Paradise Forgotten Trilogy

by Mackenzie Morris

  "They wouldn't just abandon us here. No one would ever leave you to die. Oh . . . Troy, I'm sorry."

  Troy holds his face in his hands. "You don't know what it was like for me. The tribe threw me away like I was nothing. You stood there and let them do it. You didn't even try to help me. I was begging you."

  "What was I supposed to do? It was for the protection of everyone else."

  "Then don't pretend to know what it's like to be left to die. I keep thinking that maybe I should have."

  "Don't say that. We need you, Troy." He takes Troy's hand. "I need you. I've always told you that and I've always meant it."

  A few minutes pass until Troy lies back on the smooth rock and shields his eyes with his arm. "What are your plans for today?"

  "I'm going to take my children out to see the zebras."

  "Let me come with you. If I don't keep moving, I'm scared I might stop and not be able to anymore."

  Babu runs up to them, completely soaked, and stands over Troy. "Troy, are you coming?"

  "Babu, go back to your mother." Orion orders. "I'll be there soon and we'll go see the zebras."

  The boy jumps on Troy's legs, causing him to yelp and push him away.

  "Get off of him." Orion picks up his son. "I'm sorry. Troy is hurting. You know that. Be gentle around him."

  "I'm fine." Troy groans as he sits up and wipes away the river water. "Let's go find your zebras, Babu."

  "You're coming too?"

  Troy smiles and takes the boy's hand. "You bet."

  * * *

  Paris keeps his head down as he follows Uriel down the steps into the lower level under the concrete bunker that has been his personal hell for the past six years. There's no heater down here. Ice has formed on the grey rough walls from where water has leaked in from above ground. It glistens in the cold white light. The familiar musty smell makes his fear all the more real. Is Uriel going to leave him down here again? They passed the different hallways, each leading to a different well-used torture room, all for different offenses. What will be his punishment for this most recent failure?

  He remembers the first time he was dragged down here when he was twelve for what Uriel had said would be a surprise. Paris had been chained to the wall while a guard beat him with a wooden paddle. That wasn't the worst part. As he was crying from the paddling, Paris was forced to watch as his pet king cobra was brutally tortured with needles until it died. Snakey had been his best friend for years. Paris would play his flute and the cobra would dance as if it was entranced. Even when the snake's fangs grew back, it never bit him. That was the worst day of his life. It was worse than when his mother threw him in the blacksmith's forge. It was even worse than when those slavers raped him. To Paris, the horrific murder of his best friend was the one last string that snapped, causing every fiber of his resolve to tear into minuscule shreds. Those scraps can never be sewn together again. That was the day Paris finally broke.

  Uriel flips on the lights as they reach the bottom of the stairs. The room is empty except for a bed and a table covered with an assortment of vials, chemicals, syringes, and clamps. He sighs as he pushes Paris inside and pulls the heavy metal door closed. He enters a code into the electronic keypad to lock the door. "You've failed me, Paris."

  "Forgive me."

  Uriel points to the bed where all the blankets have been stripped away and the mattress is stained with old dried blood, Paris's blood. Leather straps with heavy brass buckles hang from the wall and trail like snakes across the bed.

  Without a word, Paris obeys. Even though he is already shivering in the icy air and can see his breath, he removes his clothes and lies down on the bed. He closes his eyes as he feels Uriel bind his ankles and wrists then cinch the straps down tightly. They bite into his skin, but this discomfort pales in comparison to the pure agony about to be flowing through his veins.

  "I had such high hopes for you." Uriel grabs Paris's face roughly in his hands. "You just couldn't do it, could you?"

  "I'm sorry, sir."

  He slaps Paris across the face. "Sorry isn't good enough. You're not good enough."

  "He figured out who I was."

  "You told him. Don't play dumb with me, boy."

  "What was I supposed to tell him?" Paris asks. "He noticed my burns then asked my name."

  "Lie. You could have told him anything. He was drunk and ready to go. You were this close to sleeping with him. He would have been so overwhelmed by the revelation at that point that he would have to come with us. But no. You screwed it up. Would it have been that hard to do one thing right in your pathetic waste of a life for once?"

