by Grant Pies
I turned my back on my mother and walked in circles around the warehouse. I paced and tried to make sense of this life. How many times had this conversation occurred? Where in this cycle was I? My brain twisted and melted until I couldn’t make sense of anything. I grabbed my head with my hands and squeezed in an attempt to either force my brain to make sense of this, or, at least, make myself stop thinking for one second.
“I know you have made your mind up. You don’t have to fight this for my sake. If you didn’t plan to go through with this, if you made your mind up right now to not do what I am asking, then you would vanish from existence. Your physical body and my memory of you would disappear instantly. Because your refusal to do this would mean that you, and your parents, inevitably will be murdered by the Ministry of Science before you are old enough to speak.”
The rope in my chest tightened and tied itself in knots. The hand in my chest squeezed. Thoughts of my old comic book with Dr. Ffirth and Admiral Connors rushed back from some hidden part of my memory. Maybe she was right, and my mind was made up. Maybe there was no sense in fighting against the universe. Unfortunately for Hamilton, I think we are all doomed to relive the exact life over and over again.
“Powell, your life has been lived before. You and I have had this conversation before, and every time you have done what I asked you to. It has always been this way, and never any other way. Our lives are simply recycled, over and over. If doing this for me is not enough to persuade you, then think of what killing me will give yourself. Or another version of yourself. That version of yourself that is sitting at home right now. The version that will be arrested for my murder later tonight. If you don’t kill me, then you will never spend any time with your father in Buford. You will never be reunited with Ellis in the future. And you will never stand here and meet your mother just once in your life.”
I bent over and breathed. My balance was off, and my vision was blurry. Jamais vu. Again, the moment was familiar yet unfamiliar. There was a sense of recognition of this moment, but I had not experienced it, at least not this version of me, and at least not yet. Emery was right. My mom was right. Too much of our timeline was linked to this moment. Too much of our lives would be lost if I walked away from this.
I walked to my mom, and I hugged her for the last time in our lives. Our breathing in sync.
“Leaving you in Buford was so very hard,” my mom told me. Her face was red and her eyes swollen with tears. “But I knew it was best for you, but I knew I would miss out on your entire existence. I left you without even knowing your name.” Emery grasped my arms. Her hand held onto my shoulder with the gunshot wound. But I didn’t feel any pain. I didn’t feel anything at the moment. I tried to remember this moment exactly as it happened, so even the countless times I surely would replay it in my head would not even destroy it. I sensed she knew of my acquiescence. She told me what I had to do.
“Just wrap your arm around my throat, and place your other hand over my nose and mouth. Slowly squeeze until I pass out …”
“I can’t do this, mom. I just can’t!” It was just too much, and I stepped away from her. She held her gun to her temple.
“Powell, I am not leaving this warehouse alive. But if you make me do this then there is no guarantee that the Ministry won’t find you in Buford. A suicide of an agent will raise almost as many red flags as my pregnancy. But believe me, I will do this if you don’t.” Her face was stern. Her lips were straight and tense, and she didn’t blink.
“Okay. Okay. Just put the gun down.” I told her. I tried to close my mind to everything; to imagine myself an android programmed to follow orders without any real emotion. I gradually squeezed my forearm into her throat, and I felt her racing pulse raced through my soiled jumpsuit. I held her there until her breathing slowed. She didn’t struggle, panic, or fight. She simply leaned into my body and let her weight slowly transfer from her feet into my arms.
“I love you, mom,” I whispered into her ear just as her heart stopped, and her body grew limp. I lowered her to the floor and laid her on the bed of loose springs and metal scraps. I pulled a rusted chair by her body and sat with her for what seemed like forever. Her body sat still on the floor. Outside in the distance, I heard the sounds of a city come to life. I buried my face into my bloody and burnt hands and sobbed until my eyes burned. I sat there until every ounce of emotion was pushed through my body. I was empty. I was exhausted with nothing left to give.
I kneeled down and brushed Emery’s bangs from her face. She looked at peace. I told myself that eventually her body would become something else. Eventually, whatever made up her soul would stretch out over the universe and curve back around on itself. These particles would mix once again to make this same person. Eventually, she would be alive again. Even if that were true, it didn’t provide much comfort to me.
Before she died, my mom told me what else I needed to do. I had to do more than just kill her. I had to prevent the Ministry of Science from testing her organs, and finding any lost time hidden in her body; dark time as both my parents called it. I had to remove her heart, brain, and eyes. She told me where to cut and what to remove. I searched the warehouse for the sharpest tools I could find. I looked for the tools with the least amount of rust that would make the job easier, and leave her in somewhat decent condition after I was done. But I had seen the pictures, and I knew that was not possible.
I found an old hack saw with a rusted blade, a short knife that was dulled from years of use, and scissors with one of the blades broken in half. I breathed heavily with the tools grasped in my hand. I hovered them over my mom’s body, drove them through the air, only to stop right before I punctured her skin. I couldn’t push the blades through her skin. I couldn’t do it!
My mom’s voice echoed inside of me. I didn’t want her to have died for nothing. I had come this far, and I couldn’t stop now. I held the dull knife centimeters above her body and slowly pushed it through her skin, cutting into her body with the rusted tools and pulling her skin open.
