Prisoners of Paradise

by Brandon Lars Erikson

  “But wait, there’s more…”

  With a smirk on his face, he watched what happened to the salaries of the vice presidents, senior executives and the other scrabblers, like he had once been, whose professional jealousy and pride were hurt the most when raises were given back when Loko ran things.

  “And all of you so called, hard working winners, can just get used to the brave new world to come…welcome to the leveled playing field.”

  Grant thought back to a time when there were winners and losers in Loko’s organization because someone, had worked a bit harder, or had been a bit more creative than their colleagues. “Gone will be the days of the businessman…soon, there will be nothing but the days of the bureaucrat…soon, those of you who had your beds made by servants and your shoes shined by those who lived off your spare change…will know what it is like to have chains around your ankles, the sun on your face…and the feeling of dirt under your fingernails…”

  Now, things were different as he thought about the future he had envisioned for so long, “A good vice president will get the same raise, as a mediocre one.” Grant felt an evil grin crossing his face as a chill ran up his spine, “equal hours, equal pay, and equal raises…total harmony will be achieved when these men and women - who for so long, had kicked and fought their way up an endless corporate ladder - see their raises, and hear about everyone else’s. The upper class, will cry and gash their teeth tonight…their version of hell on this planet is about to come forth…we shall soon be living in a place where no one is any better or worse off than anyone else.”

  As the numbers flashed along his monitor screen, Grant saw what the two percent raise - which was the same one that even the lowest mail room boy got - did to his presidential salary. And then, for the first time in a long time, Grant threw his head back toward the sky, and laughed.

  CHAPTER 18

  Location: EMS Rousseau

  Standard Ship Time: 0139 Hours.

  “So, you had an argument with your wife before you left for Ailana?” Jori asked as she realized how much better she felt.

  “Yeah…I don’t think we parted on the best of terms,” Harris said as he realized that he was feeling a little better as well. “In a way, I hope she’s not there when I get back.”

  “Do you and your wife fight often?”

  He had shame in his voice as he said, “It seems we do now…maybe we’ve just grown apart, and maybe I just don’t care.”

  “What did you fight about?”

  He inhaled and sighed loudly as he thought for a moment and then said, “Lately, I’ve been having disagreements with her…just petty stuff.”

  She seemed curious in a caring manner, “like what?”

  Harris said sheepishly, “Recently…I told her I felt bad about something I did once…and she told me that I was crazy for thinking that way. It was like she was telling me, that the event in my past, which I was feeling bad about…never even, happened.”

  “Have you done something…that you are ashamed of?” She asked softly, carefully.

  Harris tilted his head back, pointing his chin towards the ceiling, and replied in a soft, almost despondent voice, “I’m afraid…that I have done evil things.”

  “What kind of evil things?” Her voice drifted right through his ears as Harris became lost in another memory that he could not control. He remembered the serious look on the fat Ailanian man’s face. Harris remembered the pungent stench of cigar smoke and how the gun, which the fat man had handed him, felt to his palm and fingers.

  The memory made his heart race as the fat Ailanian man’s voice said, “Boys…I got a job for you…just trust me and do as I say…believe me, it will be the best thing for all of us…ya gotta help our family out, boys…your family needs you to do something drastic…desperate times, call for desperate measures.”

  Harris remembered the sounds of gunshots, and how the blood looked upon the sand as the ocean washed upon it.

  “Ron?” Jori said with a compassionate voice. “Did you do something…that was wrong?”

  Harris seemed taken aback. He took a deep breath and shook his head back and forth as he said, “Yes…and I’ve spent years trying to figure out exactly what it was. And all I know is…that I just keep thinking about all these bad things. I’ve got these horrible images in my head…they haunt me. It’s like having bad memories…but they can’t be memories.”

  She reached out and touched his hand, “Why can’t they be memories?”

  He looked softly at her and whispered, “Because they told me that those things I keep remembering…never happened. They tell me it’s the medication…they tell me its post-traumatic stress…but I just know they’re wrong.”

  She reached out and grabbed his hand, as he looked at her with tears in his eyes and said, “And sometimes…I can’t tell the difference between what was real, and what I am imagining…and I think I’m going crazy because of it!”

  Location: Downtown Polynea.

  Ailanian Standard Time: 1250 Hours.

  Wallace bit the inside of cheek as he looked at the ethnically diverse faces on the hoverbus, until he noticed one that was familiar. He sat down next to his friend and said, “I’m glad I was able to find you.”

  His friend wore a hat over his eyes, and pretended to read the news flashes on the screen of his cell phone. He replied without looking directly at Wallace, “I’m so sorry that you are still on the run. But I am also happy that you are still alive. Now, Wallace, what is it that you need to tell me? We need to keep this conversation short…I think they might be onto me…which means that you are not out of the woods yet.”

  Wallace gasped. He closed his eyes and whispered, “We need to make sure that our secret gets to the proper authorities. We need to make sure the people of this planet know about what really happened at the Cedar Hills Institute of Technology.”

