by Pies, Grant
“Twenty Fifty,” I told him. Red looked around like he just realized his surroundings were different than he remembered them. He breathed deep and exhaled a long breath. Under his breath, to himself, Red mumbled, “I wonder when everyone else ended up.”
CHAPTER 11
2050
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL
CONSERVATION ZONE
For the rest of the day we walked in silence. Red kicked the dirt under his feet, ran his hands against every tree he passed, and stopped to watch birds circle around the tree tops. As the day carried on, Red’s pace slowed. He stumbled and tripped over his own feet. He found reasons to take short breaks. He needed to catch his breath, or take a piss, or stop at a stream to drink. Sometimes he just stopped and stood still. His body wavered back and forth, like he was mimicking the tall pines that swayed in the wind.
“The leaves are beautiful, aren’t they?” he said, more as if he was talking to himself. Around mid-day we found another stream. Red bent down, cupped water in his hands, and gulped it in his mouth. After the third or fourth handful of water, Red gagged and coughed into his hands; water spewed out of his mouth and ran down his chin.
When Red bent back down to wash his hands in the stream, I saw a faint remnant of dark red blood on the palms of his hands. Spirals of red flowed into the moving water and dissipated quickly. It was at that moment that I thought of my dad. It was also at that moment that I began to notice the patchy nature of Red’s hair.
During our second day together, Red filled the silence with fantasy stories of how he believed the future would be. He claimed that the North American government was going to create a new Ministry of Science, Technology, and Future Development. With each new technological development, the Ministry would only see the dangers and create more and more regulations. Instead of progress, the Ministry would see destruction and instead of convenience, the Ministry would see terrorism. They would only allow a select few companies manufacture and handle this ‘dangerous’ technology. In the future, Red said, those few companies would partner with the Ministry of Science to make a new form of government.
According to Red, the most spectacular development in the near future would be the ability to travel through time. Red guessed that once time travel was a possibility, the Ministry of Science would no longer only regulate the ‘dangerous’ technologies, but it would criminalize the creation of all forms of technology. Time travel was going to be the last piece of the puzzle that allowed the Ministry to firmly wrap its hands around an entire economy. Creation would be regulated, and ingenuity rationed. The worst part, Red told me, was that the citizens would not only accept this policy, but they were even going to demand it.
The Ministry, Red believed, was going to create agencies that confiscate all tech components from unauthorized users, agencies that monitor the creation of wormholes, and agencies that pursue time travelers and bring them back to their present for punishment. The Ministry would then detain potential time travel violators without trial, and perform tests on them to determine if they have travelled through time.
The Ministry would send scouts, or surveyors as Red called them, into the distant future in one hundred year increments, mapping out the progression of human society. The scouts would continue to travel into the future until they found a time when all of human society had been eliminated and all humans were dead. They will find a time when the buildings have crumbled and the remains disintegrated; a time where the roads have disappeared, and all infrastructure has collapsed. A time when the earth had reverted to the way it was before we came to be.
After the surveyors completed this task, the Ministry of Science was going to marshal all of the worst criminals, and send them to this time, the year 5065. This temporal prison, as the Ministry will call it, will have no cells, shackles, guards, or visitation. No way of ever returning to your own time. The Ministry would call this place ‘New Alcatraz.’
Red said all of this in a dry, unvarnished tone. He was not telling a story to a boy. He was not making up this future to entertain me. He was offering an ominous warning to a fellow traveler who didn’t know any better. He simultaneously told me the story of my future and the story of his past. Years later, I learned that Red was right, but he was not right in the sense that his predictions were close. His predictions were exactly what happened in the coming years. They were not predictions at all; they were life experiences. Once Red was done forecasting the future, he looked at me and asked “You ever heard of a place called Ashton?”
CHAPTER 12
2050
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL
CONSERVATION ZONE
In the evening of our third day together, just as the sun set and cast a gold tint across the sky, Red asked if we could stop early. He was weak and his complexion ashy. I had seen the same look on my father only a few weeks ago. I started a fire that whipped and crackled in the wind, and set some traps for food.
