He had tested the machine by making it move six feet across the workshop, it was odd watching something disappear, almost silently, before reappearing in a different place a few minutes later.

It only worked once, as it disappeared it severed the cables feeding it power. He had known, or at least suspected that to happen, he had not expected the cables to be melted together on both ends though. It must have been due to them being connected with the machine, he had tools and a strip of carpet that were within the range of the time field, they hadn’t been affected in the slightest. As it was though, he was almost suffocated by the smoke from the molten insulation, not just when the machine disappeared but again when it caused a renewed cloud of noxious smoke as it reappeared.

He had shortened the cables, cutting at least a foot from each severed end. He then cursed himself for moving the heavy machine away from the power source. He hunted for a block and tackle or even a ratchet strap but decided they were all upstairs in his van. He then grunted and strained to try to move the heavy steel box before thinking sensibly and retrieving the big hydraulic ram he had used during his tunnelling, using Nik’s method of smashing a hold in the concrete floor he used the ram to move the box a foot at a time, the heavy steel plate grinding across the concrete with a noise that set his teeth on edge. He felt bad looking at the mess he had made of his nice floor, even worse when he tried to console himself that this would be the last time he used the place, it had become his happy place, he could tinker happily ignoring the world above. Even now, having lived alone down here for weeks with soldiers patrolling his house above he felt relatively safe. He sighed and made another large divot in the floor with his hammer, glad that the sound didn’t travel.

***

The entire town was in an uproar, explosions had gone off in military installations around the county and even more people had been found dead, murdered in their sleep or poisoned in public places. It hadn’t made a difference to the surveillance the three friends were under. If anything the watchers had been more obvious, perhaps even more numerous in the past few weeks.

“Are you mopping the concrete floor?” Nik asked, even though it was blatantly obvious that, yes, Rich was mopping the floor. The water that was coming off into the bucket was black.

“If you have anything better for me to do, sing out. I’m bored of sweeping, we haven’t done enough work to produce dust in weeks.” Rich complained, dipping the mop into a different bucket of relatively clean water.

“We could fix the gearbox linkage.” Nik suggested, it was one of the eighteen jobs left on the ‘tiny list of niggly jobs’ before they could actually say the tank was complete, they had renamed the list again because they were bored. It was also the only job stopping the potential sale, if the government suddenly decided it still wanted to buy it.

“Perhaps we can do the little clips for the fuel line instead?” Rich suggested, wringing the mop one last time. “We need about a thousand of them.”

“Twenty three. You counted them yourself.” Nik reminded him.

Rich gave him a dirty look and went to dispose of the dirty water whilst Nik made a start. He quickly returned with an odd look on his face. “What’s got you all sideways?” Nik asked.

“There is a soldier, smoking a pipe, sitting on the shed roof. Clear as day. Do they have no professional pride? Surely their job is covert surveillance?”

“I would rather know they were watching us. Did you say hello?” Nik asked, he was setting up their hydraulic press with a homemade form to stamp the little brackets.

“No!” Rich exclaimed, as if this was a deadly sin, “I waved.” He said in a quiet voice.

“If we had more tea I would invite him in but as it is…” Nik shrugged.

“Yeah. Shall I work the press whilst you weld them in?” Rich asked, grabbing the little rectangles of steel they had cut weeks ago.

“Sure.” Nik struggled into his welding gear. “Make sure you hit them with the primer too.”

“You’ll get paint all over your gloves.”

“Only the first one, that stuff dries really fast,” Nik assured him.

“Well, surely you can wait a few minutes then!” Rich said with a frustrated frown.

***

“What are they doing now?” The soldier asked as he came to relieve the previous shift. They were basically living in the van, monitoring the men twenty-four seven.

“Arguing like an old married couple. Same as usual. Something about ruining his gloves with paint.” The man yawned and stretched, he had been sitting in the same position listening to the inane conversations of a couple of idiots for hours. “I don’t see why we are still on this job. None of these people are threats to national security.” He griped passing the headset to his replacement. They had been on this same assignment for over a month.

