The Overseer paces left and right while Issac and Bill watch him mumble to himself. “There must be a way to track them, maybe their enhancers? No, David’s enhancer is not from this world so it will be hard to track, but Anna…yes! I think I can track her, but I need to go back to Mary for that!” he says to himself.

He looks at Bill and Issac and says, “I’ll find a way to track them and see where they are, meanwhile you guys gear up and get ready. We’ll need to move quickly to save both of them!” they both agree and the Overseer vanishes. He teleports to Mary’s study room where he finds her sleeping in front of 5 holo-screens. He looks at each of them before deciding to wake her up.

He touches her cheek and she wakes up, “Oh, I...I just dozed off. Anyways I still haven’t found out how to fix it all. I know I am running the events on a supercomputer back at MSAT but still one billion outcomes, and finding the perfect one is a lot to ask-”

The Overseer stops her and says, “Mary, I know it’ll take a lot of time and I am not here for that, it’s...Anna and David they are in trouble. Something has happened, which shouldn’t have. I think...I think the future is diverting from what I had planned it to be, but let’s worry about that later. I need you to track Anna’s enhancer…hurry!”

Mary becomes worried and asks, “What do you mean in trouble, where did you send my daughter?” he shouts, “I promise you, nothing will happen to her! Track her enhancer please!” she senses the desperation in his voice and starts to track it. After a few moments, the enhancer’s last known location is revealed.

“It’s an empty road, that’s her last location. No! Maybe that’s the last time the enhancer pinged its location. No problem, we’ll go there and find them!” he says to her.

Mary holds his hand before he teleports back to the safe house and says, “Bring my daughter back or I’ll never forgive you!” he nods and teleports back. At the safe house he sees Issac and Bill ready for action. He looks at Issac and says, “No, you stay here, I’ll go with Bill. I don’t want any more complications!”

Issac argues with him, “No! I’ll go too, she is my intern and I think I should go looking for her as well!” the Overseer sighs and says, “Alright! Stay with Bill at all times and don’t try to be a hero!” The three teleport to the last pinged location from Anna’s enhancer and start their search.

David starts sweating as Dorian waits for Anna’s consciousness to be transferred. Once it is transferred she appears in front of David and gasps, “David, I thought...you were dead, what a relief!” she looks around and asks, “What is this place and why are you tied up?”

He looks at her with teary eyes and replies, “I’m sorry Anna, I should have been braver, I am so sorry!” before she could ask him anything else Dorian speaks from behind, “Ah! Now he is sorry. You shouldn’t have met her David. People like us don’t deserve other people. We are trained killers, made to do whatever Reed orders. The last thing you should have in this business is a heart!”

She looks at Dorian and asks, “Who are you? What do you want from us? Did Reed ask you to do this?” he starts to laugh and says, “David, are you ready to see her suffer?” He looks down and says nothing in return. Anna is perplexed as she has no idea what Dorian is talking about.

He says, “Let’s start with something light shall we Miss Anna?” he snaps his fingers and the surrounding changes. It’s the white room again, where David was tortured. Anna’s hands are tied and she confusingly looks left and right. Dorian holds out his right hand and a can appears, he moves towards her with the can in hand. When he reaches her, he starts pouring something over her.

She closes her eyes and asks in a trembling tone, “What is this, what are you doing?” she slowly smells it and her eyes open wide. “It’s gasoline, what are you planning to do?” Dorian steps away from her and a lighter appears in his hand. He looks at David and shouts, “I ask you again David, who are you working for and where is the device you stole?”

He looks at him and replies, “Fuck you! Don’t you do it, I’m warning you!” Dorian takes a deep breath and throws the lighter at Anna. Time slows down for David as he watches the lighter and its flickering flame spin and advance towards her. He watches helplessly as flames cover her body and she screams, “No!”

Her body in flames and her screams echoing in the room and his ears. He feels powerless and goes delirious, he keeps screaming, “I’m sorry Anna, this is my fault. I’m sorry!” for a while Anna screams in agony and his tears don’t stop, but eventually, she burns and dies. No more screams, no more Anna.

Dorian looks at her blackened body and says, “Ah, so this is what happens when a body keeps on burning! Reset her now!” in a flash she reappears in front of David. She still screams with her eyes closed not knowing that she isn’t burning anymore. A few moments pass and she opens her eyes.