  Paris grits his teeth as he watches Uriel mixing a bowl of chemicals at the table. Truthfully, though he will never tell Uriel this, he didn't want to sleep with Silver. There is still a tiny part of himself that views him as his father. Paris was going along with the plan as he has been trained to do. No questions, no objections, no hesitations. But he couldn't do it. When it came down to actually doing it, Paris knew he couldn't trick the man who loved him and cared for him as his own son for years. Now that man he looked up to and aspired to be like hates him.

  "I sense your loyalties are still in question."

  "N-no, sir. I belong to you and you alone."

  "Well, after I inject you with this nanobot accelerant, you won't be able to say no. You will need to go along with my plan. As the preprogrammed nanobots take over your mind, your already weakened mind will become my playground. That is . . . if you don't submit willingly after the torture it puts you through. That is the best way to do this. If you can't bear the pain anymore, squeeze my hand and I'll let it go more until I know you're good and broken. If not, then you lose any freewill or thoughts. The choice is up to you." Uriel takes his hand and pierces his arm with the needle.

  Paris screams as his vision flashes red. The burning spreads like millions of needles over his skin. His lungs are on fire and seize up. He can't breathe. Another needle stabs him ruthlessly as another chemical eats away at his skin. Paris squeezes Uriel's hand. When the pain doesn't stop, he squeezes harder and harder. Crying uncontrollably and writhing in his bonds, he begs incoherently through his gasping for air. "I . . . will . . . obey."

  "That's what I thought you'd say." Uriel removes the needle. "Just to let it sink in this time, I'm leaving you down here. No food or water for three days. When I come back down here, you will be beaten and we will repeat the process as many times as it takes to shape you into how I want you. Stop crying. You don't want to be locked in the sleep deprivation cell again, do you?"

  "No, sir."

  "I will break you."

  Paris weakly pulls against the leather straps. "I've already broken."

  "Then I will grind the pieces of your soul under my feet until there's nothing left."

  * * *

  Silver sits in the conference room with the other members of the guild. Mistress is using a laser pointer to go over some charts at the front of the room about some kind of statistics. It doesn't really concern him. Even if it does, he doubts he could pay any attention to it. He didn't sleep at all last night. No matter what he tried to do, he couldn't get those images of Paris out of his mind.

  Where did he go wrong? He had tried to be a good father figure for the boy, but now he has changed into something foreign and . . . frightening. There is a darkness coursing under the surface that Silver can't look past. What has Uriel done to the precious little boy he used to love so much?

  Silver stares down at his mug of steaming coffee. This needs something. He reaches into the pocket of his cargo pants and retrieves a flask. He covertly pours the whiskey into his cup. Just as he is screwing the top back on the flask, the entire room turns to stare at him. Oh hell.

  Dax clears his throat. "It's eight in the morning."

  "You look awful. Where were you last night?" Mistress asks.

  "He was the same place he is every night." Dion says. "Does no one see the problem here? We're all here. I think
it's time for an intervention."

  Silver hides his flask in his pocket and drinks his coffee as he tries to ignore them all.

  "Leave him alone." Nova, dressed in a simple pink sundress instead of her silver winged archon armor, stands and goes to her father. "Can't you people see he's hurting? If he wants a drink to move past this, then let him. He's a grown man. He knows his limits."

  "Go sit down, Nova." Silver orders. "Would you just get on with your meeting? Forget I'm even here."

  Dax growls as he glares darkly at Silver. "Why are you here? We don't need addicts with uncontrollable rage issues around this sensitive information. There's no telling what you'll do for a drink. I said it six years ago and I'll say it again. Silver Cunningham should not be a part of this operation. He's a risk and a liability."

  "You're one to talk about taking unnecessary risks."

  "What are you blabbering about?"

  "Condoms were invented for a reason."

