Alcatraz, December 31, 1962
Alexander Bohm was perched in the uncomfortable wooden chair in front of the Warden's desk. In the distance, a drunken chorus of "Auld Lang Syne" could be heard, even though midnight was still three hours away. "No," he said simply.
The Warden steepled his fingers. "I would have thought you'd jump at the chance, 2463. God knows you've had more than enough classified experience. Why do you think it took them so long to finally arrest you?"
Bohm stared back at the Warden, keeping his face as impassive as possible. "What you got in mind, sir...it's beyond classified. And it sounds too risky to me. What if we end up, say, a hundred years ago on the moon or something? I don't know about you, but personally I happen to value my own skin."
"I'm not asking for you to trust me," said the Warden. "I know that would be almost impossible. But what I need is an obedient agent. And there is absolutely no risk. I should know. I've already seen you, alive and well, fifty years from now. Well, I say 'well,' but does being imprisoned all over again really count?"
"You see?" said Bohm. "Might as well just stay locked in solitary until then."
The Warden opened his desk drawer and removed a vial of silvery fluid. "Have I mentioned our recent discovery?" he said. "The Fountain of Youth, 2463. You'll still be alive in fifty years, and you will not have aged a day." He put the colloidal silver back in the drawer and locked it up. "You have three months to make your decision. Although we all know what the answer's going to be anyway. Now, go out and celebrate with your fellow inmates. Isn't that what people are supposed to do on this day?" He signaled the guards to chain Bohm up again and left the room.
Snoqualmie, Washington, April 7, 2012
Enrico had reported back to Rebecca, Hauser, and Lucy right away after meeting Bohm in the bar. As he had expected, none of them were able to make any sense of what Bohm had told him. Hauser merely dismissed it as psychotic ravings. Rebecca didn't care either way, she just wanted to jump on the chance to arrest Bohm and ship him back to New Alcatraz as quickly as possible.
Lucy, however, advocated a more patient approach. "He insists he's got a target that he has to kill in a few days, right? So we wait a little while. It'll buy us a bit of time to try and figure out exactly what he's been doing."
And so that was how the team spent the last two days. Enrico had also asked them about the "Skeleton Crew" message, whatever the hell that meant. Doc knew it was a collection of stories by Stephen King, and he let Enrico look at the e-book version he had on his tablet. But he was nowhere near close to figuring out what the message meant. The number 253 suggested a page number, so he went there. But what the extra 3 meant, he had no idea. Third word? Third sentence? Third paragraph? All possibilities he'd tried, but to no avail. None of the phrases mentioned in those places made any sense.
But Doc did have one bit of innocuously important information to give. He'd gone to the bar himself and noticed the plain metal icebox by the sink had been replaced. Instead, it had become a two-foot-square cuboid, painted flat black, with a distinctive logo on it. He even presented a picture to the team of said logo. Everyone else but Enrico recognized it right away. It was a Laguna Ice Chest, said to be lined with carbon fiber for maximum insulation. Rumor had it various big-name science labs around the world were using it to store materials at low temperatures, borderline absolute zero, in fact.
April 9th
12:53pm. Another two days of virtually fruitless searching had gone by. The only nugget of any importance was the fact that Hauser had received a phone call just that morning, revealing that Alexander Bohm had actually been employed by the CIA between 1947 and 1958. The classified records indicated he'd been in some kind of chemical warfare division, back in the days when such things weren't yet illegal. Sadly, there were no further details, but Hauser's CIA contact assured him he would keep on looking.
In the meantime, Rebecca had convinced everyone that there was just no point waiting any longer. So she arranged a plan to take down Bohm before he could strike again.
As part of this plan, Enrico was told to wait inside the pizzeria at Better Way. The pizzeria, he noticed, was situated right next to a used bookstore, and upon seeing said bookstore he was struck by a sudden wave of curiosity. Enrico entered the shop and was greeted by a thin Asian man with glasses and a beanie.
"Hello, sir," said the man. "Can I help you?"
Enrico nodded. "Do you happen to have any copies of Skeleton Crew?"
"By Stephen King? Yes, I do believe I still have one or two in stock." The shopkeeper crossed the room to a stack of books marked "Horror for Half-o-ween!" "It's funny, but just the other day some blond German-looking dude bought up almost all my copies, said he was gonna give them away in some radio contest or something. I dunno. Luckily I still had this in storage." He produced a battered paperback and handed it off to Enrico, who took a look at page 253. Third word, no good. Third sentence, nothing.
But the third paragraph began with a line of dialogue that made Enrico freeze. The last thing he remembered from 1963 was standing in a room full of twenty other men including the Warden, and then...a whole long stretch of nothing before surfacing in 2012. The line of Mr. King's writing summed up that feeling quite perfectly.
"'It's eternity in there.'"
"Hey, Pellesanti," said an all-too-familiar voice. Alexander Bohm had just entered the bookstore, smiling maniacally. Enrico looked at his hands and noticed they were glowing. Clearly Bohm had taken off his lead-lined smock, allowing the colloidal silver in his bloodstream to be detected by Enrico's platinum enhancement.
"Hey, what the..." But Bohm wasn't looking at Enrico's glowing hands. He was looking across the street at the bar, where Rebecca was attempting to pick the lock with Doc giving her instructions.
Enrico needed a way to distract the man. So he did the first thing he could think of, and punched Bohm smack in the jaw.
