New Alcatraz (Book 2): Golden Dawn

by Grant Pies

  The man’s frail arms were speckled with scars, his skin paper thin and discolored. He sat hunched over, several large blankets wrapped around his body. Outside the wind beat against the walls of the hut and whistled as it rushed around the exterior.

  “They dug deeeeep underground and hollowed out the earth. They carved tunnels that twisted around and branched off into more and more tunnels.” The man’s voice was rough and graveled, perhaps slightly put on for the enjoyment of his grandsons. “Those tunnels turned into more tunnels that curved back around on themselves. Like ants they made living quarters under the ground.”

  “Why?” one of the boys interrupted. “Was there something wrong with living outside?”

  “No, not at all, Ransom. The air wasn’t great, mind you, but it was breathable. At first, the people who built up into the sky wanted to show off. They wanted everyone to see how fancy they were, how much better they were than the rest. It was a sign of wealth and power. The highest buildings were reserved for the richest people of society. But eventually people didn’t have a choice. There were too many people, so cities grew upward instead of outward. Eventually the rich and powerful could no longer distinguish themselves by how high in the air they lived. Everyone had to live together, more or less.”

  “What about the people underground? Were they showing off too?” the other boy asked his grandfather.

  “No, Merit. Quite the opposite,” the old man answered. “They were hiding. They wanted to be free from the judgment of others. They wanted to build and create things the rest of society wasn’t ready to see, or that they just wouldn’t understand.” The fire crackled and popped. The old man grabbed a thick, long stick that was charred on one end and poked the fire. A bright orange log crumbled and embers spread out at the bottom of the fireplace. “Hand me another log, Ransom,” the old man said, pointing a withered finger at a wood pile at the other end of the room. The boy got up and scurried back quickly like he would miss something in that split second.

  “What did they create?” Merit asked.

  “All kinds of things. Things that you and I could never imagine. My grandfather told me of what they did underground. He tried to explain it, but even he couldn’t put it into words. He said there were many vaults underground spread across the land. Each vault had a specialty or an important project they worked on. In one they built humans out of metal, humans that looked just like you and me. In another they grew body parts and organs, or created medicines that not only cured diseases, but also made people stronger than they were before, stronger than someone that spent an entire lifetime working in the fields or chopping down a forest. My grandfather told me that in one of the vaults they even created a device that moved people to another time.”

  Merit gasped in amazement and smiled at the thought of these things, but Ransom felt a deep uneasiness rest in his stomach. He couldn’t imagine how any of these devices would fit into life as he knew it.

  “Another time?” Merit asked. “Like in the future?”

  “Sure,” the old man said. “Whatever time you wanted to travel to, these people could have sent you there. The story goes that all of us are descendants of people who were sent here from the far distant past. We skipped over thousands of years to get here and start over. They picked the best people that existed in society. The most noble and honest people. The hardest workers and smartest scientists. They sent them all here from a world that was crumbling apart. It was a way to make sure society continued on.” The man smiled at his grandchildren.

  A woman walked into the main living area carrying a pot of stew.

  “Dad, finish up your stories. Merit and Ransom need to eat and get to bed.” The woman splashed a ladle of stew into two carved wooden bowls, and handed them to the young boys. Steam wafted up from the bowls as they lifted them to their mouths. They gulped the stew down and chewed the few small bits of meat that rested at the bottom. For the most part the stew was simply broth and vegetables.

  “These aren’t stories, dear. It is the truth. We all came from greatness. Somewhere out there, scattered throughout the earth”—the man flung his hands out from his chest—“there are underground rooms buried deep below the earth. I saw one of them as a young boy. My grandfather took me there and showed me these devices…at least some of them. He told me he was the one who helped turn on the machine underground that provides light to our entire village.”

  “I’ve heard those stories too, Dad,” the boys’ mother said. “About how your grandfather, or his grandfather, and a small group of people brought back all of these lights. They started some machine below the surface that sends some sort of signal across the land and powers these things. Yeah, I’ve heard those stories too.” The woman chuckled. “But that’s all they are—stories. If you have been there, why are we all not living underground? Huh?”

  The old man cupped the flickering bulb in his brittle hands. The bulb was dirty, and the glass was darkened from years of heat burning against it. But it still cast off a faint light.

  “Some people are afraid of change and the unknown, dear,” he said. “Some people would rather wear their hands down until there is nothing but bone and bloody skin, than venture out into the unknown. Our society is made up of more of those people than people like my grandfather. That is why none of us know exactly where these places are. That knowledge was lost to us generations ago.”

  “Dad, don’t put these ideas in their heads. You’ll send them out into the wasteland looking for rooms hidden underground, beyond the fields and beyond the woods. Next thing you know, we won’t be able to find them.” She turned to her two sons. “It is a wild goose chase, boys. I don’t mind you two having a wild imagination, but I don’t need you out looking for something that doesn’t exist. You hear me? They’re just stories passed from generation to generation.”

  The boys nodded, still gnawing on the tough chunks of meat from the stew.

