Prisoners of Paradise

by Brandon Lars Erikson

  The man in black paused for a moment. He knew his next decision could have some serious consequences for many innocent people here today. The injury had cut off many of the preprogrammed codes in his computerized brain. Less preprogrammed codes meant that there was a lot less commands which Van Dien could use to interfere with decisions that could now be made by what was left of his human brain.

  He shook his head and thought of the real reason he was doing this. For a fleeting moment, he remembered how the young girl’s face had looked so innocent that night he had broken into Dr. DeWolf Miller’s house. For yet another fleeting moment, he thought about what the young man he had just killed has said to him before they started fighting.

  “You could still believe in something…”

  The man in black blinked his eyes rapidly for a moment as the data he had shared telekinetically with Jhett ran through his computerized brain at warp speed. He remembered all the faces of the young men and women in the apartment, which was across the street from the night club, right before he killed them all. He remembered how many laser bolts he had shot in the apartment that night just before he went to pay Marco the surprise visit that had ultimately led the smuggler to conclude he needed to flee the planet. He remembered what the young people in the apartment had been talking about.

  “This is the only way to do it…we have to wake the Prisoners of Paradise if our plan is to succeed.”

  “There has got to be another way…our educational campaigns have been so successful…”

  “We do not need to resort to violence…”

  “We don’t have a choice…some people will die…but think of all of the people we will save…”

  “We have to make a stand! WE HAVE TO STAND FOR SOMETHING!”

  For yet another fleeting moment, he remembered how scaring Marco had been so effective. He fondly remembered how well the job had been going, until the computer took over his thoughts and actions, forcing him to hunt down and capture Andrea and her friends that night Marco had been shot at.

  He remembered what they had been saying before he sprayed them with the anesthetic.

  “We have to stop Jacob’s people!”

  “They’ve gone mad! Their plan is insanity!”

  “Wallace is our only hope now!”

  The man in black swallowed a nervous feeling and abruptly forgot about what those young people had been fighting for. Milliseconds later, he found himself concentrating on the last few moments in the life of the young girl, who had been in Dr. DeWolf Miller’s house, on the night he had broken in with the intent of only killing him. For a brief moment, he felt the pain of guilt and regret flowing into his heart. But the image of her face was soon forgotten when he calculated what this new arrangement was doing for his bottom line. “Damn it…the money is just too good to pass up this time.”

  Without giving it a second thought, the man in black pressed the red button and walked away as fast as he could with the image of the dollar sign imprinted into his data banks.

  Location: Kaiser Field

  Ailanian Standard Time: 1332 Hours

  “What the hell is going on down there?!” Moke screamed into the microphone boom.

  “Sir! They are defying us!” An agent shouted back.

  “Tell them this is an emergency!” Moke screamed in frustration.

  “SIR!” Another technician’s voice cried out over his com. “Our instrumentation is out!”

  “What?!”

  The technician seemed to be panicking. “Sir! Our radiocarbide scanner broke! Some people attacked our wire man and broke the scanner!”

  “Get another one in there right now!”

  “We can’t! We’re cut off! We’re cut off from our route! We’re surrounded by all these pissed off people!”

  At that moment, Moke came unglued. “I need all police forces to get inside and start removing these people from the stadium! Evacuate these people from the area! NOW!”

  Location: Kaiser Field

  Ailanian Standard Time: 1333 Hours

  They had entered the front of the stadium and found themselves in the middle of a riot.

  “Oh shit!” Audrey screamed as she realized the danger they were in. “JACK!”

  He couldn’t hear her, his radio unit had been torn off by an angry Ailanian citizen who had just assaulted him without any real cause. Jack stood next to a railing holding onto his bleeding face, his eyes wide open and his muscles tensed. The people around him were frothing at the mouth and a large Kupano man was running at him with a metal pipe in his hands.

  Jack was certain that he was about to get his skull bashed in.

  Audrey gritted her teeth and took a deep breath as she unholstered her sidearm, and set it to stun. She took a steady aim, and pulled the trigger. The bright, blue blast, hit the man with the pipe in the chest, and knocked him onto his back.

  “HEY COPPER!” A voice from behind her screamed, “That was my boyfriend!”

  Audrey turned around and saw the biggest Kupano woman she had ever seen. Audrey gasped as she saw the woman charge at her with massive fists. Audrey stood up straight, and waited for the right moment. Right when the massive female thought she had grabbed the female cop who shot her boyfriend, Audrey counteracted her, and grabbed her torso. Audrey flexed her upper body and used a Judo move to throw the woman, which sent her reeling into a row of garbage cans that were filled with unwanted food items. Audrey watched as the woman regained her senses, and moaned. She wasn’t hurt. But she looked as if she wanted to file a lawsuit sometime soon.

  “HEY!” Another rough voice behind her shouted. It belonged to a huge Kupano man with a goatee and a shaved head. “That was my sister!” He charged at her. Audrey realized that the man was much too close. She stood up, and delivered a powerful roundhouse kick to his large jaw, and sent him reeling into a concrete wall. She looked over her shoulder and noticed that Jack was about to be attacked by another Kupano man wearing denim and leather.

  “Oh my Gods! We’re surrounded by a street gang!” Audrey’s thoughts were terrified as she ran as fast as she could, slid to a stop, and delivered a couple of kidney punches to Jack’s broad shouldered attacker.