“But…how...I was burning!” in a state of distress she looks at Dorian and shouts, “Torture us all you want! We won’t say a word you psycho!” she looks at David and starts blabbering, “David look at me, they’ll come to help us, we have to hold on. I can take the pain, you must endure with me…don’t give up…or it’s all over...Reed will win and we can’t let that happen!”

David has tears in his eyes and whispers, “I can’t see you in pain, I can’t see you like this...because...because I...I love you, Anna! In a different universe, we were together, and seeing that makes me want you even more. You remind me that there is still beauty in life. It’s not all sadness and sorrow. You are lively, positive, kind, and all that which I am not. It’s only a matter of time before I am broken! I just can’t...Anna...I just can’t take it!”

Her heart skips a beat as she hears his confession. This feeling was the one she had never experienced before, and so was the situation they both were in. This was the moment she was waiting for all her life, she had wondered how and why people fall in love and now she had her answer, “So that’s how it feels like when you are in love!” she says to herself. His love seems to be a slight glimmer of hope they both needed in this dark hell.

Dorian looks at them and claps his hands, “Wow, never thought a cold-hearted killer like you would be capable of such emotions. Now that you love birds have shared your moment, David ready for round two?” Anna looks at David and says, “David this is your mind, you are the master here not him, break the barriers holding you back. We can win from him. I’ll take all the pain. Don’t let my screams break you. Use them to break your barriers. I know you can do it!”

Dorian looks at her right, and a saw table appears. He looks at her and she smiles at him, “Is that the best you could think of…how disappointing!” Dorian smirks and says, “Don’t worry, there’s plenty more!” she vanishes and then reappears chained on the saw table. “Let the show begin!” Dorian shouts. The saw starts spinning and slowly advances towards Anna.

Issac, Bill, and the Overseer look around the last known location which looks like an abandoned road miles away from Hawkesbay City. Issac and Bill search carefully for any clues that could lead them somewhere.

Out of nowhere, Issac finds wide tracks of tires on the muddy roadside, he shows them to Bill and he calls the Overseer. The Overseer teleports to their location and looks at the tracks, he verifies the tracks with the tire tracks he found in the parking lot of the apartment building and it’s a match.

“Fuck yea! Now let’s follow the tracks and they will definitely lead us to where they were taken!” the Overseer says as they follow the tracks.

Issac asks Bill who Dorian is and he tells him, “Dorian is the man who trained me and David to be...well, mercenaries for Reed. He is an ex-military officer who was expelled because he used to torture prisoners and spies using questionable methods. However fucked up his mind is, he still trained us both so we owe him a lot.”

“He taught us how to survive, but at the end of the day if I have a plasma gun in my hand and he is the target, I won’t hesitate to melt his brain!” the tracks lead them to a small hut which the Overseer decides to check. All three enter the hut and Bill starts scanning the interior with his enhancer, he detects weird magnetic signals emitting from the hut’s floor.

“There is something under the hut. Look around, there must be something that allows us to access whatever is under this place. Issac looks at the walls of the hut and sees a particular wall with black horizontal lines beside it, “Hey guys, I think this wall slides to the left!” the Overseer and Bill look at the wall and decide to push it. After a few moments of struggling with the wall they finally push it and it reveals a face scanner.

“Well, that was the easy part, how the fuck are we going to go through the scanner?” asks Bill. The Overseer places a device on the scanner which blinks three times and an elevator starts coming up from the hut’s floor.

“There we go!” says the Overseer as he takes it back. “Neat device, where did you get it?” asks Bill but he ignores him. They step on the elevator and it starts descending. As it descends Issac takes a deep breath, “You sure this suit will keep me alive, I mean bullets weren’t as deadly as these plasma thingies.” he says to Bill. He laughs and replies, “Just shoot those who shoot you and you’ll be fine, and stay behind cover, this suit doesn’t make you invincible!”

The Overseer takes out his gun and whispers, “Shhh, Ready your weapons!” as the elevator reaches the end, red plasma rays start flying towards them. Bill moves quickly and shoots two of the many security agents firing at them. He quickly moves behind some cover and shouts, “Hurry, behind this!” the Overseer holds his gun above his chronoton enhancer and appears to be using it while also aiming and shooting at the agents.

