Gain Time

[The Friday Flash] Prisoners serve their sentences in an ecologically-devastated future.

Noah scratched another notch in the wall as the soft pitter-patter echoed across the concrete cellblock. Three years since the rain started.

“What’s the news, weatherman?” Rodney sprawled in his cot, the top of his blues wrapped around his forehead like a doo rag. Noah was glad to hear his voice. Rodney hadn’t moved much lately.

“It’s official,” Noah said. “We’re in a trouble decade.”

The cellblock erupted with cheers. “Double trouble!” “Bring on the gain time!”

“Only three things for sure,” Rodney hummed. “Taxes, death, and trouble, oh.”

Noah printed himself fresh blues.

“Suppose you’re going,” Rodney said.

“Three hundred more years, and I’m a free man. I’ll never finish my sentence the long way.”

“Don’t count on the short way, either,” Rodney grumbled.

“I came back here before, right?”

“Coming back here isn’t their issue.”

Noah shook off the old man’s doubts as he buttoned his shirt. Shook off some of his own, too.

“We’ve got room for twelve inmates,” the guard said. “Pest control. Anyone interested, extend your hands through the sally port. Job pays fifty years gain time.”

A hush fell across the cellblock. Fifty years warranted suspicion. What work would promise so much?

Noah bit his lip and offered his hands. What choice did he have? The next trouble decade might not arrive within his natural lifetime.

He did a double take when a set of wrinkled fingers appeared beside his. “Rodney, you sure? This’ll be dangerous.”

“At my age, everything’s dangerous.”

The guard handcuffed the volunteers through the sally port. Then the cell doors slid open with a baleful screech.

The other inmates watched them depart in silence. Probably unsure they were escaping death or missing their last ticket to the future.

The volunteers emerged onto the rain-slick docks. No ponchos or nothing. Wasn’t much left above sea level. Just a pier—repurposed from the prison’s helipad—and a fleet of boats. Old Coast Guard skiffs with faded imprints of the Geo Group’s logo.

“Lordy.” Rodney whistled at the submerged prison. “Glad I never tunneled out.”

That was this prison’s genius. A temporal Alcatraz. Even if you escaped, you were stuck on an earth uninhabitable for another three centuries.

There was already another inmate waiting aboard Noah and Rodney’s boat. A reedy guy with greasy hair and fogged glasses. The name ‘Case’ was printed on his blues. His last name, but Noah didn’t care to ask for his first.

“Welcome to year 2353,” the guy said, sweeping his arm across the flooded vista.

“You came off the chronorail?” Noah asked.

“Just finished a stint in 2337.” He adjusted his glasses with a self-satisfied grin. “Back in 2250, I bribed a guard to peek at the master maintenance schedule. Got my entire sentence planned. I’ll be a spry fifty-three years old by reclamation day.”

The boat’s engine kicked on. Diesel, of course. They cleaved a wake through still waters toward shadows along the horizon. The ghosts of skyscrapers cut down to midgets by the rising tide.

“So, you’re a calendar man, huh?” Rodney asked.

Case turned to him. “Calendar man?”

“Yeah. Mr. 2353, 2337. You’re still keeping track of that stuff.”

“How else do you know when you are?”

“Oh, people got plenty of ways, especially after our clock stopped ticking. Some folk are meal men. Use their bellies to keep time. My friend here is a weatherman. Listens to the rain through a leak in our roof.”

“They always send for maintenance three years into a trouble decade,” Noah said.

“That so?” Case raised an eyebrow. “You’ve done gain time before?”

“Fifteen years custodial work at Meteorological Observation 4. Got thirty years off my sentence.”

“House cat, huh? This deal’s sweeter than two-for-one. We might hop on a train to the twenty-fifth century tonight.”

“You know the job?” Noah asked. “The guard said something about pest control.”

Case nodded and spat into the wind. “Animals are fucking out of control. It’s the gene-hacked breeds running wild, tearing into the infrastructure. Grizzly police dogs. Super bees.”

The engine cut off as their boat ambled toward the chronorail. Train stations that went nowhere.

Time heals all wounds. You could write that in Latin and stick it on an American dollar. It was how his country had handled all its problems—poverty, healthcare, nuclear proliferation, climate, corrections. Stick it away until it solved itself or, at the very least, until another generation inherited it.

“The volunteers on each boat will cover one chrono line and all attendant facilities,” the guard said over the radio. “Report any structural damage or signs of infestation. Nests, tracks, scat. Kill any animals on sight. We’re unlocking your personal defense equipment.”

