by Grant Pies
We approached an opening in the canyon with walls stretching high above us, like a naturally formed amphitheater. The canyon walls circled around us, and there were numerous passageways carved into the rocks branching out in all different directions. Doc held a hand up in the air. Whitman and Vesa stopped, so I stopped as well. Doc’s hand still sat on his pistol, but it was not tense. It rested there naturally.
“Just step on out from there, so I can see you,” Doc said to a person I couldn’t see.
On the other side of the opening, a man draped in off-white linen emerged from the darkness. He held his arms down but out from his sides slightly, palms facing outward to show he carried no weapons.
“It’s just me,” the man said. His voice was soothing. He spoke like he was trying to lull a baby to sleep.
Doc scoffed at the comment. “How about down there?” Doc lifted his hand from the pistol and pointed down one of the other tunnels in the large opening. “I heard him before I got to the opening. He might as well come out too.”
The first man hesitated, but eventually motioned into the darkness. A second man in similar linen clothing came out from a different tunnel.
“Did you ask him to stumble over every rock on his way here, or is he just that useless?” Doc asked the first man.
“You can’t begrudge me for not fully trusting you or your group. I brought backup, but I hope it won’t be necessary.” The man’s tone remained calm, neutralizing Doc’s sarcasm.
“I don’t begrudge you for not trusting us, Quinn, but I do begrudge you for lying to me.” Doc took a few steps forward. “I don’t trust you either. That’s why I didn’t come alone. But none of my people are hiding in the shadows. We are out in the open.”
The second man walked over and stood by Quinn. Both men were barefoot. Quinn’s face was wrinkled and tanned. He was tall and thin, and his linen pants fell above his ankle. The other man was young, maybe early twenties, and fit. Even in the loose linen, I could see his shoulders were broad and his biceps were large.
“I do apologize, Doc. Please forgive me.” Quinn’s calm tone sounded like he was mocking Doc.
“Just lead the way,” Doc said and shook his head.
Quinn and the other man walked ahead down one of the many tunnels branching off the opening. Once inside the tunnel, the ceiling became low, and the dry air turned moist. The ground transitioned from sand to flat stones. Every sound echoed. Every shuffle of our feet or loose pebble that tumbled down the path rang out, and reverberated over and over. The four of us kept our distance behind Quinn and the younger man. On the floor, spaced in even intervals, were light bulbs. No cords stretched from them. They were not screwed into any socket, but light emanated from them. They flickered and cast a golden light around the small cavern.
“Who are these people?” I whispered to Vesa, trying my best to stay quiet, but my voice ricocheted around the small tunnel.
“The Golden Dawn,” Vesa whispered back.
“Are they a political group? A church?” I asked.
“More like a fucking cult,” Doc injected himself into the quiet conversation, speaking loud enough for everyone to hear, his remark repeated over and over again like a trained parrot, “fucking cult…fucking cult…” until it faded into the distance. Quinn looked back at Doc and smiled a tight-lipped smile. I had to watch where I stepped, so as to not crush the bulbs sitting on the ground.
“We are an organization devoted to mastering total control over our consciousness. Our minds are free to move through space and time, but our bodies act as a prison. We must learn to separate the two. Once we achieve this separation, we are free to enter any other open mind regardless of any karmic inheritance we may or may not have earned. Or we simply occupy spaces between times. Call it palingenesis. Call it metempsychosis, or forced reincarnation. Call it whatever you want, but that is the ultimate goal of the Golden Dawn.” Quinn ran his spindly fingers along the orange wall of the cave as he spoke, and led us all deeper into the cavern.
“Like I said, a cult,” Doc said after a short silence.
“We do not worship any deity. Nor do we force anyone to join the Golden Dawn. Everyone is free to leave as they wish. We are most definitely not a cult.”
“What about the people in the tanks? Or the darkened rooms?” Doc asked.
