Prisoners of Paradise

by Brandon Lars Erikson

  “Grant, buddy!” The familiar voice sounded a bit anxious and a bit upset as it said, “What happened down there tonight? I thought we had a deal?”

  Grant remained stoic as he said, “that was my part of the deal.”

  “Oh, really…I don’t remember the part where Loko got to talk to the cops.”

  “He didn’t tell the cops very much, since he was dead before any sort of real discourse could begin. I can assure you…he told them nothing,” Grant said as he realized that he needed to think fast since he now had to alter his original plan of action.

  “Nonetheless…they were there. Why were they there?”

  Grant closed his eyes and held his breath as a memory flashed through his subconscious mind. He remembered how he had been walking through the dark parking garage, on his way to his hovercar, after a night of working late. He felt his heart racing as he remembered how someone had grabbed him from behind and punched him in the kidneys. The blow caused him to lean over the hood of his car, where someone had spread some digital photographic cards for him to look at while he groaned in pain.

  “Do these people look familiar to you?” The gruff voice rang in his ear as the painful memory continued, “ya see em’ there, all dead on the floor like that? They’re former friends of yours, am I correct.”

  Grant remembered how the blood spilled over his lips as he saw the pictures of the bodies in what appeared to be the living room of a downtown apartment. He gasped since he knew who they were. His conscious began to ache as he realized that there were a few people, who were not in the pictures, but should have been.

  Grant held his breath as he remembered how the stranger’s voice said, “You and I have something to talk about…your boss is up to something, isn’t he? You might not know this yet, by my boss made a deal with your boss…and I was sent here to make you tell us exactly what OUR boss wants to hear. Ya hear that? That’s correct! My boss knows all about what YOU’VE been up to…and unless you want my boss to go running to the cops with information about THESE people, who you used to be friends with, then YOU and I better have a real productive talk right now!”

  The familiar voice broke into Grant’s mind and quickly stopped his recollection of that traumatic event, “so those people, who ran into that nightclub, on the night we carried out our first promise to you…have you found them yet? Or are they still running around the city trying to stop our plan?”

  “As you said, I can only do so much, from my new, lofty perch…”

  “Don’t screw with us, Grant…we know all about those goons Loko hired and trust me, they weren’t hard to take care of…don’t think that penthouse you just inherited is impenetrable!”

  Grant inhaled deeply and said, “I am still onboard…I want the same thing you do…”

  “Then why were the cops there?”

  Grant bit his lower lip as he thought about how the men, who Loko hired, had met their untimely deaths. He thought about what he could say to buy himself some more time, “the cops…the CIA…maybe you under-estimated them. I don’t know why they showed up tonight…but you should count your blessings, after all…dead is still dead. Does it really matter how Loko got that way?”

  “I guess it doesn’t, Grant…but remember this. We’re watching you. Every move you make, we can see you from that new, lofty perch of yours. I hope you take into consideration what you’re doing with that new position of power. Make no mistake about it, Grant…if you disrupt the plan…or leak any information to the authorities that could put our boss in jeopardy…we’ll make sure your worst nightmare shows up on your doorstep.”

  The com went silent as the unknown person hung up and Grant began to nervously bite down on his lower lip. “Oh my gods…what is going on here? What have I just gotten myself into? Why am I doing this?”

  Grant hung up his com and placed it on the shiny wooden desk, which was nearly one hundred years old and had belonged to a former Ailanian king in the days before first contact. Grant’s hands were shaking with fear, but as soon as he put them down on the smooth, shiny wood, he felt his heart racing in a different, more pleasant manner. He looked all around the immaculate office, realizing all of the possibilities that came with it.

  “Oh yeah,” Grant said as a sadistic smile crossed his lips. “I remember why went through all this trouble…I’ve finally found a way to beat all these fools at their own game…and may the best man win.”

  Part II

  CHAPTER 17

  Location: The Kalapana summer home.

  Ailanian Standard Time: 0300 Hours.