A waterproof locker snapped open. Inside rested racks of flashlights, wasp spray, rat traps, and automatic rifles.

“We’ll be watching on our thermals,” the guard continued. “Anyone tries anything, we’ll turn on the smart safeties with the touch of a button. You do not want to go out without a firearm.”

“Roger-fucking-that.” Case slung his rifle over his shoulder like a kid with his schoolbag.

Noah and Rodney shared uneasy glances.

The civilian chronorail line was a world apart from the Bureau of Prisons’ bunker line. This was more like a subway. Restaurants and bodegas lined the platform. All empty now. Or looted.

Faded banners littered the floor along with deflated balloons. A party for the chronorail’s last passengers. So long, Earth. See you in five-hundred years.

“Shit. Power’s out.” Case popped on his flashlight. “There’s a utility hatch on the roof. We need to go up and over.”

Noah glanced back at his cellmate fumbling in the dark and then at the rain-drenched exterior. Even with the rising tides, they were still a good five stories above sea level. Too high to fish someone out of the drink.

“Wait here, Rod. Shout when the lights come on.”

“Just watch for squirrels,” Case added. “They turned carnivorous. Saw one chew a guy’s eye out back in 2337.”

Rain was so heavy along the access corridor, Noah couldn’t see farther than a foot. He almost stumbled down the hatch. Case was already flipping circuit breakers.

“Anything, Rod?” Noah asked.

The reply came laden with radio static. “Nah…still darker than solitary up in…”

“Aw, fuck.” Case squatted beside the floor panel. “Something ripped the copper out.”

“Squirrels?”

“Nah. Something smarter.”

Noah racked his rifle. Some kind of converted M4. More military surplus.

“Shit, you know how to use those?” Case asked.

“Knowing how to use these was how I got here.”

“Soldier, huh? Maybe I’ll share my itinerary. Could use protection when I return to general pop.”

Noah raised an eyebrow. “And why is that?”

“Let’s just say I’m hoping the sex offender registries don’t reach the future.”

Noah was more bandit than soldier. But if a heartless killer got more rides on the chronorail, he’d gladly play the part. Really, he hadn’t intended to kill anyone when he knocked over that convenience store. Wasn’t even after money. Not that money was worth shit.

He’d given the robbery some forethought. Picked a refugee-owned store. Practically a victimless crime. Someone would have eventually pulled the guy’s papers. Better for his inventory to feed Noah than become some slumlord’s windfall.

Of course, it all went wrong. Noah wasn’t great at making plans. To this day, he never understood what made an unarmed man charge someone with a gun.

Problem was, you killed ‘em too fast, Rodney had told him back when they’d first swapped stories.

What are you talking about, kid? Noah asked.

If you want to kill someone, kill ‘em slow. Lead in the blood. Plastic in the belly. Smog in the lungs. They don’t lock you up for killing ‘em slow. They’ll pay you to kill ‘em like that.

The whine of static flooded the radio. “Hey, y’all…there’s something…Wait…no…don’t…”

“Rod, what’s up?”

“I’m not…put that…” The signal died with a wet, gurgling scream.

“Rodney? Rodney!”

“Shit,” Case said, a bit too placid for Noah’s liking.

Noah shimmied up the ladder, practically crawling as he fumbled for the hatch. He swept his flashlight around the station. No sign of Rodney.

Then a moan echoed from the railing.

Noah shone his light into the pit. Rodney hadn’t fallen. A stick gouged through his shoulder. No, not a stick. A fucking spear. With an obsidian point and a tassel of crow feathers and a squirrel’s tail.

“Shit. We’ve gotta get you back to the boat.”

Rodney laughed. “Nothing for me on any boat. This was always their plan for us.”

“Fuck their plans. Come on, Rod. Stay with me.”

“Don’t care ‘bout the weather,” The old man hummed as he faded, the grit in his voice turning to mush. “Don’t care ‘bout no trouble. Got myself together.”

Noah steadied himself and shuddered. Rodney died on his own terms, which was more than most prisoners got. Sure, they might lock you up for killing ‘em fast, but nobody wanted to die slow.

Noah still pictured Rodney as that punk teenager dragged in from the protests. It was always strange seeing him old. Even stranger seeing him dead.

“Inmate G6-9, we got a blackout notice on your partner’s vitals. What’s going on?”

Noah grabbed his radio to answer, but his mouth ran dry.

“He got fucking stabbed.” Case loomed over the platform. “There’s someone else here.”

“Understood. Stand by for orders.”

“Who did this?” Noah asked.

