New Alcatraz (Book 1): Dark Time

by Grant Pies

  “You see,” Beckett said and slapped Ellis shoulder to get him to pay attention. “You spent thirty-five hours in the future, but you came back to the exact time you left. So to everyone here in the present you actually aged thirty-five more hours than you should have, had you not traveled through time. It is like everyone in the present was frozen while you continued to age in the future. Imagine if you stayed in the future for ten years, and you might start to grasp the concept.”

  Beckett was clearly impressed with this information. He was like a teen spreading gossip. Or a friend who was the first to inform you that some national tragedy just occurred. It made him feel important.

  The nurses still labeled the sterile dishes that held slices of the dead man’s heart. The metal box divided the heart into endless pieces only a fraction of the width of thin deli meat. Once the chrome rack was filled with miniscule pieces of the man’s organs, a nurse wheeled the cart out of the glass room.

  The body lay there in the middle of the room, the ice under the table melting and making puddles of cold water that mixed with swirls of red. The doctors and nurses wore thin paper coverings over their shoes, and they stepped in the pink puddles until the paper booties were soaked in blood water and the rest of the floor looked like a child’s sponge painting.

  “They call it ‘dark time,’” Beckett continued as he moved his fingers in the air to make quotes. “Time unaccounted for. Only the traveler knows that it exists. Dark time is the only thing keeping a time traveler from traveling freely, without proof of their travels and without consequences. That is why I ask, how old are you Ellis? Maybe the better question is ‘How old are you supposed to be?’”

  CHAPTER 72

  2069

  ASHTON, IDAHO

  The body in the glass room had no heart rate monitor, blood pressure monitor, or pulse oximeter hooked up to it. Nothing to measure the intracranial pressure, or the blood glucose levels of the dead man. Nothing measured the temperature of the body as it lay on ice. No pesky wires sprawled across the floor.

  Beckett talked about dark time and Ellis tried to listen. He wanted to listen, but he was fixated on the dripping blood mixing with the ice water on the floor. The blood dripped in perfect intervals and each drip counted a second. Steady and unyielding.

  Maybe he really heard the drops connect with the puddle on the floor, or maybe he imagined it. But each drop made a sound that echoed through the entire room. Ellis imagined that it was the beeping of the non-existent heart rate monitor.

  He never realized how morbid a dead body could be without some sign of a doctor nearby trying to save it. Even if the monitor was in vain, it at least gave the appearance that those working on him cared whether he died or not. Here the person just looked like a pile of skin and organs. As if no life ever rested inside of him.

  “… So you, your cells, are generally only seven or ten years old. They regenerate. Some more often than others. But they all regenerate. When an organ regenerates completely, where it is made of all new cells, that is called a ‘turnover.’ Each part of your body has its own turnover rate. Cells in your muscles are completely replaced every fifteen years or so. The lining of the stomach is exposed to so many harsh acids and mixtures of chemicals that it only lasts five days before it is completely regenerated. Red blood cells - one hundred and twenty days, and the liver lasts around 400 days before it is completely regenerated. The skin renews itself every two weeks. The cells split and die, but the same number of cells is always maintained. Just different cells. New cells.”

  By now the nurse had removed the metal contraption holding the man’s chest open. She cranked it around counter-clockwise until his ribs slowly pulled back to an almost normal position, but the exposed, freshly cut bones still stuck out slightly. The man’s torso was red and striated with veins from being stretched and drained of blood.

  Dr. Adler and two nurses still hunched over the man’s head, obstructing Ellis’ view, moving and wrapping their arms around the man’s head. One nurse handed Dr. Adler clean tools from a metal tray that held scalpels of various sizes, tongs, devices made for prying, and a large circular saw. The second nurse retrieved the bloodied tools once the doctor finished using them, acting in unison, like a bloody assembly line, but only in reverse.