Red propped himself up against a tall pine, and he winced with each movement. His muscles fought against him, and his bones were both stiff and brittle at the same time. The skin on his arms no longer looked tough and weathered like it did days before. Now it was thin and fragile, almost translucent like wet paper.
He stared in the distance and looked beyond the pines, beyond the clouds, beyond the Sun. He looked out into space. He listened to the sounds of the forest hum and whisper in his ears. A slight smile revealed a thin coating of blood on Red’s teeth.
By now, we had made it through the conservation zone, and were on the last leg of our journey to Ashton. We sat at the edge of a forest high atop a hill, and overlooked a vast plain. Somewhere out there was Ashton. We shared the same destination, but Red’s purpose in Ashton was just as unknown to me as my own. Once I reached the orphanage, I no longer had my father’s instructions to guide me. I would be on my own.
We both sat in silence until I told him he had talked in his sleep for the last few nights. I told him that he said he was sorry, and he mentioned a person named Powell. Red nodded as if he simply said in his sleep what he thought during every waking minute of each day.
“I didn’t know Powell for long, but he was a good friend,” Red told me. “Without Powell, I wouldn’t be here today. Not only did Powell save my life, twice, but he saved the life of one of my friends. Powell was a man who knew that nothing in life comes without a cost. He knew that everything in life requires sacrifice. Most people don’t get to choose what they live their life for. What they die for.” My father’s words leaving Red’s mouth.
“Powell died for me, and he only knew me for less than a week.” Red’s hands shook as he lifted a water bottle to his lips. “Powell was the man who helped orchestrate the first, and likely only, escape from New Alcatraz.” Red’s eyes glossed over. “Maybe he was somehow better off than those that left New Alcatraz.” He never said where the other escapees were scattered throughout time from this alleged ‘temporal prison,’ or how he left.
“I am just sorry that we all couldn’t make it here to see a place such as this,” Red pointed his open hand in front of him, beyond the valley, to the range of mountains in the far distance.
Red watched a crow float in and out of his view. The bird looked even blacker against the colorful sunset behind it. It glided back and forth with no real destination. The sun hovered and melted over the landscape in front of us. He traced the dark hills in front of him with his eyes, as if he watched his soul continue forward on his journey to Ashton; leaving his body behind.
“You can’t steal time, kid,” he told me. “Time steals you”. As his final words drained out of him so did the color leave his skin, until nothing was left. A thin stream of crimson blood dripped down the corner of his mouth. For the second time in a month I buried a man.
CHAPTER 13
2050
ASHTON, IDAHO
When I finally reached Ashton I was on my own. Not even my father’s parting words accompanied me any longer. Ashton was a quaint city, and only a handfu
l of people strolled through the streets. Only half of the stores were occupied. Several blocks past Ashton City Hall, a sign hung over a door that read ‘St. Anthony’s Orphanage.’ The door was black solid metal and dented in places. Above the door there were no windows. It was unlocked, but it stuck slightly.
The door led to a dark stairway that went down. Hanging above the stairs were cords with exposed light bulbs that swayed and flickered when I walked under them. At the bottom of the stairs, was a large rectangular room with bunk beds lining the walls. Two women stood over a child sleeping in one of the beds. Once I entered the room, one woman spun around, stared at me, and tilted her head slightly with a touch of curiosity in her eyes. In that moment, I was finally too tired, and I lost the ability to lie and conceal where I came from. All she had to do was ask, but she didn’t. My clothes were tattered and faded into a single yellowish brown color. My body covered in dirt. My stomach howled. I licked my lips with a dry tongue.
The other woman turned and they smiled, approached me, and each placed a hand on my shoulders, ushering me to a bed without speaking a word. One of the women stayed with me, untied my worn shoes, and pried them from my feet. The other woman scurried away.
