Prisoners of Paradise

by Brandon Lars Erikson

  “AGENT BOBSON! WAKE UP!” A woman’s voice screamed.

  The man in black realized the man he was monitoring, was alone in the dark apartment. From the radar signals he was receiving, the man in black could deduce that Ted was someone who had been mechanically modified and he could hear the shouting voice through a tiny audio speaker that was mounted inside his ear. The man in black realized that he was able to pick up the digital voice the man in the apartment was forced to listen to.

  “Yeah!” Ted Bobson said as he tried to orientate himself. It was late, real late, and he was not used to having to work these kinds of hours.

  “The poor son of a bitch…” The man in black thought as he realized he could hear everything that was happening in the small apartment.

  “Agent Bobson, are you ready for your next assignment?”

  “Uh…yeah, sure.” Ted wondered why in the hell he agreed to this torture.

  “You are now adapted with the XT-25 Little Brother spy camera in your left eye, and the AUDIOTRON D-45 Audio receiver in your left ear. Your trachea has the…”

  “I know, I know!” Ted yelled with a bit of annoyance as he forced himself out of bed and slowly made it into his small bathroom. “I gotta go visit three bars tonight. I gotta drink a whole lot of their booze and the computer sampling…thing…in my throat will determine if they are selling illegal stuff. Those business owners who are selling illegal booze will get busted…along with their customers. I’m doing my fellow Ailanians a great service by making sure they are not succumbing to the same immorality that landed my fat ass in The Penitentiary six months ago.”

  The man in black realized that the man in the apartment was more than likely ninety eight percent human and a far cry from being a cyborg. This weak person posed him no threat, however, the man in black realized he better keep listening to the digital conversation, just in case.

  The woman’s voice said, “Being a drunken fool, who sits on his fat ass all day long, while good, honest, and hardworking native Ailanians, and Ailanian-born humans, work their fingers to the bone to support your immoral habits by paying taxes for abused social programs, is unacceptable on this planet mister! You should be thankful that the parole decree is allowing you this second chance!”

  Ted replied, “Yeah, yeah I know…I swore to the Judge that I’d never get drunk…everyday…for sixteen years…ever again. But isn’t putting all this stuff in my head a violation of that treaty?”

  The female voice was firm in stating, “You agreed to these modifications as part of your parole, Agent Bobson! And besides, it is for a good cause that outweighs such arguments against humanoid modification. The Moralist taxpayers of Ailana refuse to subsidize an Immoral’s lifestyle, Agent Bobson! You are helping your fellow Immoral Ailanians, by ratting them out. You should feel proud, Agent Bobson, because of you, the drunkards, will be caught red handed just as the gamblers will be caught with their cards in their pants. They will be sent to The Penitentiary, where the drug dealers and prostitutes will emerge as waiters and pastry chefs when their sentence is served! The good citizens of Ailana demand that the Immorals be imprisoned, so that they can be taught the lessons that life did not grant them. Because of you the strippers will become maids and the pimps will be made into landscapers! You are doing your fellow Ailanians a favor, Agent Bobson, for those that sell sex and drugs will soon be making beds and mowing lawns at the new resorts that the Aurorian Economic Revampment Program will allow us to build. You should be proud in your labors that WE will all benefit from!”

  He muttered under his breath, “Yeah…whatever…Moralism sucks.”

  The voice that buzzed in his ear seemed relentless and rude. “Now, just be sure to not let anyone hit you in the eye, ear, nose or throat Agent Bobson, this spy equipment in which you are entrusted with is rather expensive. There is one hundred dollars in your bank account and twenty four hours of free time on your work card, use them wisely…and please remember to keep all your receipts for our CIA accounting offices. Thank you, and gods’ speed.”

  “Sure thing,” Ted said as he let the hot water from the shower soak into his short, dark hair. Ted cracked a smile and began singing in the shower. “They know when you are sleeping, they know when you’re awake, they knows if you’ve been bad or good so be good for goodness sake.” This was going to be a good night for people to stay squeaky clean in Polynea. The law was coming. Moments later, Ted felt frustrated as the water turned off.

