As the door swings open, the man with heavy glasses and expensive watch is greeted by a massive room buzzing with light chatter; most is of different dialects, but all are of some Slavic origin. All seats, save a few near the rear, are occupied by jittery, eager-eyed professionals. The man allows the conversation to simmer down to a low hum before taking his place near the front of the room. From atop a mahogany table littered with unorganized classified documents, he grabs a well-used clicker. He clears his throat and turns the projector on. What noise still echoed in the gaping lecture hall dwindles into utter silence.
The man in the glasses has never been one for formalities. He gestures to the screen behind him and launches straight into his presentation.
"Gentlemen, upon our discovery of this... technology, our scholars have been able to determine its roots, given its source location and peculiar build as an indicator of its culture of origin. The clues we have gathered point to this object as being one of the scarce artifacts known only as a 'Chronos', presumably as a tie to its namesake deity. We've made every attempt to discern its use by studying what archaeological records of it and its kind that we've been able to find. This has been difficult, however; it has been mentioned very few times through the course of history, although the most notable case happens to have surfaced during The Great War."
"The Great War? The legend of Lawrence of Arabia? Surely, you can't be serious! It's utter nonsense, dreamed up by war-crazed scientists who couldn't bear to see the Old World blown to smithereens. Some of the stories are true, undoubtedly, but the underground legends surrounding him are mere fabrications; a single person couldn't have contributed that much to the upheaval of an empire lasting through the centuries, especially not one as strong as the Ottomans!"
"What he did officially, diplomatically, is one matter, but everything else, that other man; he's a figment of long-dead anthropologists' imaginations. They wanted a historical hero, a single man who could champion their cause. Quite like the Americans and their superheroes during the Second World War."
The man by the projector turns to find the protester in his small audience and furrows his brow. After an awkward moment's pause, he carries on. "I understand, of course, that war legends ought to be taken with an entire barrel of salt, but this is one that seems to have some credibility to it. Of course, it is entirely unreasonable to believe even for an instant that a British officer of his stature would lower himself to night hunting, to solo reconnaissance and assassinations, but so the legend goes. Judging from what we've found, it is much more likely that Lawrence himself did only as much as the official records state, but that perhaps a favored underling of his could be credited with filling out the rest of the story, the mythical part that no one in intellectual circles wants to acknowledge. A 'Lawrence the Second,' if you'll allow me the license.
"But even then, to examine the grandeur of the legend and attribute it all to one man seems extraordinary. To prove this kind of story, what does one typically need? A gun, worn and covered in fingerprints, to prove that a hellish sniper is more than a story born of shell-shock. Reliable photographs, bloody uniforms, official records, something concrete. In this case, we have this."
With one hand, he adjusts his glasses, and with the other, he clicks a button on the little remote he hid behind his back. The image on the screen changes to show a strange and foreign object of some sort, reminiscent of the Antikythera mechanism in its age and baffling complexity. The photograph is grainy, and the glare in it is harsh; it had been rushed, taken with a poor camera. The presenter clears his throat. "This image was taken in the field," he says almost apologetically, "immediately after it was found. It wasn't there for long, of course; it was transported to... a secure location, a laboratory, where it could be kept isolated from the general population."
The protester sits up in his chair. "Why? Wouldn't you have wanted to study it as soon as possible?"
The presenter turns back into the room and this time catches his challenger in the act. He bores holes through him with his eyes. "We had reason to believe that it was dangerous, good sir, before we even came upon it. This photograph was taken merely to confirm its discovery. Its study was never intended to occur at a dig site or field station, in the open air, among civilians."
Someone else from across the room speaks up in a soft voice. "Civilians? And what reason did you have to suspect that it could be dangerous?"
The presenter sighs and grits his teeth. For a room of his peers, his audience is being rather difficult. He looks around for the source of the question and quickly gives up on finding them in the dimness. He turns back toward the screen. "For this very reason, we were seeking it in the first place. We suspected that there was some sort of weapon to be found in the archaeological strata, but had little knowledge of what form it might take. Once we stumbled upon this - and it proved to be so radically different from everything else found at that site to be worth our notice - we went searching for existing data. That, gentlemen, was when we discovered the possibility that the weapon we sought was not a weapon in the conventional sense, but rather a tool that could lend an immense strategic advantage."
The soft voice pipes up again. "A time machine?"
He spins around, his eyes bright. "Yes! Precisely that. Well, not in the traditional sense. And we didn't want it out among civilian scientists and their graduate students, potentially being activated by their probing and prying and dropping another Dyatlov Pass into our laps." A conspiratorial chuckle passes through the room.
The protester, who until then had been sitting stiffly, speaks up again. "But how could you have known it was a time machine? I have the utmost respect for your intuition and scientific skill, my friend, but isn't that a bit of a leap to take based on a gut feeling?"
His grip tightens on the projector remote. "What records we could find - speculative notes mainly - pointed to a device such as the one we found with the capability of manipulating time. What physical specifications we found were vague, indeed, but our discovery fits them all. In fact, the most accurate records we could find were those of T. E. Lawrence himself. It appears he found something quite like our discovery, early on in his Great War service, just after he was stationed in the East to see to the downfall of the Ottoman Empire. Whether he dug it up himself or it was a gift, a symbol of solidarity, from one of his local allies during the Arab Revolt, we can't say; he didn't note it. But he did write extensively, in his poetic manner, about the potential he felt it had for the war, for humanity."