He seems to be unfazed by the plasma rays. Issac on the other hand fires blindly as he runs towards the cover. He rejoins Bill who instructs, “Don’t fire in quick succession or the gun will overheat and go for their heads, they’ll pop like watermelons!” he nods and they watch the Overseer slowly walking towards them.

He says to them, “Ok, I got the coordinates of this place and I also set teleport points across this corridor. I need you guys to distract them and leave it all to me!” Issac replies, “Don’t be cocky…let’s work together here!”

He completely ignores him and shouts, “Distract them now!” Issac and Bill start shooting at them blindly. As the agents are busy with them the Overseer starts his execution, he teleports a few meters forward and kills two agents, the other agents point their guns towards him, but before they shoot him, he disappears.

The agents start engaging with Bill and Issac and out of nowhere the Overseer appears and kills three of them, one of the remaining three shouts, “He is butchering us all, fall back to the end of the corridor!”

The remaining agents run, but one of them is shot dead by Bill and the remaining two are startled as the Overseer appears right in front of them and shoots them both in the head.

The chaos ends, Issac and Bill regroup with the Overseer and Bill asks, “That was fucking super human-like! What exactly did you do?” he replies, “I’ll tell you some other time let’s find David and Anna!”

Issac hears a feeble chatter and grabs an earpiece from a dead agent. He puts it in his ears and listens to what’s going on, “Dorian is inside the Chamber! We need to secure the area leading to it. If we are unable to stop the intruders, the facility will self-destruct with them inside. The elevator is already sabotaged…get your ass here if anyone of you is alive!”

Issac coveys all he heard to Bill and the Overseer with concern. The Overseer once again appears relaxed and replies assuredly, “We will get out of here don’t worry, let’s head over to this Chamber!” Issac and Bill nod and they move forward.

Anna looks fearfully at the saw moving towards her crotch, it is about to reach her when suddenly Dorian starts scolding someone, “Useless pieces of shit all of them, protect the Chamber at all costs!” he looks at the saw and notices that it has stopped. He says, “I didn’t tell you to stop the saw, start it again. I am not done with these two!”

David stares at him with a menacing smile on his face and says, “You were right Anna this is my mind and I am the master here!” her chains disappear in a flash and so does the table. She falls to the ground and he apologizes, “Sorry Anna, but that’s the last time you’ll get hurt!”

He takes slow steps towards Dorian who seems to be in awe at what he is witnessing, but his awe soon turns into fear.

“What do you mean you can’t control him? Do something! What do you mean he’s gone berserk?” Dorian shouts but it’s of no use. David stands in front of him. He looks into his eyes and starts trembling. “This is my world Dorian and I’ll make you suffer!” Dorian pees himself seeing the rage in David’s eyes and starts screaming frantically, “Get me out, press the kill switch!”

David holds him by his throat and says, “I’ll send you don’t worry!” He steps back from him and Dorian starts bloating, “What the fuck are you doing David?” he bloats and bloats and then explodes. A splash of blood covers David. Anna rushes over to him and hugs him from behind, but he appears to be lobotomized by the traumas he suffered and does nothing in return.

Dorian on the other hand wakes up suddenly and removes the helmet-like device from his head, “Did you see that? Did you see what he did?” he asks but there is no one around to answer him.

“Fucking cowards all of them, no worries time to arm the self-destruct sequence, I also have these love birds asleep. Maybe I’ll trade them for a way out!”

Issac, Bill, and the Overseer move deeper into the facility, Bill digs through and finds the map of the facility on a computer and finds the Chamber to be a few meters to their right.

The Overseer stops them before they turn right to confront the agents, “We’ll do the same here as well, let me just calculate the distances and start the timer.” he says as he operates his enhancer.

Just before he teleports, he gives them the signal, “Now!” They both peek around the corner and fire at the agents. The agents have set up a barricade which makes it difficult for the two to hit them. Issac says in an intense tone, “Fuck! No use, they got it locked up pretty tight!” Bill peeks and before getting shredded by the incoming plasma rays hides behind the wall again, “Well our work is done!” Issac looks at him confusingly and hears a few plasma shots go off.

After that, there is dead silence. Issac peeks and sees the Overseer standing tall among the dead bodies of the agents. The Overseer had teleported behind the agents and then executed all of them in the same fashion he executed the previous agents.