  “The problem is we need proof…Andrea lost your data…and until we have something concrete to replace what we lost, the News Masters at Mele Entertainment will simply spin our story until they make us look like a bunch of crazies again.”

  Wallace said, “Dr. DeWolf Miller was about to expose what was really happening at the Cedar Hills Institute of Technology when he was killed…he was about to tell the world what our enemies are really up to. Those researchers were supposed to be helping us to restock fish populations…but they took our genetic engineering projects to an unethical level…and we were unfortunately tricked into helping them. Our work wasn’t used to create a gene bank to track the breeding patterns of wild stock, it was used to create something else…something horrifying. They created some sort of creature…and they are using it for some top secret mission which involves those rocks.”

  “Rocks?”

  Wallace said, “It’s complicated, but he discovered these secret documents with details about a special kind of rock only found here on Ailana…he discovered a connection to a plan that involves this creature and those rocks.”

  “You weren’t the only group of scientists and intellectuals whose work was used towards this secret plan we are trying to stop…we’ve talked to lots of people who were unknowingly part of something horrifying. We don’t know all the details just yet…all we know is that something big is going happen on Ailana, and it is going to happen really soon.”

  “We have to stop them…we have to act now…but before I go, can you help me make sense of one last thing that’s really bugging me.”

  “I can try.”

  Wallace produced the note that Rex Broadstein had given him the night he had visited him at his penthouse apartment. His friend’s eyes became wide as he read.

  To my esteemed colleague…

  Beware the “Engineers” of this dark plot…

  Wallace felt his breathing becoming labored as he said, “do you know who wrote this?”

  “No…it’s
handwritten…no one hardly ever writes anything by hand anymore…I can’t tell you. But it’s ingenious…there’s no electronic code to trace back to them…I’m sorry, Wallace…I’ve become a slave to my technology. This is outside my realm of expertise.”

  “Do you know who the engineers are?”

  “I don’t know of any of our agents who use that code name…I’m sorry.”

  Wallace licked his lips nervously as he said, “fine…I’ll be pressing on now.”

  The hoverbus came to a quiet, gliding stop. The other people on board began to nervously shuffle their feet as they realized that they would have just enough time to walk to work.

  His friend kept his head down as he nervously said, “We’re trying the best we can to help you, Wallace, but things are more complicated now. We’ve been contacted by someone else who’s been investigating that lab. This creature that you are talking about…it might be a biological weapon…it’s probably something that could be used for disastrous results. Whatever they are doing, it’s illegal…but it’s not the only thing…it’s just one piece of a puzzle…one part of an overall plan which is designed to forever alter the future of Ailana.”

  Wallace was somber as he said, “What we’ve uncovered so far doesn’t make any sense. There is so much to piece together, and I know what is going on in that lab might be important, but right now, we’ve got to focus on finding out who The Prisoners of Paradise are…we’ve decoded messages about someone wanting to wake them. We have to focus on finding out what they want with the Prisoners of Paradise and find a way to stop them before we worry about this creature we’ve been hearing rumors about. I can’t talk long…but I have a contact who is going to help us…I’ll come and talk to you again once he has gotten us the information we need.”

  “Be careful, Wallace…many people have been killed trying to stop this thing…and we don’t know who we can trust anymore. I’m afraid our friend, Rex Broadstein, has been compromised, but I’ve got a bit of good news for you…we have someone else who’s got the ability to find out what is happening at your former lab. So I suggest you focus on The Prisoners of Paradise…put your fingers in my coat pocket. There is an address in there for a contact I want you to talk to about your Prisoners of Paradise theory. They might be able to help you find your proof.”

  “Thank you,” Wallace said as he quickly slipped the small piece of paper from his friend’s pocket and into his jeans. “I can also help us get into contact with those other people, who need to know what we have found out…until then, find a way to keep what little proof we do have away from those who want to silence us.”

  “We’ll try, my friend…we’ll keep trying to help you anyway we can. Good luck.”

  Wallace tried not to look anyone directly in the eyes as he got up from his seat and quickly made his way towards the door. When it opened, and he had taken a quick look around to make sure that no one on the crowded street was wearing a black business suit, he jumped off the bus began running. He soon disappeared into the fast moving crowd that was blending itself into the sidewalk and the gray walls behind it.

  Location: The Bureau of Single Mothers and Fatherless Children…Downtown Polynea.

  Ailanian Standard Time: 1300 Hours.

  Kenny felt his heart racing with anxiety as he saw how Giza seemed to be ignoring him as she played with a stuffed animal next to a small, plastic table.

  Rhia smiled with honest compassion as she said, “Kenny…I am so happy you came to visit. But I’ve come to realize, that me coming here, was the best decision I ever made.”

  Kenny looked into his young wife’s eyes and said, “How can you say that, Rhia? You’re not allowed to leave this building…you are basically in prison.”

  “But, Kenny…don’t you understand? I don’t have to worry about the rent, and Giza gets free diapers and three square meals a day. The government pays for everything. When we were living with you…there was no guarantee the rent would get paid…and sometimes, we couldn’t afford food and diapers because your hustling with the gangs wasn’t working out.”

