Colin discretely finished plugging the sewage pipe downstream of the research facility, sewage was the one job he hated as a plumber, it was stinky disgusting work and you always felt like you could still smell it even after a change of clothes and a shower. At least this time it was for a good cause.

He was hopeful that they wouldn't have a chance to call an out of hours plumber prior to him arriving the next morning, there was a chance his plan would never come to fruition. The next part of the plan was going to be the most difficult though. Getting Hans drunk enough that he couldn't get home, without getting that drunk himself.

He returned home to clean up, parking his van in front of his shed and carefully loading the explosives he had prepared inside their pipes onto the roof of the van. The pipes were exceptionally heavy so he was going to have to make sure nobody saw him unloading them at the other end.

***

Getting the diminutive scientist drunk was easier than Colin had expected, by the time he arrived at the pub the Germans were all well into their cups and they had an oompah band playing. The noise was deafening. The off duty soldiers were swaying and banging their tankards and shouting for beers.

Colin found Heinrich easily enough, the man was propping the bar up and making totally inappropriate suggestions to the barmaids.

"Wow, did I miss something? It's the middle of the week!" He asked, innocently.

"Ja, it hast been a gut week. Ze war effort is coming along at pace!" The balding man said, toasting him once the barman delivered his pint. "We may just win this time no?"

There had been no mention of the ongoing bombings in the local news and listening to the short wave radio stations was a punishable offence so Colin feigned confusion.

"You have not heard? We have destroyed military bases across Malaysia, Japan, China unt ze forward posts near Mongolia." The little man stage whispered.

Colin didn't have to feign amazement, he hadn't heard about the other bases. "My word, how?"

"Ah! Secret weapons! I can tell you no more!" The man toasted him again and Colin decided this was a good opportunity, he ordered two shots of the man's favourite schnapps.

The night devolved from there, Colin's plan to keep relatively sober was out of the window early on, especially when they started sitting with the soldiers and singing, mainly in German.

They got kicked out of the pub by the landlord when Heinrich was slapped by a barmaid, Colin missed the incident but there was an accusation of unsolicited touching which Colin fully believed. It was almost midnight and both of the men could hardly walk, they were steering each other to keep on the pavement but at least they were heading to Colin's house again. Colin was constantly shushing the man who insisted on singing what sounded like vulgar songs in German at the top of his voice.

"You are really difficult when you're drunk, you know that." As Colin asked when Heinrich stopped and peed on someone's flowers, Colin was fairly sure he was being annoying on purpose.

By the time they arrived at his house, Colin was thoroughly over the little man's antics.

This time he didn't give the man water or aspirin before bed, mainly out of petty spite.

***

"Heinrich, you were not a very nice person last night. Certainly, not someone I wanted to socialise with, had I not been concerned about you getting home safe I might have just left you outside. Hell, I was tempted to ditch you multiple times on the way home. You peed on poor old Mrs Fogarty's prize roses!" He shook his head and forcefully thumped the plate with the fried egg sandwich on the table. "Eat your breakfast. We leave in ten minutes."

"I am sorry my friend, I was not in my right mind. The drink, it changes me." Colin could see him pale as he looked at the egg. "I should stop drinking." He pushed the plate away and put his head in his hands.

"Hmm." He took pity on the man and placed two aspirin on the table before pouring a pint of cold water. "Perhaps we could both do with turning a new leaf, curb the excesses. Take those and drink the whole pint. I'll wrap your sandwich for you." He took the plate and carefully wrapped the sandwich in butcher paper and twine. "If you can stomach it sometime this morning then you will feel better for eating."

Colin sat down and ate his own sandwich. He felt a little seedy but was glad he was less affected by hangovers than the little scientist. Especially considering, if all went to plan he would be digging up sewage pipes today.

***

As Colin drove up in the van to drop Hans at the gate the security guard stopped him. "You're a plumber?" He asked.

