Prisoners of Paradise

by Brandon Lars Erikson

  She patted his arm. Her eyes were soft and comforting as she said, “It will be alright, trust me…”

  He gasped with fear and said, “I’m not crazy! I know what I saw, Landra. I know what I saw when I worked at the lab. I know others who have seen the data and made the exact same correlations and conclusions from the data…but does it make sense? Is it real? Are we right to think this way? Is this, quest, we are on to discover who The Prisoners of Paradise really are a noble cause, or are we not in our right minds… because we’ve never been thinking straight?”

  He felt short of breath as his vision began to blur. “What? What’s happening to me?”

  Landra smiled and said, “I knew what you did at that lab was important…I knew you could provide me with the information I needed to help our people decode and discover what was really happening on Ailana. But Wallace…you need to remember…The Penitentiary is real…and the things they do in there are real…your friend, Megan…she had been sent there…they got to her, Wallace…and now…we need to be extra careful.”

  Wallace gasped as he felt like his brain was being disconnected from his spinal cord, “What is happening to me?”

  Her voice sounded deeper, and if it was being slowed down, “You understand, don’t you?”

  Wallace felt as if the room was spinning. He fell to his knees as his vision began to go dark.

  She looked sincere as she said, “I’m sorry it had to come to this, Wallace…but what we are doing is important…it could be our only hope…we designed a world that we desire to live in…and we engineered a plan in order to turn this planet into the world we want. There must be no compromises.”

  “NO!” Wallace tried to shout as he found himself unable to breathe, “There is another way!”

  Wallace heard footsteps and realized that three young men had just entered the room. He gulped for air like a fish out of water as he thought, “Oh shit! They’re the engineers! Landra is one of the engineers the note warned me about! Oh shit…I feel sleepy…I feel like I’m…going to…black…out…”

  Landra bent down to check if Wallace was still breathing. She then stood up and said, “We have to hurry, gentlemen…if he can figure out how to find us…it might not be too much longer before the authorities can as well.”

  “Does he know about what we were doing in that warehouse the other night?” The shortest of the three men said with an angry voice.

  “Warehouse? Shit! Jacob must have told them about the warehouse!” Wallace thought as he felt his vision went completely black. He then heard Landra saying, “How am I supposed to know that?”

  One of the men said, “Well, I guess that means we can’t take any more chances. Take care of him, boys, we need to get the hell out of here!”

  Right before Wallace went unconscious he felt his hands and feet being tied. The last thing he heard before the silence fell about him was the sound of a zipper being closed.

  “Oh my gods! Landra is one of the engineers!” He fearfully thought as he felt his mind fading to black. “And they’ve put me in a body bag!”

  Location: Zoppy’s Restaurant…Downtown Polynea.

  Ailanian Standard Time: 1200 Hours.

  “I shouldn’t be doing this,” Audrey thought as she nervously fiddled with her water glass. “But there is so much I want to know about Ronald Harris…it’s almost as if I learn about his life…I learn the answers to some of these questions I have about my own. That medical file I read about him is frightening me…there are some things that I just have to know…”

  Audrey sat in a secluded booth near the back of the restaurant, away from the kitchen and the bathrooms. The menu looked rather bland, and the prices were more expensive than she wished. Feeling a bit discouraged, she glanced down at the Ready File she had received from one of her field agents, and instantly recognized the people in the list of names that sprang out at her.

  She felt her breath being taken away, and her heart hurting with fear as she read the words;

  We…the members of THE Evil…through mutual agreement and a purely democratic process…have decided that we must kill the following Ailanian HIGH Senators to ensure that the hope of Ailanian freedom does not die…

  She had no idea how this information could have been possibly obtained.

  “Oh my gods…and if things could not be any worse right now…we have some potential assassins to track down and stop before they do something very deadly…and I should really be spending this time to help Jack track down some of these people before it’s too late…”

  She felt her blood turning to ice. She glanced up when she heard the sound of high heels on a tile floor. The young, Kupano woman was beautiful, and was dressed like a lawyer. Her make-up was perfect, and she wore her hair up in braids.

  “Audrey, it’s nice to see you again,” Kara Kalapana said as she said down.

  Audrey tried to pretend that everything was all right as she said, “Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to join me for lunch.”

  “It’s always a pleasure…now that I’m not playing that stupid spy game for my brother anymore.”

  “Yeah…I can imagine.” Audrey took a sip of water. Her pulse was still racing. “So, Kara…are you still doing pro-bono work at the district courthouse?”

  “Yes…but lately I’ve picked up another job.”

  Audrey seemed pleasantly surprised as she asked, “with another law firm?”

  “No…I’ve become a legal advisor for Chief Tipsy’s organization. He’s giving a concert tomorrow, so I have to keep this lunch short…I apologize for the rush, but I have to meet his manager this afternoon about some of the legal protocols they need to know about before the performance. We need to discuss some issues about the show that includes free speech, and the right to assembly, the sort of things that are protected by our constitution, even though the Moralists, like my bitch-ass Aunt Ulu, seem to think otherwise.”

