Prisoners of Paradise

by Brandon Lars Erikson

“What kind of deal are you talking about?”

  Van Dien took a drag from his cigarette and said, “We both know how Ailana’s history has led to its current problems, which you obviously wish to profit from. As you know, about one hundred years ago, Earth made contact with the people of this tropical paradise of a world out of necessity. At the time, the Allied Planets of Earth and Aurora were at war with a bloodthirsty race of aliens known as the Terraxakors. It was discovered that the Terraxakors were amassing on the Planet of Farcry, and thus, the Military Leaders of Earth, decided to stop these bloodthirsty aliens from attacking the Allied Planets again. Earth’s Military needed a home base to attack from and natural resources to wage a war with. And so the people of Earth convinced the native people of Ailana to allow them to use their planet as a War Machine. Despite its small landmass, Ailana was a planet where everything The Military needed to win the war, could be grown or manufactured. The planet’s location was perfect to strike the Terraxakors from. The leaders of Ailana agreed, after they realized that once the Terraxakors discovered that Ailana did have land and resources other than salt water, they would surely be conquered and enslaved as well.”

  As his long explanation unfolded, Van Dien could sense fear in the person’s breathing. Van Dien smiled with a bit of sadistic pleasure as he said, “anyway, a couple of generations have passed since the war was won, and Ailana is no longer needed as a War Machine Planet. There have been massive cutbacks in Military spending, which have caused many years of hardship. Right now, the economic recession is at its worst…and as a result, you and I both know that there are many people on Ailana, who are unhappy with the status quo. I have discovered that a few of these people are actually doing something about it. From what I’ve been able to decipher, these rebellious citizens are up to something, and the Ailanian Central Intelligence Agency has finally caught wind of it.”

  The voice on the other end of the com sounded surprised, “I thought you were the Ailanian CIA.”

  Van Dien chuckled, “I work for a much higher level of authority. The Ailanian government, its police forces and its Central Intelligence Agency are a fine group of people, who think they are in charge of keeping the peace, but the truth is, they work for me…and don’t even realize it. Right now, certain people within the Ailanian CIA have discovered something that is going to be very important for our plan to succeed…very few people know what is really happening on Ailana…and even fewer people realize that there is talk of revolution going on.”

  The voice on the other end of the com said, “And that probability of civil unrest is exactly what we need to know about. Do you have contacts within the Ailanian CIA that can be of assistance to us?”

  Van Dien grinned and said, “I know all of their strengths and weaknesses, and how we can use them to our advantage.” A beep from the monitor distracted Van Dien. His eyes narrowed as he said, “I will have to get back to you. It appears that I must check up on one of Ailana’s unhappy citizens. He is a person of great interest to me. His name is Moke Kalapana and he is the head of the Ailanian CIA. He is a man who could be great, but doesn’t know it. He is a man who has sold his soul for the acceptance of others. He is a miserable man with a personal mission to gain back what he has lost…and it appears that he is doing something that requires my attention.”

  He hung up and clenched his fist as the flustered voice tried to protest in vain. Van Dien’s angry face was washed in the blue light of the computer monitor. He took a long, pleasurable drag from his cigarette to calm himself as he read the words that had just appeared on the screen.

  -AILANIAN CIA TRANSMISSION - Intercepted – 09-11-2736

  Captain Kalapana, I think I have a lock on our suspect.

  I’m on my way.

  Shall I contact Captain Kanta?

  NO! This is a D-Squad Mission now! No one is to know about it!

  Yes sir.

  We have one chance at this people. Make no mistake, we are taking a huge risk but the reward is well worth it. What we are doing here today could make a big difference for the people we have been sworn to protect, even if it undermines those we have been sworn to serve.

  “Moke Kalapana, you are a stubborn bastard,” Van Dien thought as he tightened his shaking fist and exhaled a long stream of cigarette smoke. Despite his initial anger, his mind was soon feeling calm and serene as he thought, “Why do you still insist on biting the hand that feeds you? No one knows of our little secret that we share. None of the people in the Ailanian government, which you need to win approval from, have any clue about what kind of man you really are. No one knows about the terrible events in your past which you wish to hide from them. Why do this to yourself? What was wrong with the life I gave you? Why must you despise the role you were supposed to play? Oh well, this is of no consequence. Try to be the hero. Let the fun begin…something big is about to happen on Ailana. I am about to carry out a plan that is going to rock your little world…and in the end, you will have a choice to make. You can either help me carry out my plan…or die trying to stop me.”

  Location: Unknown.

  Ailanian Standard Time: 1300 hours.

  The nervous man began to sweat as he sat in front of the monitor, shrouded in darkness. He frantically clenched his com for one final message.

