by Grant Pies
All I could see was darkness. Once again I could hear my heartbeat, and I could hear my eyelids open and close. I was floating once again. Behind me, someone splashed into the pool. The man who led me through the Golden Dawn’s caverns gripped my shirt and pulled me toward the single door that opened up to the maze of tunnels.
He dragged me, my feet scraping the floor, down hallways that twisted and turned. I didn’t even try to walk with the man. I was too tired, and my feet wouldn’t have known which turns to take anyways. Eventually, we reached a large room with a round table in the center. The man dragged me to the table and dropped my limp body into a cold, stone chair. Quinn, the leader of the Golden Dawn, approached from some dark corner of the room and the man who pulled me down the hall turned and left the two of us alone.
CHAPTER 29
2075
GOLDEN DAWN HEADQUARTERS,
BLUE CANYON, ARIZONA
“You are different, you know that?” Quinn said. His voice was soft but somehow still echoed through the cavernous room. “You went somewhere? Or saw something?” He peered at me.
I didn’t know if my face moved ever so slightly to give myself away. Maybe my eyes looked away, or my mouth tensed. Maybe some unconscious sign fluttered across my face, but I was too exhausted to know. I was too weak to prevent it.
“We watched you in there as you floated. The way you moved. It was like you were somewhere else. Most of our initiates simply drift with no real reaction. But you were different.”
Water dripped off of me, puddling on the floor beneath, and the dry stone table soaked up the water from my arms as they rested in front of me. My body shivered in the cold open space around me. More of the wireless bulbs hung above the two of us, casting just enough light for me to see Quinn’s face. Beyond that I saw nothing. For all I knew the room could have stopped just beyond the lit perimeter, but the way Quinn’s voice filled the space I knew it was bigger.
“My whole life I have tried to perfect this process. Palingenesis...” Quinn said. He rolled his eyes slightly. “They give it a scientific name, so they can make sense of it. So they can test it and distill it down to some formula they can replicate over and over.” My eyelids pulled downward, and my head bobbed up and down. “Hey!” Quinn shouted and snapped his fingers in my face. “Stay with me.” I raised my head and tried to stiffen my neck, but my head just bobbed around. “But it isn’t a science. Not in the way they want it to be. It isn’t exact. It isn’t predictable. Who can say where the mind will go, or why it goes there? The only thing that matters is that it goes somewhere. Where did you go, friend?”
“I don’t know,” I lied.
“But you went somewhere?” he asked again. I nodded my head as much as my body would allow.
Quinn smacked his palms down on the stone table and laughed. “Ha! I knew it. I knew I wasn’t the only one. We have worked with different settings. Different formulas. We have tried to perfect the process. I knew it could work on others!” He smiled and grabbed my wet hands from across the table. I instinctively pulled my hands back from him. Quinn stood and paced around the table, moving in and out of the light. I couldn’t always see him, but I could always hear his footsteps thump through the room.
“Why?” I asked. My voice was faint. “Why try this? For what end?”
Quinn emerged from the dark and sat back down at the table.
“Oh, you mean, if not to overthrow a government, then why would I want to transport my mind into new bodies?” Quinn questioned me in return. “So many people live their lives in hopes to please someone else. Something else. They pray to one god or hundreds. They sacrifice animals, dance for days on end, or go to church on the weekends to please their god. They adhere to ancient laws and abstain from their natural impulses. They judge and oppress others that don’t believe in what they believe in. They do all of this in hopes of a place to go once they die.
“And the key is”—Quinn held up a single finger to accentuate his point—“none of them are striving to please the same god. They all have their own idea of what is the proper, the only, way to live so that they will find some peace after death. Even if just one, just one, of these religions is right. If there is that one god, or one set of rules, then the majority of people are screwed. It will all be for nothing. It is a game of chance that I am not willing to play. Why not just bypass the need to please a god? Why even worry about an afterlife? Why not take your life, your lives, into your own hands? This is all we have for sure. The rest is just guess work. What we do here is no more outrageous than any of those religions, but it is more definitive. We don’t do what we do to please an entity none of us has ever seen. We do it to stay here on earth, a place we have all been and know exists. I am simply helping my congregation reach enlightenment. I wish nothing but the best for my initiates.”