  “Doesn’t exist?” the old man said incredulously. “How do you explain the lights then, Alma? Did they just appear?”

  His daughter looked at him sternly, clearly telling him to shut up. The old man stood from the ground very slowly. His body was thin, almost malnourished, but it was resilient. He patted Ransom on the head and handed him the flickering bulb.

  “You boys don’t let anyone ever tell you something isn’t possible. Even your mother,” he said and shuffled away toward a small cot in the corner of the hut.

  Ransom held the flickering bulb and the warmth from the light radiated into the palms of his hands.

  CHAPTER 7

  5257

  NEW ALCATRAZ

  They walked together through a forest of stumps and moss. Snow covered the ground, and in the distance more trees waited to be cut down. Ahead of them their father walked, dragging an axe made from a thick sturdy branch and a chiseled sharp stone, behind him. It traced a line in the snow back to the small village. The three of them headed through the stumps towards more uncut forest.

  “This one will do,” the boys’ father said, and pointed at the first tree they reached that wasn’t already chopped down.

  He swung the axe into the frail bark. After only four strikes with the axe, the tree leaned, splitting under its own weight. One chop on the other side and it fell down with a thud. Light snow and ashy dirt puffed up around the trunk.

  Ransom watched in amazement at how easily his father brought the tree down.

  “These things seem more brittle each time I cut one down,” the man said as he started to cut the long tree into smaller pieces. With each cut he sighed, more out of boredom than out of exhaustion.

  Once the tree was divided into smaller pieces, he pointed at them. “You each get one and head home. Drop it off and hurry back here. There’ll be plenty more for you to carry back.”

  The boys grabbed the logs and hurried back toward the village. When the children were only small specks on the horizon, their father sat on the new tree stump. A flash of bright blue hung around
his neck on woven twine, a rare glimpse of color in the grey forest. The man tucked the necklace, a wedding gift from his wife, back into his shirt as to protect it from the harshness of the world around him. He looked around and dug his foot into the snow and dirt. He pushed the earth around, but underneath was only more frozen dirt. The man sighed in disappointment.

  As the day carried on, the sun dipped down and the sky turned gray. Ransom and Merit made many trips back and forth to collect the wood their father cut. Short puffs of breath floated out of their mouths as they jogged with each chunk of wood. When they stood still, the boys hugged themselves and rubbed their arms for warmth.

  “Are we almost done, Dad?” Merit asked. “I’m getting cold.”

  “You two can head on back. I’ll be right behind you,” their father said.

  He scratched his patchy beard and watched his two sons run home. Bits of sap tangled his hair into knots. He looked beyond all of the stumps into the thick forest of gray trees covered in snow, and wondered how much longer until he made it all the way through the forest. Not so long ago he had come out here with his own father, and none of the trees chopped down then had grown back yet. He guessed that by the time his children were grown, the entire forest would be nothing more than a field of stumps.

  “There’s got to be another way,” he mumbled to himself. He turned and looked into the distance in each direction. Beyond the flat, stretched out ground immediately in front of him was a tall range of mountains that spanned the horizon. On the other side was the village, a cluster of huts with light bulbs strung up crisscrossing the paths between the homes. His neighbors butchered small animals and hung the pelts outside to dry in the crisp, cool air. They built wooden furniture from the trees he cut down. Beyond the village, after a day’s hike, was the coast, where the waves crashed and broke against the cliffs. Other than that, he didn’t know what else was out there. But he knew there was more. At least he hoped there was.

  The man reached down and wrapped his blackened hand around the base of his axe. His nails were dark and dirt traced the lines and wrinkles of his palms. He slung the axe over his shoulder, and looked up at the sky and then down at the ground. He dug his foot into the earth one more time, creating another small hole. Whatever he expected to be underneath the top layer of snow and dirt wasn’t there.

  He sighed and walked toward the village, leaving the gray, snowy forest behind him until tomorrow.

  CHAPTER 8

  2075

  PHOENIX, ARIZONA

  Vesa and I walked swiftly through the crowd. The smell of fried dumplings from the food carts lining the street drifted through the night air. The thumping rhythmic beat of electronic music filled the crowded city street, and the neon pink and green signs from the bars covered our faces in pale light.

  I felt more exposed than her. She at least had the hooded sweatshirt to pull around her head. I cataloged every item that remained in my old apartment. Over the years I was careful not to keep anything that could identify me. No IDs. No pictures. Nothing. I had to assume the fingerprint device I used just before I left had worked, but of course I’d never used one before to test it. I imagined it was only a matter of time until the manhunt shifted from Vesa, and her lone computer chip, to me, the only surviving escapee from New Alcatraz.

  People flowed up and down the sidewalk like hot lava crawling toward the coastal waters. We walked side by side. Our movements were the same, and we navigated a path through the crowd without communicating. Random police officers littered the sides of the streets. Some were simply on patrol, while others were equipped with more weaponry and armor. These were agents on the hunt for at least one fugitive, possibly two. And like a contagion released into the atmosphere, radio chatter of our actions spread throughout the streets. I watched from the corner of my eye as each police officer and agent reached for their radios and listened to a static voice alert them to the presence of two unnamed assailants. The words ‘armed and dangerous’ and ‘shoot on site’ crackled over the radios. They looked up and scanned the streets for anyone who matched our description. Their hands drifted down to the guns that rested on their hips, unclipping the strap that kept the gun in place with their thumbs.