Quinn chuckled in an attempt to minimize Doc’s arguments. “In order to separate our mind from our body, we must first remove certain sensory barriers. These barriers only strengthen our physical body, and allow it to imprison our soul. The isolation rooms prepare initiates for the sensory tanks, and the sensory tanks are the only path to total enlightenment. At least it used to be the only path…right, Whitman?”
Whitman said nothing in return. He had not spoken since we entered the cavern.
“It is all preparation, and each person here volunteers for this treatment. No one is kept against their will.”
Quinn finished speaking and stopped to face all of us. He smiled and waited for other remarks or questions. After a short silence, he continued walking again.
We passed more bulbs on the floor. I had never seen anything like them. They were completely separate from any power source. I reached down and picked up one of the bulbs as we walked. It was warm to the touch. What could be powering these bulbs? I wondered. Could whatever lit these bulbs power an indefinite amount of bulbs, or an indefinite amount of machinery? Is there a limit to this invisible power source? And will it ever run out?
CHAPTER 24
2075
GOLDEN DAWN HEADQUARTERS,
BLUE CANYON, ARIZONA
The pathways carved through layer after layer of shimmering blue stone, curving and bending, but never forming a corner or harsh angle. Every few meters, the narrow halls opened up to larger rooms, either chiseled by hand or eaten away by millennia of slowly running water that had long since evaporated or flowed somewhere else. The tunnels were a testament to either the persistence of man, or the persistence of time and nature. Miniscule puddles gathered on the ground where the smooth stone dipped ever so slightly. From somewhere, at some indeterminable distance, a constant dripping noise rang throughout the caverns.
Some of the larger rooms had bedding spread on the ground around remnants of small fires. Random people dressed in linen pants and gowns slowly walked through the tunnels and rooms, their faces blank, their posture straight, and their bodies moved as a solid unit. Their arms didn’t swing, and their heads didn’t bounce with each step. The flowing linen clothes masked any other movements. The only way I knew they weren’t floating over the ground was by the noises they made with each step. Every movement and shuffle clamored through the winding pathways.
From the moment I walked into these tunnels my stomach turned inside me. I felt my intestines twisting and my heart beating. It was the same feeling I got when waiting for a jury verdict to be read, or the feeling you have when you know you must deliver horrible news to a person and you know their entire life will be forever altered once the words leave your mouth.
“I assume you brought the device?” Quinn asked expectantly.
We reached another large open room with a stone table that looked as if it was millennia old. The ancient table was surrounded by twenty carved wooden chairs. Quinn motioned for us to take a seat. A large cluster of bulbs trapped in a frayed net made out of thick brown rope hung over the center of the table. Whitman, Vesa, and I sat on one side of the table, and Doc sat on the other side. Even under the table, I could tell that Doc’s hand never left the pistol on his side.
“May I see it?” Quinn asked once everyone was seated. The man who was in the tunnels with Quinn leaned over and whispered something into his ear then left the room. Vesa reached into her shoulder bag and pulled out a rectangular device. It was a thin box, five centimeters deep at the most, and no longer or wider than a piece of paper. In the middle was an indented handprint. Four translucent progress bars sat above the handprint. Quinn smiled at the sight of the devi
ce.
“How do you know it works?” Quinn asked. His eyes still locked on the machine, like it held him in a trance. His hand hovered over the indented handprint and lingered there for a few seconds.
“It works,” Vesa said. Her eyes pierced through Quinn like two daggers. Whitman placed a hand on Vesa’s shoulder and gently squeezed.
“We believe it will work. That is, once it is charged.” Whitman’s voice was soothing and almost, but not entirely, absent of emotion; still a slight touch of displeasure or uneasiness seeped through.
“Yes, once it is charged,” Quinn said. He turned to look at Doc. “Does it cause you any displeasure to need our help?” Doc sat with his back perfectly straight, and his eyes met Quinn’s. “Can you even bring yourself to admit that maybe you have been wrong, and that we have something of value to offer society? Maybe it is good that we will be here for an eternity?”