  As he sat in the darkness, with his eyes closed, Moke could see his father’s kind face in a memory. He remembered being a small boy and how he and his father had been sitting in a canoe, on the calm waters of an isolated lagoon, as the sun was beginning to set on the horizon. Moke remembered the white sand and the palm trees in the distance and how one could look the other direction and see nothing but blue water for as far as the eye could see.

  He remembered how his father smiled, as he tossed pieces of raw fish meat into the crystal clear water. Two Akua, each about a meter long, swam beneath the canoe, feeding upon the meat. Moke recalled how fascinated he was as he watched how the two Ailanian sharks would eat calmly for a while, and then suddenly, without provocation or reason, one would attack the other. Moments after the attack, they would then swim side by side, and begin calmly eating again.

  He visualized how his father looked at him with wise eyes and said, “This is what your life will be like my son. Inside of all of us, there is a battle between two Akua…one good, and one evil. The good Akua represents generosity, honesty, justice, kindness….loyalty and love, while the evil Akua represents jealously, dishonesty, greed, meanness…hatred, and dishonor. They fight inside of you in order to become what guides you through this life.”

  Moke remembered how the Akua disappeared back into the depths once his father ran out of meat. Moke recalled how nervous he felt as he asked his father, “Which one wins the battle?”

  He remembered how his stomach and his mind, froze with anxiety as he heard his father reply, “The one that you feed.”

  His thoughts whisked him into the cold night air. “Which one did I feed?”

  Moke gasped as he opened his eyes. He was back in his mother’s room sitting in the easy chair by her bed. Moke watched how his mother’s chest rose and fell with every labored breath she took. When he arrived at the house, earlier that night, he was horrified to find that she was having one of her panic attacks. It was too late to call the nurse, so he decided to give her a sedative, take her to bed, and talk to her calmly while she started to fall asleep again. After he spent about twenty minutes calming her with small talk about the flower garden and next week’s dinner party with Aunt Ulu and her Supreme Court friends, Moke realized that he was alone enough to discuss what was really on his mind.

  “I just wanted to know the truth,” he said softly as he watched her sleep. “I thought I found someone who could tell me the truth…but Jacob didn’t trust me, and he killed himself before we had a chance to talk…or rather, before I could tell him the truth…”

  He sighed and sat back in the large, leather chair at her bedside, his mind a jumbled mess of guilt-filled thoughts. “I guess there are a lot of people who know they can’t trust me…and the few who do trust me, probably shouldn’t. Jacob was right…I am a liar…I’ve been living a lie for years, and he saw right through me. Where Audrey sees the sheep…Jacob saw the wolf, and he was right to think of me as a liar….I can’t say I blame him for thinking that I was the wolf at his doorstep that day…”

  She looked so peaceful. He knew he should leave, but he didn’t want to. There were things he didn’t want left unsaid. “I’ve been doing things…the way I want them done. And I’ve done things, in an arrogant, almost bullying fashion…like I always have. Today…my arrogance caught up with me…and
a man I should have arrested…is now dead. It was almost as if someone was one step ahead of me, and I overlooked something that I should have known. Something is happening on this planet…something that I have to stop…even if it means the salvation I seek, from my sins in the past, won’t be granted to me.”

  Moke felt his com ringing in his coat pocket and walked out into the dark hallway before answering it.

  “Kalapana here.”

  “Moke?” Audrey said softly. “I only received part of your text message, I was out of range. What are your orders?”

  Moke sighed with relief, as he realized that he was expecting to hear a different voice. “I want you and Jack to take the day off tomorrow, Audrey. What happened tonight was not your fault. When you’ve both recovered, I want you to continue your investigations into those unusual murder cases. Something tells me we might have left a stone unturned.”

  She seemed timid and weak as she said, “Sir? Requesting permission to speak candidly…and off the record.”

  Moke chuckled, “When have you ever needed my permission for that?”

