Six

Everyone thought hard about this situation.

"But we've dealt with this problem numerous times and we never had to engage radically or use so much time and energy to put it back together."

The elderly man in the suit knew a bit more than the others at the table and therefore he was careful of every word that he spoke.

"I have direct orders from the centre and I can't get into conflict with this darkness. The orders are clear. Eliminate the whole affair to a minimum and get everything under control."

The woman began to walk around the house and always watching the little robots. All out of a sudden she jumped and stamped on one of them. The beeping sound suddenly stopped and everyone around the table turned to the woman and looked at the floor in horror.

"What have you done?! That's a catastrophe. How will we explain this to the centre in case of questions?" asked the young man in the blue bodysuit. Obviously they have never come across such a situation. This action paused all thoughts around the table. All of a sudden as if everyone was stopped by some signal and they didn't know how to orientate themselves in their own thought processes.

"Damn it! Damned regulations and orders. I don't like this at all because the whole case draws attention of the whole centre. That doesn't seem good at all."

The men also silently agreed because it was true that in this case the centre really started to get involved.

"And anyway! What's the third plan? The first two are a disaster and I'm really curious about the third!"

The elderly man got up from the chair and sat on the window pane. He looked out of the window. It was snowing outside and beams of lights from snow scooters that were passing the streets of this town could be seen.

"So far a third plan doesn't exist. We waited from instructions from the centre but nothing came. Even when we asked questions then nothing came. It's all very strange, we'll wait what's next. I don't believe it's a mistake in the programme because everything suggests that the government is a programme. A system which controls everything. But either way someone had to install it and also someone has to govern it and check up on it. If of course the person still lives and left someone to take care of it. Otherwise I can't find an explanation to the whole thing. We realised this when we started asking the centre questions like how to save this or that person, just to bring the whole thing into another direction. At that time no answer came."

The woman sat down again and tiredly supported her head. She was looking at the floor and was sick of everything. She stood up to the table and pronounced the verdict.

"So we have the information for which we came for. We know the first and the second plan and until we have a third one then we'll meet again outside of the centre's reach and we'll see what can be done. Today we can close the whole thing and return to our positions. We've completed today's task."

Everyone slowly got up from the table and started to look around the house so that nothing would escape them. Since nothing aroused suspicion they slowly walked away. In front of the entrance they sat on the snow scooters and nothing was seen after them except snow drifting on both sides. In Henrik's room there was silence and almost darkness. An electric sound was starting to be heard on the floor. The small robot that was stamped in the woman's rage was brought back to life.

He started to move up and down the floor. He didn't have a collective order since the other robots were taken along with the information and strange people.

Nobody realised the gravity of the situation that occurred by forgetting to take that small electronic creation and explain the reasons. But despite the doubts of these people about the government of the centre and this system that controls and rules over the whole planet, not even an ant moving in the cellars of old building escapes it.

There was chaos and the movement of people in the dome-like centre, just like every day. The screen showed another documentary about drinking water, since over a hundred years ago it was contaminated and couldn't be drunk. Some group of scientists then created a system to clean any water pollution and they changed it to drinkable water. This "government" often boasts with these successes and appropriates them. They like to present everything that benefited the society and brought the world out of disaster, as their own successes. "We did .."

Thea was walking in an annoyed fashion amongst the strange people in the whole centre. Since it was coming up to the time of walks around the island she looked around to see if she couldn't find the eternally lost Henrik.

After a short while the main entrance door opened and people scrambled out to the air. It was a nice day and it wasn't snowing right now, but everything was frozen and there was a bitter cold. The wind was whizzing from all sides, but these people were glad to see even this hostile world.

"I'm very sickened and concerned," said Thea and closed her eyes in face of the wind. It was difficult to talk when your own words were carried away by this wind into a snowy distance. Henrik laughed and turned towards the wind.

"And I'll tell you why! Every morning I ask this small nonsense on the wall what's going to happen. When will I return home and what's the whole point of this. I'm sick of it. If I answer the wall their questions concerning my dreams then everything is okay. Their questions have no end. Imagine-some person, I don't even know which room he was from, lied… those with the blue bodysuits came into his room. After a while they all came out and he was be with them. In this style they proceeded to the direction of the main entrance. I never saw him again and nobody knows where he is. Nobody ever saw him again. It's not worth to resist the mirror, if there's a different colour then it's a bad sign."

Thea was holding her head and had a hopeless expression on her face. "I can't stand it any longer. I'll go crazy. Maybe it would be better if they took me from this weird place to wherever, it's better than to stay here for maybe even ten years. This isn't life."

They met again in the evening and watched the newcomers. Amongst them were also younger people, maybe even high schoolers. One doesn't know who came or went. What the movement in K 1000 is, is stated on the digital number plate above the main entrance. The blue letters state the number of people. Currently there's 597 people. If anyone wouldn't return from the walk then there's no chance of escape. There number of people who didn't return would be immediately stated on the board.

The employees would immediately look for them on snow scooters. There's nowhere to flee. Around the island there's only icy water which couldn't be resisted even with the bodysuit. It would be a certain death. In the distance a silver boat can be seen. It released a flare on the shore. Every day is the same. Everything is the same. The bodysuits, snow, walks…

Those who control this system managed to do one thing. To stop time. They stopped time on this island. It's not know with what intention. Today a person is 20 years old and tomorrow he'll be 50. In the meantime he won't even notice when it happened. Because time has stopped here. Henrik sat in the middle of the room and looked disinterestedly into the crowd. He could even see old people. What if any of them came here young and turned old here. This idea scares him to death. Not everyone knows Eureka, but he decided that he would address an older man. He noticed one frightened old man in the crowd walking towards the screen. He stepped to him and asked directly: "How long have you been here?"

The old man looked at him in surprise and answered in broken Eureka:

"Well, how long…we were camping in New Zealand when the silver flat ship came to the shore. Then those in black suits came towards us. I don't know what happened next. I woke up in the morning and I'm here."

Henrik crumbled the white paper with interest, the same one which Thea often wrote words on when she taught Eureka to someone.

"How old were you on that camping trip?" The old man considered things and said: "Well, I don't know that. I don't have a calendar here, I don't count the days…but we were on a school trip."

After these words Henrik turned his eyes and realised the disaster that probably awaited him, as he looked at this old man.

In the distance he saw Thea looking at new Eureka pupils.

He ran to her and grabbed her by the hand.

"Sit down and look inconspicuously, so that the workers won't notice you. So I know how it is. We're here for life. There's no permit to leave nor is there any freedom. And those that aren't here have died. They died or have been eliminated, when they resisted the centre. And then others arrive. An illusion of how they'll let us home and we'll live just like before, it's only really an illusion. Something to trick you with, and at the same time everyone here knows that a return doesn't exist. This is our last station." With these words, both of them started losing life in their eyes.

"What are we going to do?! What is there to do anyway?!" Thea had to swallow a lot of curse words in order not to be noticed.