“I’m not sure, but I heard that in 2312, a grate got busted above a cellblock. Three inches of rain a day. By the time anyone checked, the entire block had drowned. Guards ran the surveillance, and they heard people talking outside.”

“Talking about what?”

Case shrugged. “It wasn’t in English. Some unga-bunga language.”

Noah tried to process what he was hearing. People actually living out here? His first thought was prisoners had somehow broken the hermetic seals on their cellblock and escaped. But they weren’t exactly breeding populations.

These people came the long way. Temporal natives. Generations upon generations who’d somehow survived an uninhabitable Earth. It shouldn’t have been possible. Everyone was supposed to board the chronorail. The plan didn’t work otherwise.

But plenty of Americans didn’t technically exist. Hard to imagine the government handing out tickets to folks they’d tried so hard to keep out of the country. Time was supposed to solve all of America’s problems. Including its immigrant problem.

“Attention, all inmates,” the guard’s voice popped over their radios. “We’ve received reports of trespassers. They are extremely dangerous and must be eliminated. Your gain time is increased to two-hundred years.”

“Two hundred years…?” Noah whispered. This wasn’t hazard pay. It was blood money.

They searched the entire darkened chronorail station. It was empty. Not just empty in the unoccupied sense. A deeper empty. A ruin.

“Let’s get Rodney before we go back,” Noah said.

“Why? They’re just going to throw him overboard.”

“That’s alright. He loved to swim.”

Sweeping his flashlight along the rail, a shadow darted away. Noah considered firing, but hitting a live chronorail line could cause problems.

“There’s something down here!”

Case leapt off the platform to tackle the intruder. He pinned a woman to the ground. No, not really a woman. A girl.

She wore an odd mix of animal pelts and scavenged relics. Jewelry adorned her wrists and neck crafted from bottle caps and little plastic toys from quarter machines or hamburger meals.

“You know—” Case panted as she kicked beneath him. “She’s cute. We could have some fun.”

“Fuck no,” Noah said.

“Your loss. Only pussy we’ll get this century.”

Something about her reminded Noah of the convenience-store clerk. Was it the shape of her face? Her prodigious eyebrows? That look in her eyes, terror tempered to steel.

He leveled his gun at Case. “Get off her.”

“We’re killing her anyway. What’s the harm?”

“The harm is I’m going to blow your fucking head off.”

Case just laughed. “You think they’ll give you gain time if you shoot me?”

With a defeated sigh, Noah lowered his gun. He’d done worse to survive. And anyone who said spending decades locked away made you a better person was a fucking liar.

“Good. Now drop the gun and kick it over,” Case said. “If you behave, I’ll give you a turn.”

Noah complied. Then looked the other way. Easier to live with himself if he didn’t see. This happened often in prison. And regardless of whether they had a DC number, everyone living in this century was a prisoner.

There was no other way. People from the past couldn’t return to a world already full. Her people would die in three centuries, regardless.

But was that true? The future wasn’t written yet. Shouldn’t the people who’d survived the trouble inherit this country rather than the people who’d caused it?

“I said…” Case hissed. “Get the fuck off her.”

Case barely pulled up his blues before Noah charged, ripping the spear from Rodney’s chest and lodging it in that rapist asshole’s neck.

The girl screamed as his bloody glasses clattered beside her.

“Inmate G6-9,” the guard’s voice came over Noah’s radio. “We’ve got another blackout notice. What’s happening?”

“They stabbed Case,” Noah said with a shaking breath. Apparently, murder wasn’t much like sex. The second time was just as clumsy. “Got away before I could shoot.”

“Understood. All inmates, converge on line B.”

“Shit.” Noah dropped the spear and waved her on. “Go! There’s more coming.”

Grabbing her weapon, she darted back into the shadows.

Someone with a spear couldn’t fight nine armed inmates. But maybe she wouldn’t need to. Someone could switch off their rifles with the touch of a button.

Noah climbed back into the rain.

“Inmate G6-9, you are not authorized to report to the boat.”

Noah leveled his rifle, pulling the trigger once the guard’s silhouette appeared. But the weapon emitted an impotent click. A proximity trigger on the smart safeties.

“Inmate G6-9, stand back or I’ll fire.”

Bullets sliced through the rain. Noah kept running.

For his entire sentence, he’d wondered what could make someone charge at a man with a loaded gun.

Now he knew the answer.

[Editor’s Note: Copper Frog here. If you enjoyed this story, you can check out another one set in the world of the chronorails in “Planes, Trains, and Time Machines”]