My arms tingled like they had been asleep for hours, and strength crept back through my body. My body temperature returned to normal, and my thoughts grew less and less jumbled. My head felt less heavy on my shoulders. “You can’t expect me to believe you. Not while I’m held captive. Not after I saw what you did to Doc or what you are doing to those people down there.”
“Doc.” Quinn chuckled. “He is one of the least enlightened people I have encountered. He is too emotional. Too angry. You can’t take anything he says seriously. It seems he is only good for shooting and killing. In fact, he is no better than the trigger-happy agents you and your little group despise so much. Doc has no foresight. He is like a child. If we had not stepped in, he would have ruined the Golden Dawn’s alliance with your group.”
“Oh, I think you managed that on your own,” I answered.
“Come now. Don’t be angry. I am sorry if I have offended your beliefs in any way –”
“You haven’t offended my beliefs,” I interrupted. “You’ve offended my intelligence. You kidnap us, steal our device, God knows what you did with Doc, and then you tell me you care about the wellbeing of your captives down there!”
“Doc is perfectly safe, and those people are here voluntarily.”
“Sure. Just like I am?” I said.
“This device your friends brought here—if it works, those people will not need to volunteer their services anymore. They can stop training their bodies to untether from their minds. They can simply use your device to move from one body to another. If the machine works, none of us will ever have to worry about death or an afterlife. Have you ever seen heaven? Hell? Hm?”
I shook my head ever so slightly. I was in no condition for a philosophical debate.
“How about God? Have you spoken to him? Her? Have you ever prayed for something only to have it appear in front of your eyes?” I continued to shake my head to each of his questions. “But you did go somewhere, didn’t you?” I looked up at Quinn. The bulbs overhead cast harsh shadows down his face. “Your mind left you and it traveled somewhere else, while your body stayed in that pool. That is more real than any religion I have ever heard of.”
The man who dragged me around the twisting tunnels re-entered the room. His footsteps landed heavier on the ground than Quinn’s had. He gripped my arms and pulled me up from the chair. My heels dragged on the floor and traced lines in the dust on the ground from the table to the door.
“This earth is my heaven,” Quinn said as I was forced from the large room. “Surely, you won’t begrudge my efforts to stay here for an eternity. Surely, you won’t fault me for doing what I must to achieve an endless life here. Even if it involves keeping you here a little longer.”
The large man pulled me out the door and down the hall. Quinn’s voice followed me from his darkened room.
“You are special, Powell. You went somewhere, and you will stay down here until I find out where you went, and what made you able to get there.”
CHAPTER 30
2075
GOLDEN DAWN HEADQUARTERS,
BLUE CANYON, ARIZONA
Quinn’s words echoed down the tunnels, disrupting
the prisoners in the cells. I gave up trying to stand and resigned myself to being carried by the large man. It was my small way of protesting his forcing me to move. We eventually reached the dark enclosed room I had floated in before, and the man opened the door and threw me inside. I splashed into the warm water, and my body floated until I could no longer tell how far away from the walls I was. My body already too tired to swim or stay awake, I gave way to whatever visions would come. The bright light shone in the backs of my eyelids once again, like a train barreling towards me. And once again my mind drifted to another place. Another time.
CHAPTER 31
2036
BUFORD, WYOMING
My head throbbed. Blood trickled down into my eyes. I was tucked into the corner of the trading post where I grew up. My parents huddled together and whispered. The wood crumbled and splintered as I ran my hands along the wooden floorboards. I breathed in deep. The smell of smoke from the wood-burning stove, mixed with the scent of the prairie air outside and wafted into my nose. The day’s last rays of sunlight reached into the window and reflected off the bare shelves and empty refrigerators that lined the walls. I was home.
I tried to stand, but my legs were too weak. I slid back down onto the wood floor with a soft thud. My dad turned around to face me.
“He’s waking up,” he said quietly. “What are we supposed to do?”