"Yeah, that's why it says 'Plumber and drain layer' on the side of my van," Colin replied with a smile.

"Do you have some time for an urgent fix? All the toilets are backing up and overflowing all through the facility." Now that the man said it Colin was almost sure there was a faint smell of sewage wafting out of the gate.

"Well, I do have an appointment at nine but if I can use your phone I am sure the old lady will let me reschedule." He couldn't stop himself from smiling, the plan was working perfectly.

"Yeah, the phone's in here." The guard told him, leading him to the guard hut.

Colin placed a call, not to the supposed old lady but rather to one of the contacts in the resistance, she played the part well, he used the prearranged code to tell her he was in. "Right, she's happy. I'll just pull the van in, you okay with Hans showing me where to go?" The man agreed and he drove the van straight into the compound, the guard not stopping him.

"So, a stinky day at the office eh? Which building is yours?" Colin asked Hans as he drove towards the back of the fenced area. He knew already of course but it paid to pretend he was unfamiliar with the layout. Hans pointed out the biggest building and as Colin drove up towards the warehouse he could see his blockage was working a little too well. There was sewage seeping out of the manhole cover closest to the building.

Hans looked extremely pale, the smell obviously causing his stomach to rebel. "You don't look too good. I wouldn't suggest any of the toilets if you're going to be sick. Perhaps find a bucket?" The small scientist nodded and made a run for the building, allowing Colin to surreptitiously remove a large bag and several blocks of explosives from the pipe on the roof of his van. He sauntered into the building with the heavy rucksack, nobody seemed to be around so he carefully located the steel girders holding the building up and attached a block of explosives to the back of each one. The paint on the explosives was ever so slightly different from that on the steel beams but it was close enough to pass casual inspection.

Once that was finished he located what appeared to be the control room, again there was nobody inside so he hid the rest of the bag's contents behind a rack of electronics, judging by the mess of wires and dust people didn't look back there often.

As he was walking across the large warehouse floor a man accosted him, "What are you doing here?" He asked in a very English accent.

"I'm here to fix the plumbing. Hans was showing me around but I seem to have lost him." The man looked relieved, nobody enjoyed the smell of human excrement in the morning.

"He went in this direction, come with me." The man took him across the wide empty floor, there were thick cables snaking from the control room to some kind of arrays at four corners of the room, the space between had tire tracks on it. Colin carefully didn't ask what they were doing here.

"Hans, the blockage isn't here. Do you want to show me the next building or should I just go myself?" Colin asked the man who was clutching a sour smelling steel bucket.

"Just go, zer ist nothing important outside of zis lab. Nobody vil mind you looking at ze oder buildings." Hans may just have had an inflated opinion of his work but that suited Colin perfectly. He returned to his van and removed a wheelbarrow from the back, then loaded a very long plumbers snake along with a spade, shovel and a large proportion of the remaining explosive.

Security in the compound was exceedingly lax, people didn't blink an eye at him as he walked around. Wandering the yard he visited each building, there were surprisingly few people working in this research base and he found many of the smaller buildings to be completely abandoned. The doors were unlocked though so he placed explosives anyway, it didn't hurt to be thorough.

By the time he got to the far corner of the compound, he had used all of his remaining explosives.

He found the last manhole on the property and began to dig. It took him an hour to dig a large enough hole to be believable and he then hit the ceramic pipe with a hammer and let the seepage from the new break fill the hole, covering the pipe inside. Once that was done he took his plumbers snake, inserted it into the manhole and ran it all the way down to his self inserted blockage. It took a few good heaves on the end of the rod before the rags at the other end came free and the sewage started to flow.

"Damn, I really need a shower now," he said to himself, looking down at his soiled clothing.