  Dax slams his combat knife down into the top of the table and storms over to Silver. He pushes him away from the table and takes his collar in his hand. "You dirty spy. We just found out three days ago. When have you been sneaking around in my room? Answer me or I will end you right here."

  Nova gasps and pulls her brother's hand away. "Zodiac, what is he talking about?"

  "Call me Dax while I'm undercover. There could be people listening in. You never know. As for this idiot, he's making things up. He's just trying to turn the focus away from the person with the real problem."

  Mistress knocks on the whiteboard to get everyone's attention. "Dax Nero, is there something we need to know?"

  Dax gives his father one more warning glare before adjusting his studded black leather shirt and stomping back to his chair. He pries his knife from the table. "No. I'll take care of it. The problem will be gone by tomorrow."

  No way. "You can't do what I think you're going to do."

  "I said I will take care of it. It would have been gone sooner, but I had to go down to the black market to get the drugs."

  Silver gasps. "Don't do this. There are other ways. You'll regret this."

  "Shut up! This isn't the place to be discussing this." Dax holds out his hand. "Continue with the meeting, Mistress."

  "All right. While we're on the subject of . . . problems, does anyone have any news or recent developments? Silver, I know you're hiding something. I've known you for far too long to not see it. What happened last night?"

  This is now officially the worst day of his life. "Nothing."

  "Don't lie to me. No one is leaving this room until you tell us."

  "I . . . I saw Paris last night."

  "What? Where? How did you find him?"

  "Uh, in a bar."

  "And? You have to tell us everything that happened. This is extremely important. This could be the thing we've been waiting for. Tell us what you two did."

  Silver's face turns hot as he blushes and tries to hide his face from them. "I'd rather not."

  "What?" Samuels asks. "It's not like you were banging him or anything."

  Silver only sighs and hides his face in his arms on the table.

  Dion chuckles as he smoothes his bright blue mohawk. "Oh my gods! You were!"

  "No. We almost . . . but then I noticed his burns. Then he told me his name."

  Clara sets down her cup of tea and adjusts her thin glasses. "You brought a strange man to your room without even knowing his name? That's so unlike you, Silver."

  "I know. Do you think I'm proud of it? I'll have you know, I got physically sick and took the hottest shower of my life after he left. I feel awful."

  "Where did he go? We need him here." Atlas says. He flips through a stack of files in front of him and holds his dark green cardigan close as he shivers in the cool air.

  "I told him to leave and never come back."

  "Why? How could you?"

  "He's not Paris anymore. He's working with Uriel willingly. He's been broken and brainwashed. Paris is Uriel's little lap dog."

  Dax laughs. "Way to sleep with the enemy, Silver."

  "I didn't-"

  "Stop. Dax, enough." Mistress snaps. "Then how do we get Paris back? Why would he cooperate with Uriel?"

  "You are all forgetting one very important detail." Dax says. "For all intents and purposes, Uriel is Paris's father. That's why he's had so much interest in him."

  "Where did you hear that?" Samuels's wife, Annette asks.

  "Mistress, have you not made this public knowledge yet? I figured everyone knew by now. Orion told me before I dropped him and Troy off at Delphi. He left me a list of important things they were able to discover while they were slaves in Kyro. That's how we found out about Nova's new archon powers initially. They've been a great help."

  "Hold on. Where is Isidore?"

  "Software updates." Atlas says. "So what does Uriel want with Paris?"

  Dax spins a nanoarrow cube on the table. "He wants to used the regeneration ring and the alpha code to make Paris into a living weapon of mass destruction. The nanobots thrive in and can be commanded by Paris. I doubt something that powerful could actually work, but if it does, we all will be in a world of hurt. We need to get a contingency plan going for the worst case scenario. If we can't get our hands on Paris and have him locked away somewhere with extremely high security where he can't be controlled by Uriel, then we could be looking at an apocalyptic situation."

  Mistress whispers to Dion then nods. "Then I guess we're going to Delphi to retrieve our king."

  Everyone in the room raises their right hand in the air. "Long live the Phoenix King."