The three regroup in front of a huge glass door with a huge sign reading ‘The Chamber’ and enter together. They search some rooms but there is no trace of anyone there. The staff had evacuated but the Overseer pushes on and sees a room with a blackened window.

He signals them to go inside and says, “Don’t worry about me. I know what will happen in the next few minutes, whatever happens…just...just trust me. We’ll get out of here alive!”

They step inside the room and find Anna and David in separate glass rooms. They are asleep with weird helmets on their heads. Bill looks at Dorian who is holding a trigger, “Nowhere to run Dorian. We got you now!” he says.

Dorian starts laughing and replies, “You really thought I wouldn’t think two steps ahead of you? A silent EMP has already fried your enhancer Bill, no more teleporting for you, and if I press this trigger. Their brains will light up like a Christmas tree! Now if you are smart--” before he could finish the Overseer teleports behind him and stabs him in the heart with a laser cutter. Dorian’s eyes open wide, he bleeds from his mouth and falls to the ground, but he still keeps smiling at the Overseer, “This is what you get for fucking with us!” the Overseer says to him as he closes his eyes and dies.

Just then, the room starts to shake and a voice says, “Self-destruct sequence initiated, you have 10 seconds to evacuate the facility!” hearing this, both Bill and Issac start sweating and they both look at the Overseer helplessly.

“What the fuck? How are we supposed to wake them up and take them out of here in 10 seconds? This son of a bitch destroyed my enhancer!” Bill says. The countdown comes to 5 seconds. Issac closes his eyes and the Overseer says to Bill, “Shhh! I got this under control!” he taps on his enhancer, and time stops!

He looks at Issac and Bill stopped like mannequins. He slowly goes to David’s room and touches him before removing his helmet and waking him up. David gasps as he opens his eyes, “David it’s alright, you are alright now. We are here to save you!” the Overseer says in a calm voice.

David gets up and says lazily “Anna, we need to save her!” they both go to her room. The Overseer touches her as well and then removes her helmet. She wakes up and screams for a few seconds then she looks at David and hugs him tightly, “It’s alright Anna we made it!” he says to her.

The Overseer shouts, “We don’t have any time let’s go back to Issac and Bill. Both Anna and David watch them frozen in place and Anna even notices Issac’s sweat drops hanging in the air.

“Did you freeze time?” she asks the Overseer but he doesn’t answer. “Hold all your hands tightly!” the Overseer orders them as he touches Bill and Issac who come back to life. The Overseer quickly taps on his enhancer and time unfreezes. The countdown reaches 2 seconds and all of them quickly teleport to the road outside the hut.

As they appear on the road a huge explosion trembles the ground and the hut explodes flying into the air. The Overseer looks at the explosion from the distance and says, “Let’s head back to the safe house, Issac, you or Bill take my enhancer. I don’t have enough strength to teleport anymore, my chronotons...after I froze time-” he starts to tremble and is about to fall but Bill holds him up and wears his enhancer

“I get it the stunt you pulled to save us all, took a lot of your strength. No worries! I’ll get us out of here!” they hold each other’s hands once again and they teleport to the safe house. Once there the Overseer falls to the ground, Bill holds him and puts him on the couch.

Issac tends to Anna and David who themselves are fucked up. Bill looks at all of them and shouts, “Ooooweee! What a fucking day we had. Let’s get some rest before we start asking each other what happened to us, and also wait for this guy to wake up!”

Reed looks at the schematics of the facility where the normalizer will be built. He grins at the sight of becoming the God of time, but his daydream is interrupted by Jane. She once again barges in and says breathing heavily, “Sir, turn on the news!”

Reed frowns at her and turns on the news, “Reports of a huge explosion 25 miles away from Hawkesbay City have been reported, the cause of the explosions is still unknown…”

Reed shuts off the news and says grinding his teeth, “Dorian’s facility...what a fucking mess! Call the police chief no press vans are to be there and get our rescue teams to mobilize immediately. Any survivor they find, I want them to come to my office and tell me what the hell happened! Do it right fucking now Jane!” she runs off to do as instructed.

“Did the Overseer know about this? I think he is hiding something from me because this wasn’t in the recording of the future events he gave me!” he opens his drawer and takes out a new chronoton scanner. “Well, looks like I need to scan my masked friend to see what he really wants!”