“Well, it’s unlikely we’ll get any orders for another week or two. Someone is still picking off the top knobs, I don’t think we have anyone ranked more than a sergeant in the whole county.” The incoming soldier twiddled some knobs and switched between the various listening devices in the warehouse, making sure he had the best settings to capture the conversation.

“What are the high command playing at? Surely they would send people from the continent by now?” He went to the back of the truck they were using and started making another pot of coffee.

“They did, multiple times! Apparently, the new guys were picked off as soon as they arrived, one of them was killed in a bombing at the checkpoint before he even got into the country!” He shivered, “I didn’t think these resistance people would be so capable, from what I heard they were mainly pensioners! Weirdly enough, I haven’t heard these guys mention the cull yet, perhaps that’s a sign they are actually in on it? Then again, they talk to no one and don’t read the paper so... perhaps not.” He said with a shrug.

The second soldier shook his head as he stirred the coffee, then he deliberately changed the subject, “You know, these guys we are listening to are almost out of tea? I feel sorry for them, I swear they run on the stuff.”

“Is that because they blacklisted them? It sounds like they haven’t had a new job in weeks.” He accepted the coffee and smiled blissfully as he sipped the brown nectar. “You know, I had a wander around their yard earlier, waved at the chubby one. We’ve been listening to them for so long I almost forgot he didn’t know me!”

"I'm not sure you can call him chubby anymore, he's lost a lot of weight this last month."

"Yeah, I do not envy them for their current diet." He made a face thinking of the things they had heard them cook, "Perhaps if we get pulled from this job we can invite them for a pie and a pint down the Nag's Head? My treat."

***

Guy was sitting in his truck. He had been sitting there, parked outside his own yard, unmoving for almost an hour. He had been called up for active duty, something he knew was tantamount to a death sentence. Had it been a year before he might have run away and joined the resistance, now though, well, that just wasn’t possible. He glanced to his right at his currently assigned shadow. He had no contacts, no friends who could help, no resources to fall back on, only his two best friends and a useless time machine.

He looked to the heavens, wishing for divine guidance. With none forthcoming, sighing, he finally got out of his truck, he wasn’t looking forward to the conversation he was about to have.

The door to the workshop swung shut with a hollow thud, a sound which Guy felt symbolised the gravity of what he was about to say.

Both Nik and Rich were sitting down reading some engineering manuals and looked up at the bang, “Hey Guy, any work for us?” Rich asked, ever hopeful.

“No, and I need to talk to you about that.” He said, sitting down across from them.

The two men shared a look. “Ominous…” Rich said slowly.

“There is no good way to start this guys, I’m broke. I can’t afford to run the yard, hell I can’t even afford to eat.” He said, his eyes straying to his boots.

“We’ll find something. We can get other jobs whilst we wait for work to come in, you’ve been good to us all these years, we would be happy to chip in and support you for a change.” Rich assured him, Nik nodding alongside.

“I appreciate that guys, I really do. That’s only the start of my bad news though.” Guy paused, unwilling to continue but knowing he had to. He gulped and pushed on, “I’ve been called up. They gave me until the end of the week to set my affairs in order.”

“Oh god.” Both his friends could only stare slack jawed at him. “The air force?”

“Yeah, apparently they are conscripting all trained pilots no matter their age.” He finally met their eyes, tears flowing freely down his face. “If you want it, I’ll sign the yard over to you. You can mothball it until things pick up.” His breath hitched and he looked away again.

“But, you’ll be back. Tell us you will come back. Make us believe it, Guy, please?” Nik pleaded.

Guy just shook his head, he surged to his feet and moved away towards the tank, “You know I can’t. The last time they pushed an attack, the casualties for pilots were almost total.” He gulped, “I’m not coming back.”

They could see his shoulders heaving as he sobbed, Rich wiped tears from his own eyes and got up, walking over to give him a hug.

“But… the tank…” Nik said, in a total state of shock.

“It’s all yours.” Guy’s voice was muffled by Rich’s shoulder.

