"The Generational Purge"

36. Carried on a Trail

Orcus Penitentiary – in the year 3086

The day she had first found herself pulled into the prison, Beatrice Oshiro had been tending her garden. It had once been her great grandmother Naoko's garden, but when she had become too old to tend it herself, Beatrice had taken over. Her parents had died when she was only six, and she had been taken in by her grandmother, Naoko's daughter, and her great grandmother, who lived together. She had continued tending the garden after her great gran had passed, and she would continue to, for as long as she could.

But as she sat there on her knees, soil stained, she'd felt something get a hold of her. The next moment, she had been in a cold room, standing before a man. He introduced himself as Nathaniel Nash and said that she was his ancestor. He looked nothing like her, which had made it very hard for her to believe. But he had the documents to prove it which, once she had been shown beyond the shadow of a doubt that they were in the future, she had been inclined to believe. He looked as surprised as she was, that she was there.

And then they'd begun to talk. He told her about his work at the prison, about the technology he had gotten a hold of. He had no idea just who he had gotten a hold of. If he had known of her past, how her parents had been murdered, there in her home, as she hid and watched, and how the man had been pardoned just weeks before, he wouldn't have found her offer, to assist him in his goal, to be so much of a surprise. Still, he had accepted it, and so they began.

The first had not been the hardest, it was the second. She had been determined the first time, but when the second came, now she had the memory of her first victim, of the look that came in his eyes as life left him. Since then, she'd had to steel herself, to carry on. She did not kill for joy; she did it for justice.

X

Somewhere along the way, Jaya and the others must have been looking to get at the warden. Moving closer to where they had stashed the warden, there were guards on ground everywhere they went, like a trail to follow Beatrice's path. The Doctor would stop to check on them as they went, and he had to notice that none of them were dead. They had fought the intruder and been neutralized by her. It was efficient, and the impression it gave the Doctor was that she could have killed them but chose not to. They could see Hari at the other end of the corridor, and he had also been incapacitated.

Just as they'd reached a junction, Jaime and Beth came running in from another corridor, stopping just short of colliding with the Doctor, Rose, Jack, Noah, and Norman.

"She's here, isn't she?" Jaime asked them.

"Dude…" Noah blinked, staring at the man that looked a whole lot like him. Jaime saw him, too, and he was just as amazed. "You're that guy, aren't you? My descendant?" His eyes moved to the woman at his side. She was staring at him, wide-eyed. She had something about her that reminded him of Chester Hinds, so she must have been… "Are you related to us, too?" Noah asked her. Beth hesitated, seeing both the Doctor and Jack shaking their heads behind the boy she knew to be her father.

"I… well…"

"You probably can't tell me, right? In case it messes things up?" Noah had spoken before she could formulate some kind of answer.

"Right," Beth breathed out, going with that.

"Sorry to interrupt the family reunion, but we've got incomings," Norman spoke up, and the others turned to find Jaya, Deck, and Ingrid coming up, the other prisoners stopping to look at the fallen guards.

"Of course," the Doctor moved up toward them. They were ready to put an end to Nathaniel Nash.

"He's here, isn't he? The assassin?" Jaya asked.

"She is," the Doctor corrected, and they rolled with it without a blink.

"Step aside, Doctor," Deck gripped the weapon in his left hand.

"You know I can't do that."

"You've asked us to be patient, and we have. But there is only so far we can go. Those two have been messing with things that shouldn't be touched. And I know you feel the same way, so be a good boy and step aside. This will only take a moment," Ingrid spoke softly.

"We've got this situation under control," the Doctor wouldn't move.

"Do you?" Jaya frowned. "You let the assassin back in here."

"Indeed I did. I'm the one who brought her back," he revealed.

"You did what?" Jaya's face looked like she didn't know whether to punch him or kiss him.

"Far be it for me to point this out, but when this is all over, the lot of you will still have sentences to serve. So unless you're looking to spend the rest of your lives here, I suggest you let me and mine continue to look after things, alright?" There was little they could say to this. Several of them knew for a fact that their respective guards had been plucked not from the past but from the future, and as little as they liked being told what to do from a stranger who'd swept in and taken charge, he had a point.

"You've got an hour," Jaya told him; she had nothing to lose. "And then we're coming. I wouldn't stand in our way."

"Understood," the Doctor told her; they would be done by then, if all went…

As soon as he'd turned around, he'd spotted that head of turquoise hair looming on the group holding down the corridor. She'd snatched Noah, pulling him to herself, the sharp end of her knife pressed at his neck. He'd grunted in surprise, alerting the others, who turned to see the assassin retreating with him.

"Dad!" Beth had blurted out without thinking. The boy might have been better positioned to stare in shock, if not for the knife pointed precariously at his throat.

"Stay back," she retreated toward the warden's holding room. There was the whirring of a weapon from behind her. It pointed not at her but past her, to hold off the Doctor and his pack. Nathaniel Nash had been freed of his restraints.

TO BE CONTINUED (FRIDAY)