New Alcatraz: Dark Time

by Pies, Grant

  “That will be both our universe’s end and its beginning. Stagnation and separation on one end. Rapid reactions and collision on the other. That is how our universe started, and that is how it will end.” Ellis’ and Red’s flashlights flickered behind us. They bobbed up and down, and scanned the walls for a power switch.

  “But all energy is conserved. All atoms and molecules that existed at the beginning of time still exist today in some form. Everything is recycled, and particles that existed in stardust billions of years ago now rest inside of your bones. They make up our skin and brains. Our neural pathways consist of protons and electrons that used to be floating out in space.” Chalk residue collected at the corner of Hamilton’s mouth.

  “So if nothing is created, and nothing is destroyed. Then the big bang at the end of our universe’s life will consist of the same elements that existed at the very beginning of it. Eventually you have to ask yourself ‘are we dying or are we being reborn?’” Hamilton stopped chewing and looked at me like his point was already made. Like he didn’t need to say any more. He smirked out of the side of his mouth.

  “The end and the beginning of all time will be indistinguishable. Looking backward in time will be the same as looking forward, and all things will essentially be reset. Recycled. We will do all of this over again; we already have.”

  Hamilton reached in the thick Mylar bag and pulled out a handful of mixed cubes. And he tossed them all into his mouth at the same time. Just as he chewed down onto the mouthful of chalk the lights flickered on. First, like a red strobe light, and then the blinking sped up gradually.

  Eventually my eyes adjusted and the red bulbs cast a dim light over everything. I rubbed my eyes and looked around. Details I never saw before were visible. Our feet had left prints in the dust-covered floor leading back to where we came from.

  Following the prints with my eyes, I mapped out our trajectory in reverse. From the power room, to the kitchen. From the kitchen, to the cubicles. From the cubicles, back out to the main hallway.

  There, between the desks and the cubicles, standing in the main hallway looking into the kitchen were the three men from the beach. The men whose friend I murdered. Their clothes tattered and sweat stained. They stood still and triumphant. They had found us, and in their hands were long matte black rifles pointed straight at us.

  CHAPTER 58

  2068

  OUTSKIRTS OF DENVER, COLORADO

  The ride back to Denver was quiet. The road hummed underneath the tires of Beckett’s car. When the two men left Ashton, Ellis shook hands with those he met. He hugged Emery; a hug that lingered. He still could feel her arms around him and her heart thumping in her chest and echoing inside of his.

  The two men made plans to drive back to Ashton during their next break, but for now, they planned to return to the Ministry and continue their jumps into the future. Ellis still didn’t know how he fit into the operation in Ashton, if that was what he was supposed to call it. Maybe it was up to him. The entire trip was low pressure, secretive but not deceitful. Unlawful but not immoral.

  The government had forced these people underground, and created a black market when they created the Ministry of Science. Ellis didn’t find anything wrong with what they did in Ashton; he admired it. For years, he felt an invisible force tugging him in an unknown direction. At times it pushed him forward, and sometimes it pulled him back or held him down. Until now, Ellis didn’t realize that this was not an actual present feeling; it was an absence of a feeling. It was a void inside of him that longed for more.

  Beckett was right about the Ministry’s Project Oracle. It was an exciting proposition, but with all of the substance gutted from it. Project Oracle had satiated Ellis’ void inside of him for only a moment. Once the mystery was wiped away, and the curtain drawn, Project Oracle was nothing like Ellis thought time travel should be. It was restricted and regimented, and the entire project seemed hollow. It was a fake, or a story that the Ministry told the surveyors. It was nothing more than a catchy headline. It didn’t give Ellis the same imprimatur as past explorers like he thought.

  Ellis sat in silence and peered out the car window. When they got closer to Denver, they passed Chinese street carts that sold food on the side of the road. The carts were lined with lights and colorful stickers that travelers could see from a distance, and steam wafted up from a basket inside the carts. These same carts clogged the streets of the major cities like Denver, but now the cities were getting so full that they spilled out into the less populated areas.