  “Sir, there is something on my mind…I spoke with Pete Munich tonight…and he told me some things about your old friend Ronald Harris…some things that have me worried…”

  He bit into his lower lip as his heart pounded and his thoughts began to race, “She’s gotta find out the truth about who she really is someday…maybe this extra assignment will help…”

  Her words made his head hurt, “Moke, some of the things that Pete was saying…”

  He was quick to interrupt her with words he wanted her to hear, “Audrey, don’t listen to him…Pete is out of his mind. I’ll take care of all the questions those higher on the totem pole might have about tonight’s fiasco with Loko Kalaheva and Makula Pilikoa. I’ll call you later, just go get some sleep.”

  He hung up and felt his mind burning with fear and self-loathing. “He’s coming to Ailana, and now I have to find another way to insure my government will not need his services. Now I know how Jacob felt, knowing that his end was near, and his time was running out. At the end of the day…just like Jacob Colombe…I can guarantee that Ronald James Harris will not be happy to see me again after what I did to him all those years ago. And just like Jacob…I am afraid to face him…and afraid to face my destiny.”

  Location: EMS Rousseau.

  Standard Ship Time: 1800 Hours.

  Harris gasped as he snapped back into reality. Images of hatred, despair and revenge had been stuck in his mind. In the flashback, he had been choking a man to death with his bare hands. Harris couldn’t remember who his victim was, and he wasn’t even sure if it was something that really happened. His vague memories of the past were now blurring with his desires and fantasies about the future.

  The monitor was showing some coming attractions, excited voices made the announcements. “ONE FULL HOUR OF THE MOST SPECTACULAR AND DANGEROUS HOVERCAR CRASHES EVER CAUGHT ON CAMERA!”

  She had been babbling on for hours about her childhood. Harris felt his palms sweat as he tried to act normal again. He wanted to be normal because he was beginning to like this woman. She was the first person he had grown fond of in quite some time.

  Jori smiled, closed her eyes and said, “My father and mother were conservative and uptight…I remember how they hated the small musical group we were watching at the cafe that morning. At that moment, I realized that I had found something special…something that only I liked…and I didn’t have to defend my choice for liking it, to anyone…it was my music, and no one else’s…what about you?”

  He held his breath as scenes of explosions and men losing their limbs flashed through his mind. He exhaled and tried to answer her question, the conversation was helping distract his warped mind. “I always had a thing for Ailanian tribal music,” he said as he scrunched up nose trying to clear his head. “It’s too bad they had to turn it into that teeny bopper, hip-hop…crap…like the stuff that fool on the music video channel sings and dances to. Jordan Turd…or whatever his name is…if ya can call what he does singing…I personally think the dude has no talent.”

  “Jordan Tache is a punk!” She giggled and said, “My taste in music wasn’t the only thing that made me different from my peers…I grew up with spoiled, rich kids…but my father wouldn’t let me act snobby like they did, it made me different and would later alienate me from them.”

  “Feeling, alienated…are we?”

  Harris felt a glimmer of an unpleasant memory. In his mind he saw the young, Kupano man with wild hair walking next to him at what appeared to be a loud party. The enormous room had disco lights, loud music and lots of beautiful men and women, dressed in revealing outfits, grinding against each other on a dance floor. Harris remembered how the young man, with the wild hair, had passed him a Makani cigarette and said, “this is it my handsome, human friend. This is the future of Ailana…a place where there is no good or bad, no moral and immoral…only pleasure, and pain.”

  Harris remembered how his brain was in a drug induced daze, while he looked at all the beautiful people, who wouldn’t give a punk like him the time of day as they danced their cares away while they smoked Cutz from fancy hukas and drank expensive liquor from fine glassware. Harris thought of the gravity of the situation as he turned to his friend with the wild hair and said, “Does your uncle know about this place? Does he know what you are doing with the money he gave you?”

