New Alcatraz (Book 1): Dark Time

by Grant Pies

  “That is the opposite of the nanobots,” Ellis told me, pointing to the capsule in my hand. “That will destroy in the same way that the nanobots would repair.”

  “I say we just go for it,” Red said as he paced around the medical lab. “Radiation poisoning can’t be worse than staying here.”

  “He has a point,” I said as if someone had disagreed.

  “I’ll go without it,” Ellis said. “The Ministry injected me with more than enough as a surveyor. I still have enough nanobots swarming inside of me to keep the radiation at bay for years...probably.”

  Twelve years to be exact, I thought.

  “Why not,” Hamilton agreed. “What’s the worst that could…?” Hamilton stopped speaking abruptly as a loud bang erupted down the hall where the glass cells were. He dropped his crutch and fell to the floor, rich red blood expanded in a growing circle on his chest, and his jumpsuit grew darker and darker.

  Before he stopped moving, another shot echoed from down the hall and a computer monitor in the front desk area shattered into tiny pieces. Another crack and another bullet sliced into his arm. Hamilton let out an inhuman garbled cry, like a thick viscous liquid rested in his throat.

  The rest of us ducked and found cover, leaving Hamilton exposed on the floor. His blood spilled out of him and pooled around him. His eyes were wide and he looked deeply shocked. But there was a sense of puzzlement there too as if he was not shocked that he was dying, but that he was dying this way. As if he had already accepted a death by radiation poisoning, and this was not what he expected.

  I reached my arm around the short wall between myself and the gunmen, and shot my pistol in their general direction. The gun kicked my hand back with great force and my wrist hurt from the sudden jolt. Ellis fired his rifle down the long hall in short bursts and the bullets cracked and crashed against the old glass walls.

  The three of us scurried further out of the line of sight of the gunmen as we made our way back to a corner of the medical lab; on the ground the yellow line to the deployment center stretched out. Footsteps of Gaines and his crew pounded against the cement, and Ellis motioned toward me and pointed at the yellow line. Red moved swiftly with his knife in hand, ducking and hiding behind the short half walls spread throughout the medical facility.

  A single shot hummed over my head. The person who fired the bullet waited for movement; he wanted us to show our position. I assumed that he didn’t want to fire multiple rounds into the walls and so must be low on bullets. My best guess was that I had about ten shots left before I would be unarmed. Ellis fired a single shot back in the direction of the first bullet; with limited armaments it was a battle of precision.

  More footsteps fell on the ground around us; soft, but not silent. The three of us made our way along the yellow line toward the deployment center, while the three of them made their way toward us. Each of us hid from the other, but secretly planned for a confrontation.

  “The elevator is just down this hall,” Ellis whispered to Red and me. He pointed down a long cement corridor lined with nothing but red lights overhead. No cover or place to hide.

  “We go down here and take the elevator to the very bottom. Once there, the device is simple to use. Everything is labeled. We hit the main power switch, dial in a time, latitude, longitude, and then stand on the stage; just like you did when they sent you here.” Ellis looked at us both for confirmation, seeking a response that we understood and that we weren’t too scared to follow through with the plan. Red nodded enthusiastically.

  “What about the hall?” I asked them both. “How do we get down the hall and call the elevator before they shoot us?” Ellis paused and considered the point. “Plus, we can’t risk them escaping with us. We can’t help send them back.” I whispered.

  Another shot drilled into the wall in front of us. Red backed away and another shot landed next to the wall; the plastic on a cart filled with medical monitors shattered into thousands of pieces.

  “One of us can stay behind and hold them off while the other two call the elevator,” Ellis said. “Then when the elevator arrives the third person gets in and we ride it down.” The words left Ellis’ mouth triumphantly, like he solved a riddle. Like that was good news for all three of us and not just the two that went ahead.

  “Okay,” Red responded skeptically. “Who stays behind?” He looked at both me and Ellis. He didn’t offer or volunteer.