Nik stood and rushed out the back door to the yard, fighting to hold back the tears. They heard crashes and bangs as he obviously took his anger out on the inventory.

“I’ll make it official tomorrow,” Guy said, pushing Rich away and wiping the tears from his eyes.

“Is there any point?” Rich asked bitterly, “You know we’ll be next.” He sat back down and buried his face in his hands.

“You can’t know that, they couldn’t take every able bodied man or the country would fall apart,” Guy assured him.

“Don’t be stupid. They took our fathers, they were older than us and had dependent children. What makes you think they won’t take two fit, single, unemployed men?” He chuckled, “The only hope we have is that we get posted to the engineering corps.”

“Well, that’s at least a chance you might make it through.” Guy scuffed his feet on the floor. “I can’t stay just now.” He hurried out the door without a backward glance, unable to face the conversation any longer.

***

The resistance force had more than doubled in number with the addition of the prisoners, most of them were in very bad health having had little to no exercise and a very poor diet for a prolonged time. Most of the men were far younger than those who rescued them but you would be hard pushed to tell with their gaunt faces and shuffling gaits, morale was high though and the crowded safe house was alive with talk and merriment.

They had heard no rumours that these prisoners existed and would never have guessed they would be incarcerated in such a backwater town. Each man on the fourth floor had been a political or military leader, the top of the top brass. The prime minister of the then British empire was sitting across from Adrian, happily retelling the tale of woe and torture which led to him having no fingernails, the reason he now had to have beer cans opened for him.

Two of Adrian’s best friends were at the table, men he had known for decades. To him it seemed they had been resurrected, he still couldn’t believe his eyes and had caught himself wondering if, in fact, he was dead himself with this being some strange afterlife. They were both stick thin and unkempt though and every time he spoke to them he could see the suffering in their eyes.

The Field Marshall stood and clinked his glass, silence fell instantly, “We never expected this, when we began our final stand we aimed only to cause chaos in our little corner of the world.” He looked over the tightly packed faces, “Somehow, people heard of what we were doing and emulated it. Across the European continent, people have risen up and struck back at the regime which is oppressing us. They have said no, we will not die for your cause, we would rather die denying your right to this country. The German war force is now almost neutered, the heads of the hydra have almost been severed but we will need to impose a new order, we need a leader who can bring peace and in our time of need we have been given a chance.” He turned to the deposed prime minister, “Will you lead this country again?”

The minister smiled, “It won’t be that easy, but yes. I will.”

The men all cheered and raised their glasses, with many of them feeling the effect of the small amount of alcohol after having had none for so many years a rousing chorus of the national anthem was started and then hurriedly hushed, the veterans reminding them that a safe house was only safe if it was secret.

***

Rich put down the soldering iron and turned it off at the wall, he then threw the circuit board he had been working on across the workshop, amazingly getting it into the rubbish bin on the other side of the building. He had been trying to create an interface to allow their computer to control the time machine all week. The original in Colin’s basement could do it but it was a specially constructed machine, not some twelve-year-old personal computer designed to run accounting software and type up invoices.

He had finally admitted that he had no idea what he was doing, he was desperate though. Guy was leaving for the continent the next morning, this was the last chance for the three of them to escape.

He walked over to the tank where Nik was sitting in the driver’s seat, staring into space. He carefully picked up a small device from above the door frame and moved it across the room then returned and silently closed the heavy steel door. Sitting in the chair next to his friend he said, almost silently, “We need to talk.”

Nik looked around, surprised to be pried from his own thoughts, “Here?” he asked just as quietly.

“We need to go to Colin’s house. We need that computer.” Nik’s eyes widened, “I moved the bug.” Rich assured him.

Nik nodded, deep in thought. Eventually, he met Rich’s eyes, “Seems selfish. You know Colin is likely down there? Starved to death. If we are risking it for Guy, we certainly should have done so for Colin.”

“Yeah, I know. I kind of hate myself right now.” Rich admitted, “It’s not just Guy though. You know they’re stripping the country. In a few months every man, woman and child who can hold a rifle will be on the front lines, the only people left will be the farmers and the people running the munitions factories.”

