New Alcatraz (Book 2): Golden Dawn

by Grant Pies

  The bulbs that were once lit and scattered over the tunnel floor were now off, and crunched under our feet. The wireless charging device buried in the tunnels must have been shut down, and the remaining charge leaked out of the bulbs. In the far distance, I heard the muffled yells of various federal agents. The Technology Development Agency had come to confiscate anything they found useful. Anything that Wayfield or the Ministry of Science couldn’t invent on its own.

  “Did they come for the device?” I asked.

  Vesa shook her head. “There’s no way they could have known it was here that quickly,” she answered. Her voice was soft, and I could barely hear her over the strange mix of echoes that howled through the cave. “They probably came for the energy source,” she said and pointed at the bulbs on the floor. “The Ministry has their own wireless power sources, but nothing like this. Nothing with this far of a reach. And nothing that would last nearly as long as this. That’s why they’re here. It’s gotta be.”

  “What if they followed us here?” I asked. I needed to know if they were here for us, or for the Golden Dawn.

  “We were too careful,” Doc answered before Vesa could. “Unless they followed you two back to the motel from the city,” he said and let the sliver of doubt sink into both Vesa and me. I looked at Vesa for reassurance, and she shook her head.

  “Not possible,” she said.

  We kept walking behind Whitman. I ran my hand along the cool wall of the tunnel. It reminded me of the vault my father and I explored in New Alcatraz. There was something comforting about the tunnels. It was a familiarity that only filled a short time in my life, but it left an impression on me. It was a memory that was seared into my brain. My dad might disagree with me, but I knew this was a memory that could never be changed or reshaped.

  “We are almost there,” Whitman said, and his pace sped up.

  A crazed prisoner jumped from a dark tunnel that intersected with ours. His clothes were tattered, and covered with mud. Blood blotted through the linen from various cuts on his body. He wrapped his arms and legs around Doc. The man was so thin that he barely moved Doc when he made contact. I backed away, and Vesa let out a small shriek, clinging to her bag. The prisoner scratched and clawed at Doc, moving his body like each limb was independent of the other, like they were all separate organisms that couldn’t communicate with the others. Doc hurled the man to the ground. His frail body made a solid, single thud on the stone floor. Doc pointed his gun at him, but didn’t shoot. The prisoner rolled on the ground, holding his rib cage, and winced for only a second. He leaped to his feet and ran down the tunnel, back the way we came from.

  “These people are fucking crazy,” Doc said in disbelief. “I never thought I would find a place that I would be happy when the TDA raided it.” He shook his head.

  Whitman continued to walk, and was now far away from the rest of us. We sped up to catch him. Ahead was the rotunda that we entered when we first arrived. Our car would be just ahead down one of the tunnels.

  “We made it,” Vesa said, a bit excited and surprised.

  “GPS,” Whitman said and pointed to his head.

  “So which tunnel gets us back to our car?” she asked and pointed at all of the tunnels that branched off of the large round stone room.

  “It should be right—”

  Another man, larger and not nearly as frail as the first, jumped out and tackled Whitman before he could finish. Whitman’s heavy frame fell to the ground and the man straddled his chest. Doc pointed his gun at the man.

  “I wouldn’t do that,” a voice from another direction said in the split second Doc would have needed to pull the trigger.

  Doc’s head jerked to look in the direction of the voice. I turned as well to see Quinn standing behind Vesa. He wrapped his arm around her chest, and held a knife to her throat. The point of the knife pushed into Vesa’s skin. Quinn dug the knife in, as if to test how far he could push the object before the skin broke open. He showed his teeth, but he wasn’t smiling. I looked from Quinn to Doc to Whitman and back to Quinn.

  Doc gripped his pistol, and hovered his finger over the trigger. His eyes blinked, but they never moved. The man who sat on top of Whitman was Quinn’s second in command. I froze, watching helplessly. I had no weapon.

  “You brought them here,” Quinn said and ducked behind Vesa. He peeked over her shoulder, but stayed crouched, making sure not to leave Doc with an open shot.