***

"I've done a temporary fix which should last the day, you have a collapsed pipe though so I'm going to have to come back with a replacement and dig it out. It's going to need to be done out of hours though, can't have people flushing the loo with the waste draining into an open pit, at least, not with me standing in it." He gave a little laugh, the man at the desk didn't seem to think it was that funny though. "I will have a vacuum pump going into a septic storage tank but you really don't want to run that during the day. It's a bit stinky and can't hold a huge amount." The man was still giving him a blank stare, obviously not interested in the mechanics of the job. The look on his face suggested Colin stank, which was probably true.

"Anyway, when is knockoff time? I can come just before then and set up the gear, perhaps get the first bit of digging done." Colin's palms were starting to sweat.

"We work until five." Was the short answer the man gave.

"Not a talker eh? Oh well, guess I will have to take some music with me to pass the time tonight then." Colin said as he waved goodbye.

He left the man and drove home. He hadn't intended to return after placing the explosives but having seen the equipment in that warehouse he had what could possibly be a terrible plan. The problem was, that every block of explosive in the compound had a timer attached, they were timed to go boom at exactly nine pm. This was coordinated with a mortar attack his contacts in the resistance had planned, mainly to cover his involvement. He really needed to get out by then.

He placed a call to a friend he knew had a vacuum truck that he could borrow.

***

The vacuum truck was designed with two containers, the vacuum chamber and the slightly larger collection vessel. Both of these had access hatches large enough to crawl through in order to clean the insides. His plan hinged on opening the valve on the pipe which drove the big vacuum pump, this would then make the machine sound like it was working whilst the tanks would still be accessible. He popped around to Guy's scrapyard to ask a favour before returning home.

"Hey, where's the boss?" He asked, seeing Nik and Rich standing silently staring at the tank and supping tea.

"Off on a run down south, he's delivering scrap to the blast furnaces, won't be back until the morning," Nik said, still staring at the machine.

"Okay, either of you guys up for a good old German heist?" Colin asked, rubbing his hands together.

"Heist is actually an old Yankee slang. Nothing German about it." Nik said casually, "We could come off the mounting for the carburettor, swing a ninety and pick up the bolt hole for the alternator which we obviously aren't using." He said, apparently continuing a conversation he had been having with Rich.

"Okay, so whatever the German word for robbery is then," Colin said, frustrated at being ignored.

"Nah," Rich said, "It's way too hot in there. We need to come in from underneath."

"Hmm, or we could just wrap it in foil, or get it ceramic coated." He moved to get a better angle at whatever the pair were looking at. "I suppose we could come up from underneath though." They lapsed into silence again.

"Guys, heist? Tonight? Come on, stop ignoring me!" Colin pushed in front of the men, breaking their line of sight.

"Hmm, yeah sure. What time?" Rich said, still distracted.

"Four PM, at my place," Colin said, not sure Rich was actually understanding him.

"Sure." Rich moved around him and peered under the tank. "I guess we shouldn't put things underneath, that skidpan is there for a reason." He pulled a steel rule from his pocket and held it against the tank. "Yeah, you're right. We need a bracket."

Colin huffed and left, calling out "Make sure you are there!" as he walked away.

"What do think that's about?" Nik asked once he was gone.

"Pretty sure we're going to steal a time machine." Rich said, dismissively, "Two mil steel plate?" He asked, wandering off to get the grinder.

"Was it just me or did he stink?" Nik asked, already fiddling with a cardboard template.

*** Colin did nothing all day, waiting patiently for the evening to come and for him to get to work. Nik and Rich arrived at his house mid-afternoon in their overalls and they went over his plan.

"So, you expect us to sit in that stinky steel box until you distract the guard, pop out and steal a computer and then jump back in?" Rich asked, not liking the plan one bit.

"Erm, you also sort of have to make the sucky truck work and pull all the sewage whilst you are running around the warehouse. Otherwise, I won't be able to replace the pipe." Colin said hesitantly, his face screwed up in concern that the boys wouldn't go through with his plan.

"So, the vacuum chamber will be even more stinky after that?" Nik asked, wrinkling his nose.