  Behind them Ellis noticed a car approach. It drove slowly and kept a fair amount of distance between them. Beckett glanced up at the rearview mirror and then immediately looked in the side view mirror. He clenched his hands tight around the steering wheel, and pressed on the accelerator. Ellis turned to look out the back window and see who was in the other car.

  Beckett grabbed his shoulder and spun him back around. “Just keep your eyes forward,” he said. Beckett swatted at his turn signal and pulled into the right hand lane. Just ahead of them there was a sign that read ‘Rest Stop 5 kilometers.’ The car behind them increased its speed to match theirs.

  “Who is that?” Ellis asked.

  “The Ministry of Science, or Time Anomaly Agents, or employees of Wayfield Industries. Take your pick.” Beckett responded.

  Beckett slowed the car down until the distance between the two cars decreased enough for Ellis to see in the mirror. This was the same car that passed by them on their way to Ashton. Beckett continued in the right lane. The car behind them switched lanes and drove closer to Becket and Ellis. Both cars followed the road right towards the rest stop and curved around until a small building came into view.

  The brick of the old building was faded and crumbling. Next to the building a dumpster was overfilled with ripped and torn trash bags spilling to the ground all around it. Loose trash fluttered in the wind like dead leaves.

  The building was just large enough to house bathrooms for both men and women. Beckett pulled into one of the four parking spots outside the rest stop. He reached under his seat and pulled out a black semi-automatic pistol with a matte finish and a squared barrel. Ellis jumped back against the passenger door.

  “Don’t worry,” Beckett said. “You won’t get hurt. I promise. Just listen to what I say and be ready to move.”

  Beckett leaned forward and tucked the gun into the back of his pants. He pulled his shirt over the gun and got out of the car.

  “Get out,” he said. Without hesitation, Ellis opened the car door and almost fell out on to the concrete. “Now go to the bathroom and stand at one of the urinals. I am right behind you.”

  The two men made their way to the dilapidated building. Just as they reached the door to the bathroom the other car parked next to their car. Ellis glanced back to see the two men. One wore a black suit with a white shirt. He was pale with dark eyes and ears that stretched almost the entire length of his thin face. He looked like everything but skin and bones had been removed from his face.

  The other man was a dark skinned black man with a square face, who wore a jacket that looked like a puffy sleeping bag made of shiny material. Just as Ellis could no longer look at them, just as he passed the threshold into the bathroom, the two men opened the doors to the car and got out.

  Even more trash fluttered around the bathroom. The floor was wet, not flooded, but as wet as a shower floor just after a shower before all the water drains away. Paper towels and toilet paper were strewn around the bathroom, and gobs of wet paper was bundled on the floor under the overflowing trashcan. The room smelled of mold and urine.

  If not for the two men outside, Ellis would have turned around immediately. Beckett pointed at the urinal against the wall when they entered, and Ellis walked up to face the wall. The urinal had a black stain growing up the curved basin, and the water that sat at the bottom was the color of dark rust. He glanced over his shoulder to watch Beckett.

  Next to the urinal were two
enclosed bathroom stalls, and across from the stalls were two sinks. Beckett stood back and surveyed the stalls. He swung both stall doors outward, and stood behind one of the doors, angling the door so it blocked his view of the main bathroom entrance, and the view of anyone who walked in. He quickly looked at himself in the mirror across from the stall doors and realized that anyone would see him in the reflection of the mirror.

  He drew the black gun from his pants and slammed the bottom of the handle against the mirror, shattering it into hundreds of shards that fell and broke into even more pieces in the sink. Beckett jumped back into position and hid behind the stall door.

  What followed was an eternity of waiting. Ellis stood by the urinal. The stench of the rust colored water wafted up towards his nose. His feet slipped and glided outward across the wet ground, until eventually his feet were spread wider than shoulder width apart. Beckett was quiet, and although he appeared outwardly confident, Ellis wondered if, in reality, Beckett regretted cornering himself in the bathroom. He had placed Ellis in a vulnerable position too, and Ellis wished he had been warned sooner about the people who might be following them. He might have been more prepared for what had to happen.