  Kenny’s eyes became wide with mixed emotions. He felt the pangs of guilt running through his veins as he said, “but baby…we were doing better…those T-Shirts were selling and I was getting my act together…”

  “I know, baby…I know you were trying. But the Moralists were right, I’ve come to realize that I needed to make a change. People like us, shouldn’t get rewarded by society…people like us…we need to think about our crimes…and make a change, before we get rewarded. When we were in high school…all we did was goof off and plan ways to get drunk and stoned, that’s why we ain’t got jobs because we ain’t got no education.”

  Kenny’s eyes became wide with anger as he tried not to shout, “That is a crock of shit and you know it! And baby, what about our love?”

  “I’ve come to realize that you and I were in lust, Kenny…we were never really in love…not like good, Moralist citizens are in love. We were just fooling ourselves because we were so full of doubt and hatred towards authority.”

  Kenny’s shoulders slouched. He felt crushed as he said, “How can you say that Rhia? We are in love…and besides, we had every right to be angry at the Moralists…just look what they did to this world!”

  “Now you’re just sounding like your friend, Wallace…I remember how he was such a good student. He studied hard and became a biochemist. I should have married him…but he joined The Evil…such a loss. I’m finally figuring out why I was attracted to bad boys. That temporary feeling of fake love and superficial acceptance allowed me to ignore the fact I was wasting my away my life with notions of self-doubt and hatred…all because my momma didn’t love me cause she didn’t love my father…”

  Kenny’s posture became even more bent over and slouched. He gasped like a man being suffocated as he said, “Rhia…can’t you see that they are filling your head full of lies in here?”

  “Kenny…don’t you get it?” She said softly, “They care about me and Giza here. I know you tried to support us…but you never had the self-discipline or real world skills and ambitions to be a father and husband. We can’t fight the Moralists anymore. We have to conform…we’re getting too old to act like rebellious teenagers, who hate their parents for reasons unknown to them.”

  Kenny felt the weight of the world on his shoulders. He forced back the tears as he said, “Rhia…I swear that I am going to make that money and get you both out of here. I want us to be a family again.”

  She gazed at him with her purple, Hokupi eyes and said, “Kenny, if you could become a responsible bread winner, I would go back to being your wife in a heartbeat. But until then, I have a chance to make something of myself here. If I keep going to classes…I could become a dental hygienist in two years. I could earn my way out of the cell blocks and into the upper apartment buildings in this program. I could be someone…I could be that person our society always wanted me to be.”

  “Rhia!” Kenny shouted, “You are in prison! You traded your freedom for the illusion the Moralists are offering. We can do better than this! We don’t need them telling us how to live our lives and forcing us to conform to some ambiguous ideals.”

  “Kenny,” She said softly, but coldly. “Giza has playmates here now. We don’t have to worry about getting accidentally shot by those gang members you do business with.”

  “Used to do business with, Rhia…I swear to you that I am done with that life. I’m going to get a legit job and make a bunch of money so we can be together again.”

  “You’ve said that before.”

  “This time I mean it!”

  Location: The Lolo Kai Bar…Downtown Polynea.

  Ailanian Standard Time: 1400 Hours.

  Awa slouched in his seat his eyes were puffy and his lower lip drooped. He had been drunk, high and in utter misery for days. A beautiful Kupano girl, with a lost gaze in her eyes,
brought another round of drinks over to his table. Awa’s family members and other gang associates sat there with him. They tried their best to comfort and talk some sense into him.

  Charlie collected the drinks and gave the waitress a big tip and stern look as a warning that she should not be here during this sensitive time. Charlie gave Awa a pat on the back as he slid a drink in front of him and carefully said, “Here you go, my friend…we are all so sorry for your loss.”

  Awa shook his head and ran both hands through his long, braided hair. His muscles bulged under his white tank top, which allowed his brilliant tattoos to glimmer in the dim light. Awa’s face was twisting with emotion as he said, “I’d been telling my old man for months that he was putting his trust into people who didn’t have his best interest at heart. He didn’t listen. He started dealing with offworlders and other gangs because he wanted so much power and money so fast. I tried to warn him not to trust these people…and now, we gotta start planning a payback for those who did this to him. Some people are gonna pay for this, with their lives.”

  Charlie felt his anxious heart fluttering with adrenaline as the rough crowd around him grumbled their agreements. He began a mental list of priorities as he heard Awa saying, “We’re gonna start with that human from Earth, Bronson Petrilock…I know he was involved somehow. Then, we’re gonna start looking inward, at the people in our gang and those who we’ve invited to help with our operations. We need to purify our ranks of those who are unworthy of our trust. I want each of you to start giving me names of anyone, who you think might have been behind my father’s death and might be a danger to our ability to keep our operations going in the future. There will be blood my friends…and we need a list of people, who we need to kill, before they have a chance to stab us in the back again. We are starting with Bronson Petrilock…and then…we’re gonna find Marco…and kill him too.”