"If you close the valve on the poo tank first and run the vacuum pump to evacuate the bad air in the tank it shouldn't be too bad" Colin assured them. "I would do it myself but I'm the distraction."

Nik grumbled a bit at this and Colin rummaged through his workshop to find some old gas masks, they were of the same era as the tank they were renovating.

"Do these still work, they're older than all three of us put together!" Rich asked as Nik tried one on.

"I replaced the filters when I got them. They should be fine." Colin assured him, Nik stuck his head into the hatch of the vacuum truck for a minute before coming back and giving a thumbs up.

"Fine, you are washing our overalls after this is done though," Rich warned him.

They went through the plan a few more times and then had a cup of tea before loading the equipment they needed into the empty chamber of the truck.

"You had better get those valves right, I do not want to suffocate in poo vapour in the back of a sucky truck," Rich told Colin sternly before getting into the tank.

There was a handle on the inside so that you couldn't accidentally lock yourself in during the cleaning process. Even so, the two friends had some serious claustrophobia sitting in the dark and breathing through the restrictive gas masks. It didn't help that the motion of the truck as Colin drove the roads to the research lab threw them around the smooth slippery interior of the tank.

They were glad when the truck finally pulled up to the security gate, they could faintly hear a murmured conversation outside before they continued far more sedately into the compound.

There was a considerable amount of banging and clattering after they stopped before suddenly there was a deafening noise of the petrol vacuum pump starting up. Nik held his hand to the suction pipe, not trusting that Colin had disconnected it, fortunately though, there was no suction.

They waited and counted two minutes, peering at Nik’s watch with the only light in the tank coming from its illuminated dial. When the clock finally ticked over the second minute they very carefully opened the hatch. Colin had thoughtfully parked next to the large warehouse and the main line of sight to the hatch was from the building. They slipped out, their egress less than graceful but they at least managed not to hurt themselves.

“Okay, what did he say? Lock the hatch down and then pull the red lever? There’s an orange one too, you don't think he's colour blind do you?” Nik joked, pulling the lever through a half-turn, a huge hiss came out causing them to flatten themselves into the doorframe waiting nervously for someone to investigate the noise and spot them. The hose at the back of the truck started rhythmically thumping and making a gurgling noise, suddenly the two friends were glad they had not removed the gas masks.

“Right, locked door. You think Colin’s lock opening gun works?” Rich said once they were comfortable nobody was coming. He inserted the thing into the lock and pulled the trigger, it made a buzzing noise and the men looked at each other in amazement as the lock turned. “I guess we don't need the pry bar then!”

“Hey, I'm keeping this thing close, who knows when I might need to cold-cock a security guard?” Nik said, waving the heavy steel bar two-handed.

The interior of the warehouse was dimly lit by small windows high up the walls, the time travel equipment lurked ominously in the centre of the room, black snake-like cables making their serpentine way into the small building off to one side.

"So, let's get this computer eh?" Rich said, portraying more confidence than he felt. He locked the door behind them, just in case someone was on patrol. They tiptoed through the silent building to the odd little office and tried the handle, it was locked so they pulled out the lock picking machine before realising it was a deadbolt, a simpler lock to pick but one the machine was incapable of doing.

"Sod it," Nik said, deploying the black steel prybar and levering the door open with a noise which sounded in the dead silence like a deafening crash. They both stilled, listening for running feet, hearing none they quickly entered the room and closed the door, letting it hang ineffectually in the door jam.

After a quick look around Rich unplugged the cables from the back of a bulky rack-mounted computer. "I hope this fits through the hatch!" He said and hurriedly carried it to the exterior door, he then raced back to help Nik look through the remaining equipment.