  “We didn’t,” Whitman said. His voice pushed out of his chest as the other man’s weight crushed whatever Whitman had for a ribcage. “They didn’t follow us. They must be here for your power source.” Whitman didn’t struggle, likely in fear that Quinn would drive his knife into Vesa’s throat at the slightest movement.

  “The power, I can recreate,” Quinn answered. “It won’t be easy, but we can rebuild. But this,” he said and grabbed the bag that hung around Vesa. “This I cannot rebuild.”

  He slipped the bag off of Vesa’s shoulder, and slung it over his own. The knife still pushed into Vesa’s neck. Her skin was red, and a small bit of blood dripped down to her chest. Her eyes were vacant, like she had gone somewhere else.

  “What was it you said, Doc? You told me that there would come a time when your friends didn’t need me. And that would be the time when you were finally able to kill me. Isn’t that what you said?”

  I turned my head toward Doc. My body felt stuck waist deep in the ground. My feet couldn’t move. Doc locked his arms in front of him, gripped the pistol, and rested his finger lightly on the trigger. The barrel was tarnished with powder residue, and the hammer was worn and smoothed from years of use. He clenched his body and surveyed the scene, like he was silently measuring the precise distance between Vesa’s body and Quinn’s. Maybe he was pondering if killing Quinn was worth injuring Vesa.

  “Well it looks like you still need me. If you want your friend to be alive ten minutes from now, then you need to let me walk out of here with this device. Your bullet and I’ll have to wait,” Quinn said pointing with his free hand at himself, Doc, and Doc’s gun. Doc’s eyes squinted until they were almost closed.

  “Doc,” Whitman said. The larger man still straddled his chest. “Don’t. Let him go.”

  “How long do you think a mind can live, Doc?” Quinn’s question was coated in bitterness. “Do you think my mind will die of old age? One hundred years from now? One thousand? Maybe I’ll be killed. Not by you, of course. There will come a time when something really kills me. Truly kills me. Not just my body, or whatever body I inhabit at that time, but my mind. In that moment, I’ll laugh and say at least it wasn’t you that got the satisfaction. I won’t let you kill me, not truly kill me.”

  Quinn licked his lips and surveyed the various exits branching off the large rotunda. He backed up toward one of the other tunnels. In the distance, more and more screams bounced around the caves.

  “You know,” Doc said. Quinn still looked around, the bag with the device hanging from his back. “When we were children, Lia and I would play in a cement courtyard in the middle of our apartment building. There were enough weeds that grew from the concrete that we could pretend it was a wide open field.” Doc’s forearms flexed as he gripped the pistol still pointed at Vesa and Quinn.

  “Every now and then, a bird would fly into the courtyard. Most would get out, but sometimes one would fly into something. A window or a wall. They didn’t have it in them to fly out. These birds wouldn’t last long. Maybe a day. Lia found these birds, either dead or dying. And she would try to nurse them back to life. She never succeeded but she never gave up either.” Doc blinked rapidly and flinched for only a millisecond. He tensed his arms and clenched his entire body.

  “Once she realized the birds were beyond repair, she left them on the roof. She thought their parents or friends would somehow come and pick them up. Take them away and give them a proper funeral. I didn’t have the heart to just leave them there for her to possibly find. So I snuck up there at night and moved
them. I dumped them in the trash behind our apartment. I never told her, but it made her so happy to see that the bird was gone the next morning. That’s what Lia was like. That’s who my sister was. Always hopeful. Not just for herself, but for everyone around her.”

  The entire underground cavern shook from another explosion. Another grenade or flash bang thrown by a Technology Development Agent.

  Quinn continued to slowly shuffle backwards, making sure to keep Vesa between himself and Doc. Vesa was still frozen. Fear penetrated her face and eyes. She stared into the distance. Beyond the walls. Beyond the desert.

  “You gave her hope of something more beyond this life. And then bit by bit, you took that hope from her. You made her empty.”

  Doc’s finger pressed just a millimeter more on the trigger of his pistol.