“Eternity?” Doc chuckled. “What do you know about eternity?” He met Quinn’s gaze. “When I am dead and buried, my body will rot and feed the dirt in the ground. Grass, or maybe a tree with red berries on it, will sprout up. I will be in those plants. And I will be in any animal that happens to feed from those plants. That is eternity.” Doc pressed his pointer finger against the cool stone table. “That is the only eternity that you or I will ever see.” He leaned back in his wood chair, his right hand still hidden under the table.
“The fact that they need your help,” he continued, tilting his head toward Whitman and Vesa, “is the only thing stopping me from drawing my pistol and pushing a bullet through that drugged up brain of yours.” Doc’s face was still. Between him and Whitman, it was difficult to tell, at this moment, which one was the android. “So,” Doc continued. “Does it cause you any displeasure knowing that a time will come when they don’t need your help anymore, and I will be free to do what we all know is inevitable?”
Quinn merely smirked at Doc’s threat.
“This drugged up brain, as you so rudely call it,” Quinn said and tapped his finger on his temple, “is the reason that I don’t worry about you, your pistol, or your bullet. Before your bullet exits my skull, I will be somewhere else. My consciousness will leave and enter another host body. I won’t die. I won’t even feel any pain. You will have failed.”
Doc shook his head. “All of your salt water pools laced with LSD, your pitch black chambers, and your captive host bodies will amount to shit. You and I both know firsthand that your hippy bullshit doesn’t work. That is why we are here. Because this thing does what you can’t. If you could teleport your fucked up mind to another person, we wouldn’t be here. Face it, you need us more than we need you.” Doc’s arm flexed, and I imagined he placed his thumb on the hammer of his gun and pulled back slightly.
“Look, we’re here,” Whitman interrupted, “because of your power source. The device requires a lot of energy. It would take roughly one hundred megawatts for a full charge. Your wireless power source is our only chance at charging this thing.”
Whitman finished speaking and looked back and forth at Quinn and Doc. Doc’s chest lifted with each deep breath. A thick vein ran down his neck and pulsed in a steady interval. Quinn stared at Doc. A slight smile spread across his face, but it eventually grew flat. He could no longer mask his hatred towards Doc. His hands curled into fists as both men leaned in towards each other. Doc’s body tensed, ready to pounce.
“Yeah, and then you and your cult can go back to drugging underage girls and use our device to jump your mind from one person to another to evade any rape charges you might face.” Just as the last word left Doc’s mouth, the man who met us in the tunnels stepped forward, and slammed the butt of a rifle into the back of Doc’s head. The crack of his skull echoed throughout the tunnels. His head flung forward crashing into the hard stone table in front of him. Doc sat slouched in his chair, his chest resting on the table, his hand slipped from his pistol and hung at his side. Vesa and I jumped in our seats.
Quinn stood quickly from his chair, holding a gun in his hand. It must have been strapped underneath the table. He pointed the gun at Whitman then at Vesa. The man who knocked Doc out pointed his rifle at my chest.
“Such disrespect,” Quinn said and spat in Doc’s direction. “You know, your plans with this device are just as sinister as Doc thinks our plans are—if not even worse,” Quinn said. He spoke in loud spurts and gritted his teeth. “You sit here and pretend that inhabiting the bodies of Ministry officials, agents, or Wayfield employees and dismantling this system from the inside out isn’t violent or dangerous. You pretend that subverting the foundations of our government won’t lead to riots and destruction. Or deaths.” He kept the gun moving between Vesa and Whitman, reaching for the device on the table with his other hand. “You think it will be a smooth transition? You think everyone will just go along with your changes? Or better yet, you actually think you’ll act any different once you have unlimited power? You think you will be the first and only group in history to gain such power only to wield it for good? We seek enlightenment, while you seek destruction. We want to train our minds to travel through space and time, so we can learn more of our universe. You only wish to swap out one oppressive force for another.”