  “I will,” Ellis said without waiting for me. “You guys head down the hall. I will hold them off.” He held up his rifle in a sign of preparedness. Red smacked me on the shoulder. “Let’s go,” he said, seeming unfazed by parting with Ellis; I didn’t move.

  If Red survived, then he would travel back and save me as a child. But if Ellis didn’t survive I would never even be in those woods. The only way to guarantee my birth and my survival was to make sure that both Red and Ellis lived. There could be no gamble; I had to make sure they both made it back alive. Even if my life ended here in New Alcatraz, at least I got to live up to this point.

  “No,” I interrupted Red. “I can’t let you do it.” I told Ellis. “You have to survive. You have to make it back and you have to make it to Buford.” I grabbed the rifle from Ellis before he could protest. A burst of bullets rang out and one of the three men laughed from behind his cover. Ellis’ eyes widened and glowed red under the lights. An optimist would say he knew deep down that I was his son, and that he was proud that I was willing to sacrifice myself for him. A realist would say he was shocked that a stranger would do such a thing for him.

  “You will make it out of here,” I told him with confidence. “You both will and I will hopefully be right behind you. If not …” I looked at both of them and grinned. For the first time I had more information than either of them. “I want to thank you both. For what you have done for me, as well as what you will do for me.”

  Before they could ask what I meant, I nodded down the hall toward the elevator, and turned my back on both of them. I settled myself and fired the rifle over the short wall toward Gaines and his men. As the two of them ran down the hall I smiled and realized that I had told Ellis to go to Buford. I had told my dad where our home would be.

  CHAPTER 66

  5065

  NEW ALCATRAZ

  DAY 9

  The rifle pushed into my shoulder with each bullet that burst out of the barrel. I squeezed the trigger in short single intervals and moved the gun laterally to cover the entire medical facility. My bullets penetrated the hanging curtains, ripped through glass cabinets that housed prescription pills, and shattered computer monitors. After each bullet left my gun, I waited less than a second, looking for movement and hoping for one of the men to assume that my barrage of bullets was finished. I saw Nolan, the man who I knocked out, peek over a short wall. I shot a burst of three bullets in his direction, shuffling out from behind the wall and ducking into another area. I hid behind a hospital bed and moved a rack of curtains on wheels to cover my position.

  I stood and shot a single shot in no particular direction. I pulled the trigger again and felt a click. No burst of fire from the muzzle or kickback on my shoulder. I tossed the rifle to the floor and gripped my pistol. Only ten bullets left, give or take. I moved again to another position and passed by Hamilton’s lifeless body, pale and covered in blood. His mouth was wide open and leaking even more blood, his body in an unnatural position. I patted his body down to see if he carried any spare weapons or ammunition. Anything.

  A round solid object protruded from his pants pocket. I reached in and pulled out an army green grenade; he must have picked it up in the kitchen after it fell from Deslin’s waist. I gripped the grenade in my hand and kept moving; glancing back toward the elevator. Red and Ellis still waited there.

  From behind I felt a man grab my shoulders and pull me to the ground. Gaines leapt on top of me and drove his fists into my face. His punches were more of an annoyance; he was weak and still bled from his stomach.

  “You shot
me, you son of a bitch!” He yelled as he hammered his fists into me, accenting each word with a punch. I grabbed his skin where he was shot and squeezed. Gaines screamed and rolled off of me. He lay on his back and loosely pointed his pistol in my direction. I grabbed his wrist and pushed the gun to the side as he fired a bullet. It pinged off the ceiling, and crumbles of cement fell down onto my back.

  I wrestled with Gaines. His gun in his hand, and his hand in mine. From the corner of my eye I saw another man, but he wasn’t coming toward me. He was running toward Red and Ellis where they still waited for the elevator to come up from deep within the facility. The man had no guns, only a belt full of knives and blades. He held two knives in his hands, pulled back and ready to throw.