  “You say that I can’t kill you. You think you can leave here before my bullet shatters your skull. Maybe you’re right. Maybe there is a slim chance that you’ve somehow perfected whatever skill it takes to move your mind through space and time. Maybe I can’t really kill you. But I sure would love to try.”

  Time slowed down. A bright flash burst from the barrel of Doc’s gun, and a single bullet flung through the air towards Quinn and Vesa.

  CHAPTER 41

  2075

  GOLDEN DAWN HEADQUARTERS,

  BLUE CANYON, ARIZONA

  Doc spun and quickly fired a second round at the man who sat on top of Whitman. The bullet sped through his head, and the man toppled over onto Whitman, who pushed the man’s bleeding body away and stood up.

  “You shot me!” Vesa shouted. She touched the side of her face and lifted her hand away to see it was covered in blood.

  “I’m sorry,” Doc said. He didn’t look at Vesa, already scanning the area for other Golden Dawn members as he holstered his pistol. “Quinn just didn’t give me a clean shot.” A large puddle of blood spread around Quinn’s head and soaked into the dry stone floor. “It’s just your ear, it’ll heal.”

  “Just my ear!” Vesa screamed. “Just my ear!” she repeated. She looked at me and then at Whitman for some sort of sympathy. I walked toward Vesa and held her shoulders. “Let me see,” I asked and gently moved her hand away from the side of her face. Blood trickled down and a small piece of her ear was missing. I winced, then knelt down and ripped the pant leg of Quinn’s linen pants. I could see her straining not to flinch as I wrapped the strip of cloth around her head. “Just keep pressure on it,” I told her.

  “What now?” I asked Whitman, who seemed to be the calmest out of all of us.

  Vesa pried the knife from Quinn’s dead hand, and grabbed the bag back. She slung it around her, making a careful attempt to not brush the strap of the bag against her ear. Whitman brushed the dirt and sand off of him. Blood splatter from the other man covered his chest and face. “We have to get moving. Our car is just down this tunnel,” he said and pointed. “Then we head back to the motel, regroup, and figure out a way to finish charging this device.”

  “I think that ship has sailed, Whitman,” Doc said as the four of us made our way down one of the tunnels that branched off the large opening. “The TDA is already back there dismantling the Golden Dawn’s wireless power source. They’ll haul it back to one of the Ministry’s vaults and reassembled there. It’s stolen and lost forever. But I’m sure it was all done for the benefit of society or some bullshit.” Doc shook his head. “It’s over. That device might as well be a hunk of scrap metal without a full charge.”

  “Then we hack into the city’s power grid,” Vesa said, her voice frantic and desperate, almost as if she had already forgotten about her ear. Our feet shuffled down the tunnel towards our car.

  “Too guarded. Not wireless. We’d have to plug directly in,” Whitman said.

  Another explosion rumbled in the far distance. “Okay.” Vesa tried to think of alternatives. Our car was now in site at the end of the tunnel. Doc slowed down and held his hand out. We stopped as he walked toward the end of the tunnel.

  “We go to buildings with their own power source and hack into them!” She whispered now, but I could tell she was excited with the idea as the words left her mouth. “Yeah, they aren’t as guarded.” She looked at Whitman first for approval then to me.

  “The Ministry limits how much power each building can produce,” I added what I could to the conversation. “If I’m not mistaken, the maximum power for a private building is capped at six hundred thousand watts or something.”

  “Five hundred ninety-three thousand watts is the most a private energy source has been approved for currently,” Whitman corrected. Doc came back down the tunnel.

  “All clear,” he said, and we started towards our car.

  “Right,” I continued. “So that means we would need to find at least...” I tried to do the math in my head quickly. The ground under our feet transitioned back from hard stone to soft sand. Our feet sunk in as we marched to the car.

  “One hundred and sixty-nine buildings,” Whitman interrupted again. “Roughly,” he said.

  “Look, there’s no solution. It’s done. It’s over. Let’s go home!” Doc said and for the first time since we broke out of our cell he holstered his weapon.

  “Fuck you!” Vesa yelled toward Doc.

  Doc spun around. An annoyed grin spread across his face.