The four of us remained in our chairs. Blood flowed down Doc’s head and spread out in a puddle on the table. Quinn motioned at the man with the rifle. He stepped toward Vesa and pulled her out of her chair.
“Hey!” I shouted and tried to move between her and the large man. Vesa fought, but she couldn’t wrestle her arm away from him. He still propped the rifle up with his other arm, the butt of his gun pressed tightly into his armpit. Quinn motioned his gun upward, and Whitman and I both stood.
“You know, Doc doesn’t appreciate what we are doing here, but maybe once you take part in our experiments, you may all have a new found appreciation for what we seek to accomplish.”
The man with the rifle grabbed my wrists and tied them behind my back. By now more people, all with rifles slung across their backs, had entered the large room. The man pushed me in one direction down a dark tunnel. I glanced back only to see Vesa and Whitman being led down two separate tunnels. Doc still sat at the table, his face pressed into the stone, his blood running off the edge.
CHAPTER 25
5280
NEW ALCATRAZ
“I don’t know what to do with him,” Merit said and motioned toward Tannyn, who sat in the snow, hunched over, holding his stomach. His face was covered in dried blood. The other three men stood away from Tannyn in a small circle. Snow landed on their shoulders and rested there as they talked.
“He’s just going to slow us down,” Ransom said. “We leave him.”
“He’s sick, Ransom. Not to mention you beat the shit out of him!” Merit replied. He whispered his last sentence to keep Tannyn from hearing, as if Tannyn didn’t know what happened to him, or who had administered the beating the day before.
“To be fair, I beat the shit out of him before we all knew he was sick.” Ransom looked at Merit and Ash, and hesitated. “Plus he deserved it.”
Tannyn let out a hollow moan that drifted on the winds blowing through the snow-covered desert. Ransom’s hair whipped around and smacked against his face in stiff frozen clumps.
“That may be so, but we can’t just leave him. He’ll freeze!” Merit said.
Ransom shot a look toward Merit and opened his mouth to speak, but Ash interrupted with a compromise.
“Look,” he said. His voice was too deep and booming to speak softly. “We have been walking for a day and a half straight. If he has the same thing that Higgs had, or that your son has, then walking for that long is probably gonna speed up the illness. It probably already has. Let’s break for the night. We can see how Tannyn feels at sun up.”
Tannyn lay in the snow. He shivered in the cold winds, but sweat also soaked his clothing. He pushed and pulled deep breaths out of his mouth. His broken nose too swollen and clogged with blood to breathe through.
/> “We’ll sit with him in shifts, make sure he drinks enough water through the night. I’ll take the first shift.” Ash held his hand against his chest and looked at the two brothers.
“I’ll go second,” Merit said. Both Ash and Merit turned toward Ransom.
Ransom clenched his jaw and looked at Tannyn rolling around in the snow. He sighed.
“Just wake me whenever your shift is done,” Ransom said to Merit. “But if morning comes and Tannyn is still babbling and rolling in the snow, I’m leaving him out here. I don’t care what you two do. I’ve got one more day to make it as far out there as I can.” Ransom pointed behind him into the open snowy plain.
Ash grunted in agreement and headed over towards Tannyn. Ransom looked at Merit.
“What? What is that look?” Merit asked Ransom. Ransom turned away and started to make a spot to rest. He didn’t respond. “We can’t just leave him, Ransom! It’s cruel.” Ransom still didn’t respond. Merit exhaled heavily and threw his arms in the air. Except for their similar height, the two brothers had little in common physically. Ransom’s forearms were almost the same size as Merit’s biceps. Ransom’s jaw was square, while Merit’s face was thin and his beard came to a sharp point. Ransom sat in the snow and looked up at his brother.
“I’ve never asked anything of you. When Dad left, I was the oldest, so I stepped up and did his work in the village. I woke up and chopped those trees down. I stood out there in the heat and the snow with his axe, while you were still allowed to be a kid for a few more years. I had to go out and barter with everyone for all of our supplies. You weren’t gonna do it, and neither was Mom—ˮ