  Continuing his speech, Beckett said, “We learnt that The Ministry of Science has worked feverishly to find some cell in our body that didn’t replenish itself. They needed a cell that would expose rogue time travelers. A cell that would show their true age. Not the age they were supposed to be or the age they claimed to be. The Ministry catalogued every person’s age. They know the time of birth and know everyone’s age down to the minute.”

  “Me, I am thirty-two years, four months, two days, sixteen hours, and thirty-two minutes. That is not counting my time spent in the future. So really I am thirty-two years, four months, three days, twenty hours, and seventeen minutes old. That is a difference of one day, three hours, and forty-five minutes. Now if I didn’t work for the Ministry, I would have to explain that difference; that dark time. I would have to explain why I am older than I am supposed to be.” Beckett rattled off these numbers quickly and robotically.

  Dr. Adler handed the second nurse a bloody scalpel, and she placed it into a container marked with the word ‘biohazard.’ At the same time, Dr. Adler held out his other hand, and the first nurse handed him the large circular bone saw. He pressed the button to test if the saw worked, and the saw hummed in the doctor’s hand, reaching a steady pitch before the doctor lowered it down toward the dead man’s head.

  Blood and small pieces of skull sprayed in one direction across the glass room splattering onto a distant wall. The blood spray landed on the wall and dripped down to the floor, while the miniscule pieces of the skull stuck to the blood on the wall. Like sand thrown into a puddle of olive oil.

  “The Ministry found these cells that give away time travelers’ true age.” Beckett spoke slightly louder so he would be heard over the buzzing of the saw and the gasps of the onlookers.

  “They found them in three parts of our body. First, in the heart. The cells in the muscles of your heart are the same cells you were born with, the same cells that you grew up with, and the same cells that you traveled to the future with. Those cells have been there for every beat of your heart. They have waited there in our bodies to expose us. To reveal every minute of dark time that we have.”

  Doctor Adler stood upright and handed the bloodied bone saw to the nurse, and she dropped it in the same biohazard box. Adler stretched his back, pressing his shoulder blades together. He rolled his head from one side to the other, and he reached his red stained hands into the air. Eventually, he huddled back over the man’s head and worked his hands around. He stood back up and turned toward Ellis with a brain resting in his hands.

  The brain was surprisingly pink and free of blood. It shimmered under the bright overhead operating lights. He handed it to the nurse, who in turn placed it in the same metal box that they put the heart in. The box hummed and whirred as it dissected the brain into hundreds of thin transparent pink pieces, and the nurses quickly transported the brain pieces to more sterile dishes. Labeled, tagged, coded, and placed on another metal rack. A third nurse came into the glass room from outside and rolled the brain rack out of the room.

  “The brain is the other area where the cells don’t replenish.” Beckett continued unfazed by the blood and brains. “Not the entire brain, mind you, but one portion of the brain. The cells in the cerebral cortex are just as old as the cells in your heart. They too will give away any secret trips to another time.” Beckett pointed back at Adler, who, after his short stretch, had immediately leaned back over the face of the man on the frozen table.

  “The third group of cells comes from the eyes. The inner lens of the eyeball does not regenerate. They form in the womb and don’t change after that.”

  The doctor made quick work of the two eyes, using only his fingers and a scalpel to remove t
hem. He turned and held them both in a single bloody gloved hand. The nurses did not place them in the box. Instead they took them and placed them in a slightly deeper sterile tray and marked them, ‘left’ and ‘right.’

  “These are the three organs that betray us. If it weren’t for these three groups of cells we could travel through time unimpeded. The Ministry would never know. At least they would not be able to prove it. If they know how long a person stayed in another time that gives them plenty of insight into what a person could have accomplished in this other time.

  Before we can safely travel into the future on our own, and accomplish what the Ministry only pretends to want to accomplish. We have to find a way to defeat these cellular groups. We have to find a way to conceal our own dark time, and somehow reverse the aging process of these organs. Until we overcome this hurdle we cannot move forward.”

