by Grant Pies
“No paramedics. Subject is dead. No other suspects on site. We recovered the android,” the agent said into the radio.
The Wayfield employees opened their van, and rolled the Whitman look-a-like into the empty compartment in the back. They climbed into the van and took off toward the tunnel that led to the Wayfield regional warehouse. Vesa looked at Cooper’s tablet on the passenger seat. The words “upload complete” flashed on the screen. With a trembling hand she threw the van into gear, and drove through the parking garage. Tears started to blur her vision as she glanced in the rearview mirror to see Whitman’s lifeless body slumped over in the chair.
CHAPTER 19
2075
GRAY MOUNTAIN, ARIZONA
“I’m sorry to hear about your brother,” I told Vesa after she finished recounting how she rescued Whitman from Wayfield. Vesa said nothing. She only nodded her head and looked down.
“Vesa and I grew close while I lived with Pierson. I was close with her brother too.” Whitman looked at Vesa, but she kept her eyes on the floor. “They both followed my trial closely. They sat in the courtroom and watched while you tried your best to save me.” Whitman’s face barely changed when he said this, but I liked to think he wanted his face to look sincere and thankful.
“I didn’t recognize you, you know, with the beard,” Vesa said and motioned her hand around her own face. I ran my hand along my jaw line and felt the short, coarse hair on my face. “No, it looks good,” Vesa said apologetically and smiled. “Just... different. But once you said your name was Powell, and that you worked with the ARC, I knew it was you! I knew Whitman would love to see you,” Vesa said. She looked at me like one would look at a long lost friend. I smiled back. It was nice to know that there were others in this world who knew me, even if I didn’t know them.
“If I recall the news reports after my trial, I would venture to guess that I am not the only person here who escaped from the Ministry of Science.” Whitman’s eyes burned through me. “Last I heard you were hauled away and sentenced to prison. What was it they said you did? Murder? Dissection?” He wanted my story before he offered the rest of his. “How was New Alcatraz?” he asked. Vesa’s head jerked in my direction.
“New Alcatraz!” she gasped. “Have you really been to New Alcatraz? That explains the fingerprint bomb, and your bug out bag.”
“Fingerprint bomb?” Whitman interjected.
“Then how are you here? It’s a death sentence.” Vesa rattled off her questions quickly, her mouth spitting out her thoughts just as they were formed in her mind.
I hesitated. Everyone who knew about my time in New Alcatraz was either dead, or, in the case of the Ministry of Science, thought I was still there.
“I was there,” I said and nodded slightly. Admitting I spent time in New Alcatraz seemed a betrayal to me and my parents. “But obviously I am not there anymore. You can infer from that whatever you want.” I needed to remain vague. Even if Vesa and Whitman belonged to the same group, or something similar to the one my parents worked with in Ashton, I still couldn’t trust them completely.
“Good for you, Powell,” Whitman said. “Maybe one day, when you are ready, you can tell me the story. I would love to hear it.”
Vesa sighed. She wanted to know now.
“So your experiments,” I continued, changing the subject back to Whitman. “How much of what you said at trial was accurate?”
“I did extract DNA samples from my body. And I tried to reconstruct them to learn whose DNA it was. I was honest about that at trial. But that wasn’t the end of my experiments. The DNA was a gateway to so many other discoveries.” Whitman paused. “Have you heard of Project Blue Brain?”
Whitman barely moved as he spoke. His eyes rarely blinked. He didn’t breathe, so his chest didn’t move up and down. The slight facial movements exhibited in humans were not present in Whitman. His mouth moved when he spoke, but the rest of his face was frozen.
I shook my head in response to his question and looked over at Vesa. She wrapped both hands around her mug and brought it to her mouth.
“Project Blue Brain was a collaborative project between academia, the government, and the private sector. The goal was to essentially reverse engineer the human brain,” Whitman explained.
“Create a brain?” I echoed. “Like what’s in you? A hard drive?”