  The door to the bathroom opened slowly, and the first thing that crossed the threshold was the thin barrel of a gun equipped with a silencer. The rest of the gun slowly peered around the door. The thin and sickly man entered the bathroom, and his shoes splashed down in the thin layer of water on the floor. His eyes barely moved about the room as he cleared the doorway and walked up to Ellis.

  The dark skinned man came in behind the first man and glanced at the shards of mirror piled into the sinks and all over the countertop. Ellis felt the man’s presence behind him, and the thin man breathed heavily as Ellis stood unconvincingly at the stall.

  “Where is the other one?” The man said in a dry monotone voice. The words crawled out of his mouth and barely made their way past his chapped lips. Ellis turned to face the man, already in the process of raising his hands above his head before turning all the way around. The barrel of the gun pointed right at his chest.

  The man took long deep breaths. The black man stood behind the man in the suit, but he didn’t look at Ellis. He looked around the rest of the bathroom.

  “We saw both of you get out of the car, so where is the other one?” The man licked his lips after he asked the question a second time. Ellis shrugged his shoulders. He wasn’t brave, just so scared that he couldn’t form words. The man wrapped his hand tight around the gun, and his finger hovered in front of the trigger. In an instant, before Ellis could blink or inhale one more time, a gunshot rang out inside the bathroom. Ellis shuddered and naturally jumped out of the way of the thin man’s gun.

  Another shot echoed in the small bathroom, and chunks of particleboard flew from the walls of the toilet stalls next to the urinals and brushed against Ellis’ face. Blood splattered out from the thin man’s chest as Ellis fell away from the urinal and into the wall. He crouched down into the corner of the bathroom; his face now at the same level as the basin of the urinal.

  The man in the suit rapidly pressed the trigger of his gun. Silent projectiles exited the barrel, and flew through the space that Ellis had occupied less than a second ago, bullets crashing against the porcelain urinal. The old china broke as pipes burst and water shot out of the wall.

  Ellis looked up at the man with the gun as a third loud shot rang out from behind the stall where Beckett hid. The bullet ripped through the thin man’s neck and he crashed against the wall. After the third shot, and still with only seconds having elapsed, Ellis could hear nothing but a persistent ringing.

  The black man dove away from the man in the suit, lunged towards the door, and fell to the ground holding his hands and arms around his head. Beckett came out from the stall and approached the black man, grasping the gun with both hands. Beckett’s face and mouth moved as if he were yelling at the man, but Ellis could not hear him. The man in the suit slid down the wall, and fell next to Ellis, blood pouring out of the man’s neck and chest. Spirals of red mixed with the shallow layer of water on the bathroom floor.

  Beckett glanced over at Ellis and his mouth continued to move. Ellis shook his head and pointed at his ears, so Beckett repeated what he said. Slower and seemingly louder this time. Ellis tried to watch Beckett’s mouth and made out the word ‘gun,’ but nothing else. He still shook his head, and Beckett repeated his words. This time Beckett took one hand off of his own gun to point at the ground to where the thin man’s silenced gun sat.

  In that moment, Ellis knew Beckett was telling him to grab the silenced gun. Also in that moment, the black man grabbed Beckett’s ankle and pulled it towards him until Beckett’s feet slid on the wet floor. Almost instantly, Beckett’s feet were horizontal and he crashed down into the floor. His back made contact with the ground first, and then his head smacked the tile floor. Ellis’ ears still rung, but he imagined that the impact of Beckett’s head made a dull thud noise as he landed on the small shards of mirror that rested on the ground.

  The black man pulled at Beckett’s legs and dragged himself on top of him. After the impact with the floor, Beckett’s gun had fallen and slid across the floor into one of the bathroom stalls. With Beckett unconscious and unable to resist, the black man straddled Beckett’s chest and violently shook his neck, pressing on Beckett’s throat with his thumbs and simultaneously slamming Beckett’s head against the tile floor. Water splashed up from under Beckett’s head with each impact.