“Every morning I expect that letter in the post. I don’t think I would take it as calmly as Guy did.” Nik agreed. “I don’t want to find him down there though Rich, all desiccated and knowing that I could have saved him.”

“I’ll go down. If he’s there you won’t have to see him.” Rich promised.

Nik nodded, “Tonight? We can sneak out after bedtime like when we were kids in the dorms. We can nip back here and get Guy and his rifles.”

Rich patted his arm and got up, leaving him staring out of the little hatch.

***

A small group of geriatric men in antique British uniforms approached the army barracks. There had been a lot of discussions, or rather, fighting, over whether this was a stupid idea or not.

Generally, Adrian thought it was a terrible idea, but he also thought it might work. He raised a bullhorn to his lips, “We are here to negotiate your surrender. We know that your entire command structure is missing, your leadership and that of all the armed forces throughout the country have been killed.” He paused and looked to his right, “You know, we could have gotten someone to write me a speech. I have no idea what I’m meant to be saying.” He grumbled.

He raised the loud hailer to his lips again, “Please send a representative to discuss terms in the next five minutes.” Again he turned to his old friend on his right, “Is that too pushy, five minutes is enough, isn’t it? Yes, your right, start strong. I wish I had taken a seat now.” He looked around for a nice wall to sit on, half expecting gunfire.

With all the new blood and high ranking officials, Adrian had no idea how it had fallen on him to begin negotiations. Some of them had crossed the borders into neighbouring counties, meeting up with their resistance counterparts and offering terms to soldiers elsewhere but still, he felt it wasn’t exactly in his job description. He likely would have refused had he not had the support of his old friend Winston, and of course, the promotion to Lieutenant-General probably came with some negotiation responsibilities.

***

The boys walked home slowly, the thought of finding Colin was weighing heavily on their minds. The cool autumn afternoon was rapidly fading towards night and the streets were empty. They passed neatly kept gardens and looked wistfully at the brassicas and carrots, even the brussel sprouts were looking tempting.

“You know, if Colin were here he would have been out at night, thinning people's vegetable patches for them,” Nik said, his mouth watering.

“You know he makes more money than the three of us put together? People are happy to pay for other people to fix their sewage.” Rich reminded him.

“Wouldn’t have stopped him, I swear he nicks things for fun.” Nik stuffed his hands further into his pockets, hunching over as if it would warm him up.

They were just passing the swing park, “Want to play on the swings again? You quite enjoyed it last time.” Rich suggested.

“It was a bit of a different mood last time… but I guess so.” They trudged through the long grass to the swings and sat down, for once it didn’t appear they had been followed.

They started to swing slowly, speaking quietly about the plan for the evening. They were in two minds about involving Guy but felt that he would give their plan a far better chance of success.

“So, no killing, right?” Nik insisted. “Just scare them and tie them up? Let's not take weapons, that way they have less reason to shoot us.”

“What if they shoot first?” Rich asked.

“We just give up and admit we were looking for our friend. What can they do, lock us up and refuse to send us to the front line?” Nik was adamant that he didn’t want to hurt anyone.

“Good point, okay we do it your way.” Rich kicked his swing higher, ending the conversation.

They swung for what seemed like hours, neither keen to go home to mashed, boiled or casseroled turnip. When it seemed like they would be swinging until it was time to fetch Guy there was a loud crack and Rich fell from the sky right at the apex of his swing. He landed solidly on his backside with the wind knocked out of him.

Nik hopped off his own swing without waiting for it to slow down, “You okay mate?” he asked, struggling to hide his amusement.

“You don’t think that’s a sign do you?” Rich asked once he had caught his breath.

“Yeah! It’s a sign the turnip diet isn’t doing enough to make you lose weight!” Nik said, bursting out laughing.

“Well, in that case, you’re not getting any of my sponge cake I’m baking tonight,” Rich warned him as he levered himself to his feet and rubbed his coccyx.