“Not exactly like me,” Whitman continued. “But close. We androids were a temporary solution to Project Blue Brain. A stepping stone in the right direction. We were impressive, but not the end goal. A pit stop, if you will. Ultimately, they wanted to create their own brain. A real brain. They wanted an empty living human brain waiting to be filled with information. At first, it was a curiosity. Almost like a dare in the scientific community. It was a fairy tale old scientists told to their young protégés. They wanted to see if it could be done. They didn’t have any plans beyond the creation of the brain. They never thought any further, because they never thought they would be successful.”
The room was cold, much colder than the outside air. I held the hot mug in my hands for warmth and glanced over at the large map on the wall. Two pins, a red one and a yellow one, were stuck inside a circle surrounding Denver, one in the Denver Airport the other in Buckley Air Force Base. Other pins stuck in the map representing vaults that the Ministry of Science had scattered over the territory. Las Vegas. Cheyenne. Rapid City. None of these vaults were public knowledge, but it wasn’t hard to learn where they were. Just focus your search on large chunks of government owned land or military bases.
The coffee cooled down enough to drink. It tasted burnt. If I was at a diner, I would have sent it back, but my body needed the caffeine. My head was pounding, and my eyes pulled closed every few minutes. I paced around the room and listened to Whitman’s explanation.
“Eventually, the scientists involved in Blue Brain realized they had made more progress than expected. They could replicate the actions of the human brain. After that, their research gained interest from tech firms.”
“Wayfield Industries,” I said before Whitman had a chance.
“They showed more interest than most other companies, and they funded further research in exchange for the use of any technology that came from the project. James Wayfield himself contributed money to the project,” Whitman said.
On the other walls were blueprints of buildings, and diagrams of what I imagined were various technologies. Chips and processors. A drawing of what looked like a large data storage tower with a dome on the top hung in the middle of another wall. I walked up to the map. Next to the blueprints were sketches of familiar rooms. The housing wing of the vault under the Denver Airport. The cells where they housed my father during his time in Project Oracle. There were sketches of the deployment center, and the large stage surrounded by four cylinders—the device they used to ship me to the future, and the device I used to escape New Alcatraz. Next to the drawings were the words ‘power source’ followed by three question marks.
“So what was the point of all of this?” I asked while I stared at the walls of the room. “Project Blue Brain? To what, create a better android or something? Is that where you come in?” I turned to face Vesa and Whitman. Vesa turned toward Whitman, and awaited his answer as well. I turned back to look at the maps on the wall.
“A new android, perhaps. But really it was more than that. It was the beginning of Wayfield’s ultimate goal. Each advancement in technology that Wayfield has made in the last sixty years was simply an addition to what Project Blue Brain started back in 2009. Every policy that Wayfield had its hands in, every newly appointed official in the Ministry of Science, every piece of tech that the Ministry stole and handed to Wayfield was to continue what the project started.”
West of Denver on the map was a pin in Asthon, Idaho. Around the pin was a circle with an X through it and some scribbled words that I could barely make out. They looked like ‘Emery’, ‘Adler’, and ‘informant’.
“It was the contin
uation of their pursuit to become immortal,” Whitman said.
CHAPTER 20
5280
NEW ALCATRAZ
Ransom paced in the snow. He could still taste Aurora’s salty tears on his lips. He wished he could have said something more heartfelt. He wished he could have told his wife how much he loved her, how much he wanted to stay with her and never leave her side. He wanted to tell her that each day he spent with her was better than the last, and that each morning, when he rolled out of bed, he smiled at the sight of her. He wanted to convince her that maybe they were both wrong this entire time, and there actually was something else beyond their small village. But he couldn’t do that. He couldn’t pretend he really believed they would find anything out there. Instead all he had done was let out short phrases like “I’ll make it back” and “Everything will be alright.”
He hugged Aurora and pressed his face against hers. As Aurora let Ransom go, it was as if she was letting her entire family go. As if Gray was gone already, and Ransom would never come back. She clung to his clothes, and if she had had the strength to hold on, she wouldn’t have let go at all. But her body was already exhausted from sobbing over her sick boy.