  Ellis looked back at the dead body. The empty vessel sat in the middle of the room. No more blood was left to drip out of the body and onto the floor. The doctors and nurses left. The spectators left. The room was empty except for Beckett and Ellis. The floor was littered with thin paper booties and full body scrubs soaked in blood.

  Beckett walked away from the glass room, and opened the same door that they entered through, holding it for Ellis. Ellis stood still. He felt uneasy leaving this dead person alone in the room.

  “These three organs work together to make what some think is the closest thing we have to a physical soul.” Beckett spoke and waved Ellis back to the door. Ellis slowly lifted each foot and walked toward Beckett, only glancing back at the lifeless body once before turning away for the last time.

  “These organs together let us know that we experienced life. That we existed and felt amusement or satisfaction. Unfortunately, the very thing that makes us who we are, the point in our bodies where hard science and something more … ethereal collide, is exactly what can betray us. If we ever hope to travel through time without being caught by the Ministry of Science or a Time Anomaly Agent then we need to learn how to eliminate, or conceal, our soul … without killing our body.”

  CHAPTER 73

  MAY 14, 2070

  PHOENIX, AZ

  I arrived in 2070 sometime before I was arrested and before Emery was murdered. It was like I awoke from a dream so real that you have to sit and wonder if it really happened. Part of me wished that the last nine days were a dream, but another part of me was glad it wasn’t.

  I scurried through the twisted alleyways branching off the main road. I moved and hid behind dumpsters and parked cars. Aware of my appearance, I tried to minimize any contact with other people. The fabric in the back of my jumpsuit was torn, and the bottoms of the pant legs were frayed. My entire jumpsuit was stained a darker color from my sweat, and from various people’s blood. My own blood had soaked through the jumpsuit from my shoulder gunshot wound.

  Theories of time travel jolted through my mind. What would happen to me, this version of me, if I prevented the murder? What would happen if the murder still occurred but I caught the real murderer? I had to warn Emery in case I wasn’t successful, or in case the murderer ambushed her somewhere besides at the warehouse.

  The alleys were empty but for a few homeless people and stray animals. Streetlights flickered on, and neon signs blinked to life as I wandered toward the scene of Emery’s murder, warehouse 28, only a few blocks away. The hard pavement under my feet felt too solid. My legs, now so used to trekking through sand, naturally anticipated to sink downward with each step.

  Ellis was a stronger person than I was. To jump thousands of years into the future over the course of several months would push my mind beyond its limits. After only two instances of time travel my mind wandered, jumping and skipping from one time to another. I could no longer process things in a linear fashion. I couldn’t tell what I had done versus what I would do.

  My wounds healed quite quickly thanks to the nanobots, but I still bled some. My shoulder throbbed, and my head pounded from dehydration. I scooped stagnant water, no cleaner than the water I sucked from my socks in New Alcatraz, from a pothole and poured it in my mouth. It tasted of old boiled pasta and must have been tossed out from a nearby restaurant. A few more blocks away, I found a spigot behind a small building. Rusty water poured out, but at least it was cold.

  I drank until my stomach was bloated, and I bathed until the nine days of desert dirt were at my feet in a puddle of mud. I unbuttoned the top portion of my jumpsuit so it hung at my waist. Underneath, my formerly white shirt had turned the brownish orange color of the future desert, and the sleeve was bloody and torn from the bullet. I winced as I splashed the cold water onto the reddish black hole in my shoulder.

  Before I reached the industrial district in Phoenix, I found a small liquor store with a sign outside that read ‘Free Internet.’ I did my best to brush off any loose dirt from my clothing, and I entered the store; a bell rang upon my entry.

  A lone clerk sat behind the counter watching a TV that sat somewhere out of view. I approached a recessed computer tower in the back of the store and tapped the bright screen to pull up an email directory for all of Phoenix. The Ministry didn’t allow privacy of emails anymore since that might lead to subversion. I located Agent Emery’s email address and tapped it with my finger; my hands left streaks of dirt on the screen. I wanted to confront the killer at the warehouse alone, and so I needed to keep Emery away from what was going to happen there. I wanted to change history and stop her going there … for whatever reason she had.