***

The cake had been awful, he would almost say it was a waste of four perfectly good eggs, let alone the tiny amount of sugar and cornflour. It had been a recipe from his mother’s cookbook, one he had now torn out and thrown in the fire.

They had eaten it though, they were hungry enough that the taste mattered less than calories. Strangely though, they had found it went better with leftover mashed turnip than on its own. Nik swore it had an oddly fishy flavour!

It had filled their bellies though and they both wished that they could actually go to sleep rather than waiting in the dark for their personal peeping toms to get bored.

Finally, they felt safe to sneak out the back door. Their hearts were in their throats as they tried to silently shut the back door, their attempt to nonchalantly walk down the main street was probably anything but and the climb in through the rear of the yard had both of them thinking they must have woken the dead. Eventually though, they were standing over the uncomfortable looking form of Guy, sleeping on the couch with his legs hanging off the end and his neck at an angle which must have been contributing to the snoring which must be the only reason they hadn’t been heard coming over the fence.

Rich put his hand over Guy’s mouth, causing the man to start awake, wide eyed and panicked. He calmed when he saw the familiar faces, fortunately getting the message about being quiet.

They managed to get him to dress and follow them and they made it over the fence without making a racket this time, Guy waited until they were a few blocks from the yard before asking, “What the hell are we doing?”

“We are going to go and steal the control circuit from Colin’s possibly dead body, then we are escaping this hell hole into the distant past,” Nik replied flippantly.

“Why didn’t we take the Thompsons or the Webleys? Colin’s place was crawling with armed guards last time I was there.” Guy asked, ready to turn around and retrieve the weapons.

“Nik wants this to be a bloodless mission, at the first sign of violence we are going to turn ourselves in and gain a nice comfy cell instead of a place on the front line,” Rich said with a sarcastic tone.

“I don’t think that will happen. If it does, it will just be a short stay of execution, there is no way we don’t get sent to the front line, or shot, probably shot.” Guy said, not making any moves to turn around though.

Somehow, the thought of being shot on home soil actually seemed preferable to dying in the war.

***

Guy showed them the back way into Colin’s garden, it had been difficult to find the right house in the dark and once they did find it, climbing the fence without a handy raised bed turned out to be exceedingly difficult when you were trying to be quiet.

The guards occupying the house had obviously been using the garden for their breaks, there were mugs, plates and a sea of cigarette butts around Colin’s little deck chairs.

They carefully skirted the area which was lit by the kitchen lights shining through the window. Rich was wondering why nobody was coming to investigate the deep bass booming of his heart by the time they reached the side door.

Guy popped his head out past the door frame and back, looking in through the tiny window in the door. He frowned, puzzled by the view before slowly looking again. The light was on and there were two guards, oddly though, they appeared to have set up camp beds where the table had been. Both guards were in their underwear and fast asleep. He signalled for the other two to look and then pantomimed checking the other windows. Nik and Rich nodded and waited for his return, slowly easing the door open in readiness.

Guy gave the thumbs up and they silently glided into the kitchen, and tackled the sleeping men, pinning them down and covering their mouths whilst Guy quickly used the duct tape they had brought to secure them.

“Is anyone else in the house?” Nik asked the men in a whisper. Both men rapidly shook their heads. “Keep an eye on them.” He told Rich and he and Guy continued through the house, looking in each room and wondering why the men chose to sleep in the kitchen when there were perfectly good beds upstairs.

Finding nobody else in the house they returned to question the guards. In their absence, Rich had apparently ‘neatened up’ their bonds, their hands and feet now looked like they were encased in a smooth container, the tape extending halfway up their arms and legs and completely covering their hands and feet.

Nik went to remove the tape from one guard’s mouth but found he had to get scissors from the kitchen drawer due to the stiff layers of tape. Rich looked slightly sheepish when Nik shook his head in disbelief.

“Why are you sleeping in the kitchen?” Nik asked the nervous looking man who just shrugged. “Why not the beds? In fact, why sleep at all?”

