New Alcatraz (Book 1): Dark Time

by Grant Pies

  The piles of debris that once made up the entire city became one solid mass. Car parts, rubber, metal train cars, grocery store shelving units. They all combined into large masses, conglomerates of trash and building materials. The holes between chunks of cement were filled by a muddy paste that dried and created large boulders and amorphous structures. Hundreds of more years into the future these structures became monochromatic. They took on the pale beige matte finish of the desert sands. The wind smoothed and rounded the piles of junk.

  After each jump, the Ministry rested Ellis for only a few hours, or a day if he was lucky. Just long enough to barely recover, eat, and rest for a short time, and they didn’t even check his vital signs in between jumps anymore. Eventually, they even stopped taking the readings off of his device. The device that supposedly measured soil and air quality. After his short rest, he was marched back down the long hall to the massive room. The scientists injected him with the long metal syringe filled with the warm thick liquid that crawled through Ellis’ skin, each time administering a different dose.

  Ellis began to think they were only guessing at how much to inject, and he wondered whether he would see any side effects of time travel far in his future. The Time Anomaly Agents marched him to the large stage. The tall pistons already pumping up and down before he even reached the middle of the platform.

  Each jump was more disorienting. After each one it took longer for Ellis’ vision to focus and his balance to stabilize. He jumped to the future while the thick nanobots still wiggled through his veins. Before the miniscule robotic cells reached his organs and fought the radiation caused by the time travel device he was already one hundred years in the future.

  He stared at the large expansive desert where, just a few hours ago, the landscape was littered with the mounds of coagulated trash and debris. Now the piles of scrap metal and old buildings were barely visible; they only peeked from under the large sand dunes.

  Ellis covered his face with his hands as the wind threw clumps of sand at him. His clothes rustled and clung to his body in the fierce winds. In the distance, through the sand, he thought he saw a small pack of coyotes or wolves. The outline of the animals waved and floated in the distance. Their bodies blurred by the heat and obscured even further by the sand blowing in the wind.

  Ellis pressed the button on his device. He either measured the air quality or captured all radio and Internet chatter in a 2,000 kilometer radius. Depending on whom he asked; either way it was useless. He knew there was no radio chatter, and he knew the air quality was poor, or at least different. The air sat heavy in his lungs, and tasted bitter on his tongue.

  He pressed the button a second and third time. Eventually he just pressed the button in rapid bursts. Maybe six times or maybe ten. He glanced around at what used to be Denver, took a deep breath and pushed the button to pull him back through the wormhole. Back to the present.

  The scientists rushed him back to his cell. On the way, Ellis glanced down the hallways that branched off from the main hall that he was familiar with. He saw even more hallways break off from the others. He imagined that more pathways splintered off other hallways in an endless maze of rooms. Like two mirrors face to face, there were endless possibilities. He passed by other empty cells on the way back to his own.

  Some cells were empty in the sense that the cell’s inhabitant was not there, but others were empty in that there was nothing in them; no bed or personal belongings. The lights were off, and the aluminosilicate glass powered down. The scientists ushered him down the hall at a faster pace than Ellis’ body allowed. He stumbled over his own feet, and the scientists had to grab him by the arm and hold him up, but they didn’t stop to let him regain his balance.

  In the distance, down the long hallway, a person walked toward him. A single silhouette. The person’s posture was perfect. Their shoulders barely moved with each step. Ellis squinted and strained his eyes to make the person come into focus. The silhouette of the person came closer. It was a female; Ellis knew that by the shape of her hips and the curvature of her legs, that a pistol was strapped around her right thigh. She was almost in front of Ellis when he recognized the piercing eyes of Emery. She looked down at Ellis as the two scientists held him only enough to keep him moving down the hall.

  “Where are you taking this surveyor?” Emery demanded of the two scientists. They motioned down the hall. “I will take him the rest of the way. You are needed back at the deployment center. Once you report back there, check the remaining cells. We are set to power down in seventy-two hours and there is plenty to do.” Emery’s voice was commanding, her tone quite different than Ellis had ever heard.

  Once the scientists were gone, she reached her hand under Ellis’ armpit and ducked under his arm. Ellis leaned into her more than was necessary. She placed her arm around his and walked him down the hall. After a few steps she glanced behind her to see how far down the hall the two scientists were.

  “They are going to release you soon,” she whispered, her voice back to its usual gentle sound. “They are shutting this place down. Whatever they were looking for, they found it, I think.”

  Her hands wrapped firmly around Ellis’ body and they reached Ellis’ cell in a matter of minutes. Ellis still wanted to linger in her arms, but Emery propped him up against the glass wall of his cell; her breath exhaled warm air against Ellis’ cheek. She looked from side to side down the long empty hall as Ellis stared at her. Behind her, on the wall opposite Ellis’ cell, a pixilated mountain top sunset faded in and out of view.

  “You have only a few more jumps into the future. I heard some of the scientists talking, and they think all human life ceased somewhere around the year 4865. They want to make sure and send you one or two hundred years into the future. They have released Beckett. Buenos Aires was uninhabitable centuries before 4865.” Emery spoke to Ellis rapidly. She didn’t wait for him to acknowledge what she said.

