They were all startled about this revelation; it wasn't quite what they were expecting.
“From what I understand, your craft, once launched, relies on solar power, so we will need to harness as much of it as possible to make sure we reach the target. Danny, do you think you'll be able to calculate the margins of error and the best angles for maximum solar exposure? Obviously, you'll need all the data from Dave and Emma, but do you think you can find the best possible trajectories?”
“Err, yeah sure” He replied.
“Sheryl?” asked Mariam, “I'm not sure what my skills have to do with this?”
“Me neither” Brandon said.
“Well, you guys make more sense than me” Mike butted in, “What do you need me to do? Go looking for firewood?”
Sheryl waited for their questions to end, obviously appreciating that the plan she had detailed hadn't explained why they were all there.
“Well that takes me to the second plan, a backup plan if the first one is derailed at any point” She said smiling slyly.
SOMEWHERE
The images and memories seemed to float away just as suddenly as they had flooded his mind, and Danny found himself back in the lightly illuminated room, the soft furnishings still lying around him. He was momentarily disjointed, forgetting where he had previously been. The images he had just witnessed were so real, and now he was back, sat in this same room, with no recollection of how he had got there. The 'future' memories were still preying on his sense of logic, were they the future? Or were they from the past?
He now had two completely conflicting realities, one where they were stalked by creatures that ate his dimension apart like a reality-gulping Pac man and another, a world of human-devised torture and enslavement. He didn't know which one was real, maybe both were, and maybe both weren't. His breathlessness from before had subsided though, and he appeared calmer. Something in his memories was familiar, maybe that had given him some subconscious comfort. He tried to move again, waiting to be restrained once more but found he was able to get up from the couch he had been sitting back on.
“You've unrestrained me” Danny said, still assuming that Auton was somewhere around him.
“Welcome back Danny” he said, “I saw your emotions were calming down and your breathing back to normal. Have you been able to remember everything?”
Danny thought carefully about what he had just been shown, and even though he was confused as to how it all related and whether one was fantasy, he had an insatiable desire to understand how he was able to remember in a quick flash like that.
“How did you do that?” He asked.
“Do what?” Auton asked back.
“Make me remember with hardly any conscious effort on my part?”
“I fed you back your memories, little by little, so as not to overload you. You just needed to be in a calm receptive state to receive them properly” Auton replied.
Danny continued to look around him confused; things still weren't gelling properly in his mind. What did Auton mean that he fed his memories to him? Something like that can't be possible, at least not from any experience he had known. His pulse was starting to increase again; something didn't feel right to him. This was all starting to turn into a muddled mess in his brain again. He remembered two realities that didn't appear to sit with each other properly. Had he been in a normal world that was turned into monster food? Or had he been in a world of greedy businessmen and women using the human race as their play things? Neither sounded a place he wanted to return to. The thoughts still raced around his mind, the more he tried to sync the two set of memories up, the less they seemed to make sense. The 'feeding of memories' was the element that made Danny paranoid, he had never heard of anything like that, but that could be just the kind of technology the Elite had discovered. Was he imprisoned by the Elite? Were they trying to find answers from him by confusing his mind and injecting false memories and realities? Was their intention to break his psyche down so he would reveal where all the rebels were hidden? But he didn't know that information, at least not that he could remember.
So, there it was again, it all came back to memories. He was tying his mind up in a circle with rotating thoughts, back round and round. It must have been their intention, to drive him mad, make him doubt everything, make him susceptible to their whims, control him like they had the others. His final loop of thoughts gave him the realisation that he could be just another one of their play things; only the Elite would do this twisted and sick game with someone. He had to get out of there, out of this prison. Although his heart was now pumping quicker and quicker, he tried to calm it down, take subtle deep breaths. He didn't want to show this Auton any sign that he was going to try and escape, he didn't want to be subdued again. He slowly paced the room, not making it look like he was going to head for the door straight away.
“What are you doing Danny?” Auton asked.
“I'm thinking” He replied abruptly, “There are a few bits I still need to piece together, give me a few minutes”.
Danny was concerned he had snapped that out too quickly and potentially given his plan away. It was a simple plan as it was and it didn't take much to telegraph what he was going to do. He just had to have the element of surprise and stay looking relaxed. He paced