“My name is Keller,” the lady said to me and placed her hand on her chest. Her voice was soft, barely a whisper. The other woman returned carrying a tray with a glass of water. Condensation ran down the outside of the glass. Some white food, I later learned was bread, and an apple sat next to the water. She also brought a hot rag soaked in water. The women acted in unison. The other woman held me upright and brought the glass of water to my mouth, while Keller blotted my skin with the hot rag, wiping the dirt from my neck and ears. The women asked nothing of me. I slept through the night and most of the next day.
When I finally awoke Keller approached me and asked where my parents were. I told her that I came from Buford, and that my parents were both dead. With each word the woman’s face dropped a little. For all of the kindness in her face, she still could not mask her true feelings. She blinked for a period of time that was longer than normal. In her face there was sadness and mourning. Mourning for either what I had endured or for what I was yet to. Either way, she tried her best to conceal her pity for me, but failed.
She asked if my parents had given me a name. I shook my head no, and she nodded back as if she already knew the answer. She told me that I could pick my name, and offered several books with names in them and their corresponding meaning and origin. At that moment I realized I didn’t know my own father’s name, or my mother’s name. The only people I knew by name were Red, and now Keller.
I wanted a name I knew would instill a sense of pride in me. One reserved for those that knew the meaning of sacrifice; a name already proven. I could only think of one. A name I didn’t find in any of the books Keller handed me. The name that echoed in Red’s mind and now echoed in mine. The name of the man who knew the real meaning of sacrifice just as my father did. I told her I wanted to be called Powell. No last name. Just Powell.
CHAPTER 14
2052
ASHTON, IDAHO
One day, sometime after I arrived at the orphanage, I sat on my bed reading an old comic book written two decades ago. Unlike most comics I read at the orphanage, this series focused on the villain in the story, Dr. Ffirth, instead of the hero. The books focused on how much effort and time Dr. Ffirth spent developing his schemes.
In one issue, he planned to rob a bank. He created false identities, identification cards, bribed bank workers, and surveyed the bank for months. He invested money from his family’s estate to buy weapons, an armored truck, and pay his workers half of their fee up front.
The day finally came for Dr. Ffirth to put his plan into action. He drove to the bank in the armored truck; he readied his weapon, and stepped out. Before both of his feet touched the ground, the hero of the story, Admiral Connors, effortlessly thwarted his plans. He tackled him and restrained him. Dr. Ffirth was sent to prison within twenty-four hours. He didn’t even make it through the entrance of the bank. All of his efforts were lost. Every book was from Dr. Ffirth’s perspective; every book ended the same way. In failure.
Finally, in the last book, Dr. Ffirth developed the ultimate plan. A plan that would prevent Admiral Connors from ever stopping him no matter what he planned. Dr. Ffirth planned on going back in time to prevent Admiral Connors from ever being born. But he did not plan to stop at just his nemesis. He intended to go back for generations and kill his family and their ancestors. Dr. Ffirth planned to travel down the line of ancestors and kill all of them. Mother and Father; Grandfather and Great Grandfather. He wanted to erase the Admiral’s entire family’s existence. He sought to eradicate every strand of DNA that might combine and mutate with another to become Admiral Connors. He wanted all memory of Connors gone. The doctor wanted Connors to disappear both physically and from the minds of all that knew him.
He worked for years in the basement of his family’s empty mansion. The doctor worked tirelessly on various formulas and theorems that would ultimately lead to the creation of his time machine. The basement was littered with smudged chalkboards and smeared white boards. The equations extended from one board to the next. Strings of Greek symbols and variables filled every part of the boards. The doctor solved all of the equations necessary to build his time machine…all but one. One equation puzzled him so much the solution totally eluded him. Months after he solved every other equation he still pondered this one last string of variables.
This equation was all that stood in the way of him and total victory over Admiral Connors. If he were to solve it, he would have everything he needed to put his plan into action. He had the funds to construct such a device, and while it may take him years, or even a decade, it was simply time to assemble a machine. This equation was the only real barrier to success; the rest of the plan was a foregone conclusion already.
