New Alcatraz: Dark Time

by Pies, Grant

  “In my experience,” Beckett said back at a normal volume. “The only positive developments, the only beneficial excursions, the only truly enlightening discoveries in our history have been reached in spite of the protests of governments. Not at the request of them.”

  Beckett sped down the darkened back roads on the way to Ashton. By now they had passed the border into Wyoming.

  “I asked you in the bar a few weeks ago, why you thought the Ministry of Science and Wayfield Industries would be so kind as to use this new technology to try and save humanity. Have you thought about that?” Somehow Beckett turned Ellis simple question about Ashton into an indictment against their employer. Ellis shook his head.

  “Why can’t they be telling us the truth?” Ellis suggested. “They want to look in the future and prevent the demise of our species. The Ministry and Wayfield aren’t entities by themselves, they are made up of people who have families and children. People that will have grandchildren and great grandchildren, and whose lineage will continue for generations to come. That is who they are doing this for!” Even Ellis thought this sounded too idealistic as the words left his mouth, but he felt the urge to counter Beckett’s points anyway.

  “Ellis, history has shown me that these types of people, the people who run the Ministry of Science and Wayfield Industries, they are not the moral compass that they would have you believe. Have you heard of New Alcatraz?”

  “No. Like the old prison that was in San Francisco?” Ellis asked.

  “Not really.” Beckett said as he glanced in his rearview mirror. “How about the NACA?”

  “Yeah, the private prison company. The uh…North American Correctional Association, right?”

  “Yes. Wayfield Industries and the NACA are the two companies that, by far, are the most entangled with the North American government. They are just two more arms of the government. Did you know the NACA is compensated for the amount of people they keep incarcerated?” Beckett looked over at Ellis. “Yeah. They get paid for each prisoner.” Beckett said in confirmation when Ellis’ face showed that he was surprised at this claim.

  “The obvious goal is to keep all of its prisons 100% full.” Beckett explained as he checked his rearview mirror again. He reached up and adjusted the mirror as yellow headlights flashed behind them. “Like any company, the NACA want to keep its costs down to maximize profits, right?” Ellis nodded and wondered where all of this was going. “Well, the North American government pays the NACA the same amount regardless of whether the prisons are filled with non-violent drug offenders, white collar embezzlers, tax evaders, technology hoarders, or if the prisons are filled with rapists, murderers, and other psychopaths.”

  “So…” Ellis said trying to lead Beckett to complete his point.

  “So, you cut down on the violent offenders and only the non-violent prisoners are left!” Beckett proclaimed and threw his hands up. “That means less guards are needed. Less riot gear. Less surveillance. Less security. All of this equals lower costs while still having the prisons filled to capacity.” The car lights behind them grew larger and larger, and Beckett kept checking his mirrors. He gradually pulled over to the next lane, hoping that the car would pass.

  CHAPTER 51

  2068

  128 KILOMETERS OUTSIDE ASHTON, ID

  “How can the NACA decide to only house non-violent offenders? They don’t get a choice in who the government sends to prison.” Ellis said.

  “In a way you are right. The NACA has to take the prisoners that the government sends them. But what if there was somewhere else to send the most violent offenders? These are the costlier prisoners, the ones that cut into the profits of the NACA,” Beckett paused for only a second.

  “Don’t doubt for a second that the NACA doesn’t have an entire department dedicated to discovering a way to deal with the costlier prisoners besides simply housing them the old fashioned way!” As Beckett said this he slowed the car down so the car behind them could pass.

  “Well that department within the NACA exists, and they came up with New Alcatraz. They decided to create a new penal colony to send the least cost effective prisoners.”

  “A penal colony,” Ellis scoffed at the idea. Until now Ellis thought Beckett’s ramblings would eventually make sense. “Where do they expect to send all of these people? North Canada? Eastern Russia? Antarctica? They might as well just kill them and bury them in a mass grave. It would be a lot less work for the NACA.”

  “Believe me the NACA probably pushed for that idea for years,” Beckett responded. “But they still have to get the North American government on board, and the government will never kill people...openly. Especially not mass killings; governments prefer to kill in secrecy. So the NACA had to come up with an option that, in reality, is no less cruel than mass killings, but is seemingly more…traditional.”

  Beckett glanced back in his rearview mirror another time. He gradually pulled over to the shoulder of the road. There were no street lights in sight. And the road was dark save for the two cars’ headlights. The other car slowed down to a crawl as it passed the two men. The car was no more than a year old, freshly washed and waxed. Two men were inside, one black and one white, and they stared out the window at Beckett and Ellis as they passed by.

  Beckett stopped talking and watched the men and then let out a slight sigh of relief when the car moved beyond them. He waited until the car had disappeared down the long country road before he started driving again. Ellis decided to pick up the conversation where they left off.

  “Okay, so even if the NACA wanted to create a new penal colony,” a touch of sarcasm and skepticism hung on Ellis’ words. “And even if the government approves of it, where are they planning on sending these people?”

  Beckett chuckled. “I thought someone in your line of work would think outside of the box a bit more. It isn’t a matter of where the NACA will send the prisoners. It is a matter of when. What do you think we are doing?” Beckett pointed his finger at both himself and Ellis. “Why do you think we are jumping around into the future?”