  “Damn water rationing!” He whispered in a frustrated tone and reached for a towel. He dried himself off and walked into his room. He reached onto the floor and put on the same clothes he had on only hours earlier. He smoothed out the wrinkles in his clothes as he stepped out the door.

  The man in black saw the chunky man walk away from him and get on an elevator lift. When the doors closed again, and he realized that no one else was around, the man in black walked quietly over to the door of the apartment directly across from Ted’s and opened the door by deactivating the lock with a small laser beam. He unsheathed his knife, slipped into the apartment and disappeared into the darkness within.

  John McDonald slouched in his easy chair. The light from the monitor lit up his face. He got comfortable as he lazily pressed the buttons on the remote control while he talked on his com. “Bullshit! A guy like that has to have some serious dirt on him.”

  He flipped the channel to a news station that had coverage of some angry Ailanian women standing in front of local market. “This poverty is grinding on us…we have nothing to eat tonight…we might not see paychecks…or welfare checks for a very long time. What are we going to eat until then?”

  McDonald scoffed at the woman’s serious condition as he flipped the channel where a blonde girl in a short dress was singing, “Zoppy’s chili!”

  He flipped the channel again and said, “I’m telling ya, a guy like that would obviously have a past that he definitely doesn’t want anyone to know about. I know we can make some money if we tell him that we know everything. We should tell him how we know about all his secrets and won’t tell anyone else about his plan if we end up with a good chunk of cash…ya know, just to keep our lips sealed. Get this my friend; I heard today that he was involved with something…some kind of accident that ended up killing all those guys on those ships. This was a while ago, many years ago in fact, and he’s been able to keep what happened to the people on those ships a secret for all these years. But guess what, all that is about to change…”

  McDonald didn’t even realize that his throat had been slit until he saw the blood pooling in his lap.

  Moments later, John McDonald’s body hit the floor with a heavy, but muffled thump. Just a few seconds after that, the man in black emerged from the apartment and shut the door very quietly and proceeded to walk away calmly. There had been no witnesses. The murder had been a perfect one. He smiled as he calculated how much extra money he had made tonight by accepting this job. He suddenly felt even better when he realized that leaving the body in the apartment, so that it would be eventually be discovered, as his new client had requested, had saved him all the work that he normally would have had to do in order to make sure that a person like John McDonald would never be seen again.

  Location: The I-95 Laser Highway, headed north.

  Ailanian Standard Time: 0330 Hours.

  “Now that….is ingenious,” Van Dien thought as he sat back and got comfortable while the hoverlimo streaked through the night sky along the red laser highway. He had found himself with lots of time to waste as he watched the monitor floating at his feet. It showed a video image of a chubby human, with short, black hair, walking into a bar in downtown Polynea. “Kalapana tries to please the Moralist High Senators, like his Aunt Ulu, and keep his agency’s expenses low by making men like Ted Bobson into ‘agents’ that help to find those who are breaking the law… and it appears to be working. At first, I was infuriated that K
alapana endorsed and allowed that parole decree to pass the High Senate…how such a piece of legislation even made it to the floor to get voted on is beyond me. However, these doped up, drunken spooks seem to be able to catch a lot of things on video that are putting people into The Penitentiary. I could watch this sort of thing for hours…if I only had the time. This sort of thing could prove useful to me. Kalapana, you fool…you thought by endorsing the parole decree that you would be emptying The Penitentiary…but you’ve actually provided me with a valuable service…and you don’t even realize it.”

  Van Dien lit a cigarette and thought, “Kalapana does not know it yet, but there is a reason why so many Immorals, such as you, Ted, are not in The Penitentiary…it’s all part of my plan. But in the meantime, here’s to you, Ted. I sure hope that you…and the rest of the agents like you…can help me advance my plan somehow.”

  Van Dien looked out the window and enjoyed the blackness of the night sky and the colors of the highway below. His moment of relaxation was interrupted when his com rang. Van Dien rolled his eyes as he reached to answer it.

  The mysterious voice on the other end sounded jumpy. “We have a problem here…Kalapana was able to get High Senators Glik and Semnor hauled back into court…you said their case would be dismissed.”

