I was standing in the grand hall of Dawnguard’s Downtown building. It was packed with people, a couple of thousands, celebrating our win in the Second Challenge. Music was thumping in the background, not loud enough that you had to shout to be heard, but loud enough that people were talking loudly. Meanwhile, I tried to actively avoid any of the flying camera drones, streaming the event live to billions of viewers. Not because I hated having my picture taken, which I most definitely did, but because of the reporters controlling them was not far from them.

As one of the upper echelons of Dawnguard, I would be quite the scoop for any of the reporters. Any interview with an upper echelon of our guild was the prime target, even one as obscure as myself.

“Hey boss,” Amber beamed at me as she came up to me, carrying a flute of champagne and a bottle of water.

“Thanks,” I forced myself to smile as I accepted the bottle. I hated large crowds.

“You should be up there with them,” she frowned. She was talking about the rest of the upper echelon, well most of them. At the mention of them, I cast a glance at the podium at the other side of the hall. I saw my fellow leaders hanging out there, waiting for our guild leader to arrive and hold a speech.

“There’s a limited number of seats, and you don’t see Harold or Lisa up there.”

“That might be, but without you, we wouldn’t have won.”

“Don’t let a reporter hear you say that,” I admonished her, while making sure no one had heard her.

“It wasn’t the meat heads up there that secured the victory, it was your strategy that let us take the victory from Silvertech.”

“Listen here Amber,” I said sternly, making sure she was looking at me and really listening, “No one wants to hear about how the Archivist found a way to undermine Silvertech’s infrastructure. They want to hear about how the Sun Legion trampled the enemies on the battlefield.”

“They only trampled them because—”

“Enough,” I interrupted her just as my wrist device started beeping. Which was weird, since I had turned off notifications except if they came from Aragoth, our guild leader. Which I highly doubted, because he had just walked onto the stage a few seconds before.

Looking up at the podium, I saw Aragoth standing there, waiting for the cheering to die down. When it did, he started his speech, “Thank you, thank you. Thanks to all of you, we’ve secured yet another victory in the fight against Silvertech, an—”

I tuned him out, because I had already read the speech five times. Instead, I turned my attention to the message I had received. I preferred to use the holographic display on the wrist device, but since I was in a non-secured location, I reluctantly used my lenses. Calling up the message, I immediately frowned.

It was a memo from the CEO of Silvertech Industries to Aragoth personally. It mentioned some kind of deal, but before I could read what the deal was about, the mail vanished. Recalled most likely.

“—thanks to the heroic effort of Narimos and his Sun Legion, we crushed those bastards on the field of battle!” Aragoth roared from the podium, sending the crowd into a frenzied cheer. I looked up at him. Studied him as he continued his speech.

‘Could he really have made a deal with Silvertech?’ was the thought going through my head, over and over. I had known him for four years, and the answer I came up with was; yes. He was a self centered bastard, but he was the one who had stood up to Silvertech in the First Challenge, and won the 15% ownership in Perennial Industries. He was the one who had promised that he would end the Initiative if he secured majority ownership of Perennial.

Troubled, I made my way out of the hall, heading directly to his office. Over the years I had seen him type in his password multiple times, and while I had a good memory, the only reason I could remember his password, was because of how lame it was: ‘AragothIsGod!’.

Making my way to his office was not a problem, since my office was nearby. I had also access to his office, because I often had to upload new strategies, memos and so on to his Immersion Pod.

Sitting down at his desk, I pulled up the holographic display to his terminal. A few keystrokes later and I was into his account, with free access to his mail. I quickly found what I was looking for. And though there was not a lot of information in the rest of the memo, it did lead me to a lot of other files.

It turned out that Aragoth had entered into a deal with Silvertech the day after Dawnguard had won the First Challenge. The deal was simple, he would act as a lure and collect all those opposing the Initiative under his banner. He would fight Silvertech with all he had, but when the prizes were finally handed out after the Third Challenge, he would hand it all over.

“Well, I seem to have lost that bet,” a voice said from the door. I had been so occupied by what I had found that I had not heard it open. Frowning, I looked up at Aragoth and saw he had brought the head of security, Marcus. Despite everything, Aragoth seemed relaxed, “Marcus here insisted you would do something stupid after you were mistakenly forwarded that memo. I bet him ten million credit that you were too much of a coward. Guess I was wrong.”

Red faced, maybe from embarrassment or anger, I stood up and shouted, “You won’t get away with this.”

“Oh, but dear Damian. I already did. With the First and Second Challenge under my belt, and the Minor Challenge winners who have signed over their voting rights, I already stand to control thirty nine percent. And Silvertech has secured eight percent in the Minor Challenges. Just four more Minor Challenges and Silvertech will have the majority vote.”

“I won’t keep silent, you can’t threaten or bribe your way out of this,” I growled and started to head for the door. Trying to make a call on my wrist device on the way. Which was futile, because Aragoth’s office was shielded, meaning no outgoing or incoming calls.

“I know that, which is why Marcus will make it look like you were trying to place a bomb under my pod. Turns out you were paid handsomely by B&I Energy to kill me,” Aragoth smirked as I almost stumbled upon hearing what he said.

“Wait, do—” I tried to plead with them, but Marcus had drawn his side arm. The last I saw was a flash of light.

“No!” I screamed and shot up from wherever I was lying. A major headache and bleary eyes prevented me from seeing anything, but some sharp lights. Through the pain, the only thing going through my mind was, ‘It was just a nightmare. It was just a very bad dream. Too much stress.’

My head was pounding, almost felt like a hangover. Which was weird, because I did not drink alcohol, at least not since my teenage years. Slowly my eyes got used to the light, and I saw I was lying on a couch. A rather ratty one. It seemed familiar, and so did the living room I was in. However, I had no idea were I was.

Glancing down, I saw that my wrist device was gone. Which was weird. Because I had never been separated from it for the last four years. With a need to know what time it was, I grabbed the control pad on the table in front of me. Fumbling with it, I managed to turn on the holographic vidscreen. An old model, least a decade old.

It was around noon, and I was just about to turn off the vidscreen when my eyes caught the date. Stumbling to my feet, I got closer to the screen, staring at the date, ‘That can’t be right.’

The date shown was clearly wrong. It was six years in the past. Panically I started changing channels, but all of them said the same thing. Taking an extra look around the living room I finally figured out why it seemed familiar. It was my living room, not my current one, but the one from six years earlier.

‘I’m six years in the past,’ I thought full of disbelief. As realization sat in, my vision became blurry and hazy. And then I fainted.