Anna's Ether - Chapter 8 - The Plan
After the briefing, William was shown his quarters. This time there was no locked door, and William was free to walk around the facility and visit the mess hall. He tried to get some sleep, but the cruelty of Martin's deceit both enraged his mind and stabbed at his heart. Restless, he walked over to the mess hall to see if they might have any tea. Nigel was there and offered to pour him a cup. He sat down with William and began to reveal the plan the Colonel had mentioned.
Nigel looked around the room and seeing they were alone, began in a hushed voice: "I'm not supposed to be telling you this William. Please keep this between us for now." William braced himself for what he was certain would be yet more bad news. "I've heard talk that the Colonel's plan involves the possibility of bringing Anna back here," Nigel said. William studied Nigel's face for a long moment, wondering if this was just another ploy. "I don't know any more than that... I just couldn't bear to keep you in the dark even another minute," Nigel said. William drank the remainder of his tea in silence leaving Nigel waiting for a response. When he was finished he politely thanked Nigel for the tea and returned to his room.
Again, William lay on the bed staring at the ceiling, his thoughts preventing any sleep. A knock on the door startled him. It was Major Burke. "Hope I didn't wake you. If your ready Col. Torres would like to speak with you." "Yes, of course", William said. "Great, meet us in the briefing room in 20 minutes", The Major replied. William nodded his head and shut the door. He reminded himself to listen with a critical ear and not be gullible as he had been with Martin. William walked into the briefing room determined to keep his emotions in check.
Major Burke offered a seat to William across from Col. Torres. "Let me get straight to the point William. Nigel's intel on Martin has proved crucial to our plans to defeat him. Martin indeed has no time travel technology, and in fact, no one in history has ever succeeded in traveling through time, with the exception of you, Mr. Sinclair." The Colonel said. "Perhaps I never did either." William cynically remarked. Col. Torres swiveled in his seat and nodded at Major Burke. "Nigel brought back proof that Martin was data mining your thoughts to obtain knowledge related to the building of your time travel device. His plan was to keep your body in a comatose state and create the illusion in your mind that you were back with Anna. Meanwhile, via 'The Ritual', he would then retrieve from your memories exactly how you built and used your time device." Major Burke said.
"This is part of his strategy to secure complete control over humanity. Had you undergone 'The Ritual' before we extracted you, we could not have stopped him." Col. Torres said. Nigel was quietly observing Williams body language and could see he was not completely buying into this new information. "Martin specifically warned against anyone giving you access to tools and building materials that might allow you to rebuild your time travel device. He seemed almost paranoid about this. At first, it made no sense. I mean, like you I believed that Martin was capable of time travel. So why would he be worried about your 200-year-old tech? It wasn't until I found out that he was lying about his time travel technology, that his plan started to become clear." Nigel said.
Colonel Torres stood and gestured towards a man in a white lab coat. "William, this is Dr. Simon Bohr. He is going to help you build a new time travel device."
