by Grant Pies
Now use your common sense and ask does it make more sense that Whitman neglected Pierson, a man Whitman had developed a close bond with, withheld his medication, and stole his organs upon Pierson’s death. Or does it make more sense that Pierson developed a plan to help his friend learn the most important thing about himself. That Pierson made the decision himself not to prolong his life or hasten his death, but to age and die naturally. And in the process he died in peace because he knew that he was the key to his friend discovering whom he came from and maybe one day finding his place in this world.
Thank you.
Court: OK, it is late tonight, so we will break for the day and reconvene tomorrow morning for jury deliberations and possible sentencing. Thank you.
Bailiff: All rise!
CHAPTER 76
MAY 14, 2070
PHOENIX, AZ
“I told you not to come!” I shouted and shook my head with disbelief, my hands in the air. “Didn’t you get my message?”
“That was you?” Emery asked me. Her face scrunched up, and she tried to make sense of things. Her eyes flicked from side to side as if she expected others to appear.
“Yes, it was me. You can put the gun away,” I said. “I’m not the one that is going to hurt you.”
“Then who is going to hurt me? What is it that you think is going to happen to me? And who are you?” Despite her eyes, the gun was perfectly steady.
I tried to figure out where to start. Did I start at the beginning, my beginning, or the end? Feelings of déjà vu and jamais vu blended together, and I no longer knew what I had done versus what I would do.
I lowered my hands. My wounded shoulder couldn’t hold that position any longer, but I kept them out away from my body. I breathed deep and exhaled.
“My name is Powell and … I am your son ... I think,” I said and waited for a reaction. Emery tilted her head and waited. She looked at me and tried to read my face and eyes. I nodded my head to confirm my earlier statement, as shocking and confusing as it must have seemed. Eventually she lowered her gun very slowly, like her body could not both make sense of my statement and concentrate on holding the gun at the same time.
“You’re what?” she asked and I argued with myself about what to say next. I decided on the two things I thought might convince her.
“Ellis is my father. I grew up in Buford, Wyoming.” Her eyes widened and she looked shocked as her brain took in what I said. She held her gun at her side, but she didn’t place it back in the holster. Her eyes darted around the empty warehouse, and then she took a tentative step closer to me. She looked me up and down, her eyes lingering on each of my facial features. A look of recognition passed across her face, and she dropped her gun on the floor; the sound of metal on the cement echoed through the warehouse. She now approached me more quickly and wrapped her arms around me, burying her face in my chest and squeezing.
I slowly raised my arms around Emery; around my mother. My shoulder stung, but I ignored the pain as much as I could to reciprocate her hug. Her body moved up and down and I heard her sobbing into my chest, and we stood like that in the middle of the warehouse for a long time. But all the while I was still on edge as I waited for someone else to appear. I hoped we’d have time to talk, to get past the initial complications of our relationship, before we had to deal with whoever came.
When we finally let go and stepped back from each other, my mom’s clothes were covered in dirt and blood from my jumpsuit. She wiped the tears from her eyes and smiled.
“You look like him. You have his nose,” she said as she wiped tears from her face. “And you’re taller than I expected.” Her smile stretched wide and she stared at me for the longest time without saying a word. Her mind clearly wandered to a different place, or a different time.
“Emery!” I said, but she didn’t react. “Emery!” I spoke louder and snapped my fingers. “Mom!” She snapped out of her daydream and refocused her eyes. “You can’t stay here. It isn’t safe.” She ignored what I said, and motioned toward the table with her hand. We sat at the rusted table in the middle of the warehouse.
“Where did you come from?” my mom asked. “What happened to you?” She looked at my condition. She saw the blood and the dirt. This was surely not how a mother wanted to see her son.
“I came from New Alcatraz,” this seemed like as good a place as any to start my story. “I was sent there for murdering someone.”
“What! Who? When were you arrested? How did you get out?” Emery asked as if she couldn’t get all her questions out fast enough.
