New Alcatraz (Book 2): Golden Dawn

by Grant Pies

  “I thought you of all people wouldn’t need convincing,” I told her. Vesa turned her back toward me. “I had hoped you would support me on this.”

  “I want this device to succeed, maybe more than anyone else here, but I’m not crazy. I know enough that if we go in one of these facilities we are not coming back. And I’ll be damned if I march this device right into the hands of the Ministry of Science. And where would we go anyway?” she asked. “The Golden Dawn has, or had, the largest power source that we could track down.”

  “Buckley Air Force Base,” I replied with no hesitation. “They have a power source there that isn’t as powerful as the Golden Dawn’s, but it’s as close as we are ever going to get.” I paused for a moment to gauge their reactions. Vesa scrunched her face and wrinkled her nose. Whitman simply sat at the table. His mouth was straight, but if you looked closely enough it looked like a slight grin crept across his blood-splattered face.

  “Fusion power?” Whitman asked and nodded as he answered his own question.

  “Exactly,” I said. “Fusion. Wireless as well, just not with as far a reach as the Golden Dawn. They claim they haven’t perfected it, but that in ten years it’ll be ready. And everything I know about the Ministry withholding information means it’s operational now. Last I heard, they were working on all sorts of wireless power supplies at Buckley. Wind, solar, nuclear, hydrogen fuel cells. If it has to do with power and the Ministry, it’ll happen at Buckley. That is likely where the Ministry will take the Golden Dawn’s wireless power supply once they dismantle it enough to transport. They will use that to increase their current wireless power range. The most powerful of sources they’re working on in Buckley is an underground fusion plant. If we need power, that is the place to go.”

  “How do you know about Buckley?” Vesa asked me. “How can you be so sure?”

  “I’ve worked enough ARC cases to have seen thousands of blacked out government documents. Over the years, you start to piece together what you can from the various documents. I hadn’t thought of it until I saw the insignia on the agent’s uniform that Vesa almost stabbed back in the desert. He’s based out of Buckley. Which makes me even more positive that Buckley would have a power source for us to use.”

  “You’re still ignoring the fact you want to duplicate a failed plan,” Vesa said. Now it just seemed like she was trying to poke holes in my plan simply because she wasn’t the one who came up with it.

  “I want to take part of the failed plan and add to it,” I said with confidence. “Plus, Buckley isn’t the most secure site in the nation. We aren’t breaking into the bunker under the Denver airport, Cheyenne, or even Ellsworth Air Force Base like my old client. This is mid-level security at best.” Whitman stood and started to nod in agreement. “Plus,” I added, “the two-bit hacker with the failed plan had never been in one of these underground facilities. He didn’t know how they were laid out. I do. I have been in what is likely the most secure Ministry site in the country. I have been in the base under the Denver airport. Surely Buckley Air Force Base is less intimidating than that. The hacker didn’t have a captive agent to help get him through security.” Now Whitman’s eyes were still as blank as any other android’s, but his grin grew into a full smile. “Also, we have something the Ministry wants. Something, that, when they learn about it, they will have to break protocol. They will have to let us in.”

  “I’m not giving them this device,” Vesa said.

  “I’m not talking about the device. I’m talking about Whitman,” I said and motioned toward the smiling android. “We have James Wayfield’s DNA. We have proof the wrong Android Unit 5987D is stored underneath the Denver airport.” Whitman’s large smile quickly faded.

  CHAPTER 46

  2075

  GRAY MOUNTAIN, ARIZONA

  I sat down on the floor of the square room with blueprints hanging on the wall. The toll of the past couple days wore on me. My body ached and each beat of my heart pulsed through my brain in painful waves. Vesa had left the room to get ready for the journey ahead. She agreed to my plan, but said she would pull out the moment she felt unsafe. Whitman hadn’t said anything at first. He stayed in the room with me and sat at the table.