My mom shook her head. I stuck my hand under my tattered clothing and felt the skin underneath. The wound on my arm throbbed.
“What if the Ministry sent him?” Dad asked. My mom mumbled something I couldn’t hear. My chest and shoulder were covered with the unmistakable wet feeling of blood. Eventually my fingers landed on a gunshot wound just below my shoulder. I winced and let out a cry of pain, falling forward and jerking my hand away. My dad, took several steps toward me.
“Who sent you, huh?” he asked forcefully. “TDA? The Ministry? Wayfield?” He walked closer and pulled his fist back. I shrunk into the corner and protected my wounded shoulder.
“Ellis!” my mom shouted. “He’s already injured. I don’t think you need to hurt him anymore.”
My dad backed off and kneeled down, his face close to mine. The V-shaped scar traced over his eye. I smiled at the sight of him. It was a face I had dreamt of for years.
“If they sent him here,” my mom said in a calmer tone, “then they know where we are. Or at least they know when we are, and the general area we’re in. It’s only a matter of time. We might as well accept that. Plus, look at him. Since when have you seen an agent dressed like that?” She pointed at me, and I felt the thick cloth wrapped around me. Ellis sighed. Maybe he just didn’t like that he knew my mom was right. Or maybe he was just looking forward to hurting someone, and felt disappointed.
The sun dipped below the horizon until the cabin was dark. The flames from the stove flickered, and the light bounced off the walls. Crickets chirped outside. My lips were dry and cracked, tongue large inside my mouth. Even if I knew how I was here, even if I understood what was going on, I likely couldn’t speak clearly to explain it. For now, I simply sat in the corner, on the floor, and breathed in the dusty air. I watched my father as he stared back at me in confusion. Behind him, past the stove and the three rows of empty shelves, I saw my crib that was half built, and I saw my mom. She wasn’t showing yet, but she still held her belly, cradling the unborn child inside of her like she could protect him in case I decided to attack her and my dad. My arm bled into my clothing until a small puddle formed on the floor by my hand.
“We should at least clean the wound. He isn’t going to hurt us in this condition.”
My dad didn’t agree, but he didn’t stop my mom from approaching. She knelt down in front of me. I wore a thick woven sweater that seemed like it was made hundreds of years ago. Underneath was a patchwork shirt with wooden buttons. She pulled the sweater off to reveal a large circle of blood around my chest.
“Get me a rag,” my mom ordered my dad. I never got to see them interact before, but I always imagined she would have been the one to order him around. “We’ve got to stop the bleeding.”
The pain increased and blurred my vision. The sight of the blood made my wounds hurt more. I couldn’t make a fist with my hand.
My dad returned with a cloth and handed it to my mom. Just before she pressed the rag onto my wound, just before the pain became excruciating, just before a blinding light ripped me from my home and brought me back to reality, I looked at Emery and said, “Thanks, Mom.”
CHAPTER 32
5280
NEW ALCATRAZ
Ransom stretched out on the cold snowy ground next to a small fire. Embers and ashes drifted upward into the black night sky until they disappeared. There was almost nothing in the desert to block the winds from pushing against him save for a few short cacti covered with a light dusting of snow sprouting out of the ground. The wind pushed the snow around on the ground in unison like a single living organism. The orange dirt and hardpan of the desert peeked through the white.
Ransom’s mind raced, and his heart pounded deep in his chest. He thought only of his son. Ash slept next to him, while Merit stayed near Tannyn. Throughout the night Tannyn’s moans grew louder and louder. He wailed until Ransom could hear him over the whistling winds funneling through the snowy dunes. Sometimes he formed actual words, but mostly it was nonsense. Ransom crossed his arms tight around his chest and breathed in deep.
His time was dwindling. His son was dying. And Tannyn’s haunting moans only reminded him of what his son was going through back home. He shuddered each time Tannyn screamed in pain, because he knew his wife was sitting helplessly by Gray’s side listening to her son’s own screams. Ransom heard his brother come and sit down beside him.
“He’s hurting,” Merit said. “I don’t know how long he’s got. It’s worse than Higgs.”
