Lost Time (#Wattys2016)

The Plan in Motion

I woke up , I was gasping for Air , It was already sometime in the afternoon , the building was burnt , there were holes at the roof and there are ashes everywhere

I didn't want to move or even look at myself afraid that I would see myself bloody and burnt but I still looked , I was perfectly fine , I was unscathed , I tried to look at the spots where the crystal shards would've went and the places where I was burnt because of that explosion

After awhile I stood up , I observed my surroundings , The Xynox was no longer there , not even remains of it , I assume it was burnt to the ground , I checked for other people , thankfully there were no corpses or bones , so I just thought that by sometime Keith and the other people have gone out of the building

I walked out of the main room where Project Xynox was placed , I see some collapsed walls and some of the Alloy Shields down on the ground , I assume to prevent the spread of fire but I see that failed. There was a big hole in the roof and I see a Helicopter just hovering there , not moving at all , Maybe it's filming something but how come it's propulsor is not even blowing air

After a long hallway of destroyed and burnt walls , I finally found the Main door and I left the building and what I found outside was a bunch of reporters and some armed men guarding the building but they're all frozen as evidenced by stopped cars and some kids stuck on air while jump roping on the parallel street

For a moment , I had a headache and my vision blurred then suddenly , everyone started moving again , the moment they saw me , All eyes , cameras and even guns are directed at me, they arrested me and accused me of starting the fire and burning the building

They had me in a room for the next few hours, They did a "LSS" or Limbic System Scanning to know if I was guilty of causing the fire or not and after a few minutes waiting for the result I was not found guilty and they said that they will ask me a few questions then I'm free to go

They had me to talk to a woman who is actually well informed about the Project Xynox and even knew some information that I didn't know, After that they let me go, I didn't know what to do, So I went to my usual place after work and drank coffee although that they told me to stay home and they'll just inform me about any more details that they find, as I go home I see a familiar face, It was an XIL and then he went and shot me with a Tranquilizer then I fell unconscious

I wake up , I was in a room and I was lying in a bed then I saw a badly injured Keith sitting by the bed

"What happened to you?! What happened back there at the Old Library?! Where are we?! Explain everything!" I said

"The government hates us , the XILs and our projects, They would do anything to make our plans fail, We didn't know they planted cameras in the Old Library that we bought, As far as we know they are spying on us so they know what to tamper to have our products fail when we sell them to the public" He explained

"So you had to burn the building to do what?" I said

"We can't let them know that we are aware of them, So we had to come up with a plan to have Xynox to falsely malfunction and create a fake death for all of us , then we took the machine and escaped" He said

"But how could you faked it? It felt so real , I felt pain being burnt by the explosion, but I don't know where the scars or marks are when I woke up" I said

"That was a Prototype Machine , It can only travel to the past by 5 hours and that was a real explosion, we set it to explode but we didn't expect that you would come back after you left and I don't know what happened to you , when we were escaping , we couldn't find you" He said

"Anyways where are we?" I asked

"We are on a base that we built ourselves to stay away from the public and completely fake our deaths" He said

I asked "What are you going to do now?"

"We'll fix the damaged parts of the real Xynox and start trials again , If we did it correctly , We can travel to the past by Fifteen Years" He said

"Then what?" I asked

"Then If we succeed, We need to shrink the size of the machine so that we can sell the product to the public, Anyways , We're hidden now, This is your room, You should check out places outside your room, Maybe I'll give you a tour but you should rest right now like I need to rest too" He said

He left the room and I was left alone , I took a look around the room, The room has a table, a chair, a closet, a speaker mounted on the corner, a ceiling fan and there is the bed which I found myself. After looking around the room , I sat on the bed thinking about all the things Ms. Klein said back at the Police Centre, It made think about Keith

"Am I doing the right thing?" I thought to myself

After awhile of pondering about stuff, I became curious about the outside of this room and what it's like , I stood up and I walk towards the door , I opened it and I saw a big community, all under this place , all of it's necessities and needs