The traveler

The Cycle of Time

"Is he conscious yet?"
"Just have patience, for god's sake! He's had this before! "
Isaac slowly opened his eyes. Where was he?
"Oh, well, your impatience has paid off! He has awoken!" the second voice shouted.
He wondered whether he actually recognized one of the people talking, but couldn't seem to do so. They apparently know him, but he didn't.
"Well, well, well, so looks like the vertigo got you, huh?"
Vertigo? What was he talking about? The last thing he remembers is looking for the InstaClaust in sector Sigma. Did the Drant ship crash?
"What are you talking about?" he asked.
"Don't be stupid, Isaac. You fell into a portal loop," the man replied.
Isaac? Wasn't his name Keymard? Then again, he's never seen these guys before.
"I'm sorry, but my name is Keymard."
"Good, keep thinking that," was the reply.
What did he even mean by that?
"Now what do you want?" he asked.
The man grinned and slowly walked away, before slamming a door. Isaac still heard it being locked.

"Great job on finding him, Hyper," the first voice said. He was talking to Tim.
"Thank you, my lord," Tim replied. He was the second voice.
"I just have one last job for you here," he said. "I want you to make him forget everything."
"Everything?" Tim said. "You mean, as in..."
"His entire life in all times, yes."
Tim was quite shocked.
"It's a matter of great importance, Hyper. It turned out that making him switch times isn't enough. You know how important it is that he should have never known."
"I'll take care of it, my lord," Tim said. "Pierce Isaac Keymard will never get to know his name."

But actually, Isaac did. It wasn't really smart of Tim to actually say his name out loud, seeing as Isaac could hear the entire conversation from his cell. What was so important? Was this about the InstaClaust? And what did he know that was so important? How did he even get involved in this? All he wanted was to remember something, just one thing, but he didn't even succeed in that. But then all of a sudden he got really quite scared. The first voice said something about time travel. Was this another time? What if the reason he couldn't remember anything was because it hasn't happened yet? No, then he would have to assume this is the past. Maybe it wasn't. He kept thinking positively. Hyper also mentioned something about his entire name – Pierce Isaac Keymard. He was called Isaac and he remembered being Keymard. Were those some sort of different personalities in different times, through which he was constantly shifting? Was that why he fainted? And if so, who is Pierce?

Tim walked into the room. "I've got a surprise for you," he said.
But in fact, he got the surprise. Before he could even finish his sentence, Isaac jumped up and attacked Tim. He had just enough time to grab his gun, but not enough time to actually shoot it. Isaac beat him up, took his gun and left Tim there, after which he locked the door again.
"That should give me enough time to get away before they notice me," he said to himself.
Then he noticed the four security cameras, seemingly smiling at him.
He immediately ran away, not knowing where to go.

Someone entered the main room quite hysterically. "My lord! My lord!" he shouted.
"What is it, guard?" the leader said.
"Prisoner 61 seemed to have escaped! We've seen him on the security footage!"
"Shut down the facility!" was the reply.
Only five seconds later, the gates of the facility shut with a loud bang. Obviously, Isaac heard it as well. The advantage he got by that was knowing where the main gates were, and knowing what way not to go, seeing as if he'd go there he wouldn't be able to escape anyway. He thought about any way out, and suddenly he got a great idea. He immediately ran through the corridors, looking for some sort of control room.
He didn't really have to run around for long, seeing as when he ran around the first corner he immediately saw a door with a sign saying "TOP SECRET. DO NOT ENTER." That was pretty beckoning. He went to the door, pushed down the handle, and to his surprise the door wasn't even locked. He entered a pretty small room with another door, which apparently was locked. And without even noticing it, the door behind him closed.
There was no handle on this side of the door.
He was trapped. God, how could he have been so stupid? Isaac started to think. What could he do? He could wait for someone to enter. Or he could try to open the second door, somehow. He started emptying his pockets searching for something that could be useful, when all of a sudden he saw Tim's gun and realized that it had a QR-code on it. Why would a gun need a barcode? He looked closer. It wasn't an ordinary QR-code, for there were actually three colors: black, white and dark blue, which looked like black, but upon closer examination wasn't the same. Maybe it would function like a pass for access to some parts of the facility? But unfortunately, he didn't see any kind of scanner here. He really was trapped.

After about half an hour of tension, the first door got opened. Isaac was quite surprised, and so was the person opening it, but Isaac's reflexes were faster and he knocked out whoever it was that opened the door. That military training from when he was still Keymard did pay off. This time he was smart enough to hold the door open, went to look outside, and saw a scanner.
"Jackpot," he said to himself.
He held Tim's gun before the scanner and the second door opened.
Slowly he stepped through the door, and entered a room, not unlike Tim's laboratory, but many times bigger. Just a shame that he couldn't remember being in it. With more strange bleeping noises, more weird stuff going on, but luckily no bubble guns. He ran through the laboratory, exactly knowing what to look for. If they could make him travel through time, then he must certainly be able to do it as well. The ultimate escape plan, and he'd probably be able to get to know more about who he really was. Going through the laboratory took some time, but to his surprise it was completely empty. Nobody was working in there. Maybe everything was automated, but that didn't matter. Eventually he found a machine labeled "6160 dec – 3694 doz", which basically was just a portal and some stuff around it. Maybe those numbers signified the year he would enter going through the portal, both in dozenal and decimal systems. He decided to go for it.
After a quick prayer, he jumped in and disappeared.