  With little thought, like a muscle memory from countless lives lived before, I reached into my pocket and pulled out the large green capsule. I drove my knee into Gaines gunshot wound and his mouth dropped open. I pressed my open palm against his mouth, cramming the pill down his throat. With one hand I held Gaines’ hand that held his gun up, pointed toward the ceiling. My other hand covered his mouth and held it shut just long enough to ensure the green pill dropped down his throat. Down far enough so it wouldn’t come back up. I pressed my knee into his bleeding wound, and blood came out of his body, soaking through his jumpsuit and into my own.

  Deslin was now about half way down the hall, almost close enough to throw his knives. I pulled the pin from the grenade that Hamilton hid in his pocket, the grenade that he somehow knew we would need, even after he was dead, and tossed it down the hall. It bounced and rolled past Deslin, almost three quarters of the way down the hall, before it rattled and rested on the floor against one of the cement walls and exploded.

  In a split second, a burst of orange light pulsed through the hall and the facility rumbled and shook. Pieces of the wall blew horizontally and more cement fell from overhead. A large chunk crashed into Deslin’s head, collapsing him and burying him under cement. His foot was the only part that protruded under the rubble.

  I no longer saw Red and Ellis. My view was blocked by the pieces of fallen gray cement that sat on top of Deslin; his foot still twitched. I looked back at Gaines and his hand still loosely held onto his gun; his other hand held his throat.

  His eyes portrayed a sense of worry and unknowing as he squirmed and held his stomach. He rolled on the floor and tried to move to his knees, but his body collapsed and sprawled out on the cold floor. Blood oozed out of his stomach.

  Now he coughed and gasped for breath, wheezing as bubbling saliva collected at the corners of his mouth. I kneeled over him, watching him die from the inside out. His chest and stomach visibly sunk inward as one by one his organs disintegrated. His liver, kidneys, and intestines. His spleen and gallbladder, lungs, and heart.

  I imagined that they all dissolved to mucus inside of him as gravity pulled his stomach down to fill the absence of his organs. His face sunk in as the cartilage and fat in his body was eaten by the rapidly multiplying packaged disease inside of him.

  His hands cracked and popped as his ribs bent in his chest and formed odd shapes. His joints bent in unnatural ways, and his skin sagged around his disappearing frame. He coughed, and both liquid and dust puffed out of his mouth. His once worried eyes dissolved inside of his head, and his skull sank until it was flat.

  Where there used to be a person there was only a pile of quickly coagulating skin and fat. A thick viscous liquid spread on the floor and reached my feet. I stepped back so as not to let the black substance touch me. I stood and marveled at what I had done. One person buried under piles of cement, another reduced to liquid.

  Before I could guess whether Red and Ellis were buried in the collapsed hallway, or even think of digging through the pile of cement to reach the elevator. Before I could do the most basic math and realize that one man was still left, a bullet exploded from across the room and drilled into my shoulder. I fell backwards and crashed into a glass cabinet.

  I reached my gun out and fired three shots. I listened for grunts and moans in the hope that I hit the last person, but heard nothing. The glass from the cabinet dug into my back cutting my jumpsuit and skin underneath. I tried to stand and aim my gun in Nolan’s general direction, but the pain of my wounded arm shot through my body and my legs fell out from under me.

  More bullets crashed into the objects around me and more shards of glass fell down onto my head. I pressed my hands on the floor to help me stand, and glass dug into my palms. I heard Nolan frantically pull the trigger of his gun. I heard him exhale with each pull of the trigger, but the only sound was of the metal of the trigger scraping against the metal of the gun. I finally stood and reached my gun out toward him.

  Nolan stood and accepted his fate, pointing his chest squarely at me, making an easy target. Then he threw his arm back behind him, and smiled. He flung his arm forward in my direction and released his own army green grenade. I pulled the trigger twice before diving away from the path of the grenade.

  From the corner of my eye, I saw my shots pierce Nolan’s chest and blood burst from him. He fell backwards, his grin still spread across his face. The grenade bounced and fell only a couple meters from me. I scrambled and crawled to put as much distance between the grenade and myself as I could.