  I composed an email that was equal parts informative and cryptic. “Stay alert!” I wrote. “Someone will try to harm you today. Stay away from the industrial district and Warehouse 28. It is not safe for you there. Please trust me!” I signed the email ‘anonymous’ and hit the ‘send’ button. Hopefully, Emery would receive this warning, and I would be able to confront her would-be killer on my own. Perhaps it was a feeble plan, but it was all I could think of.

  I walked until I reached the gray, soot covered industrial steel buildings outside of town. Each one had bay doors large enough to drive a car through, loading docks on the sides of the buildings, and steep pitched roofs. Pulley systems were bolted at the peak of the roof to pull large items through the rectangular windows that stretched across the top of the buildings. Most of the windows were shattered; others were just cracked. The windows that remained were covered in years of grime.

  Large numbers were painted on the middle of the gray steel exterior. Dogs with patchy fur that looked like wild coyotes trotted down small side streets, and packs of cats jumped in and out of open dumpsters. Vultures circled overhead and waited for one of these animals to be struck by a car. This part of town wasn’t just empty, it felt empty. It felt frozen, like time had passed it by. It felt how I imagined Ashton felt for Ellis when he arrived.

  I reached Warehouse 28. A mix of asphalt and gravel crunched under my feet, reminding me of the hardpan desert floor in New Alcatraz. By now, the sun was long gone and any stars in the night sky were all long-since blotted out by the cloud of polluted air resting over the city. The exterior of the warehouse was brittle and rusted. The large set of double doors in front was secured by a large rusted chain and padlock.

  I walked around the side of the warehouse where empty bottles, broken glass, and empty pallets lined the exterior walls. In the distance, the city hummed while the industrial outskirts acted as a vacuum for all life. Not even the wind blew in between the warehouses.

  I found a locked door on the side of the warehouse with a small shattered window at the top. I reached my arm inside and unlocked the door. The rusted hinges scrapped together as I pushed the door open, and the broken glass from the window popped under my feet. I walked down a short hallway, passing a small office with an old desk and filing cabinet that had tipped over and spilled yellowed papers all over the floor.

  Beyond the office and the hall, the space opened up into one large room. The ceiling was two stories high, and metal beam
s spanned the entire length of the warehouse. On the opposite end of the warehouse, an old wooden staircase zigzagged up to a loft area. The main room was littered with dead leaves that somehow floated here from far away. Now they were untouched by the wind and trapped inside.

  More boxes were inside, and an off-balanced table sat in the middle of the floor. Machinery of unknown purpose and scraps from different projects were scattered around. Bolts and screws rolled away from my feet with each step. Rusted saws, pliers, screwdrivers, and crowbars sat on the oil stained floor.

  I scanned the room for a hiding place, somewhere to lurk until the real murderer showed their face. I squeezed behind several boxes and scraps of wood near the corner of the warehouse. This gave me a view of the large front door locked by the chain as well as the hall I entered through.

  Once I had time to wait, time to sit, I noticed how painful my shoulder was. The red liquid spread out from my shoulder to my chest, ran down my side, and dripped off of my hand. The entire side of my body throbbed, and a rhythmic wave of pain pulsed through me.

  A noise snapped me out of my pain. It was the rusty hinges of the door I unlocked in the back of the warehouse. A person’s feet stepped and crunched over the same glass that I walked over moments ago. The same dead leaves and metal washers. I peeked through the slats of a wooden pallet, and waited for the person, for Emery’s true murderer, to come into view. I ducked and moved to try and gain a better view, shifting left, and then right and kneeling lower.

  At the end of the hallway, a person with a gun strapped around their thigh emerged from the hallway. She wore dark pants and a shirt with the Time Anomaly Agency logo embroidered on it. Her bangs swept to the side of her face. Emery stood in the warehouse and looked around, her hand resting on the pistol at her side.