"Hey, read this. If I'm reading it correctly these guys are idiots." Rich quickly skimmed the document in the fading light, it outlined the experiments they had done to try sending someone backwards in time. "It works! Bloody hell they have an actual time machine! How can they not understand that? It's timelines, isn't it? You can't change things, but you can observe. Paradox theory, oh wow." He grabbed another log book and started flipping through. "Oh wow, this thing killed people, it didn't just send them to another timeline or into the past, it ripped chunks out of them. Those scientists are monsters. Look, prisoners, mental patients, even their own soldiers! It only worked one time in ten, if that. Even then, the people didn't come back!"

"Yeah, I bet they know that it could work, the scientists must just be trying to brute force an answer. No matter the cost." Nik thrust another page under Rich's nose, "Look at what they are using for the emitter! It might as well be unobtainium! There is no way we could reproduce those things."

"Let's steal them then!" Rich said, unplugging the thick cables from the back of the equipment.

"There is no way we could fit that through the hatch," Nik said, looking forlornly at the large flat sheets. He piled up the research notes and carried the stack of paper to the front door.

On his way back he met Rich coming out, dragging the heavy cable. "I have an idea." He said in passing and continued on to the closest panel. Once he got there he knocked the thing to the floor and started unscrewing the emitter from its legs. "Come on, get the others. We don't need them in perfect working order, we can bend them, fold them up!" He got the last thumb screw out and started stamping on the thick sheet, it bent slowly under the barrage of blows. Seeing it was working Nik rushed to do the same.

It didn't take long for them to have a collection of scrap metal stacked at the door, Nik checked his watch, "Colin said half past, we still have twenty minutes. Let's grab the electronics too."

They rushed to unrack the boxes, dragging them two at a time to the door. Nik checked his watch again. "Okay, let's get ready, we have five minutes from when we shut this suction pump off."

They opened the door and looked around, there was still nobody in sight, they took as much of the equipment as possible and lined it up, ready to pack it into the truck. Rich turned the large red handle again and unscrewed the latch on the vacuum chamber. Both men recoiled as if stung, regretting leaving their gas masks dangling around their necks, they hurriedly put them on, wasting precious seconds but unable to work without them.

They loaded the all-important computer first, the corners just fit through the gap. Nik hopped up into the opening and pulled the box right to the back, "Throw me the papers next, there's a gap under the box that I can jam them into." They carefully packed the contents of the office into the bottom of the vacuum tank, leaving the ungainly sheets until last.

"They aren't going to fit, especially with the long chunky cables attached. Does Colin have anything we can use to cut them off?" Nik clambered out of the hole and helped hunt through the truck, eventually finding a small pair of hand sheers. He started hacking the cable from the first of the panels as Rich continued to hunt. He could only take little nibbles of shielding and single strands of wire with the tiny snips but managed to cut two of the cables and give himself a massive blood blister by the time Rich came back empty-handed.

"Let's load these two, we don't have long." He shouted through the heavy mask.

They shoved the surprisingly heavy bent metal through the hole, the edges catching on the opening and shrieking in protest.

"We won't fit if we do the other two," Rich said, sticking his head through the hole. "I have an idea, let's put it in the poop hole."

"You would! You dirty bugger!" Nik joked whilst undoing the hatch. The slurry of waste was not far below the level of the hatch, they pushed the panels in and fed the coils of cable in after them, the poo rising ever closer to the opening. They slammed the hatch shut and span the handle, diving into their own hatch, aware the time limit was getting close.

"Damn! The cables! Someone will see them." Rich panicked, he worked his way out of the tight space and fed the cut off cables into the hatch.

"You won't fit if you keep going, Rich!" Nik warned as the space was rapidly taken up by thick rubbery coils.

"I don't care, I can find a way out over the wall!" He said, still feeding the cable in.

Once he managed to get the wire into the hatch he looked in the hole. "I can fit." He said and jumped in, forcing his shoulders into the hole. Nik let out an oomph as the air was forced from his lungs. Rich heard voices as he squirmed to get the hatch shut. He exhaled, trying to get the hatch the last tiny distance, finally, it clicked and he managed to spin the handle just enough to engage. Both men were breathing shallowly due to the confined space, in Nik's case he was glad of the small breaths, his mask had been knocked askew when Rich jumped on top of him and the smell was horrendous as both men had forgotten Colin's advice to purge the air before getting in.