Blood spilled out of her chest and spread across the floor. It soaked into the legs of my jumpsuit as I kneeled next to her body. I reached into her chest and felt for her heart. I tried not to look at the damage I was doing to her body. I tried to imagine I was somewhere else. That I was back in Buford or Yellowstone. I gasped in a mouthful of air, and tried to breathe as little as possible. I moaned and shook my head in both anger and sadness.
I killed five men in New Alcatraz, but that was no preparation for this. I used the knife to cut any arteries that held the heart in place, and then I pulled it out of her chest. I let out a sigh and leaned over my mom’s body. Her heart shined on the floor and contrasted against the matte finish of everything else inside the warehouse.
The screws and bolts were covered in blood around her body. The arms of my jumpsuit were dark and dripping with blood. I turned her head away from me. I couldn’t bear to see her face as I used the rusted saw to open her skull. I stared through the warehouse walls and out to the water that bordered the back of the industrial district. I tried my best to make every motion count and not exert any unnecessary force on my mom’s body. I listened to the tide push the water up against the rocks and mounds of trash that sat under the docks outside. I focused on anything but the sound of the saw cutting through her skull.
I sawed until my wounded shoulder gave out. I wrestled with the brain until it came out with a muffled suction noise. I wanted to remove these organs, this evidence, as fast as I could, but I still wanted to be as gentle and caring as possible. My two goals fought against each other and I thought I would go mad.
I turned Emery back over onto her back and stared at her bloody body. I brushed her bangs out of her eyes, leaving a bloody streak across her forehead. I leaned forward and cradled her head into my chest.
I tried to tell myself this was not her. That this was not a person, and that it never was. I tried to lie to myself about what I was doing. All I could do was wonder if th
e alternative would have been better. I sat on the floor in her blood. The blood from my gunshot wound and the cuts on my hand mixed with hers as it dripped and splattered on the floor. My DNA left behind to ensure that this cycle of sacrifice continued for all eternity.
I looked into my mother’s eyes. Only hours ago they were bright and vibrant. Now they were dull and empty, like the eyes on a doll. They were the last piece of this morbid puzzle. The last step to eliminate any evidence of how long Emery spent in Buford. The last organ that held any evidence of my mom’s true age. They were also the last organ that comprised the closest thing she had to a physical soul.
I sat back and lay on the floor next to her. I stretched my hands behind my head. The nails and screws on the floor poked into the cuts on my back. The only thing that kept me sane in that moment was the thought that my deeds would buy me a few more days with my father. They would buy me a few more minutes with my mother. At least they already had, and what I did again would buy those same moments for another version of me.
I sat up and listened to the humming silence of the night air outside. As I tried my best to gently pry my mother’s eyes out of her head, I thought of Red and his father, and how the same act can have such different meanings. I placed the three organs in a small metal toolbox I found in the warehouse. I stood over what used to be my mom’s body, but was now just a pile of leftover organs that replenished themselves at various times throughout her life.
I found an old tarp and draped it over her. I leaned down and kissed her forehead before taking one last look at my mother and pulling the tarp to cover her face. My feet tracked her blood back through the warehouse and down the hall where I first entered. The nails and washers on the floor stuck to my wet shoes.
I left the warehouse and never looked back. My chest heaved in and out, and puffs of air wafted out of my mouth into the night sky. I cried, but no tears fell down my face. I had nothing left to expel.
I carried the box until the blood from the heart oozed out of the tiny holes in the corner and dripped on my feet. I walked past the warehouses until I found myself at the abandoned port on the furthest outskirts of the city. The moon shined in the black sea water, and a gentle current swayed the water back and forth, beating against the wood pilings of the old rotten docks that stretched out into the water. Most of them collapsed long ago.
I carried the metal box with the organs down one of the docks, and I walked out as far as I could until nothing was to the left, right, or in front of me. Everything was behind me. I leaned down and peered into the water. My wavy reflection barely stared back at me. I lowered the metal box into the calm water, and the sea swallowed my mom’s organs. Her soul trapped in the box slowly floated down. Bubbles grew and burst on the surface of the water, until the rusted box sunk out of sight.
In the distance behind me I heard sirens. I turned to face the grimy abandoned warehouses. Blue and red lights flashed by the warehouse. Just as my mom said, when she didn’t return to the agency, the Ministry dispatched agents to the warehouse. Car after car pulled up.
I sat on the broken dock with my feet in the water, and I watched them in the distance. I saw the police discover my mother’s body. Soon they would test the DNA at the scene. They would find my blood, and they would break down my door and arrest some other version of me. Some unsuspecting version of me. Soon this entire process would start again.
I knew what was in store for that version of myself. I knew where he would end up. I knew he would go to New Alcatraz. I knew he would save Red, Hamilton, and his father. I knew he would sacrifice himself so that his father could travel to the past and raise a third version of me as a child. I only knew part of this cycle. But I didn’t know how the cycle truly ended. I didn’t know where I would go. All I knew was no one was looking for me. Not this version of me. And only when no one is looking for you can you truly be lost.
Thank you for reading the first book in the New Alcatraz trilogy! If you enjoyed it, please leave a review. Or even better, refer the book to a friend. If you would like to read the next volume of the New Alcatraz series, check out New Alcatraz, Volume II: Golden Dawn. For news about upcoming books and other cool stuff find me on Facebook or follow me on twitter. Thanks, and happy reading.
Grant Pies
