat dry. He checked the pockets of his trousers and found nothing again, shaking and sweating. The guard, hand stretched out, ready to take his ID card, stood, impassively, shoulders relaxed.

The other guard was sharp, extremely angular, and had a long, stretched neck, bulging with nerves, and veins. He towered over the engineer, forcing him to gaze into the abyss of the black visor, stark against the vision of greys which made up the walls, floors, and uniforms of all the people.

"Could you confirm your identity?" he asked, voice booming and echoing, through the quiet of the corridor.

"Gryaz E-009," the engineer stammered out, looking frantically at the floor, and behind where he came. He turned forward, to glance along in front, at long line of doors which led to the bedrooms, which also acted as the isolation chambers.

The engineer didn't understand the need for corporate image of ID cards when all the prisoner data used face scans for everything, including entering rooms where guards were not following. The Sýnnefan media seemed to condone murder, as long as some professionalism was applied, and it wasn't one of their own.

He fell to the floor, and stared upwards towards the void of black, reflected in his blown wide pupils. The looming guard looked down at the engineer.

"Come with me," he announced, more quietly, but in a deep, growling voice. His steps were silent, despite his bulk, as he prowled through the lines of prisoners, and their escorts, back towards the workroom, rather than marched, like all the other guards. The familiar warmth at the back of the engineer's neck kept him leashed close to the guard, not allowed to run, lest he be burned.

The engineer followed the guard down the grey corridor, through the darkness back to the workroom, passing the main science complex, holding his prize. There was a camera in the workroom, there were several in the corridor, and more in the science complex. The nearest guards were at the dorms, the only area to be patrolled, a ten-minute walk, so a couple minute run with the physical enhancement technology.

The engineer feigned his search for the missing ID card, sweeping the room from left to right. He felt around inside the hollow skeleton of the old time machine shell, stroking over the metal bones, and reached down into the skull at the top. He then followed the path of the four metal work benches, arranged into rows, freezing to the touch in the cold night. The computers were visited next, the monitors lifted high up, above the engineer's head, their holographic keyboards absent with no power running through them.

Now, for the final desks at the right side of the room. The surface was bare, and flat, ready to house another sleight of hand. The engineer's hands shook, as he laid out all the eight scrolls of blueprints and copies along the table, like the cards of a magician. One by one, each pair of opaque original and translucent copy, were laid to rest, under the watchful eye of the looming guard.

He was not supposed to be so invested in this search. He was not supposed to have traversed silently, like the predator he was, to overshadow the engineer, as he laid out the tenements of his trick. The engineer breathed out a white, puffy cloud.

All the translucent tracing paper copies were returned to the drawer, after the engineer stared at them for as long as he deemed enough time, in his cold sweat, leaving four rolls of paper behind, all bordered by grey ash.

He unrolled the first blueprint, to find nothing as expected, and rolled it once more back up, placing it gently back in the draw. The grey wall in front of him looked like one of the ice sheets from the gorge, twenty years ago. The engineer steeled himself against the cold and exhaustion, wracking his bones.

The guard came slightly closer. The engineer could feel his warmth from behind and shivered.

The second blueprint was unrolled, checked, re-rolled, and placed back in the drawer. The guard moved to stand aside the engineer, shoulder to shoulder, and tapped his finger on the desk, jabbing his bony fingers onto the cold surface, condensation spreading from those points, keeping the engineer in his place, preventing him from moving, until that hand was taken away.

The third blueprint proceeded as the second did: unrolled, checked, re-rolled, and placed back in the drawer. The engineer felt a cold pit settle in the bottom of his stomach. There was no such thing as magic, and he could not redirect the eyes of the guard. He could not plead with that monster to enter the main complex that housed his prize.

He would have to hurt the guard. He would have to hurt Sýnnefa military personnel. He would have to face one of the people who hurt his mother, levelled those deferent purple mountains, and forced him to starve. The engineer wanted to cry. He wanted to curl back on himself and fall into the memories of twenty years ago.

But he had to remember what happened nineteen years ago, when the armada arrived in the sky, one with the grey clouds that day.

The final blueprint was unrolled, and the ID card gleamed in the cold light. The engineer picked it up with his left hand, and placed to the right of the paper. He quietly re-rolled up the blueprint and placed it back in the drawer. He pulled his ID card to his chest, tried to cradle it to his heart, but couldn't.

He suppressed a sob, following the guard, meekly, looking down, through the door, from the workstation into the corridor.

Every white hot, burning memory flashed through the engineer's mind. Bombs rained down into the gorge, and rock tombs encased the dead, damning the rest to the wilderness, foraging and starving, until another temporary home was found. The engineer remembered his mother bringing her hand down on his neck, casting him into the black void of unconsciousness, and how she wasn't there when he woke up later. How he never saw her again.

From behind the guard, the engineer lifted his ID card up, above his head, and struck it down, as hard as he could, onto the guard's neck, slicing vertically onto one of the guard's nerves. The engineer shook, and fell backwards, head meeting the cold floor, as the giant before him stumbled, and met the grey, cold floor, equally hard.

Tears sprung to the engineer's eyes. He scrambled up, and grabbed the twitching guard by the shoulders, hauling him into the main complex, pushing his body along in front, to appease the sensors. The helmet monitored the guard's vital signs. The engineer wouldn't last long.

His vision blurred, and he wouldn't stop shaking. He spied the fire extinguisher, hanging at the side of the room, and staggered towards it, as the guard slurred incoherently on the floor, unable to move.

The engineer's prize sat in the centre of the room, protected by a thick, sheet of glass. The room was dark, lit up only by the white light of the door frame. Black, powerless computer monitors surrounded the room, their tables separated by murky red fire, metal extinguishers. A hissing noise began to emanate from above.

It was too dark to see up there, but the only thing that could make such a noise was gas.

The engineer rushed over to the side of the room, and pulled fire extinguisher from the wall, before dropping it. He dragged it to the glass casing and swung the metal tank at the glass in a resounding crash.

A piercing, horrifying, screeching alarm struck the engineer's ears, and he clutched onto the jagged edges of the broken glass, tearing his hand open, rivulets of blood falling down to the floor. The engineer reached out and, pulled the time machine close to his chest, cradling it to his heart.

Just as the doors smashed open. And a squad of guards charged in, laser guns fully charged and ready to fire.

A bright, white burning light travelled towards the engineer. There was no time. No time to check whether there was a date already programmed in. No time to check whether there was a location programmed in. And no time to check if the time machine even had any power to work.

The engineer screwed his eyes shut, and pressed down on the big, red button, he had spent too much time looking at and designing and held on tight.

Just as he fell, the engineer no - even in death, he wouldn't hold himself to that name, one engineer among many- Red_Two thought he heard a cry.

A cry in a thousand screaming voices, all calling one name: Gryaz.