  “Powell, I know we never talked too much during my trial. You tried your best, and I appreciated that. But under these circumstances I don’t know if I can trust you.” The look on his face was sincere. His face frozen, but not like an android. Like a person who was scared of what might happen to them. “You have to see it from my perspective,” he told me. “I know you were sentenced to New Alcatraz. It was on the news. And then, when we are just about to complete this device, you show up. New Alcatraz is a death sentence. No one gets out unless they are let out.”

  “You think I’m working for the Ministry?” I asked Whitman. “Or what? Wayfield?” Whitman shrugged. I was on the floor with my back against the wall. My knees bent up toward my chest, and my hands rested on my knees. “Are you serious?” Whitman shrugged again.

  “I didn’t think much of your presence until you suggested we take our device and myself to a government installation. You have to admit it’s somewhat crazy. And the timing of it all...” Whitman was silent. I could tell he felt guilty for even having to ask me these things, but it was necessary for him.

  “I was there, Whitman. I was in New Alcatraz. And I escaped. I wasn’t let out. I trekked through the desert. I fought and killed to make my way back to the vault that housed the same machine that sent me there.”

  “And the woman they said you killed, the agent, were they right? Did you kill her?”

  “No,” I said out of instinct. “I didn’t kill her. Not that woman. Maybe a different version of her.” I mumbled the last part, because I knew how strange it sounded. After all these years, even I still couldn’t figure out what I did. I lied to myself and said that maybe my real mother was killed by a different version of myself, and that the person I killed really wasn’t my own family. That was the best excuse I could find.

  “If you knew what I have gone through, you would never think I was working for the Ministry of Science,” I told Whitman. “You know about Ashton, right?” Whitman looked at me with wide eyes. “It’s on your wall, right?” I said and pointed to the large map of North America. A large circle was drawn around Ashton. “I didn’t just learn about Ashton by seeing it on your map here. I knew they were working on a cure for dark time. I knew they had a time movement device there. And I know they were raided.”

  “So you were working with them?” Whitman asked. “Were you set up by the Ministry? Was agent Emery onto you?”

  I looked up at the mention of my mother’s name. I hadn’t heard her name in years. I shook my head.

  “I wasn’t working with them. With your group. My parents were.”

  “Your parents? But you were an orphan. At least that is what you said during my trial. Your dad died when you were a young boy, and your mom died giving birth.”

  I smiled, not really knowing where to begin, or even if I should.

  “Time is a funny thing,” I told Whitman. “So many people think it’s a straight line, but it curves and wraps around itself...at least it does for me. I met my father in New Alcatraz. It was before I was born, well to him it was before I was born. We escaped together. I went back to the year twenty-seventy to try and stop the murder that originally sent me to prison. My father fled to the past, where he and my mom, Emery, settled down.”

  “Agent Emery was your mom?” he asked.

  “She was,” I answered. I felt my mouth uncontrollably grow into a smile. Not only had I stopped myself from thinking of my parents’ deaths over the years, but it had also been years since I thought about them living in Buford. Happy. Together. It had been a long time since I pictured us as a family, even if we were all only together a few days. I let my mind wander to what we could have had if only the cure for dark time that rested in Whitman’s human DNA had reached my mom sooner.

  “I don’t unde
rstand, Powell. Why did she die? Why did you kill her?”

  “It’s hard to explain without sounding crazy, but the best reasoning I can give is that I had no choice. She told me to do it. She said it would protect me as a baby, and my father in Buford. If the Ministry found out she had stayed in the past for nine months, and that she had given birth, they would have hunted all three of us down.”

  “I have the cure inside of me,” Whitman said. “Take it back to her. Or give it to yourself in the past.”

  “No,” I said. “Your group was raided in Ashton, so that time machine is gone. And it’s one thing to break into Buckley Air Force Base, but another to break into the bunker in Denver that houses the Ministry’s only other time machine. I appreciate the offer, Whitman, but sadly in this case, what’s done is done. The sooner I realize that, the better.”

  A silence lingered between the android and myself.