  “To find a time that the NACA can safely send these violent criminals?” Ellis answered with only a hint of a questioning tone.

  “Exactly!” Beckett said and pointed an index finger in Ellis’ direction. “As we speak, the NACA is helping,” Beckett took his hands from the wheel and made air quotes when he said the word ‘helping,’ “the government write a new law. The ‘Temporal Prison Safety Act.’ The Act will make the sentencing to temporal prison an option in cases that meet certain criteria. It will go into effect later this year.”

  “So Wayfield Industries is providing the technology for these survey missions to the NACA?” Ellis asked.

  “Yup.” Beckett replied. “But they get more than just payments from the NACA; a lot more.”

  The car drove down the road toward Ashton, and the tires hummed beneath them. By now they were the furthest away from a major city than Ellis had been in years. The stars shone bright in the sky, and fireflies blinked and flickered in the field along the two-lane road. The car passed an old road sign, which read ‘Ashton 15 miles.’ They would arrive before the sun came up.

  CHAPTER 52

  5065

  NEW ALCATRAZ

  DAY 9

  The solid metal door to the vault was heavy and thick. Millennia of dirt was wedged into the hinges on the side of the door. The four of us worked to lift it until a small crack of darkness peeked out of the door. After several attempts, the door opened enough to squeeze our bodies inside. Red was first in, followed by Hamilton, and followed by me. Ellis was last.

  The opening led to stairs, with nothing but darkness in front of us. Our feet echoed as we descended, and I ran my hand along the cold cement wall. Once the stairs stopped, it was too hard to tell how far below the surface we were; two maybe three stories, but no more than four. The further down we went the more the walls became cracked and broken, and the light from the open doorway faded. Deep chunks of cement we
re missing from the walls and scattered over the floor. We routinely walked into them, pushing them further down the hallway. The sound of the jagged pieces of rock rolling down the hall reverberated throughout the compound, and the sound continued until it was too far down for us to hear anymore.

  According to Ellis, this is where the Denver time travel device was located, and where he stayed while working as a surveyor. This is where they housed the device that sent all of us to New Alcatraz. According to Ellis, there were many vaults like this one spread across the country, but this was the most secure facility ever built. Built by Wayfield Industries and paid for by the Ministry of Science, it was the central hub for Project Oracle; a joint effort. This is where Wayfield Industries developed its new technologies. More accurately, it was where Wayfield Industries continued to develop technologies that were confiscated from other individuals and given to them.

  “How do you reckon we can power up a time machine if we can’t even get the lights on?” Red asked to no one in particular; we were now feeling rather than seeing our way forward and had to be careful with our footing.

  “This place was built to last for thousands of years; we just need to make our way to the main control room,” Ellis replied, his voice bounced around the wide hallway.

  Further down the hall, my hand brushed against a small box attached to the wall. I clumsily felt around and found a handle on the box and pulled it open. Squinting my eyes, I made out the shape of a small flashlight. I moved it around to try and find the switch, and with each movement I felt a weight inside move back and forth. I shook the plastic cylinder rapidly and the weight moved faster and faster inside. After that I pressed a button on the side, and it illuminated the hallway. Everyone turned toward me, squinting in the bright light. I shone the beam in the direction we were heading, and, down the hall evenly spaced along the wall, were more boxes; each housed a manually charged flashlight.

  Our new lights now showed us the entirety of this facility. Behind us were stairs that led back to the metal door, but even with the flashlights it was now too hard to see that far back. Gray cement surrounded us on all sides, under our feet and above our heads. The hallway sloped downward gradually, and ahead of us, just at the edge of our lights, we saw rooms the size of a bedroom on each side.

  As we passed by a large guard station encased in cement I peered through the glass like an observer visiting a museum. Like a caveman visiting the Smithsonian, I looked inside the museum exhibit only to see things from my own time. Inside were two desk chairs on wheels, computers, security monitors, all preserved behind glass. A thick layer of dust covered everything.

  Ellis led the way down the hall, and beyond the first guard stations were supply closets and a small break room for whoever tended the guard station. Every few minutes one of our flashlights faded out, and we shook it frantically, like in the instant that our light went out we could miss something. But the light came back on and revealed only more hallways and more cement. Painted on the gray floor were thick lines of different colors; red, green, blue, yellow, and white. Every hundred meters or so, words were drawn next to the painted lines. The red line led to maintenance areas, green to housing, and blue to medical. Yellow led to a place called deployment center. The white line led to the armory.

  “We’re going to follow the red line,” Ellis said. “It shouldn’t be too far in.”

  The chunks of cement scattered on the ground blocked the light, casting jagged shadow puppets as far as our lights reached. Every few meters a door was carved into the side of the hallway. The ground below the doors had sunk or the header above it had collapsed. In some places the thick metal doors were bent and bowed. Red grabbed the knobs on each deformed door when he passed them, yanking on each one with little effort, and even less confidence that one would actually open.

