Connor stared up at the ceiling, trying to make sense of this increasingly worrying situation he found himself in. At least they'd stopped injecting him to make him sleep, but that also presented another problem. Sooner or later, they'd expect him to start working on this project for Stuart. He could play the 'too injured to move' card for so long, but the doctor that Stuart had looking after him would not be easily fooled.

Of course, he could simply refuse to help Stuart, but he feared the consequences of that. He supposed it would be unlikely that they'd actually kill him; he was the only person alive that knew how New Dawn worked, but they could easily harm Abby if they were so inclined. He could never live with himself if Abby died because he'd not helped Stuart. There was nothing else for it. He would have to try and escape, but he would need help. Even if he did manage to get out of the building, he had no idea where or when he was, and then he'd have to try and locate the cloaked anomaly that Stuart had used to bring him here.

That was why he was attempting to befriend Alice, the young woman who had been here when he first woke up. Right now, she was clearing away the breakfast dishes. "Did you actually speak to Abby yesterday?" he asked, already knowing the answer but needing to start a conversation.

"Not exactly," Alice blushed, swallowing nervously. It confirmed Connor's suspicions that no contact had been made with Abby at all, or even attempted. It also confirmed that he was far from home, not just in miles but in years.

"I thought so," Connor said. "She'd have been here by now to take me home."

"I don't think they'd let you go home anyway, Mr Temple. Your injuries are..."

"It's Connor, and we both know that my injuries are not as bad as they first made out."

"That's not for me to say, Mr Te... Connor. I'm just a student. If the doctor says you need bed rest, then you should stay here."

"A student? So how come you're working here?"

"I'm trying to get into medical school, but the fees are more than I can afford. Mr Weston said he could offer me some work over the summer, get me some experience of looking after a patient and if I did well he'd help pay my course fees. I couldn't refuse, could I?"

Connor smiled. He knew exactly how it felt to be a struggling student; a career path that you desperately wanted to go down but couldn't afford. He'd been more fortunate than most. His inheritance money had been wisely invested after his father's death, giving him a nice lump sum when he turned 18 that paid his way into University without having to rely on loans. He had friends who had had to take jobs to be able to afford even the most basic of living costs.

"Well, if you ever need a reference," he said. "You seem to be doing a great job of looking after me, and believe me, I've been in hospital a few times and know good care when I see it."

"Are you ill?" Alice looked concerned and took Connor's chart from the end of the bed. "Do you have a medical condition that the doctor should be aware of?"

"Not unless being clumsy is classed as a medical condition." He patted the edge of the bed, motioning for Alice to sit down. "I'm bored. Talk to me."

Alice glanced over towards the door anxiously then sat down. "I suppose five minutes won't hurt. What do you want to talk about?"

"Well, as it looks like I'm going to be working here for a while, I suppose I should know something about the place. What's it like? Do you live around here?"

"To be honest, there's not much to do. I live a few miles away, but Mr Weston has provided me with my own room in this complex. This place used to belong to a government department that got shut down about ten years ago. I think they were something to do with the anomalies, but they lost their funding and the job of monitoring them was given to the military."

Connor sat up, determined to find out more. A sharp pain shot from his ribs as he moved, and he winced. Alice helped him by propping his pillow up behind him and he smiled gratefully before turning his thoughts to what she'd just said. Why had he not heard of this government department before? The ARC was the only official department in the UK that dealt with anomalies. Then it dawned on him that Alice was talking about a future version of the ARC. It made sense. He'd seen other versions of the ARC before and his mind was briefly taken back to the day that he, Abby and Danny had gone after Helen Cutter and stumbled across an old computer.

Just as he was about to ask Alice what year this was, an alarm sounded and Alice sprung to her feet with a look of panic on her face. There was the unmistakable sound of running in the corridor outside and shouting.

"What's that alarm for?" Connor asked. "Shouldn't we be evacuating or something? It might be a fire."

"I'm not sure, but it's probably just a drill. I'll go and find out." The alarm grew louder for a brief moment as Alice opened the door into the corridor, then it quietened slightly as she closed it behind her. Despite the fact his ribs hurt like hell, Connor attempted to get out of bed. This was the opportunity he'd been waiting for. Whilst everyone was distracted, running around dealing with whatever the alarm was for, he could slip out un-noticed.

He found his jeans and t-shirt folded on the chair beside the bed and pulled them on. They were both stained with his blood from the accident but he barely noticed as he limped his way to the door, clutching his aching ribs that seemed to hurt more with each breath he took. He felt sick and the pain was making him dizzy, but he had to push that to one side if he was going to get out of here.

Connor opened the door and leaned against the frame, trying to decide which way he should go. People were running around, going in and out of the other doors in the corridor as if looking for something. He opted to go left, since the majority of people were heading in that general direction carrying files in their arms. Suddenly, the pain overwhelmed him. He fell against the wall, barely able to breathe and his legs beginning to buckle underneath him. A strong arm caught him just before he fell to the ground.

"Mr Temple, what on earth are you doing out of bed?" The doctor said.

"I thought there was a fire," Connor lied.

"There's no fire, but we do have an emergency situation and I need to get you to somewhere where you'll be better hidden."

"Emergency?" Connor leaned on the doctor and allowed him to lead him down a narrow side corridor.

"We have intruders. They're trying to stop Mr Weston's work, claiming it's responsible for the end of the world. Can you believe that?"

"They'd be right," Connor hissed. His heart felt light. Whoever these 'intruders' were had to be on his side. Perhaps the anomaly team that had been shut down ten years ago had continued to operate independently and had been monitoring Stuart and his activities. He would be rescued very soon.