  “Hold on,” she said. “Once you are done here today, you will be released for good. The Ministry won’t have a use for you anymore. Leave here and head to Ashton. Beckett and I will be there. We will be conducting an important experiment. Be careful, they have each of you followed. Everyone in Project Oracle is assigned a team of two to watch and observe your movements outside of this base. Make sure no one learns about Ashton.”

  She finished talking and grabbed Ellis’ head from behind. She pulled him towards her face and kissed him on the lips. Ellis’ mouth was dry and he still felt the baked desert air on him. Emery’s mouth tasted sweet, and she ran her fingers through his dusty hair, squeezing the base of his neck. Ellis was simply the recipient of her kiss; he was too weak to respond, even to this. She slowly pulled away from Ellis, her lips clung to his as she let go of his neck. Emery nodded towards his cell.

  “Get some rest,” she said. “I will see you in Ashton.” Emery smiled and once again looked both ways to see if anyone witnessed their embrace. As if it would matter if she knew that someone saw them. As if she could reverse time and make them not see what just transpired.

  She reached out and squeezed Ellis’ hand. He backed away into his cell and Emery closed the door, turned, and walked away. As he laid back on his bed to try and recover, he was glad that Beckett was not arrested, or worse, after the incident at the rest stop.

  CHAPTER 68

  2069

  DENVER, CO

  Ellis left the buried facility in Denver twelve hours after Emery walked him to his cell. The Ministry made him jump two more times before he left. The Colorado desert looked different than the last time he was there. Thin sapling trees sprouted up sometime in the last 100 years. The trees were short sticks that pointed toward the sky. Branches grew from the trunks and pointed upwards, like gray brittle hat racks growing from the ground. The bark was white and crumbled when Ellis placed his hand on them. The sand that covered the desert floor 100 years ago was replaced by hard gravel. The sand dunes grew slightly larger.

  Another 100 years into
the future, the trees had grown. Where there used to be short saplings there was a dense forest that Ellis could not see through, blocking any wind or sand that blew across the desert. The small hills that were once sand dunes were now tall mountains made of gravel and shale. The trees swayed and cracked in the distance as wind from the other side of the forest beat against them.

  Ellis was tired. He sat on the ground and crossed his legs. His shirt was baggy on him. It was the same shirt he wore since he started jumping through time, beaten and weathered from centuries of gusts of wind. The neck was discolored, and the armpits were stained. The fabric at the bottom of his pant legs was frayed and ripped, and his shoes were worn down.

  Ellis thought back on what he had seen during his time in Project Oracle. The growth and decay of Denver. The skyscrapers and city blocks encased in glass pyramids. The merging of cities. The simultaneous concentration and disbursement of the population. He thought of the buried piles of remnants of civilization. He thought of the two men in the desert and the other bodies in the one man’s cart. He thought of the lifetimes that he skipped over. The entire generations that he didn’t even witness. He wanted to think that he missed the best times in the lifespan of our species.

  None of that mattered anymore. Ellis was on his last jump through time, and the human race was gone, added to the list of species that thought they would collectively live forever, but were wrong. Ellis breathed in. A deep breath of air from the future filled his lungs. The air burned his nostrils as it entered his nose and he tasted it in his mouth; it carried a salty tinge.

  Ellis lay on the ground with the air still held in his lungs, and he listened to his heartbeat against his chest. The tall trees in the distance cracked. The hardpan ground was warm and it seared his skin for a few seconds until his body adjusted. He stared up at the sun, now slightly larger and burning hotter.

  He held the device in his hands; his thumb hovered over the button that would pull him back to his own time. He closed his eyes, and pressed the button, yanking him from the edge of time back to the dark cool room that housed the deployment center. He was still on his back, but now the cold cement floor was under him. He dropped the device on the floor and, for the last time, he exhaled the air he carried from the future.

  CHAPTER 69

  5065

  NEW ALCATRAZ

  DAY 9

  Each compartment was lit from within, like a jewelry display case. Each compartment was cool to the touch. I walked down the hall, running my hand along the line of cold glass. Blood from my hand smearing along the display cases. I walked for what seemed like forever, passing a compartment labeled Unit 5120D and Unit 5252D. The hall was filled with every android that Wayfield Industries ever decommissioned. This vault contained the repeated failures of every member of the Android Representation Counsel. Every lost case was represented here, lining the walls.

  I walked and walked. I knew where I would end up, but part of me hoped he wasn’t here. I hoped that maybe once in my life I won a case, even if I was arrested before it concluded. I hoped that Whitman wasn’t decommissioned, and that I was successful.

  I passed Unit 5687D. Each compartment contained whatever was left of the android before it was decommissioned and disassembled. Some compartments were filled with all parts of the android, others were bare. I passed Unit 5645D and Unit 5826D. I slowed my pace the closer I got; I didn’t want to see the results of years of my work summed up in one cold storage case. Unit 5965D. A little further and then I positioned myself where Whitman’s case should have been, but still faced down the hallway, the storage compartments to my right. Eventually I turned and looked at the case labeled Unit 5987D. Whitman’s composite parts sat in tiny drawers and on shelves. All of them labeled and marked. One last failure in my career.