  3

  Orion carries Troy on his back as they return to camp after watching the zebra herd in the savannah. The sun is setting, casting pale oranges and pinks over the bottoms of the puffy white clouds. The evening air is filled with the buzzing of insects and the far distant laughter of hyenas. They're making it back just in time. This is no place to be after dark.

  "Thank you."

  Orion looks at Troy's head on his shoulder. "It's what I'm here for, buddy. Next time, listen to me when I tell you that you can't do something."

  "I'm sorry."

  "I know it's difficult for you. Hey, at least I'm strong enough to carry you now, right? You always used to tease me for not having muscles."

  Troy manages a slight laugh. "It's just more fat, Orion."

  "Not nice. My wives don't complain. They say I'm squishy, like a big pillow."

  "You sure you're not the one who's pregnant?"

  "When you're feeling better, I'll get you back for that one."

  As they come close to the river running by camp and see the smoke rising from the communal fire, there is a sudden loud rumble from directly above them. A burst of wind speeds past and the bright silver flash makes even Troy look up. "That's a space transport."

  Orion gently lies Troy down on the ground and pushes his family back behind him. "Stay back. There's no telling who these people are."

  "Aliens!" Babu screams.

  "No, Babu. I don't think they're aliens." Orion watches the ship land nearby. The other members of the tribe step out from their tents to watch the occurrence. He goes up to the ship as the doors open and two men step out, wearing modern clothes. They look awkward compared to everyone here.

  The elderly human man with the gold beret puts his hands on his hips as he scans over the village. "What language are they speaking?"

  The pure Nymph with the glasses who looks very much like Troy walks down the ramp into the sand. "I believe it is Nymphetic."

  Orion waves at them. "Ave!"

  The pure Nymph runs to him. "Orion! I'm Atlas, Troy's brother."

  "Welcome to Delphi. What are you doing here?"

  Atlas frowns and looks over at Samuels who shrugs his shoulders. "Can you still speak English? We didn't understand any of that."

  Oh. He had been speaking the native language without even realizing it. "Sorry. Hi. This is Delphi."

&
nbsp; Atlas embraces Orion. "I've heard so much about you and how you saved Troy's life. It's good to see you alive and well. Where is my brother? Go get him and we'll get out of here. I'm sure you're ready for a hot shower and a hamburger."

  "I'll go get Troy." Orion goes across the river and pulls Troy up on his shoulders. "You okay?"

  "I just need to lie down. I'm feeling lightheaded."

  "They've come to take us to Himmel."

  "That's wonderful. But what about you?"

  "I'm not going."

  Atlas runs up to them as they get close to the ship. "Troy! Oh my gods. What happened?"

  "Ebola." Orion says as he carries Troy onboard the ship. "These are the lasting effects. It took quite a toll on him. He hasn't been the same since."

  "Don't tell me he's blind."

  He sets Troy down in one of the chairs in the command room of the ship. "Just extremely light sensitive. His muscles are weak and can't be overworked."

  Troy pushes Orion's doting hands away. "I can tell them myself. I'm not a child."

  "And he's also as stubborn as ever." Orion leads Atlas back outside.

  "We'll get him to a hospital. I hope the doctors can figure out a way to help him."

  Orion glances behind him at the people he has come to love as brothers and sisters. He then sees his wives laughing and his children splashing in the shallow water. "I . . . I'm not coming with you."

  "You have to. We are getting out of here."

  "I have a life here. I have a family and children. See them over there by the river? That's my family. I can't leave them behind. I have finally found a purpose in my life. I want to stay here with my tribe and my family."

  "You knew when we dropped you and Troy off here, that it was only temporary. Why did you allow yourself to become so attached to them?" Atlas asks.

  "They need me. I love them."

  Atlas sighs and pulls Orion out of earshot. "Listen to me. Troy needs you. I know how much you've helped him. With Zodiac dead, he has no one left. I know you've told him about our family."

  Orion looks down at the sand. "I haven't. He still believes they're alive in Athens."

  "It's been close to seven years since everyone but me was killed in that fire. How are we going to break the news to him?"