  “Fuck me?” he said calmly. The desert wind blew around us and our car. “I just saved your life! That maniac had a knife to your throat!” Doc flung his hand out and pointed at the knife Vesa held. “If it weren’t for me, you would be dead or dying right now, and that crazed asshole would be in possession of one of the few pieces of technology that gives us an upper hand against the Ministry! If you would like me to not save your life in the future, just tell me now, and I’ll oblige. Pardon me for thinking you wanted to keep living.”

  Vesa clenched her jaw. Blood soaked through the linen wrapped around her head.

  “We can’t just give up,” she said.

  “I get that this is important to you,” Doc said. “Heck, I can’t say I didn’t want to see this thing actually work myself. But we have the device, and the TDA is distracted with whatever technology the Golden Dawn has hidden back there. We need to learn when to stop. When to regroup, and take a step back. We need to stop before we lose someone.”

  “Someone else,” Whitman said quietly, barely audible over the stiff winds. Doc glanced at Whitman and furrowed his brow, his hair blowing in his face. “Before we lose someone else.” Whitman nodded his head and gestured toward Vesa. Her eyes were red.

  “Right,” Doc said. “Sorry, Vesa. You know what I mean, though. We can’t spend the next thirty years of our lives trying to charge this thing using thousands of piggybacked car batteries or breaking into every single self-powered building in North America. If we take ourselves out of the game for that long, we might as well just let the Ministry of Science win.” Doc turned and jumped in the car.

  “We can’t just give up,” Vesa said again quietly to herself. Her hands gripped the strap of the bag that contained the partially charged device.

  Behind her, from somewhere in the desert, a TDA agent emerged. His face was covered by a black ski mask. His boots sinking into the sand as he ran in our direction.

  “Look out!” I shouted and ran towards Vesa. I knew I wouldn’t be able to reach her before the agent did. My feet were heavy. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Whitman move toward Vesa.

  Vesa spun around, turning the bag she’d clung onto so desperately into a weapon. She swung it through the air and connected it with the agent’s face. The man grunted loudly, and, even underneath the black mask, I saw his jaw move to the side. His feet swept out from under him, and his back fell flat on the ground.

  She pressed her knife to the agent’s throat. She screamed through clenched teeth, and lifted the knife in the air, ready to drop it down into the man’s body.

  “Wait!” I yelled. The words spilled out of my mouth with no thought. “Wait!” I
said again. Vesa was straddled over the man’s chest. The knife hovering over the man. She looked back at me with confusion. I held my hand out to her. “Don’t,” I said. “Don’t kill him. We need him alive. I have a plan.”

  CHAPTER 42

  5280

  NEW ALCATRAZ

  The men led Ransom, Merit, and Ash down the twisting underground hallways. The weapons the four men held were some advanced technology Ransom had never seen. Even his grandfather never told him stories of weaponry like this. The devices shot projectiles at speeds so fast Ransom imagined they could rip through almost any substance, including his flesh.

  Each of Ransom’s steps landed on the blue line. Even if he was forced to walk, at least he was still approaching his ultimate destination. Other colored lines weaved in and out of the hallway, tracing paths to different parts of the enormous underground vault. The men had taken the torches; they weren’t necessary anymore. The hall was littered with the same bulbs that were used back at Ransom’s village.

  The four men stopped and opened a solid door that appeared out of nowhere in the wall. The smell inside the room was a mixture of feces, urine, and blood. They shoved Ash, Ransom, and Merit inside. A figure limped towards them in the darkness.

  “Let’s go, Fink,” the blonde man said.

  The figure hobbled out of the corner, and a dirty man with sunken cheeks approached the three men.

  “Baker? Is that you?” the shirtless man said in response. “Really? You don’t need me anymore?” He limped to the door, hunched over, and looked at the pale man with the dark, slicked-back hair. His grin exposed a mouth that had more teeth missing than present.

  “You’ve been pardoned,” Baker said and smiled back at Fink. “These three gentlemen agreed to take your place.” A stench of rotting flesh wafted off the man as he got closer to the men. The floor was damp and sloped gently towards a drain in the center.