Now Ransom waited for his brother to return with whatever scouting crew he could wrangle together in only a few minutes. At first, Ransom didn’t think he would have any problems surviving out in the cold for three days, but then he thought of his father. He thought his father had probably been better equipped than he was to survive out there, and he soon grew nervous. He reverted back to boyhood, when he’d looked up to his father and believed him to be invincible. If Dad couldn’t do this and make it back, then I might as well not even try he thought. But then he thought of his own responsibilities as a father. He didn’t have the luxury of living life like a scared child anymore. He had to be that same invincible father to Gray now. His mind ricocheted between boyhood and fatherhood. Between apprehension and resolution. He almost split in two.
He spun around upon hearing more feet crunching in the deep snow and saw his brother with two other men. Tannyn was a thin man with only one hand, the other hand was lost in a childhood accident. Ransom expected Tannyn to come. In fact, he knew Merit went to see him first. Tannyn and Merit had fantasized about venturing out to find whatever underground city they believed to be out beyond their village since they were children. Once Ransom and Merit’s father had disappeared, Merit wanted more than ever to go out there. At first his mother was the one to hold him back, and, once he was grown, his responsibilities did.
The second man was Ash, a hulk of a man with a long beard that stretched down his face, easily the largest person in the village. His broad shoulders cast a shadow over the two smaller men. At first glance he seemed mean and angry, but Ransom knew better. He knew Ash was a kind man with children of his own, and Ransom had seen him roll on the ground and play with them like a big kid himself. He had heard Ash’s booming laugh as he let Gray chase him around the village. Ash wasn’t there to fulfill some strange curiosity like Tannyn was. Ransom smiled at Ash, but his smile was tinged with sadness for what might happen to all of them out there.
“This is the best I could do on such short notice,” Merit said over the howling winds. Tannyn smiled, but Ash gave Merit a dirty look at the implication that they were somehow less than ideal.
“Good. Thank you for coming,” Ransom said and only looked at Ash.
“I’m happy to help,” Ash said in a low rumbling voice.
“You’re welcome,” Tannyn said. Ransom rolled his eyes.
“Let’s be honest, Tannyn, you’re not coming to help me or Gray. You’re here to fulfill your childhood dream,” Ransom said as he turned and walked away.
“The point is, he is here,” Merit said, slipping into his well-worn role as mediator.
“Whatever,” Ransom said under his breath. He didn’t care to argue. He had only one thought, one goal.
As he set out on the path, he thought back to when he had chased after his father in the snow the morning he left. He had placed his small feet right into the footprints his dad had left. His father’s stride was much larger than his, and, as a child, he had to skip to land in each foot-shaped hole in the snow. Now Ransom made his own sunken prints. He wondered if his father had acted upon the same intentions as Ransom was now. For the first time since his dad left, Ransom entertained the thought that maybe his father wasn’t a horrible person.
CHAPTER 21
5280
NEW ALCATRAZ
“Yeah, but how long until you are simply a robot with only your brain left over?” Ash asked. The group trudged through ankle-deep snow covering the hard ground underneath. Their pants were wet from the shin down. The layers of cloth and fur wrapped around Ash’s body made him appear even larger. His steps sunk further into the snow than the rest of the group’s. “You start with your arm, then your leg. Where does it stop? What about your eyes or even your heart? You start putting in organs that aren’t yours. Eventually you just aren’t you anymore.” Ash looked over at Tannyn, who was shorter than Ash, but most people were.
“What do you mean?” Tannyn asked. He waved his arms in the air in frustration. One of his hands was missing. His arm stopped at his wrist and cloth was wrapped around it. The cloth wrapped diagonally up his forearm and bicep. “I can’t stop being ‘me’,” Tannyn said. “Just because I have a new hand, or a new heart, it doesn’t mean I’m not the same person.” Tannyn turned toward Ransom and signaled for support in his argument.
Ransom never cared much for discussions that didn’t focus on reality. He kept the pace for the entire group. He hadn’t stopped for a break since the morning. The gourd that originally carried water was now half empty. Ransom didn’t look toward Tannyn or offer any help in his debate with Ash. His single focus was in front of him.