“Nobody came to relieve us last week, there was no answer on the radio. It’s a cushy job so we didn’t want to give it up.” The man sounded a little simple, possibly exactly the sort of person you would leave guarding an empty house for weeks.

“Why the kitchen though?” Nik was a little frustrated already.

“It didn’t seem right, sleeping in someone else’s bed.” Nik shook his head and walked away, he was starting to feel really bad for not coming to Colin’s rescue. "It's warmer down here too."

“Tape him up and make them comfy. In fact, tape them to the beds.” He told Rich and walked out to the shed.

He found the kitchen table and chairs along with a few other pieces of furniture propped on top of the hidden hatch, instead of trying to move them he went inside and opened the hall cupboard. It was stacked high with firewood. Nik face palmed, if Colin had died because these idiots had accidentally blocked his escape routes… he kicked the pile of wood in frustration.

“Guys, I need a hand with some furniture.” He said, walking back to the shed.

It took seconds to move the heavy furniture with three people and they pressed the hidden button and waited for the hatch to open. Once it did they called down to Colin, just in case. There was no answer.

They climbed down, and Nik joined them even whilst dreading what they may find. The heavy steel door at the end of the hallway was shut so they knocked and shouted, hoping to find Colin alive somehow. When there was no answer they left to find some tools, returning with gardening implements and futilely trying to wedge the door open.

***

Colin’s movement alarm went off, someone was in the tunnel. He had the steel door shut tight but he knew that would only stop them for a brief time. Looking around the basement he spotted his gas flamethrower, he ran to the machine and picked it up, it was too light, he shook the gas cylinder, empty. He threw it across the room and started to panic, he had two bricks of his homemade explosive but he knew there was no way to use it safely without potentially killing himself.

“Nonononononono,” he mumbled, hating himself for even considering what he was about to do.

He grabbed the explosives, equipping one of the blocks with a timer. “This is stupid Colin. Why are you doing this Colin? You will kill yourself, Colin.” His fingers left a deep impression on the block of explosive as he gripped it tight. “Yes Colin, but what else can I do Colin, so full of bright ideas, why don’t you come up with something better?” He had been talking to himself on and off for weeks, he knew it was slightly insane but he had nobody else to speak to.

Quickly setting the explosive on the computer, he set the timer for five minutes, then tapped a few keys on the computer to set the coordinates for the next jump.

“And how do you expect to be able to press the go button Colin? Didn’t think of that, did you Colin?” He shook his fists and looked around desperately for a solution, pulling things from the shelves in the hope something might give him an idea.

There was a clang on the door and he glanced at the timer, a little over three minutes. He could hear muted voices on the other side of the door.

“Damnit!” He started swearing under his breath and did the only thing he could think of, he moved the keyboard to the ground beside the time machine and took a heavy spanner from his workbench. He then climbed into the small box, wedging himself in and closing the lid with his hand holding the spanner dangling outside over the keyboard. There was another clang on the door and he dropped the spanner, the lid came down with a clang just as the heavy object hit the enter key. The box disappeared.

***

“It’s just like Colin to booby-trap the apparatus,” Nik said, looking forlorn as he gazed at the destruction in the room. The pressure wave from the bomb caused their ears to pop and had almost blown the hinges off the door, in a way something quite fortunate as otherwise, they would have needed to bring in cutting torches to gain access just to find out that the computer was utterly destroyed.

All of the fluorescent tubes had been smashed too, “He isn’t here.” Rich said with relief, waving the smoke away and peering into the gloom. “I think he somehow got the test machine running. Look at this.” He held up a smouldering cable.

“Oh right! The box isn’t here!” Guy said, holding a cloth over his mouth to avoid breathing the smoke. Flames were starting to consume the contents of the racking, the flickering fire illuminating the room more than the light from the corridor.

Tears were streaming from Rich’s eyes from the acrid smoke, “More importantly, I don’t think the new control circuit is here either. Hopefully, he took it with him.” He coughed, causing him to take a deep breath and cough again, Nik pulled him out of the room and slammed the door.

“Okay, let’s get back. He isn’t here, we have to hope he went to the yard.”

***