“That is what I am trying to tell you. I was arrested, or I will be in a few hours, for your murder. Someone is going to murder you and frame me…”
I paused to let that sink in, but she said nothing. She just waited for me to continue.
“I met Ellis and a few others in New Alcatraz, and we managed to escape. Everyone else went to different times. I came here. I came back before the murder to try and stop it.”
“You saw Ellis? What did you say your name was?”
“Powell. My name is Powell.” Emery laughed and smacked her hand on the table.
“That’s a good name, Powell.”
“You need to leave. I need to do this alone,” I told her, and all Emery did was smile.
“Did your father tell you about Ashton and how he got arrested?” she asked me, clearly ignoring my pleas that she should leave. I simply nodded.
“After the raid in Ashton, Ellis and Beckett were both sent away to New Alcatraz. Only a handful of other people survived the raid. The TAA commended me on my undercover work and gave me a promotion. Days after the Ministry sent Ellis to New Alcatraz, I received an email through a delayed delivery service, from the year twenty thirty-six. The email was from your father,” she nodded in my direction.
“He was in Wyoming of all places. He waited to have the email delivered after his arrest, to preserve the events that led up to us meeting. He didn’t want to risk changing anything that already happened.” I nodded, understanding the feeling. Emery smiled when she told the next part of the story.
“I told the TAA that I had a lead on a possible time anomaly in twenty thirty-six. They let me travel there alone. Perks of my promotion,” she said with a grin. “I met him in Cheyenne. He insisted we leave the large city and head west to a town called Buford. Someone he met in New Alcatraz suggested he go there. He told me that that same person saved his life. Powell was his name.” Emery leaned back in her chair and met my eyes with hers. She stared at me with a proud expression on her face. I was speechless.
“On our way to Buford, your father told me all about you, Red, and Hamilton. He recounted his time in New Alcatraz, the desert, the beach, and your successful rescue attempt,” she smiled, but her smile quickly faded.
“He told me that Beckett didn’t make it, that he was killed by another prisoner, but he wouldn’t tell me more than that. He didn’t want to talk about him. He was most proud of the sacrifice you made for him and Red. He told me that you were a brave man, and he wished he could be more like you.”
“During the year I spent in Buford with Ellis, he thought about you a lot, and he hoped you were safe. If he knew you were his son...” Emery looked away and shook her head. “He would have been so proud of your character, your bravery, and your sacrifice. But if he knew, he may have been even harder on himself. He might not have been able to handle leaving you behind like he did.”
“Mom,” I hated to interrupt, but I had to. “You cannot be here. I will go with you, just as long as we leave here.” She shook her head and continued with her story, like she didn’t care about what could happen or that there was nothing she could do to stop it.
“We found Buford and settled there. The town reminded us of Ashton. I knew we could both stay there safely as long as the TAA thought I was truly investigating a time anomaly. But that would only last for a short time. I couldn’t stay there indefinitely. I just wanted to spend a little more time with
Ellis.
“You see, the TAA measures our true age before and after each time jump. They test the cells in our heart, brain, and eyes to find the dark time in our body… did Ellis tell you about dark time?” I nodded and she continued. “So they debrief us to determine what we did during that time. We are limited to staying in a different time for no more than five weeks.” Emery held five fingers in the air. “Upon my return, I would need to account for my time spent in twenty thirty-six.”
“Soon after I met back up with your father, I became pregnant, with you.” My mom looked down, and placed a hand on her stomach. “I couldn’t go back pregnant. I had to stay until you were born. So while Ellis scavenged for food and repaired the trading post in Buford, I considered what the agency would do if I simply never returned. God knows I wanted to stay with you and your father.” Emery’s eyes glowed in the split second that she imagined an alternate life where she stayed with us. A life where she could help raise her son and live with her husband.
“Mom, someone is coming here,” I said and tried to interrupt her, but she just kept telling her story. I looked around the warehouse, and listened for anyone else who might be approaching from outside.