“I’m not talking about a hand or a foot,” Ash said. His voice deep and graveled. His beard stretched down toward his chest, and blew to the side with each gust of chilled wind. “I’m talking about everything. Your limbs, your organs, your eyes, your skin. Everything. If you replace everything with some other material. With metal or something created by some scientist. You aren’t you. I don’t care what you say.” Ash waved his hand at Tannyn. “I am more than just my brain,” he grunted. His breath puffed out of his mouth mixing with the cold evening air.
The wind whipped the snow around the group in spirals. Ransom walked in front with Merit trailing just behind. Ash and Tannyn followed. These were the people that either wanted to find the mystery vault the most, or those that the village could afford to lose.
“It doesn’t matter,” Ransom finally said in frustration. He felt any unnecessary conversation simply served to slow the group down. “Let’s assume that there is a place out here, underground. First we’ve gotta find it. That’s number one. Then we’ve got to get inside. That in itself is basically impossible. If whatever my grandfather’s grandfather said is true, then this place is deep underground. Deeper than any canyon we’ve ever seen. Deeper than any hole you’ve ever dug to get water or clay. It’s hidden and probably collapsed. Then, assuming we actually make it inside, whatever future technology is in there has to consist of metal limbs and fake organs. Then,” Ransom said and paused for a moment to let the absurdity of these events sink in. “Then you”—he pointed at Tannyn—“have to know how to use it. You have to know how to get a robot hand stitched onto your useless stump.” Tannyn’s face tensed at the flippancy of Ransom’s comment. “You’ve got a better chance at turning around and taking a hoof from one of the pigs on the farm, and having your wife sew it onto you.”
The collective heavy panting of the group was audible over the howling winds that funneled through the mountains in the distance. Tannyn stared at Ransom. He grinned at the thought of a remark to get back at Ransom’s outburst. Some series of words flittered across Tannyn’s brain that he knew would annoy him, or maybe worse. He reveled in knowing that he could hurt Ransom.
&
nbsp; “If that’s how you feel, then why not stop?” Tannyn asked and smiled even bigger. “Why not turn around and be with your son?” He shook his head in disapproval. “I bet your wife would like to know how improbable you think our journey is.”
Merit turned around and shook his head at him. His eyes were wide in disbelief that the one-handed man would challenge Ransom like this.
“Tannyn…” Merit said quietly.
Ransom clenched his jaw, muscles jumping in his cheeks.
“No,” Tannyn said in Merit’s direction. He rubbed his one good hand around his stump, like he was warming the spot where his hand used to be. “Wouldn’t your wife be upset if she knew you left her with your son only to chase something that you don’t even think exists?” Tannyn looked at Ash for approval, but Ash simply looked away and shook his head. Ransom kept walking ahead of everyone else, picking up his speed and balling his fists at his sides. “I don’t know why you’re even out here, Ransom. Maybe it’s that you feel responsible for your son’s condition. Maybe you should have been with him. Maybe you should have protected him more. Maybe all you really want to do is walk for two and a half days and then turn around, just so you can watch your son die with a clear conscience.”
As the last words escaped Tannyn’s mouth, he regretted them. He knew he had gone too far. Ransom spun around, driving his fist directly into Tannyn’s nose. Bright crimson blood flowed around his hand and stump, and poured onto the white snow. Tannyn doubled over, and Ransom pushed him onto his back. Straddling Tannyn’s chest, Ransom held his only useful arm against the snow, leaving the stumped arm to flail in the air. Ransom continued to land punches on Tannyn’s face, the loud smacking noises of his fists could barely be heard over Tannyn’s screams of agony.
Each punch splattered even more of Tannyn’s blood into the snow. Ransom shifted his attention to the ribs, pummeling his fists into Tannyn’s side until he felt something crack. Ransom let out loud grunts that puffed warm air out of his mouth in clouds. Ash and Merit came up behind Ransom, and grabbed his arms. Even with the two men pulling at him, they struggled. Just as they restricted one of Ransom’s arms, he pulled the other out of their reach, landing more half-assed punches. Before Ash and Merit pulled Ransom completely off of Tannyn, he landed one final stomping kick into Tannyn’s stomach. Tannyn rolled in the bloody snow, coughing on his own blood running from his nose to his mouth. His lip was split open, and his face was already starting to swell up and turn blue.