  “Wow.” The feelings of potential regret where almost gone as Audrey realized how much she respected this woman.

  Kara said, “I tell ya…I’m getting sick and tired of fighting with my family in this political arena we somehow got thrown into. How is the salad here?” Kara asked as she glanced at the menu. “Oh my gods, this place doesn’t have any native cuisine at all. Did you know that there is a group of farmers in New Hamakua that have been trying to convince the Nolo’pula Hydroplantations to allow them to grow worms and some other native crops so they can tap into those growing organic markets but they can’t get the permits they need?”

  Audrey felt lost in thought, “really?”

  “Yes, I’m representing them in court next month, typical bureaucratic red tape, I tell ya, if someone could just rip open the doors of some of these Government Bureaus, and get something done on this planet without having to go talk to a judge and a committee first we’d be so much better off.”

  With the ice broken, Audrey decided it was time to get to the business she so desperately wanted to discuss. “So…have you spoken with your brother lately?”

  Kara put down her menu and frowned as she said, “if he sent you down here to try to convince me to quit this commitment I’ve made to Chief Tipsy, don’t bother. He needs to talk to me. I wanna put down the war clubs as much as anyone, but he just keeps pissing me off with his attitude…”

  “No, no…” Audrey stammered as she raised her hand up, “I actually wanted to talk to you, about something different.”

  Kara shrugged her shoulders and said, “What?”

  Audrey suddenly forgot about what she had read earlier, and concentrated on her next anxiety filled question, “What do you remember about Ronald James Harris?”

  Kara paused, “Iki? The human kid my mom used to take care of?”

  Audrey shoved back feelings of desire, she wanted the truth badly, but she knew that she could not frighten Moke
’s sister, or hurt her feelings as she tried to dig for the information she wanted. She looked into her friend’s eyes, and spoke in a comfortable voice as she said, “Yes. That’s the one.”

  “Well, my was bedroom right across the hall from the room he shared with my brother while we were in grade school. I don’t remember how old I was when he came to live with us, but I remember Moke stopped picking on me so much after Iki moved in.”

  “Really?”

  “My brother was such as spoiled brat…my gods, he still is…the big jerk.”

  Audrey suddenly became quite interested, but realized that she was moving into touchy and maybe even forbidden subjects as she spoke with a soft, kind voice, “what was Ronald Harris like, as a kid?”

  “He was pretty young when I knew him, and I was even younger. He was real quiet…seemed kinda shy, but he was really nice to me. I remember, when we were little, how Moke would throw a fit to get my mom’s attention, and Iki would just sit there…just, staring off into space. I guess his real mom and dad abused him or something, and that’s why he was so meek. At first, it seemed that all my brother would do was order the poor kid around. I caught him making Iki do all his chores for him, a lot…sometimes when Moke would break something that belonged to my mother, he would blame it on Iki…and the kid wouldn’t say anything. He just took the blame.”

  “Really?” Audrey was keenly interested as her mind made all sorts of mental connections and formed more questions.

  “I mean, don’t get me wrong…my brother liked Ronald Harris. I think it was Moke that nicknamed him Iki. Moke loved having an adopted brother. And Iki really liked my brother…well, he seemed to like Moke no matter how he spoiled and rotten he acted. They played together a lot. They got along well enough, I guess…but my bother took advantage of that poor kid, in my opinion.”

  “Why would he put up with such treatment?”

  Kara sighed and said, “I guess Ronald Harris was…ah, how’s a nice way to put it? He was slow. It was like he had a learning disability or something like that. My friends thought he was cute…but dumb. They used to dare him to do stuff, and he’d get in trouble because of it…I guess he just wanted to fit in, so he did whatever people told him to do.”

  “What else do you remember?”

  “Not all that much,” Kara said as she folded her hands. “I liked him, he was a nice kid. We enjoyed each other’s company for a while, but after my dad died, and my mom had her nervous breakdown…things just were never the same after that. Things changed. They changed. Moke and Iki started acting up as young teenagers, they started getting into trouble.”

  “Your brother was a bad boy?”

  “I don’t know. I sort of looked up to them to be honest. Moke was defiant and disobedient, but not really in a malicious way. They were both rebellious and unruly, but not evil. They did stupid stuff like…well, they got caught skipping school, because they wanted to go to the beach and go surfing. They liked acting tough and got into fights because of it. I don’t know who instigated the mischief, but I would hear about what was happening from my Aunt Ulu every time we spoke. Like for instance, it was Aunt Ulu who told me that Moke got caught smoking Makani, with Ronald Harris.”

  Audrey truly felt shocked as she said, “Captain Kalapana got caught smoking Makani as a kid…ya mean the plant they make Cutz from?”

  Kara rolled her eyes as she said, “Oh yeah, those two acted like idiots. Once, Moke got caught shoplifting, with Ronald Harris.”

  “Moke stole things?” Audrey said with surprise and then corrected herself, “Uh…sorry, they did stupid things?”