  Ellis reached for the gun that sat on the floor in front of him and lifted it in his hand. The handle was still warm, and the gun lighter than he expected. He pushed himself into the corner of the bathroom and braced himself for any recoil. Holding the gun with two hands, he locked his elbows, and pulled the trigger.

  A hole exploded in the wall over the black man’s shoulder. The man stopped strangling Beckett and looked towards Ellis. He stood up and took one step forward before Ellis adjusted his aim and pulled the trigger again. This time the man’s puffy jacket exploded, feathers and white stuffing drifted into the air, as if simply from a shaken pillow.

  The man stumbled backwards and tripped over Beckett’s unconscious body, and his head crashed into the sink behind him. He sat on the floor slumped over, and dark red blood ran out of his chest and down the side of his head where he had made contact with the sink. Ellis stood up from his crouched position, the gun still pointed at the man. He fired another shot that hit the man in the stomach, and another ripped the man’s thigh open spraying blood and chunks of flesh from his leg.

  Ellis held the gun in one hand and approached Beckett who appeared lifeless and even more spirals of red blood flowed out from behind his head. His blonde hair was wet and matted. Ellis shook Beckett, but nothing happened. He pressed on Beckett’s chest and counted to five before he breathed into Beckett’s mouth, repeating this for a short time until Beckett suddenly awoke and coughed.

  He gasped for air like he just emerged from underwater, and then staggered to his feet. His body picked up where his mind left off. With eyes that still appeared unfocused, he looked around frantically, and saw the man in the suit sprawled out near the urinals in a puddle of blood. Then he looked over at the other man, his body still leaking precious blood, and his chin buried in his chest. Beckett looked over at Ellis, and he saw the gun in Ellis’ hand. A large smile spilled over Beckett’s face, and he managed to laugh. Ellis still couldn’t hear him.

  After Ellis fixed a dressing on Beckett’s head from a first aid kit in the car, the two men dragged the bodies out of the bathroom and flung them into the dumpster outside. When their bodies hit the trash, the stench of dead animals and rotten food billowed toward Ellis and Beckett, and more trash bags fell out onto the ground. Beckett picked up the silenced gun and threw it deep into the woods next to the rest area. Gradually, Ellis’ hearing came back.

  “Take my car back to Denver. I will take their car and get rid of it.” Beckett told E
llis. “Don’t stop until you are back in Denver. Don’t pull over. Don’t get gas or food. Go straight to Denver.” Ellis nodded in agreement.

  Ellis left the rest area in Beckett’s car, and pulled back onto the interstate. In his rearview mirror, he saw Beckett pull out in their attackers’ car and drive away in the opposite direction. Ellis accelerated the car toward Denver, knowing that as he left the rest stop he left behind any chance he had at turning back. He couldn’t say ‘no’ to the people in Ashton.

  Even more important, he could no longer fully work with the Ministry or Wayfield; they sent people to kill Ellis and Beckett. He didn’t know if these men had communicated with anyone else in the Ministry before they died. Ellis’ only real hope for safety was with the people in Ashton.

  CHAPTER 59

  2068

  DENVER, CO

  After the confrontation in the rest stop bathroom, Ellis drove straight to Denver, arriving late in the evening and parking Beckett’s car in front of the bar where they met. That night, he lay in his bed and kept his eyes on the door, listening to his heartbeat.

  Each day, Ellis stopped at the bar and waited for Beckett. He arrived before the sun came up, and left long after it dropped below the horizon. During these days, Ellis never saw the sun in the sky. He only saw the flickering neon bar signs and dim overhead lights inside. After the first day, the dank wet smell of stale beer and fruit fly larvae didn’t bother him anymore. The door to the bar opened very seldom, but each time it did Ellis jerked his head in the direction of the door, hoping it was Beckett. And each time it wasn’t, the pit in his stomach grew deeper. He was angry with himself for not making a proper plan with Beckett before they left. He didn’t know if he should go back to the Ministry, back to Ashton, or neither. Ellis could only wait until Beckett showed up; or until the Ministry called him back for another survey.