  When it exploded, the same burst of light shot out in all directions from the grenade; just as it had done with mine only moments before. But this time it ignited tanks of oxygen that sat against the wall inside the glass cabinet I just so recently leaned against. A rapid succession of bursts shook the facility that blew holes in the ground and walls.

  Cement collapsed, and walls fell inward. Beds and IV stands sunk downward into the collapsing floor, and electrical cords within the ground sparked and exploded, their casings ripped open and exposed bare wires. Dust and smoke filled the entire room.

  The floor underneath me cracked and broke into large pieces that crashed through whatever was below them. And whatever was below that. I fell with the pieces of floor; my body tangled in the mess of wire and rebar that made up whatever was under me. The wires caught me, slowing my descent through the collapsed floor. Eventually, I landed, my body posed in an awkward position sprawled out over the uneven surface. My head fell back down on the hard ground.

  Dust floated in the air, and sparks jumped in all directions around me. The air further down was cold and my body was beaten. My shoulder bled from the gunshot, my hands were cut from the glass, and my joints were twisted. My feet were sore from walking for days, and dust from the broken cement sucked into my mouth. I coughed and yearned for water as I sat upright and surveyed my surroundings. The room was dark but for the familiar red lights everywhere.

  More hallways stretched in front of me, but these halls were lined with tall glass chambers. I hobbled to my feet and limped away from the hole in the ceiling. I peered into the chambers that sat on the floor. The first container was lit by a red light that sat directly above it. Inside of it was machinery stuffed in compartments. Familiar metal objects, metal plates, artificial joints, computer chips, hydraulic systems. All of the pieces labeled. And at the top of the compartment, etched into the metal was ‘Unit 4536D.’ Next to that was a compartment labeled Unit 4537D. Then 4538D.

  CHAPTER 67

  2069

  DENVER, CO

  In the days to come, Ellis jumped hundreds of years into the future. The Ministry sent him on more survey trips in rapid succession than ever before. Ellis saw Denver grow and crumble like a cartoon flipbook with missing pages. Denver jumped from a mostly congested city to a massive city larger than anything Ellis had ever seen. The city grew in both height and width. With each jump to the future the Ministry scientists had to recalculate Ellis drop point to prevent him from appearing in the middle of the city. Or the middle of a building. From there, Denver changed to a city whose buildings were collapsed and hollowed out. Many of the buildings were crumbled either from something natural or manmade.

  One of the tall
er buildings in Denver had fallen over like a dead tree in a forest and the top half of the building lay horizontally across the city. The fallen building had taken several other smaller buildings out when it fell, and the restoration job seemed to be too much for the city of Denver to undertake.

  Remnants of the fallen building remained for two more survey jumps into the future. The large rectangular structure only disappeared 300 years into the future because it was buried by other buildings that fell on top of it. With each jump, less and less people were visible in the city. Just as Ellis saw the city grow from the inside out, so did the city decay.

  The first area to become unrecognizable was the most populated area. The buildings had long since fallen, and the citizens had moved outward to escape the rubble, and probably to escape whatever was causing the repeated collapses. They migrated to the outskirts of the city. With each jump, Ellis saw more of the city ruined, more people dead, and less people left to migrate further outside of the city. Ellis jumped so many times that he lost track of when he was. He guessed that it was either 4565 or 4665. Eventually, he saw no signs of life.

  Cars had long since disappeared from the roads, and their metal and fiber glass chassis rusted and disintegrated. No humans walked the brittle streets that weaved through piles of cinder blocks and shattered glass. There were no shops or stores to buy even the most basic of supplies. Balls of garbage rustled in the wind; old plastic bottles and bags melted and merged together to make solid disks of unmarked plastic. Large metal shipping crates protruded from the ground, half exposed. No one walked through the desert outside of the city. Ellis didn’t even see wildlife foraging in the fallen ghost town. After a few more jumps into the future the piles of debris eroded and buried itself in the ground. The shards of metal disappeared. Years of dirt, snow, and rain had beaten against the manmade piles of metal rebar and broken cement. The cartoon flipbook pages jumped and jumped.