  “None of that is going to matter, my friend,” the wild haired young man said as he took a long drag from the joint and handed it back to his muscular, blonde friend. “All of that is details, only details.”

  “You can’t cross your uncle like this…he’s going to get angry if you don’t level with him.”

  “As I said my friend, all of that is details, only details…”

  Harris gasped as he found himself stuck in another memory that was filled with the sound of gunfire. He tried to shake it from his mind by talking to Jori, instead of concentrating on the past. “Yeah, I know what ya mean…I had a friend who was like that once. He was rich and spoiled…liked to flap his mouth a lot. I also remember what it was like to try to hang out with the rich kids in the popular crowd, when I was not rich or popular…”

  In his mind, he saw images of muscular teenage boys standing in a circle and shouting as they beat up a smaller boy. He inhaled deeply, and shook his head before saying, “yeah…the peer pressure…it can definitely make you do things that you really don’t wanna do…but you do what they tell ya, just to feel accepted.”

  She looked at him with kind eyes. “Did growing up on Ailana make you feel, different?”

  Harris remembered the feel of the gun in his hand. He remembered pointing it at the back of the young Ailanian man’s head. He shook the image from his mind as he exhaled and just made up something that sounded correct, “Yeah, I was a different kind of kid…I never could seem to say, or do the right things to get people to like me. I remember getting into trouble a lot as a kid. I just didn’t fit in, and I guess my jealousy caused me to make bad decisions. I’ve got this one reoccurring memory from Ailana that always brings me shame…maybe it was how I got kicked off the high school soccer team…or maybe it was…”

  Suddenly, Harris felt as if he couldn’t think, because his brain chemistry had suddenly switched, and against his will, he was completely immersed in another horrible memory. The flashbacks shot at him like laser bolts from an enemy’s gun.

  “Did you take your medicine?” He remembered how his wife would ask him on an almost daily schedule when he was home with her. It was becoming maddening. “Did you take your medicine? Did you brush your teeth? Did you take your medicine?”

  Harris recalled the last time he was home with her. He remembered how he had put one of the pills in his mouth, and just held it there for a while. He had spent his last few weeks at home contemplating what happened when he swallowed tha
t pill. He wondered if the answers he sought would come to him if he didn’t take the pill ever again. Harris began thinking about an argument that he had with his wife before he left for Ailana.

  “You want to stay on Ailana after this mission is done?!” She said harshly.

  “Yes, Karen…I want to transfer to Ailana,” He said sheepishly. “Don’t you think it would be neat to go back and live there again?”

  “Why? That’s a stupid thing to want! Ailana is a shit hole, Ron! Why would we want to live there again? Don’t you remember how much we hated growing up there?”

  “No, Karen…I don’t. Why did we hate it there?”

  “Don’t you remember how horrible of a place Ailana was?”

  “No,” He remembered her angry face as he said, “What was it about Ailana that made it so horrible? I want to know.”

  She said, “don’t you remember how the Ailanians teased us and how they hated us for being humans?”

  He remembered how embarrassed he was as he spoke with her, “Actually, to tell you the truth….no…I don’t remember anything of the sort. I remember having good times with good friends who were Ailanian. I remember my best friend in the whole world was an Ailanian…he was a Kupano, Moke was his name…I had another Kupano friend too…but I can’t remember his name…but I see his face in my dreams…I keep dreaming about this guy…I keep dreaming about what I did to him…I think I did something very bad…”

  Harris flinched a bit as he remembered how she shouted, “And that is why you have to take your medicine Ron! You need to take those pills so the dreams don’t haunt you anymore! Why are you doing this to yourself when there is a treatment for your condition?!”

  He remembered how he told her, “but, I just want to remember things about Ailana. Can you please help me remember more? I think I did something horribly wrong there…I think Moke was involved somehow, so was that other Kupano boy…I think we did something…unforgiveable…and that’s why I can’t stop the dreams and the memories…it’s like I don’t want to forget anymore. I need to know what happened on Ailana back when we were kids.”