“I knew I couldn’t stay forever. So while your father built a home for us,” she continued. “I planned a way to permanently end the TAA’s investigation.” My mom made eye contact with me and never turned away. “I thought through every possible outcome, and considered the past and future of the three of us. I thought of what the TAA would do if they discovered either you or Ellis.
“I have thought of this ever since I left you both in Buford,” my mom told me. “I thought of it while I was pregnant with you, and it never left my mind. I thought of ways to protect you both as a child and as an adult. If the TAA found out that I gave birth in the past, they would know that I wasn’t really following a lead.” A bird flew in through the broken window overhead and landed in the loft area. The dogs outside howled.
“If the TAA discovered the slightly more than nine months of dark time, hidden in my body. They would know that I spent the length of a full term pregnancy in the year twenty thirty-six. It wouldn’t take too long for them to realize that I was not trying to arrest Ellis in the past, or that I wasn’t working undercover in Ashton.”
“They would know that I was involved in one form or another with this fringe group, and they would beat me within an inch of my life until I told them everything I knew. And I would. No one has ever withstood the brutal techniques of the TAA. After I talked, agents would travel to twenty thirty-six. They would kill Ellis, and they would kill you as a baby.” Emery shifted her position in her rusted metal chair. Her words of what could happen rang throughout the warehouse. A warning echoed over and over again.
“The only reason you lived. The only reason Ellis was alive to raise you, and you are sitting here now, is because the Agency has not tested me yet. They haven’t debriefed me. I have only just returned from holding you for the last time as a small baby in the year twenty thirty-six. I left only three weeks after giving birth to you. To me, the thought of you as my child is still brand new. In the blink of an eye, you aged thirty years. I am saddened that I wasn’t able to watch you grow. I didn’t have the chance to see you experience life. But I am overjoyed to know that you did. That you survived.” My mom forced a smile even though her face tried to frown.
“Mom!” I shouted and tried to snap her out of her stubborn reminiscing. “You shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t have come here. Someone will be here any minute and they intend to kill you!” I made a fist with my burnt and scarred hand and pounded on the rusted table.
“You still don’t get it, Powell. I can’t let them test me. You can’t let them test me.” Emery told me, and before she said her next words I understood. Everything became clear. Her blue eyes glowed like bright neon lights against her skin. “You can’t let them do that to me. You have to prevent that from happening. You have to kill me.”
CHAPTER 77
MAY 14, 2070
PHOENIX, AZ
As much as I expected them, her words pierced me, and felt like someone drove a large harpoon through my chest. Like a thick rope was tied to the end of it, and that rope was being dragged through my insides.
“You have to keep the agency from discovering that I stayed in Buford. You have to help me hide that I was pregnant.” Her eyes filled with water until there was too much to hold back. Her tears streaked down her pale cheek. It wasn’t until I brushed my hand against my face that I realized I too was crying. My tears streaked through the dirt still on my face.
“You don’t know them like I do,” she told me. “You don’t know what they do. If they believe, even for a second, that I went to the past and gave birth to a child they will torture me. They will beat me and burn me. They will drown me.” Her face changed from one of sadness to one of fear and realization that both of her options meant she would die.
“After that, they will isolate me for months and starve me. They will cut me and wait until just before I had bled enough to die, and then they will give me a transfusion and start over again. They will do whatever it takes until I tell them where I spent those months in twenty thirty-six. No one is strong enough to withstand what the TAA and Wayfield will do to me. You can’t let them do that to me. You killing me is the only chance I have at a peaceful death.”
“No!” I said. I offered no explanation or compromise; such an act was beyond me. “I will not do it. We can go now. We can run!” I had to make her see that I could not do this.
Emery sighed in frustration. “We cannot run. We would never make it far enough. They will find me and in fact, they will be here soon. I talked about the message before I left the office. They know I am here. If I don’t return soon they will send squad cars to this location. They will be looking for me.”