  Each portion of Whitman was preserved behind the glass. The pieces were treated with care. All parts saved for some later project, letting nothing go to waste. His skin was gone. There was nothing that resembled my last client in the container. Leave it to the ARC and Wayfield to not only send me to the distant future, but to trap me here with a constant reminder of my past life.

  I sat on the ground in front of Whitman’s case with nowhere to go. My father and Red were gone. Hamilton was dead. The other prisoners were dead. My only choices were to die inside this facility or make my way back to the surface and face the elements. Neither seemed appealing.

  Eventually, I lay down with my cut back against the cool cement floor. Hands behind my head, I imagined I was lying in a patch of tall Big Bluestem grass somewhere between Buford and Ashton in the conservation zone where the wind brushed against my cheek. A time either before this or after this, but a different point in this cycle.

  At least I was here, and I had not disappeared after the explosion of my grenade. At least Red and Ellis made it somewhere, and I knew I would make it back to Buford at some point so I would be born.

  If Hamilton was right I would die here, but I would be reincarnated. It might take time, but this universe will start over he’d told me. Then I would find myself in Buford again and would talk with my father again, but with no knowledge of things to come. This was either a sadistic cycle plotted out by the universe or a beautiful gift; it was all a matter of perspective.

  Then something hit me. Like the sudden pain of my gunshot wound or a jolt that wakes you from a dream. A thought flashed in my mind. Whitman.

  Whitman stood in front of me. In pieces. Whitman who testified at trial about his composition. He talked about the human DNA inside his body. He testified that DNA needed protection. It needed nanoscale robots to survive in his robotic body. I sat upright and stared into his display case. I drove my foot through the glass, and cold air rushed out, brushing over my face.

  I scanned the compartments and pulled every tiny drawer out. There were bolts, springs, and metal discs. Finally, in one drawer were two vials. One was marked ‘DNA Sample 257’ and the other marked ‘Nanoscale Serum Batch 6354.’ The liquid inside the second vial was gray, and I tipped it back and forth. The liquid inside oozed from one side to the other.

  I patted my pants and felt a long tube still in my pocket. The long syringe from the box in the medical ward still intact sat in my pocket. I removed the plastic sheath from the needle. One end of the vial had a rubber barrier and I sunk the long needle into the vial, pulling every drop of the nanobots into my syringe.

  I breathed deep and jabbed the needle into my arm. My thumb drove the plunger down. The liquid sunk into my arm and crawled through my veins. My body was warm even as I stood next to the cold storage compartment. The liquid crept inside me, and I felt rejuvenated. A calm flowed over me and the cuts on my back and hands stung slightly less. My muscles and wounded shoulder felt less sore. My body began to repair itself. I smiled and walked until I found the yellow line painted on the ground leading to the deployment center.

  CHAPTER 70

  5065

  NEW ALCATRAZ

  DAY 9

  The yellow line painted on the floor stretched for what seemed like forever. The endless hall sloped downward. I walked deeper and deeper into the earth. My body still felt warm from the nanobots crawling through me, seeking out my damaged cells and repairing them. They sat and waited for the radiation to poison my body, so they could counterattack.

  After moving thousands of years into the future, saving Red and my father, walking through the scorched desert of Denver, and finding the bunker. After leaving my own time having never killed a person, and after killing a total of five men since I arrived in prison. After surviving the collapse of the ground underneath me, and injecting myself with microscopic robots that came from the last client I ever had as an attorney. After all, that my thoughts returned to the origin of my journey. The death of Agent Emery.

  It had been a long time since I thought of her. At least thought of her as my alleged victim. I listened to Ellis’ story of how he arrived here, and how he met Emery. I listened to him talk about a person h
e loved and desperately wanted to find after he left this place. A person he would sacrifice himself for.

  I had to consider the facts that I knew to be true. I knew that Emery was dead and I knew that I did not kill her. So who did? Why frame me? It made no sense. At least not in this point in my life. Maybe some time after this, or before this, it would all make sense. If I go back. If I find the person who killed her. If I find the person who framed me. Will all that clear my name? Will that allow me to start over? I had no choice but to find the person who murdered Emery.

  I walked long after the last recycled android compartment was out of view behind me, and the light that shone from the cold storage units diminished and disappeared. I walked and imagined that the hall had gradually bent and turned, but that I didn’t notice. I only noticed a long endless hall. No other colored lines were painted on the floor. Nothing else was beyond this point but the deployment center.

  By the time I reached the large cavernous room I didn’t know how long I had been underground. The walls of the room stretched up so high that I could not see the ceiling. Lights were embedded at even intervals along the wall, but stopped maybe three stories up. I surveyed the room and thought of everything that happened here.

  I thought of the surveyors that were sent on hundreds of trips to the future, of the prisoners who were propelled into the future against their will. I thought of Red and Ellis, who were the first two people to use this machine to travel to the past. I thought that I would likely be the last person to ever use this device. After I left this place and time, this bunker, this room, this device would be forgotten. Decades would pass, maybe centuries. More people would be sent to this time.