  “You know, I saw you in the future. Well, at least what I thought was you,” I said as I stood from the musty carpet. I stretched my back and winced at the stiffness of my muscles. “I saw whatever android Vesa and Cooper replaced you with. I injected myself with that android’s DNA sample, so I could survive the travel back to the present.”

  “Nanobots,” Whitman said and smiled. I nodded and returned his smile as we both silently reminisced about the trial we worked on together.

  “I have waited five years to talk to anyone about my parents, and New Alcatraz. I was happy to see you then, in the future, but I’m glad it wasn’t you down there in that vault. I’m happy you are here now. I forgot how much it means to have a friend. I’m glad we met again.”

  I offered my hand to Whitman.

  “Me too, Powell.” He shook my hand and smiled. For a moment I forgot he was an android.

  CHAPTER 47

  5280

  NEW ALCATRAZ

  “I say we just follow the lines leading to the exit. We have to get out of here,” Merit whispered, but still put force behind his words.

  “Merit, I’m not leaving here without some sort of medicine for Gray. And if I don’t get back with it, you made a promise that you would. What are you gonna tell everyone if you make it back before Ash or I? Are you gonna tell them we died and that you found nothing? Huh?” Ransom’s eyes pierced through his brother in the dark. He gripped the sharpened bone in his fist until his knuckles turned white. “And what if you run home, and tell them we died? How are you gonna look when Ash or I show up with our side of the story? Or worse, what if we never come back? You’re gonna wonder forever if you could have saved us.”

  Merit looked down and pondered what his brother said.

  “Face it,” Ransom continued. “Best case scenario, you’re gonna go home and look like a coward when we show up. Or, worst case scenario, you’re gonna go home, never see us again, and live with the guilt of leaving us to die here… You tell me which you prefer. But that is only if you leave right now.”

  Ransom looked at Ash, who had never indicated he wanted to turn around, but Ransom wanted him to know the same could be said if either of them left now. Ash nodded in agreement with Ransom, and he wrapped his large hand around Merit’s shoulder.

  “We are safer if we stick together,” Ash said.

  Merit lowered his head and let the thought of running go. He knew this was a choice that would determine how the rest of his life played out. He just prayed he made the right choice.

  From outside the door, sounds of more people approaching echoed through the halls, their feet shuffling. Ransom stood and peered through the small hole in the door. He saw the two men that stood guard stand up straight and throw their shoulders back. The pale man with blonde hair, Baker, approached with an older man by his side. The faint light in the tunnel bounced off the old man’s bald head. He wore loose fitting clothes that were all the same muted beige color. The bottom of his pants were frayed slightly. Deep wrinkles traced over his face and carved out the remnants of familiar expressions. Ransom could tell just by the placement of the wrinkles that the old man didn’t smile much.

  “Open the door, Archer,” the old man said tersely and flung his arm in the direction of Ransom.

  Ransom backed away, and Ash and Merit stood behind him. Their feet slid in the thick, slimy blood that oozed toward the drain in the middle of the floor. Ransom shoved the bone back into the top of his boot.

  “Yes, sir,” Archer said. His voice sounded meek following the old man’s harsh command. Archer placed a key in the door and rattled it around, swinging the large metal door open and flooding the empty room with light. The blood on the floor glimmered, and Ransom saw that his boots were soaked in blood. Archer and the other man who guarded the door stepped aside to let Baker and the old man into the cell. Even from outside the door, Archer and the other man held their noses from the stench wafting out from the room.

  The old man stepped into the room, looked around, and raised and lowered his feet repeatedly. His feet smacked down into the blood.

  “Why didn’t you tell me the drain was clogged again?” the old man said and looked back at Baker, who lowered his head, and refused to look the old man in the eyes.

  “Sorry, Marshall. I thought it would go down eventually. I’ll fix it.”

  The old man sighed in frustration. “You’ve always been a disappointment to me, son. You keep this up and you might end up like Fink.”