The doctor pushed Connor into a tiny office. "You'll be safe here as long as you don't make a noise. I'll come and get you when it's all over," he said, firmly closing the door. Connor heard the sound of a key turning in the lock and then silence. Frustrated, he banged his fists against the door but knew it was pointless. No-one would venture down that way whilst they were busy looking for the evidence of Stuart's work; evidence that was being hidden away in a desperate attempt to keep it from the intruders.

Connor had no idea how much time had passed when he finally heard heavy footsteps outside the door. At first, he assumed it would be the doctor, but then he heard Alice's voice. "He's in here. This is the scientist they brought in a couple of days ago. Weston said he held the key to completing the project." The door was unlocked and opened and the sight that greeted Connor made him almost leap for joy.

"Matt! Am I glad to see you! You have no idea..." He moved forward to hug him, but then he stopped. Something was wrong.

"Well done, Alice," Matt said. "Capturing Weston would have been pointless if we didn't have all of the other people involved in custody too." He nodded at a couple of soldiers at his side who moved forward and grabbed Connor.

"Matt? What's going on? It's me, Connor!"

"Have we met?"

Connor was confused. Matt dismissed him as if he was just an insect he'd crushed under his boot. The soldiers gripped him harder and began to practically drag him along. "Matt, please! Tell them who I am!" The soldiers ignored Connor's pleas and marched him along the corridor, with Matt and Alice a few paces behind. There hadn't even been a flicker of recognition in Matt's eyes. If for some reason he was pretending he didn't know Connor, then he was doing an excellent job of it. Puzzled, frustrated and hurting physically and mentally, Connor could do nothing except go along with whatever Matt was doing and trust that it was the right thing.

-o-

It hadn't taken Abby and Matt long to catch up with Becker and his men. The world on this side of the anomaly wasn't that different to the one that they'd left behind. When she thought about it later, Abby realised this was a good thing. Matt had been right about New Dawn being responsible for the destruction of the earth, and by destroying it they had changed the future that they'd previously seen through this anomaly. She also noticed similarities from her previous visits. The layout of the buildings was the same, but instead of being in ruins, this was a thriving business development in the heart of a city much like Canary Wharf in London.

"This way," Becker hissed, motioning in the direction of a taller building that Abby recognised. Unless she was mistaken, it was the building where she, Connor and Danny had found the computer that they used to program Helen's anomaly opening device with the route to site 333.

After an initial annoyed exchange between himself and Matt, Becker had resigned himself to the fact that Abby would not just stay on the other side of the anomaly as he'd instructed. Didn't anyone follow commands any more? He led the way, insisting that his two men flanked either side of Matt and Abby with their weapons raised. This place may have looked benign, but so did some of the war zones he'd patrolled. He was not taking any chances.

As they approached, the sound of an alarm grew louder. Several people ran past, one almost knocking Abby over in his haste to escape the building. The people were carrying bundles of papers, laptop computers and a couple even had what appeared to be hard drives. Clearly whatever they were running from, their work was important to them. Despite the looks of concern on Becker and Matt's faces, Abby was certain that this had something to do with Connor. She wouldn't put it past him to have hacked into their security systems somehow and set off the alarm as a distraction for his escape. She scanned the stream of people leaving the people, hoping to catch a glimpse of him before she moved forward towards the entrance of the building.

"Abby!" Matt called after her, nudging Becker to alert him to the fact she had gone off on her own.

"What are you doing?" Becker snapped when he caught up with her. "I told you that I would assess the situation first."

"Connor's in there, I know it!"

"Really? At the moment, my concern is why that alarm is going off. Those people are running away for reason. There could be a fire, or escaped chemicals, poisonous gas... I will not let you put yourself in danger."

Abby spun around and glared defiantly at Becker. "Can you smell smoke? Or gas?" When Becker didn't respond she turned on her heels and began to march towards the entrance.

Matt stopped one of the men running out of the building and asked if there was anything he could do to help and had the fire brigade been called. The man shook his head and simply said, "They've finally caught up with us. I knew this would all end badly," and he ran away, clutching tightly to his laptop. Satisfied that there was no fire to worry about, Matt motioned for Becker and the two soldiers to follow him and Abby into the building.

There was no sign of security at the main entrance, so the five of them went through unchallenged. "Split up," Becker commanded. "and use your comms. Any sign of trouble, call for back up." Matt nodded and nudged Abby to follow him down one corridor whilst Becker and his two men headed off down the other one.

"What do you suppose this place is?" Abby whispered.

"Some kind of research facility," Matt replied. "Something secret, judging by the way those people were so desperate to make sure their work wasn't left behind."

Abby agreed and silently followed Matt down more corridors, past several doors that they tried to open but found each to be locked. At this rate it could take hours to find Connor, if indeed he was even here. They could have quite easily just stumbled upon something completely unrelated and they were wasting their time.

Just as Abby was about to suggest that they went back to the entrance and regrouped, three men approached. Two appeared to be soldiers and they were propping up a third man who was clearly in pain and struggling to stay upright. Her heart began to pound; she could recognise that mop of dark hair anywhere.

"Connor!"

He looked up and made eye contact, but instead of the look of joy Abby had expected he was warning her to stay back. Matt raised his EMD and Abby did the same. "Let him go!" Matt commanded. "Or we'll shoot."

The soldiers looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders, moving to one side to allow two people behind them to come forward. The first, a young woman with long dark hair, stepped forward with her hands raised, wide eyed and mouth open. She glanced behind her at the second figure who also stepped forward with wide eyes and open mouth. Matt lowered his EMD, looking at Abby who mirrored the actions of everyone else. He stepped forward, shaking his head in confusion as he came face to face with himself.