  Kara took a drink and said, “Yeah, they did all kinds of stupid things like that.” She set her glass down with relief and said, “I guess that my Aunt Ulu was worried that my brother’s behavior would influence me in the wrong way. So she sent me to a prestigious private school on Earth. I hated her for doing that…she wanted me to become a Moralist…a good, righteous citizen of The Alliance…and I guess she thought that breaking up our family would do it.”

  Kara closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Audrey realized that this was painful for her friend as she felt her own heart becoming heavy.

  Kara opened her eyes again and said, “I would e-mail my Aunt Ulu from Earth every once in a while, and we’d meet at space stations, while we were traveling. I would talk to her when our paths did cross just to keep up with what the family was doing, but then as I got older, I realized that I couldn’t stand the woman, and I quit talking to her, and because of that…I missed out on a lot of my brother’s life. All I can say is…the last thing I heard before I just quit speaking to my Aunt Ulu all together…I remember, specifically, that she told me how Ronald Harris started getting into a lot of fights. My guess is that he probably got into fights with guys who wanted to beat up my smart ass brother. Aunt Ulu did tell me once, how she had Iki sent to some private school for boys at risk…and not long after that, she sent Moke there too.”

  Audrey seemed a bit taken back, “really?”

  “Yeah, my brother was a punk kid with a bad attitude, but I always thought the reason for that stemmed from the fact that he was just so angry about the way our father was killed. Moke took it pretty hard that our parents were no longer around, and after Aunt Ulu took us in, my brother really fell apart emotionally. She was just so uncompassionate, telling him how he had to act like a good soldier, and think about how he was going to serve his people and The Alliance, he hated her for it. She was always reminding us of our sacred, royal duty…and I don’t think Moke wanted anything to do with it back in those days.”

  Audrey drifted in her own thoughts for a few moments. She wondered how a young boy would react to such traumatic events, and the ensuing treatment, both of which were unfair and undeserved. She thought of Moke lying in his bed, crying to himself to sleep at night, “what was so important that father had to die? Why did they make him go there?”

  Her sympathies made her feel so lonely inside.

  Audrey saw how Kara, one of the strongest Ailanian women she had ever known, looked so incredibly sad as she said, “But ya know, Audrey…it wasn’t easy for me either. I mean, trying to get my brother to talk about his feelings is impossible. I tried to talk to him…but I know he changed for the worse after that. He started resenting authority. He hated living with our Aunt Ulu…she ridiculed him a lot and made him feel bad about himself. Sometimes, I think my brother was just crying out for attention…he was so angry for such a long time.”

  Audrey was sympathetic as she said, “Kara, do you remember Moke doing anything that might have hurt Ronald Harris emotionally, and caused their friendship to end?”

  Kara squinted and flared her nostrils as she said, “What do you mean by that?”

  Audrey sensed her tense feelings as she said, “I’m so sorry if I offended you…or if you find this hard to talk about, but do you think that they might have done something that he regrets? Or do you believe that Moke did something that would have caused Ronald Harris to turn against him?”

  “Well, I don’t really know how to answer something like that,” Kara wet her lips and said, “All I really know is, that my brother…is a complex person. I have always loved him, and looked up to him, even though he was mean and bratty to me sometimes. But when he was nice to me, he was really good to have as a brother. He looked out for me, and at times, in the past at least…he has been supportive of me. But Moke has always been his own worst enemy. He has always wanted to have things done his way, and he was, and still is, stubborn and rude about it at times. He did things that made people angry, and he got Iki to back him up. I don’t know why they started getting into the trouble they did…but I think that Iki sometimes showed a lack of good judgment by assisting my brother with his stupid ideas, and he might have gotten caught in the middle a few times when my bother just wanted to piss someone off. I don’t know which one of them pressured the o
ther into stealing that beer, or doing all those other stupid rebellious stunts they pulled, but it seem to me, that Iki willingly took the blame for most of it, and if there is an instance in their relationship where my brother betrayed him…well, let’s just say my brother has deceived me, a few times. That incident I had with him, when I last worked for the CIA, is just one example.”

  Audrey felt a chill in the air as she said, “And is that why you are so mad at him now?”

  Kara’s face became flush and she leaned forward as she said, “Audrey…I did what he told me to do. I thought I was doing him a favor, and in the end…he figured out a way to make it look as if it was my fault when my reports, which I did for the CIA, were found unfit by the High Senate. They basically accused me of making up my data, and he acted like such a backstabbing worm…he sided with the Moralists, and had my research dumped into the garbage as far as I’m concerned.”

  Audrey swallowed and pressed her lips together in a nervous fashion.

  Kara hid her eyes with her hands as she said in a mournful tone, “That really hurt my feelings, Audrey…I felt as if he sold me out…I’m sorry if sound so narrow-minded and self-centered here, but…if my brother did something like that to Iki…”

  Kara closed her eyes and shook her head for a moment as Audrey held her breath.

  Kara inhaled deeply and said, “Sorry…if he did something like that, to his best friend, Ronald Harris…well, I guess it wouldn’t surprise me.”

  Audrey felt her hear dropping in her chest as she swallowing her fear.