  The old man smirked at his own joke and looked back at the three captives. Ransom didn’t know what was worse, that the old man smiled at the thought of Fink and his lost arm, or that he threatened his own son with the same fate. Marshall walked closer to the three men, circling them slowly.

  He looked them up and down, like a man would survey livestock before purchasing. He reached out and squeezed Merit’s arm. “Not much on this one,” he mused. “We better take him first. If we keep him locked up here long, there’ll be nothing left on him to eat.” He reached out and felt Ash’s shoulders. Ash shrugged off Marshall’s touch. “Stay still,” Marshall said to Ash. His voice was a commanding growl. The old man bent down and ran his hands around Ash’s legs. “Strong,” he said. His hands ran up the length of Ash’s leg and lingered as he moved upwards. He stood and nodded in approval. “Just these three?” Marshall asked of Baker.

  “We saw them come in, and it was just three people,” Baker answered.

  Marshall circled back around to face Ransom. He looked in Ransom’s eyes, and Ransom stared straight back at him. He wondered how quickly he could bend down to retrieve the sharpened piece of bone hidden in his boot.

  “No women?” Marshall asked with his eyes locked on Ransom. Ransom clenched his jaw.

  “No,” Baker answered from behind his father.

  “Children?” Marshall asked and grinned an unnatural grin.

  “Not here,” Baker answered. “But one of them mentioned someone having a sick son.”

  “So there are more where you came from?” Marshall said, and his unnatural smile grew across his face.

  Ransom’s jaw clenched even more, and he thought for a moment that he might bite straight through his own teeth if he could. He took a step towards Marshall.

  Baker pounced and drove the butt of his gun into Ransom’s stomach. He doubled over, gasped for air, and placed his palms down on the bloody floor to brace himself. Then Baker struck him in the jaw again, and Ransom felt something crack inside his face. He watched as his own blood dripped out of his mouth and fell into the tacky blood of Fink and countless others on the floor, mixing in swirls of red on red.

  Marshall leaned down and grabbed Ransom’s hair, pulling his face upward so their eyes could meet. His face was different now. The fake grin had become a scowl. His hand gripped Ransom’s hair so tightly that it felt like it was ripping out of his head.

  “This is fate,” Marshall said. “Everything you have done in your life has led you to this point. And everything I have done has led me here. But I have been here many times before. I have lived many lifetimes dow
n here in this vault. I have gone months without seeing the sun. Not because I wanted to hide, but because I liked it! Because it’s the only place where truth exists. I grew up here, and my father grew up here. Every once in a while people like you wander into our home. Whenever there is a particularly cold winter,” Marshall said, twisting his hand tighter around Ransom’s hair, “or when the heat outside drains you of energy and almost burns you alive. That is when you show up. Sometimes in groups, like you three. And sometimes a lone wanderer, either more brave than the others he lived with or too stupid, depending on how you look at it.”

  As Marshall bent down and shook Ransom’s head, his shirt hung loosely around his neck, revealing a necklace of woven twine with a bright blue gem dangling around his neck. Ransom slowly reached a bloody hand back toward his boot. His fingers wriggled around the space between his boot and his leg.

  “These vaults exist as a fortress where you can do whatever you want.” Marshall continued. “They are built so deep that not even God from the heavens can look down and judge you. It’s here that the true human nature is shown.” Ransom’s father’s necklace swung around Marshall and stared Ransom in the face. Glimpses of his dad flashed through his mind. His fingers pushed into his boot and felt the rough bone crammed down by his ankle. He pulled it out of its hiding place and wrapped his blood-soaked hand around it.

  “Unfortunately for you,” Marshall continued, “human nature, true human nature, is a thief and a liar. Deep down, we are all just waiting for permission to do what we really want to do. To scream and fight. To not hold back our true feelings. Deep down, if you look far enough within yourself, you want the same things we do. None of us down here will feel bad for what we will do to you. We aren’t judged down here. And if anyone you’ve left behind decides to tiptoe down into our darkness looking for you, if they end up here, we’ll do the same to them. And we won’t feel one morsel of regret.”