  Red hollered down the endless hall and giggled at his voice bouncing off the walls. “It’s like they expected us to come here,” Red said. “Like they built the place to last forever in hopes that one of their own prisoners would come back. Or maybe they just hoped that someone would come here, wanting to show a distant generation what they were capable of. All of this rebar and cement, the hallways and heavy metal doors; it’s all a big grab for attention. Even as a collective group our species was nothing but an attention whore,” Red chuckled.

  “Or maybe we are just optimistic” Ellis continued Red’s thought. “This entire facility was built to find a time when humans were extinct. They were optimistic that they would complete their goal; that they would find a time when people were gone from this earth. But at the same time they were optimistic that they would be proven wrong at some point even further into the future.” Ellis stopped talking for a moment to shake his flashlight back to life. “They thought, or at least hoped, that this was not really the end of ‘us’,” Ellis circled his hands around the group to indicate he meant both ‘us’ as a group and ‘us’ as a species. “Of course the cynic would say that it was left here to entice us; meant to trap us, or simply give us false hope and further crush our spirit once things don’t work the way we need them to.” Ellis now used the word ‘us’ to indicate just us in the facility.

  Just up ahead, the hallway widened and branched into other pathways. The red line on the floor veered to the right towards an expansive opening, and in front of us were offices and cubicles. Old computer monitors and lamps sat on desks lined in rows. The red line continued down the middle of the room, each side a mirror image of the other. Everything in the facility remained eerily still, like everything was moving, but in unison, so the movement went unnoticed. Past the offices and cubicles, was a large break room with two kitchens. There was two of everything. Two stoves, two refrigerators, and two sinks. There were no tables or chairs.

  Just beyond the room was a wall of circuit breakers and metallic gray boxes that stood taller than any of us. Each box was identical with a large switch on one side and thick wires connecting each box together. They were arranged in a uniform line that stretched to our left and right farther than our lights could illuminate; like graves at a military cemetery. Red bulbs encased in metal cages hung from the ceiling. The red line on the floor split, and ran down the floor in front of the wall of gray boxes.

  “I’ll take the left side,” Ellis said. He swung his light down the right side and nodded toward Red.

  “Yup,” Red replied and both their footsteps thudded on the ground and gradually grew quieter and quieter. I looked at Hamilton, and a rare wide grin crept over his face. Without saying a word, he hobbled to the large kitchen holding his shrunken stomach.

  The cabinets were lined with glasses and mugs, each branded with people’s names. Plates and bowls were stashed in the upper cabinets, and sets of silverware were housed in the drawers. We didn’t look twice at the utensils. Hamilton pulled open a cabinet near the floor to find it was lined with glass bottles of water. Next to the water sat boxes of tetraglycine hydroperiodide; purification tablets. Hamilton sighed and ripped the cap off one of the bottles. He didn’t bother dropping a tablet into the water; he just drank the water and anything that grew in it over the last three thousand years. Water spilled down the sides of his mouth and splashed onto his discolored jumpsuit. He gulped vigorously, choking as the water fell down his throat. I dropped a tablet of tetraglycine hydroperiodide into mine and guzzled the purified water down my throat; the most expensive wine could not have tasted any better.

  After we both finished off our bottle of water, we rummaged through the remaining cabinets. The food in the refrigerators and freezers was long since spoiled, just a pile of nothing, like dust but different. Even the pungent odor of decay, which had surely lingered for years after the power went out, had dissipated.

  Finally, I pulled one last cabinet open to reveal thick plastic bags with the Wayfield Industries logo on them; a narrow letter ‘W’ with an electrical current passing through the letter. Some of the bags were military green and others were shiny silver. The words ‘D
ehydrated Meals’ was stamped across them. Apart from a single barcode on every bag there was no way to identify what actual meal was inside the bag. Neither Hamilton nor I cared.

  CHAPTER 53

  2068

  ASHTON, IDAHO

  Ashton consisted of two major intersecting roads, and the only traffic light in the entire town looked as if it had stopped working a long time ago. Beckett parked his car along the main street and got out. The air was crisp and had the smell of hay, manure, and livestock. Not so strong that one would think there was a farm nearby, but strong enough to be reminiscent of a local carnival. Most of the windows in the buildings were boarded up, and those that weren’t were coated in dust.

  Beckett circled around to the back of the car and skipped onto the sidewalk. He held out his arms and breathed in. “Well, this is it,” he said. “You wouldn’t think it, but Ashton used to be a pretty active little town.” The two men strolled down the sidewalk; only one of them knew where they were going.

  Ellis looked down the long street they were on. No one else was in sight. There were no other cars on the street, and wildlife scurried across the road. It was like a town that was built in the wrong time. It had the capability of life, but it had not been started yet, or more likely the life ran out of it long ago. Like a light bulb with no electricity, or a car with no gas; it was a shell of a town. It reminded Ellis of a fake town in an amusement park after the park had closed. The buildings remained, but if you looked closer, opened the doors, or peered in the windows you would see nothing. He couldn’t remember the last time he experienced such solitude.

  The two men continued along the street. Tattered flags fluttered in the wind, whipping against the flag poles, and the non-functioning traffic light swayed in the wind on a thick cable that ran across the street. Bits of trash fluttered down the gutters.