  Who is this mysterious, white haired man in black? We all thought he was a legend, we all thought he was just a story made up to scare us. But make no mistake about it; this man is very real, very serious and very dangerous. I have officially gotten us involved in a deadly game of cloak and dagger where the prize will literally be how the history of Ailana will be written. The players of this game are Ailana’s heavy hitters, who will do whatever it takes to win because they have so much to lose. Our opponents are the Ailanian CIA, the corrupt members of the Ailanian government and their pseudo-capitalist allies. We will also be going head to head with a group of Ailanian revolutionaries and will have to deal with the malicious members of the Ailanian underworld. All of these desperate people are in a struggle to outwit each other in order to gain the power and wealth they need to hang onto the control they desire. Ailana is a world in peril, and the plan we have just gotten involved with revolves around these players and the struggle they are about enter in order to eliminate each other. We will be using their conflicts to advance our own agenda, and for our plan to work, these players must simultaneously cause their world to implode. The game we are about to play is not only dangerous, it will be a duel to the death that will force us to make allies with all these players so that we may eventually find a way to make them tear each other to pieces. If you help me succeed with my plan, I will see to it that you will also gain power and wealth beyond your wildest imagination. I know I am selling my soul to the devil, but my making an alliance with this man and agreeing to help him with his plan, is the only logical thing I could do. We are now involved in something that will shake this world to its very core. We have committed ourselves and we must remain ever vigilant and ready to strike. The plan is officially in motion, and there is no turning back now. The first step is to help our new ally destroy his old enemy, a man named Moke Kalapana. Good luck to us all!

  The battle for Ailana has begun!

  CHAPTER 2

  Location: Hakukai Strabb Housing and Shopper’s Paradise…Polynea, the Capital City of Ailana

  Ailanian Standard Time: 1630 hours.

  CaptainMoke Kalapana’s mind was awash with a single, terrifying thought.

  “What I choose to do next…could be the death of me…the next course of action I decide to take…could be the beginning of the end…”

  He took a deep breath and closed his eyes as he exhaled slowly. For some odd reason, he remembered his Academy graduation, and how all of the newly decorated law enforcement officers all looked the same in their shiny, blue uniforms. They looked as if they lacked identity or any aspect of individualism as they stood in long, str
aight lines that seemed to go for kilometers in either direction as they all took one unified step forward with stoic looks on their faces. Their large hats seemed to shadow their eyes and most of their faces, only their lips and chins were visible as they all faced forward, gazing with what appeared to be reverence in the direction of a large stage that had a tall podium right in the middle of it.

  Moke remembered seeing banners all around him. He remembered how the colorful flags of The Alliance covered the stage making it look like an altar. He remembered the speaker, but he couldn’t remember their face, or who they were. Just the speaker’s words seemed to register within his mind. His recollection of the speech, which was given that day, turned the memory of that moment into a daydream. The speaker’s words became louder inside his head.

  The words spoke of sacrifice.

  He recalled how they spoke of the need to defend moral principles and the common good. They spoke of the need to seek out and defeat individuals who wished to selfishly break the laws and moral codes that protected the common good of a unified society from chaos.

  “There are those, who wish to see what we have built, burn to the ground, simply because they can! There are those who only think of their own self-interests! There are those who despise us for being good! And they despise the authority of the good government we represent and defend. They despise us for our status, which we have earned within this great society…they despise us, because we are above them and they wish to tear us down!”

  Moke remembered how orders were given, and every man and woman within the ranks all turned at once so the formation faced the opposite direction of the graduation speaker. He remembered how the following order caused the formation to move as one big mass. His daydream turned into a thoughtful fantasy as his own moral code and sense of values began to clash with his present situation. His mind’s eye saw the sky turning red as the sun began to set. His fantasy began to form images of long shadows being cast by the men and women in front of him. The shadows blinded those behind him.

  He became aware of what was really happening.

  His breathing became faster as his mind focused on an image of a cliff and how the uniformed people he was walking among were moving towards it. He saw himself walking beside faceless people, their eyes apparently shut to the danger in front of them as the speaker behind them ordered them forward in the name of civilized progress and patriotic duty.

  “NO!” His mind screamed through the conscious fantasy. “No! What are you doing?”

  His thoughts turned to images of his fellow officers walking off the cliff in front of them and those in the ranks behind them following blindly while responding to the voice in their ears that was urging them forward.

  “No! This is madness!” He imagined himself turning around as the cliff got closer and closer.

  He imagined himself throwing his hat to the ground and tearing off his jacket in an attempt to free himself from those marching around him. “Can’t you people see this is madness?! What we are doing is wrong!”

  The mass of uniformed people wouldn’t stop marching. Moke imagined himself struggling through the crowd and jumping up on their shoulders as he tried to get a glimpse of the person who’s voice was making his fellow men and women do this.

  “Kalapana! Why must you be such an individualist? Why must you insist on acting like a man with such a tremendous ego? Who are you to make this decision? Don’t you realize that you are about to do something that could endanger the lives of every Human and Native Ailanian person on this planet?”

  Moke closed his eyes tighter and cringed as he envisioned a face looking at him with hatred and disgust. “Why do you not follow orders? Why do you rebel against a system which has been proven to be good? Why must you insist on doing that which is wrong?”

  “It’s you who is wrong!” Moke closed his eyes as he imagined himself screaming, “It’s you who is causing this!”

  “Captain?” A soft voice called from his ear piece, “Captain? What are your orders?”