One night, Dr. Ffirth’s eyes glazed over. They were already red and dry from staring at his mindless scribbles for an entire day without a break. His writing hand was stained with gray remnants of his graphite pencils. But an answer abruptly entered his mind, burrowing both slowly and fast at the same time. It was an answer that seemed to enter his mind for the first time in his life, yet it had been there the entire time. Like the answer had rested in part of his mind, but his brain prevented him from writing it down. Maybe his mind, his DNA, knew something that the doctor didn’t.
Unbeknownst to Dr. Ffirth, generations ago, his genealogy crossed the path of Admiral Connors’ genealogy. Hundreds of years ago Dr. Ffirth’s and Admiral Connors’ families collided and then diverged again. And as Dr. Ffirth, chalk in hand, wrote out the last symbol in his equation both he and Admiral Connors disappeared forever. All traces of them gone. No one even remembered them. As soon as it became possible to achieve, it was as if the plan was already carried out. Carried out not by this Dr. Ffirth, but carried out by another version of him. The chalk boards filled with jumbled variables disappeared. The mansion disappeared and a forest took its place. All traces of either the villain or the hero were gone…forever.
CHAPTER 15
2056
ASHTON, IDAHO
In the years following my arrival, the women in St. Anthony’s watched over me. I aged and grew. My legs dangled off the end of the tiny bunk that I slept in since I first arrived. More children came and went. They were either adopted by families or moved to other orphanages. No family chose me. I was too old for any family to consider. People wanted a child they could make an impact on. One that was malleable. Families wanted to instill their belief systems in their new child from the start. In a way, these families treated it like they were buying an android. They wanted one that they could upload with their own software. They didn’t want the unit that needed their memories purged and habits erased.
Potential families saw a child my age, and in their minds I was raped or beaten, or both. Worse, I had raped and beat someone. I was raised by a cul
t, or I had murdered both of my parents. They didn’t know, and they didn’t care. They wanted an untainted, pure, newborn baby; not a pubescent boy. So there I stayed in St. Anthony’s until I was old enough to venture out on my own. I was welcome to stay forever, but I needed to leave. Every day I remained at St. Anthony’s was a day that I was still living my father’s life. Or at least within whatever plan he had for me. I needed to leave. I needed to see what my father tried so hard to hide from me. I had to leave St. Anthony’s.
CHAPTER 16
2070
PHOENIX, AZ
Over the years, the skills I learned from living in Buford vanished. The survival instinct I developed while walking to St. Anthony’s disappeared, and was replaced by the cautious pessimism that can only be learned from reading all of the ways in which a person can be sued or arrested. I stood in my tiny apartment after surely losing yet another case; after I piled yet another box of ARC trial documents in the corner, somehow I couldn’t see how remarkable my life was, or appeared to be.
Along with the smells from outside, a mixture of sounds flooded my cramped studio apartment. In the distance, through the thin separating walls, frustrated moms tried to pacify weeping babies, and sounds of domestic disputes from one story above me penetrated into my apartment. News broadcasts insinuated themselves into my home, and the sounds of gunshots, either real or fictitious, percolated through the walls and into my ears.
With all of these sounds it was easy for me not to hear the footsteps. It was easy to miss the marching rhythm of boots stomping down the hallway. Eventually one sound pierced through them all. The sudden ‘thump, thump, thump,’ of a fist pounding on my apartment door. The door rattled inside the frame, and the wall shook.
“Federated Agents!” a muffled voice shouted from behind the door. “We have a warrant for your arrest!” the same voice shouted. The voice and the pounding on the door rattled and echoed through my body. Time slowed. I looked around to see who else in my apartment these agents could be talking to. I scanned the cramped quarters but found no one. I was alone. Surely they had the wrong apartment, I thought. I only needed to explain that I was not the person they were looking for. I just had to clear up this mistake. Once I opened the door the agents would see they were in the wrong place. They would apologize for any inconvenience and move along. This was the only way I envisioned the events would play out.