“I can’t do this!” I screamed at her, tears streaming down my face. My guts were in turmoil with fear for her. Over what she said the TAA would do to her. She reached over and took my hand. I wanted to pull it away but I couldn’t.
“I have lived my entire life without you. Without even knowing that you existed! I thought you were dead. Ellis ... dad, he told me you died giving birth to me. Do you know the guilt I have felt for that?” Emery shook her head and looked down, tears rolled down her cheeks in a steady stream.
“I grew up thinking you died because of me! Now I find out that wasn’t true. I find out I didn’t kill you as a child, but you want me to kill you now!?” Emery now stood from the table and picked her gun up from the floor as I buried my face in my hands, collecting puddles of mud in my palms. I looked up when I realized she was speaking again.
“Powell … Powell, not only will they torture me, but once they know about Buford, they will go back to twenty thirty-six and find Ellis. They will do the same to him; they won’t just kill him mercifully. Ashton was one of many abandoned towns that our group was based out of. They will want names. They will want the locations of any other ghost towns that acted as cover for our group.” Emery threw her arms in the air. Her gun gripped tightly in her hand. She grew more and more frustrated.
“I am sorry, mom, I just can’t do it!” I looked up through blurred eyes. The entirety of my journey had caught up to me. The toll of my arrest, New Alcatraz, and the loss of those that I found there all welled up inside of me. The thought of losing my father for a second time burrowed deep into my stomach. The lives I took, and those I saw taken in front of me, moved to the forefront of my brain.
“The TAA will find you there too. A helpless child. Agents from the future will surround the forgotten town and swarm the trading post. They will find you!” She screamed at me, her anger at my stubbornness clear in her voice.
“You are the key piece of evidence that an agent of the TAA, not only betrayed them, but helped a person cover up an escape from New Alcatraz, the only prison that was truly inescapable. Whatever beatings they would administer to me and Ellis, they will d
o to you, but as an infant. And they will do it in front of us until we give them even more names of people they may not have caught in Ashton.”
As much as I hated to admit it to myself, what my mom said made sense. Just as the line of disassembled androids in New Alcatraz reminded me of my failures as a member of the ARC, I would remind the Ministry of its failure to create an inescapable prison. They would use me as a baby to get to Emery and Ellis.
“I am dead either way. At least let me go out how I want to and when I want to. I am begging you to do this for me.” She lowered her voice and spoke softly to me.
“If you don’t, we will all three suffer the same fate at the hands of the Ministry of Science. I love you so much, and leaving you in Buford was the hardest thing I ever did. But our entire lives, and our entire existence, are founded upon sacrifice. I left Buford to come here, and that was my sacrifice to you. You killing me will be your sacrifice for all three of us.”
I stood from the table and approached her. I grabbed her shoulders and pulled her closer to me.
“What if I don’t?” I asked my mom. “What if we just leave here and hide? What if we go back to Buford?” I asked frantically. I wanted to find any alternative. Emery smiled at my resistance. She placed her hands on my forearms and squeezed.
“I can’t stay hidden forever or else they will go looking for me in twenty thirty-six.” Emery said with a calm voice of a person who had accepted their fate long ago. “They will go to Cheyenne and start the search from there. They will go to each town near Cheyenne until they find something. They will never stop. We can’t hide in the future when they can go back to the past.
“Powell, I know you will do the right thing. I know you will do what you must do. I know this because you already have.” I let go of her and backed away. “You already killed me. At least once, but likely you have done it countless times before. And you will continue to do it. Time after time. If you had not killed me, then you wouldn’t be here right now. Your DNA would not have been at a crime scene. You wouldn’t have been arrested, and you wouldn’t have gone to prison. If you hadn’t killed me before, you wouldn’t have met your father or told him to go to Buford. You wouldn’t have escaped and come here if I had never died in the first place.”