They would have sighed in relief if they could as the vacuum shut off. Their hearts almost stopped however when they heard a hatch open. Rich tightened his hold on the handle, desperately willing the person on the other side to go away.

They were relieved a second time when the truck engine started and they rattled off along the road. Once they were sure the truck was out of the compound Nik tried to yell, "Open the bloody hatch!" It came out as a squeak but Rich understood and cracked it open, letting light and blessed cold fresh air into the interior. "God it stinks in here!" Nik could only nod in agreement.

***

Colin was frustrated, his part of the plan had gone perfectly, he had occupied the single guard talking about girls and music, food and strangely, sewage. Fortunately, it was a different guard, his conversation would never have distracted the guard from the morning. This young man had happily sat on Colin's overturned wheelbarrow, drinking something cold from his thermos and discussing life. He didn't seem at all inclined to go on any regular patrols so Colin's job, other than the digging and smell of faeces whilst under the lingering effects of a hangover, was supremely easy.

He was constantly fretting, wondering how the boys were getting on, all he knew was that they had gotten out of the vacuum tank and he only knew that because the sewage flow stopped.

He took his time digging the hole, piling the earth on a tarpaulin beside the hole and taking regular breathers. The spotty teen may have been happy to talk but he certainly wasn't keen to do any of the digging.

"So, what do you do all night? This can't be a riveting job, all on your own for what? Twelve hours?" He asked the boy, hoping he was lazy enough to be in the guard hut at nine pm.

"I'm studying for my entrance exams, I want to be a medic." The gangly youth was enthusiastic about his chosen profession, talking Colin's ear off about his studies.

By the time he had finished the pipe repair, Colin knew far more about military entry exams than he ever would need to know. The sewage still had not started flowing by the time he felt the tank should be full. That was a concern, a big concern. It should have taken five minutes to get the computer and get back inside the tank. He had already been stalling for almost ten minutes.

He sat down at the edge of the hole, legs dangling inside, listening for the sewage to start flowing. "Well. I don't see the appeal of joining the war effort, I mean, the war has taken everyone close to me. If it's important to you though, make it happen. Work hard and you can do anything." He said seriously. The boy smiled at him and to Colin's relief, he heard the trickle of liquid through the new pipe.

"Right, time to close up this hole." He said, lifting his shovel again. "It sounds like the truck is full."

It had been surprisingly hard to take over five minutes to fill the hole. He messed about with the manhole cover, brushed out his already fairly clean wheelbarrow and sowed grass seed before walking the boy slowly back to the truck, even so, he saw some brief movement as they approached. Luckily the boy had been distracted so he missed it but Colin was sure he heard the clink of the hatch shutting.

"You know, I'm meant to check the truck over before you leave, to make sure you didn't nick anything." The boy said reluctantly as Colin turned off the pump.

"You want to check that the truck is full of poo? Sure thing." Colin laughed, unlatching and swinging open the rear container whilst holding his nose.

The boy recoiled but then impressed Colin by shining his torch into the interior. "Yeah, perhaps just the cabin." The lad said, his face showing that he was fighting to keep his stomach contents.

Colin loaded the tools and wheelbarrow into their slots on the truck and let the boy rummage in the glove box.

"Want a lift back to the guard hut? It sounds like you are missing out on some bookwork!" The boy had happily accepted the ride in the sucky truck and Colin couldn't help but hope he stayed in the guard hut for an hour, otherwise, the nine o'clock deadline could literally be deadly.

He drove slowly and carefully home, his precious cargo and the large tank of sewage weighing the truck down and sloshing, causing turns and braking to become precarious.

He did notice the hatch open briefly in the rear-view mirror and was relieved that at least one of the boys was safely inside.