He turns back to his ideological adversary. "Now I'm sure you have a certain amount of confidence in fact-based assertions, do you not? Based on the evidence, we are left with no choice but to conclude that we had, in fact, found the 'weapon' we were looking for and that it was one of the Chronos mechanisms of lore."
Silence falls over the room. Grateful for the respite, he takes a deep breath and turns back to the screen. He clicks through a number of charts and graphs too complex and detailed to be made sense of from a distance. "Once it was isolated and we were certain of its stability, we began testing it. Initially, we expected it to serve as what our science-fiction colleagues would call a Warper, a device that bends the threads of time - if you will - to transport itself and something or someone else to another place in it. This seemed to be the most reasonable function for it to be designated as powerful and useful as it had been throughout the ages. Quite to our surprise, it proved to be what a friend of mine informed me should be called a Delayer, a machine that slows time - stretching its threads nearly to their breaking point - and allows whoever is controlling the device to experience an environment at partial speed while acting normally. For those few moments of operation, it delays the natural aging process of its operator so that while they move in normal time, they only progress biologically as they would in the course of the actual time that they perceive as being suddenly sloven.
"It's a remarkable little thing, really. So simple physically, yet ingenious, its power far beyond whatever 'advanced' things we've created."
He waits for someone to ask a question, even to object. Not a word is said. "It's relevance, then," he continues, stumbling slightly over his words, "became clear. If one was able to slow time while moving at a regular speed, one could, theoretically, decimate an entire front with the right forces without losing a single man. It lends the power of God to the user, the ability to dictate the most primal movement of the arms of the universe's clock. Its name, 'Chronos artifact,' is fitting."
The protester latches onto the error. "Chronos was a Titan, not a god."
He glares at him. "Nevertheless, he was supernatural. Of course, the Greeks did not create this technology; it is ancient, yes, but decidedly Middle Eastern. It fell into the hands of an enemy of the local forces, however, as we believe that once Lawrence found it, he put it in the care of one of his subordinates. That man - whom we'll call Lawrence the Second, as previously mentioned, out of the absence of a real name - took it upon himself to act as a sort of assassin - if the legends are to be believed - using the Chronos artifact as his chief means of establishing supremacy over his targets. With its aid, he could travel and supply himself and, of course, kill completely unimpeded. The annals of history say he did just that, although the very reason the story of the vigilante Brit who some believe to be one and the same as Lawrence of Arabia has been relegated as one of many fantastic war myths is that no human could do as he did without divine assistance. Perhaps our friend Lawrence Two, Lawrence Cruentus, didn't have the hand of a god - or a Titan - at his back, but he certainly had some help beyond conventional weaponry."
Someone speaks up from the darkness beyond the projector's light. "But if you're now arguing that Lawrence the strategist and Lawrence the killer aren't - sorry, weren't - the same man, then you can't also say that our time-master died after being thrown from his motorcycle in '35. If he was different, where'd he go? What happened to him?"
The presenter shrugs. "Most who think the killings were genuine results of British action still believe the real Lawrence was the assassin. For the select few who've come to our conclusion without our evidence, well... the legend loses track of him after the Armistice. Some say he went home. Some say he remained in his area of wartime operation, unable to acclimate to civilian life or even return to the lackluster technology of his homeland. There is consensus, however, that he wasn't killed during the war. He survived that long."
There are a few murmurs behind him. Someone works up the nerve to ask the obvious question, which for some reason no one else wants to voice. "You believe the legend, then? And you believe this device is what made the World War One Lawrence of Arabia legend, the part you now say was actually the work of a second man, possible?"
The presenter stares at the wall. This is why he is here. "Not this one. This one was still stuck in the past, surrounded by the dirt and rubble of a time long gone. Thomas Edward Lawrence, the officer, stumbled upon one that perhaps had found its way to the surface because of natural soil erosion. This is a different device, one of the several identical artifacts we believe to have been manufactured at some time or another. The Lawrence artifact may still be in existence. It may still be in use." He takes a deep breath and turns back to his audience, ready to deliver the punchline.
"But gentlemen, now we have our own, and from our investigations, it may be only the second to see the light of day in the modern era. We are almost certain now that the British Great War legend is true, that one Chronos artifact like the one in our possession was at some time in the hands of a member of the British army, and if his commanders recognized the value of this discovery, they could still be manipulating time against their adversaries. They could have already used it against us, and we would have had no way of knowing it.
"But now, now, we are on equal terms." A wide grin crosses his face. "We, too, now have the opportunity to create our own dear Lawrence, a Lawrence of Siberia, if you will." The room fills partially with doubt, but also with a bit of hope, as this presenter is none other than the Chief of Military Technology. He smiles and allows the gossip of his potential insanity to subside. He raises his hand. "Any questions?" With a smug look on his face, he scans the room once more, noting that his presentational rival had taken a seat. "Very well, the meeting is adjourned. Back to work."