“Do you think that if Dad found anything out here, that he would have come back?” Ransom asked and tried to block out Tannyn’s declining health. “All these years, you’ve stood up for him, but why didn’t he make it back?” Ransom looked toward his brother, but he could barely see his face in the darkness. “Was he too weak? Did he just not care enough? Or was it that there really is nothing out here, and he walked until he died?”
“I don’t blame Dad for what he did. He saw a chance for a better life out here. He and you are the same. You are here now. Not for yourself, but for your child.”
Tannyn groaned in the distance.
“But we weren’t dying. I wasn’t sick. I woke up and Dad looked me in the eyes, he grabbed his shit, and he walked out the door. He left three healthy people who counted on him behind. And he never came back. How can you continue to ignore that?”
“Think of the possibilities if we find this place. There is so much more than medicine. It’s shelter, possible food and water. There could be other people there. Tools. Building materials. Maybe there’s even a way to leave here. To get out of these elements. We could travel to another place. Or another time. Maybe we aren’t alone. What if there is something better somewhere else? What if just over the next ridge is another settlement with food to trade? We can’t be complacent. We can’t be comfortable. We have to move. As a group, as a people. That is how we will stay alive.” Merit grabbed his brother’s arm. “Dad knew that, and he sacrificed his life with us for the chance at a better life. To me that shows great love on his part.”
A chilled wind struck both Ransom and Merit, seeping into their bodies and shivering in their bones. Ransom’s hair was partly frozen and blew around in large clumps. The fire near them was almost extinguished.
“See, that is the problem with memories,” Ransom answered. “They don’t have to compete with reality. You can just remember things the way you want. You can create your own past. Your memories just sit in your head and burrow through every cell in your brain. They are insidious, and they change enough until it changes the very way you see what is happening in front of you. Maybe the rea
l answer is that Dad was an asshole, crazy, or both. And you just would rather believe some altered memory you have of him. Either Dad never found anything and Gray is as good as dead, or he found something, and he never thought to come back for us, making Dad the biggest asshole in this wasteland. You tell me which of those is a good thing, cuz right now I am hoping Dad was the supreme asshole. At least then Gray has some hope.”
For a moment the winds stopped and there was a stillness in the air. There was no snow blown around. No sand kicked up. Just calm.
Merit sighed. “I don’t know, and if I did, it wouldn’t change what we’re doing. I’m going to get some sleep. It’s your turn to watch over Tannyn. Wake us up before the sunrise and we’ll start walking again. Make sure he drinks some water.”
Ransom got up and walked to Tannyn. Through the dark, he saw the man clutching his stomach with his one good hand and his stump. He stoked the fire near Tannyn and added some small bits of wood they collected along the way. The wind infused the dying fire with enough oxygen to get it started again. The flames stretched into the air, and the orange glow from the fire illuminated Tannyn, revealing red spots on his face and hand. Ransom lay down on his back and curled into a tight ball on his side. Ransom started to drift off to sleep when Tannyn began to speak. His mumbles forming the sharp sounds of words.
“Okay,” Tannyn mumbled. Random, garbled words slipped out of his mouth. Mucus rested in the pit of his throat, rolling around and leaking out the sides of his mouth. “It’s fine,” he said. “Just feel it. It’s so soft, isn’t it?” The words floated around in the night air, and Ransom tried to ignore him. He wanted to rest. He didn’t feel the need to stay up with Tannyn. Dried blood from Ransom’s punches still cracked and crumbled off of Tannyn’s face, and fell into the snow.
“What? No!” Tannyn said. Half of a conversation played out in his delirious mind. “It’s from the sheep.” His head jerked back and forth. He winced and his eyes twitched behind his eyelids. His arm reached out into the night air like he was handing something to an invisible person next to him. He grinned and mucus crept out of his mouth. “Higgs? No, Higgs didn’t get sick from the sheep pelts,” Tannyn said. Ransom sat up at the mention of Higgs and listened closer. “Take it. It smells good too.” Tannyn reenacted some encounter in his mind and handed some invisible item to a non-existent person.