  Moke gasped and opened his eyes. He immediately returned to the reality at hand.

  “Audrey, Jack…this is your Captain, over,” Moke Kalapana said softly as he adjusted the audio device in his ear that let him keep in contact with his agents in the field.

  Through the earpiece, Moke could hear Jack Bauman saying, “I read you…I’m in position.”

  “I read you too,” Audrey said. “We better keep our heads up…I think he might be coming our way any minute now.”

  Captain Moke Kalapana could feel his heartbeat speeding up as he said, “keep your distance until I signal…let me do the talking first…over and out.”

  The hallway was a drab yellow color. It was hot and muggy. Moke could feel sweat forming on his brow. Despite the bony structures in his forehead, which were typical of Ailana’s Kupano people, he looked quite human. Moke was considered to be handsome, even by human standards.

  “Oh my gods…this is nerve wracking,” He thought as he ran his hand over his short, black hair. Moke had taken a hint from his undercover agents. He was wearing blue jeans and a black T-shirt. His leather jacket hid his gun and equipment holsters.

  While he tried not to look like someone who was in law enforcement, Moke found himself staring at the yellow wall in front of him, his thoughts a jumbled mess. “I shouldn’t be doing this. The Moralists in the High Senate would be outraged if they found out about my covert plan of action. I need to speak with a wanted criminal named Jacob Colombe…and I sure don’t want that asshole, Captain Sprog Kanta, and his Moralist Police forces, arresting him before I get a chance to say a few things to him.”

  Moke closed his eyes for a few moments as he remembered what he had said to Jack and Audrey before they set out on this night’s adventure. “I know you might be against this course of action, however, you need to consider this, if Kanta arrests this guy, we may never get a chance like this again. The truth is, I’ve been studying these people and I’ve been trying to arrange a secret meeting with these conspirators for months now.”

  “Who exactly are we after, sir?”

  “Jacob Colombe is the suspected leader of a group of local political dissenters known as The Evil. These people are a tightly organized and very secretive group of Ailanian academics, lawyers, business people and former government employees. They’ve grown weary of the corruption that has infested our planet’s government. Through joint investigation and cooperation, this underground group has constructed a media onslaught in order to educate the public about how bad things have gotten on Ailana.”

  He remembered how Jack shook his head and scoffed, “How bad things have gotten on Ailana? That could be debated. In their Liberal opinion, this world is going to shit, but some of us might disagree. Why are we going after this guy exactly?”

  “I understand your sediments, Jack…but the fact is these people want to expose who is responsible for what has happened to Ailana’s economy, and that is of interest to us since we are supposed to root out corrupt members of The High Senate. Now I agree, their large protest rallies are beginning to sway voters and this has enraged many of Ailana’s Moralist leaders. But we need to take notice of their actions for different reasons. For example, their rude blogging and web pages have exposed internal memos and secret documents made by government officials that we are investigating.”

  Moke winced as he remembered how Jack rolled his eyes and said, “All of which is illegal and this is why they are now targets for Kanta’s special government task force, which had been appointed to arrest them on charges of treason.”

  “I know, Jack, but if these people know something, then I want to know what they know as well…”

  Moke felt extremely nervous as he thought, “this mission has to be executed flawlessly. I can’t allow those Moralist leaders to know that I actually discovered who the ringleader of The Evil really is, since I have no p
lans on delivering him to them. These outlaws know things about some people in the government who I would really like to see brought up on corruption charges. I hope they will be willing to help me instead of putting up a fight…but that may be difficult, because in their minds…I am the enemy.”

  “Sir!” Audrey’s voice caused him to snap back into reality. “He’s coming your way!”

  “Shit,” Moke thought nervously as he hid behind the corner. “Here goes nothing.”

  He held his breath and began searching his coat pocket. He pulled out a small, plastic box that was no bigger than a credit card. He pressed a button which caused a small, robotic camera, attached to a flexible rod, to spring from the box and wrap itself around the corner of the hallway. With a bit of hesitation, Moke began looking into the box’s small monitor.

  He bit his lower lip as he saw a color image of a gaunt human male, who was wearing a brown jacket and blue pants.

  “That’s him,” Moke thought. “That’s Jacob Colombe…he changed his hair color to blonde, which must have been easy since he works as a hairdresser at a beauty salon now. I guess that’s a sign he feels the need to change his appearance to help him hide. But why is he the man the whole world wants to know about?”

  As he walked, Jacob’s facial expression appeared as if he was not aware of anything around him. Moke held his breath as he let the thin man get within a close distance of the hallway where he was hiding. He tried to appear calm as he stepped around the corner and said, “Jacob Colombe, may I please have a word with you?”

  Moke saw how Jacob’s face went pale as he ducked into another hallway.

  “Wait!” Moke yelled and began running after him. While rounding the corner Moke saw Jacob open his door, dash inside, and quickly close it. Fearing the worst, Moke ran up to the door and began rapping on it with his knuckles. “Jacob! This is Captain Moke Kalapana of the Ailanian CIA! I don’t mean you any harm! I just want to have a few words with you! Jacob! Please open up! Jacob! We need to talk!”