  We dodged around groups of people, briefly splitting up and then coming back together. The contagious ‘all-points bulletin’ spread quickly reaching agents further down the street who set up choke points and blocked alleys to direct the crowd. Vesa had the same worried expression I imagined I had on my face. The mass of people headed toward a checkpoint like a river crashing into a dam. We slowed our pace and glanced around for an escape. My eyes darted, trying to find a place to hide or some cover. The clubs all had metal detectors and security guards. They weren’t an option.

  We moved closer and closer to the checkpoint. Agents up ahead flashed lights in each person’s face and checked it against pictures they had stored on a small screen strapped around their wrists. At this point, any movement not in coordination with the mass of people would stand out and alert the agents. We had to keep moving forward. I nodded my head to our left towards an apartment building. A group of tenants were entering the building. Vesa moved through the crowd, and I followed.

  Before we reached the building, when we were about ten meters away, an agent with a long rifle walked up and stood next to the door of the apartment building. He checked each person who entered. Same as the checkpoint ahead, he shined his light in each person’s face. He checked IDs, and asked each person what apartment they were going to. We were too far along our path to turn around. We had to either go to the apartment building, the checkpoint ahead, or turn around. Each option would surely raise suspicion.

  We were trapped within the crowd. Shit. I thought. We kept walking towards the building, now only five meters away. I reached into the back waist of my pants and removed my gun, holding it low and to my side with the barrel pointed to the ground. Spotting the drawn weapon, Vesa shook her head quickly, but I had to do something. We couldn’t just walk up to the agent and hope he didn’t recognize us. Against her silent protest I fired two rounds into the asphalt. The shots rang out through the street, like sharp explosions, and the crowd erupted into a frenzy.

  I tucked the gun back into my waist and headed for the apartment building. People ducked and pushed others out of their way. Parents held their children’s hands and jerked them to safety. Some people ran through the road block up ahead, and others ran into the apartment building to our left. The agents couldn’t control the chaos. Vesa and I ran into the apartment building and fled up the stairs, skipping several steps at a time with Vesa not far behind. We didn’t stop until we reached the roof twelve stories above. Panicked noises still drifted up from the street.

  The buildings in the city abutted each other, so without much hesitation we crossed from one building to the next. The stampeding crowd down below poured through side streets and alleyways; they had broken the blockades and checkpoints. More gunshots rang out as the agents tried to regain control of the crowd in the only way they knew how: with more violence.

  After we crossed several buildings, we stopped to catch our breath and reassess the direction of our escape. Vesa and I had spoken very little since the agents raided my apartment, operating on adrenaline and instinct. But now we needed a plan, and a place to hide.

  “What was that?” Vesa asked through panting breaths.

  “What? The gun?” I sat on the rough rooftop covered in small pebbles and tar. “It worked, didn’t it?”

  “All of it. The gun in the streets, you firing the rifle in the tunnels at the agents. Is it necessary? What if you shot someone? I’m not a murderer.”

  “Really! You threw a grenade down the manhole right in that agent’s face! Don’t point fingers at me.”

  “It was a flash bang, not a grenade.”

  My words to Rose. They sounded so hollow now. I rolled my eyes. Vesa paced around the gravelly rooftop, stopping now and then to put her hands on her knees and breathe d
eeply.

  “Look, I was helping you. Let’s not forget that. You came into my apartment,” I told her. “And what is this processor chip you’re carrying? All of this”—I pointed down at the noisy streets and gunfire below—“for a processor chip? That doesn’t seem right.” I crossed my arms and waited for Vesa to tell me the rest of the story.

  “It is a processor chip,” Vesa said, seeming to take offence at the suggestion of dishonesty. “It’s just that the chip goes to a piece of technology the TDA desperately wants. But what about you? Don’t tell me you’re just helping me from the goodness of your heart,” she said sourly, adding, “The bag under your bed.” She pointed at the bag slung around my back. “The tunnels, firing the gun, the bomb thing you set off in your apartment. What was that, by the way?” She scrunched her eyes and wrinkled her brow.

  “It was supposed to remove fingerprints from the apartment. I just hope it worked.” I looked down and briefly contemplated what would happen if the Technology Development Agency or the Time Anomaly Agency found my prints. Everything I sacrificed would be wasted.

  “A fingerprint bomb!” Vesa said and laughed. “Okay, you are officially hiding more than I am. Let’s agree that you won’t ask me what I’m carrying and I won’t ask you what you’re running from. Deal?”

  “Deal,” I said and nodded my head.

  There was a helicopter in the distance, heading in our direction. In a matter of minutes, it would be directly overhead. Vesa reached her hand out to help me up, and we made our way toward the next building.