  Van Dien gripped his com harder as he became impatient, “these things need to run their course…don’t worry about it.”

  “YOU HAVE TO DO SOMETHING! This could jeopardize everything we have worked for!”

  Van Dien balled up his fist as he realized that he was being told what to do. No one told him what to do. He remained calm as he said, “Listen, I did something…do you remember that weirdo Jacob Colombe? The guy who torched himself and jumped out the window? If it hadn’t been for my quick action, Glik and Semnor would already be in prison. Kalapana was convinced that computer geek could provide him with some information, and as it turned out, Jacob had a lot of it. I just got done examining Colombe’s hard drive. He had a file on Glik and Semnor with all sorts of leads to evidence, which they forgot to shred and delete that would have implicated them in the spaceport corruption scandal. Kalapana has been trying to defeat us by exposing corrupt politicians, and for now, I have stopped his efforts cold. Now leave me alone. I am very busy right now…I have some very serious matters to attend to since my people were able to get some other crucial information from Jacob’s computers…we’ve found some of that missing data, which was stolen from the lab. So now we can now move forward with my plan…which you are going to assist me with.”

  Van Dien sensed disrespect in the voice as it said, “What do you need to do that is so important? This situation with Glik and Semnor is very important at the moment.”

  He exhaled calmly before he replied, “There are two kinds of laws on Ailana…there are the sort of laws that can be enforced by sticking tiny computer equipment in some idiot’s cranium, so he can take snapshots of Immorals buying illegal drugs, illegal alcoholic beverages and consuming them while having illegal sex. And then, there are the laws that only I can enforce, and these are the laws that cannot be broken under any circumstances. If we allow these laws to be broken, someone might accidentally expose the secret that I need to protect, and until I make sure that secret is safe, I can’t help you. Believe me, I want Kalapana out of the picture as much as you do, but I need him where he is for now.”

  Van Dien sensed urgency, which made him feel in control again as the person shouted, “But…he could ruin everything!”

  Van Dien smiled as he said, “Don’t worry…things are completely under my control. I have many of my own agents on this planet spying on the various players in our game. Because of my advanced technology, which is unavailable to Allied Law Enforcement Officials like Captain Kalapana, I have some ability to monitor what the Ailanian CIA does, and to a degree…I have the ability to manipulate events that take place on this planet. I will soon start manipulating the situation even more, but only when the time is right. I will give the order to have him removed, but first I want Kalapana to suffer, and feel painful humiliation as I force him to betray and destroy the people he loves. I want him to pay dearly for what he has done to me…but my revenge must be systematic. This next series of events have to be planned out to suit my own needs first. That is the way things are. Get used to it.”

  The voice on the other end protested, “But what about this guy named Wallace?”

  “As I said, he is currently trying to stop someone he knows from doing something…and what that is we do not know yet. But for now, he is useful to me, and when his usefulness is over…” Van Dien hoped to make his point clear as he gladly hung up.

  Van Dien calmly lit a cigarette while his com began to ring again. He answered it without removing the cigarette from his mouth. One of his agents was on the other line, “Sir, we have captured a transmission from the Ailanian CIA.”

  Van Dien frowned and said, “Good…however, it is too bad that I can’t hear and see everything that they are doing. I am not as omnipotent as I would like to be…but I can at least make my fearful colleagues think I am…and for now, fooling them into believing that I have the upper hand is crucial.”

  “Let me hear it,” He said as he exhaled smoke. Van Dien carefully listened as an inexperienced Ailanian CIA agent explained a tense situation to his superior, Assistant Director Jack Bauman.

  “Sir! We lost our suspect,” the young agent said. “We can’t find the Bobby the Blade!”

  “What do you mean?” Jack’s voice was disappointed as he said, “We had a credible lead this time. What the hell happened?”

  “Sir, we had him, we were actually getting close to him…we saw him limp his punk ass into a bar and then back out onto the street. We got pictures of him selling Makani…and then we lost sight of him.”

  “You’re kidding me right?” Jack seemed to be coming unglued as he said, “He would have been the perfect informant, he would have begged for our protection from those guys who want him dead! Goddamnit! What happened?”

  “We saw him talking to a couple of humans, who looked like professional wrestlers…and then we had to break contact because Agent Winters made us investigate that murder scene. We told Agent Renolds and Agent Hulumalu to keep a tab on Bobby the Blade for us, but they…uh, their car’s Nav system broke down. They saw all three of them get into a large truck and drive away, but after their Nav system failed, they lost them in traffic…we have no clue where they are now.”

  “Damn it,” Jack cursed. “I was afraid this would happen. All these damn murder investigations are getting in way of tracking suspects and following good leads. Do you at least know where were they headed?”

  “We don’t know sir, we tried to get a satellite uplink but couldn’t…I’m afraid we lost him.”

  “Two really big guys? Hmmm,” Van Dien frowned as he thought. “Whoever this Bobby the Blade character is, it sounds as if he saw those mutated mercenaries known as the Jonez Boys. They’ve been on our top ten most wanted list for a while now. Interesting…what are the Jonez Boys doing on Ailana? I guess we’ll just have to wait…and see who else turns up dead.”

  Van Dien rolled up his inner shield window in order to ensure no one could see him. The window reflected his image and he saw his perfectly styled, white hair, and how this job was causing him to age from the stress he was under. But he smiled as he smoked, and set about to view some of the evidence he was able to collect from Jacob Colombe.

  “This should be interesting,” He thought with a bit of joy as to what sort of treasure he would discover. He pressed play and proceeded to relax. The screen came alive with words and voices.

  None of this speaks to the lopsided distribution of the benefits of Moralist era economic growth, as supervised by High Senators such as Klunka, Karamotzain, Jinkua, Glik and Semnor. After the War Machine era, Moralist leaders deregulated commerce, cut taxes for the rich, and completely re
wrote the Ailanian fair trade treaties, which basically allowed unscrupulous companies from Earth to expand their operations to Ailana –in order to fill niches opened up by the cessation of Military contracts. Instead of giving us a sustainable economy, these pseudo-capitalists ran investment scams, and created businesses meant to fail so they could get rich quick by claiming themselves to be too big to fail that way they could latch onto what seems to be an endless amount of corporate welfare and government bailouts. These people are not unlike leaches, yet leaches have the respect to detach themselves from their victims when they have become gorged with blood.

  The Moralist Revolution outlawed many of the liberties and rights enjoyed by workers during the War Machine era, and consequently, as pseudo-capitalist companies proceeded to fail, and lay off their workers, many of the unemployed were arrested on drug charges, alcohol possession charges, credit card debt, and other activities deemed “Immoral” by the Moralist Principles. In the last few years, the rich pseudo-capitalists made out, while workers lost out. Even though their investments lost value during the age of the pseudo-capitalists, the richest shareholders still enjoyed real returns, and many high ranking people, in the upper ranks of the government, received kickbacks and all kinds of campaign donations that kept in them in office, even though their constituents would have burned them at the stake if they understood what really happened. Magistrate Manawillo did receive the public wrath, and he was voted out of office, and replaced with Magistrate Hupo.

  Today, even with Magistrate Hupo’s reform bills, the average real earnings of most Ailanian workers remain far below those of the War Machine Era, which has done little to create a sustainable economy. Nor did the Moralists era growth do much to alleviate poverty. The poverty rate at the end of the last two High Senate terms was still 42.8%. That was just one percentage point lower than at beginning of their administrations. Most Moralist economic policies did not result in War Machine style prosperity, when workers’ real wages went up in tandem with the value of stock holdings, but just the opposite. Their policies of putting the poor in prison are appalling, 1 out of every 5 Ailanians are currently in local jails, prisons or The Penitentiary. Thus, we expect our citizens to become angry with someone, and with our government still blaming our economic downturn on its “Immoral Citizens”, bipartisan agreement will become difficult. With our education campaign we are hoping to rally supporters in the next election; If Rammy Klunka is defeated by the popular local businessman Keiki Karatau, and if those High Senators under investigation are finally kicked out, the balance of power will shift in our favor.