  The man roared in anger and turned to grab her.

  She summoned up all of her kickboxing training and commenced to treat the man’s head as if it were a punching bag. He fell to the concrete floor bleeding.

  Audrey grabbed Jack’s hand and pulled on his arm. “Let’s GO!! We have to get out of here!”

  Location: 50 meters above Kaiser Field

  Ailanian Standard Time: 1336 Hours

  The crowd appeared to be rioting as Moke was screaming furiously at his bomb squad technicians, “Listen to me! I said get another scanner on that spot right now!”

  “Sir! We’re cut off!”

  “I said right now!”

  “Sir we’re…OH SHIT!”

  Moke clenched his teeth as a buzzing sound filled his com and another technician’s frantic voice cried out, “SIR! I think we have something! Sir! I think we have….”

  Time stood still as an orange flash illuminated the hovercar’s windshield.

  Moke’s eyes opened into a trance of horror as he saw the stage vanish into an orange cloud of flame.

  CHAPTER 27

  Location: The Madalahara Iron Works…an abandoned metal factory…Downtown Polynea.

  Ailanian Standard Time: 1400 Hours.

  Landra sobbed as he saw her three friends lying on the dirty floor in pools of their own blood.

  “No…no it wasn’t supposed to happen this way…”

  Landra gasped as she looked at the blood on her hands. It was her blood, and it was pouring out of a deep gash in her stomach. She felt herself trembling. She was about to go into shock from the loss of blood and the only thing she could hear was the sound of heavy boots c
rushing the bits of broken glass on the floor as they walked closer and closer toward her.

  “No…please don’t…please just go away.”

  She felt her heartbeat slowing down as she remembered what had just happened. They had all screamed when the man in black broke down the door and started shooting at them. She gasped as she remembered how her three friends were instantly cut down in a hail of laser fire.

  She had no idea why she had been left alive. She choked and coughed up some more blood as her shaky hand reached for the keyboard. The sound of heavy boots stepping on broken glass was getting closer and closer. She typed as fast as she could with her one good hand as the sound of footfalls stopped.

  She gasped and moaned as she fell back to the floor. She looked up and saw the man in black standing over her. She saw his glowing red eyes underneath the brim of his black hat. She didn’t see any emotion on his scarred face.

  As she saw him raise his gun barrel to her face, she saw the last year of her life flash before her eyes. She heard her friends speaking and felt her heart racing faster as their voices burned in her mind.

  “We discovered what they plan on doing to our planet…we cannot let this happen!”

  “We were able to convince Rex Broadstein to help us…he’s given us a lot of money…”

  “What are you going to do with this money he gave us?”

  “We found a man who can help us…a dishonorable man named Marco…”

  “Marco didn’t uphold his end of the bargain, and now we have to steal what we paid him for!”

  “We have them! We have our merchandise!”

  “We have to do this!”

  “Some of us…are having second thoughts…”

  “We can’t do this! This is wrong!”

  “We have to do this! This is the only way to send a clear message to our enemies!”

  “Are you people insane? We can’t go through with this!”

  “If you are not with us…then you are against us…”

  “Like I said folks, when they come for you, be creative! Leave a lasting impression! Why go out with a whimper, when you can go out with a bang! It’s time to awake the Prisoners of Paradise! It’s time to set this world on fire!”

  She felt numb as she saw how his eyes burned red as he looked at her. She saw him bending at the waist. She heard a metallic sound, and moments later, she realized he had just set of couple heavy objects down on the floor. Landra looked at the man in black’s dark boots and noticed how he was standing right next to two of the three silver objects her friends had stolen from the warehouse.

  She gasped as she realized that those silver objects had been hidden. She thought about how she had suggested the perfect hiding spot as she said, “Who are you? How did you find us…how did you find those things…what are you going to do with them?”

  There was a small voice of reason in the back of her mind whispering in her ear, “You have been betrayed…we’ve all been taken for fools…what you did for Jacob played right into their plan…they got you good…and guess what…those assholes finally got the last laugh, didn’t they?”

  “The idea was to cause an event that would get the world’s attention…to make them realize the level of desperation the government was creating within its people…the idea was to create a sense of fear that would make the Aurorians think twice about investing their money in our planet,” She coughed and said with a wheezing voice, “I guess this means that Wallace was right after all…someone else had their own idea of what this world should become…and they are using us to achieve it.”

  The man in black simply stared back at her, his scarred face was unbearably disfigured, and despite all that was hideous about his stoic stare, she felt as if he was at least being honest with her.

  He spoke softly as he cocked the hammer on his gun, “I don’t care about your revolution…and I don’t care about his plan…and I don’t care about this mysterious person, who did this to you, so that they could become rich and famous beyond their wildest dreams…for me, it’s all about the money they’re paying me…nothing more. This game, which you got yourself into…it’s just business…none of this…was ever meant to be… personal.”

  She said, “We thought we were doing the right thing…honestly…we thought this would help…”

  “Nothing you would have done would have helped…there is no turning back the tide,” He said as he aimed the gun at her forehead.

  “Well, I guess I’ve had my epiphany about all of this…” She coughed and winced in pain as she looked him straight in the eye and said, “And now…I know what I did…was misguided. But what about you…don’t you ever get tired…of all the killing?”

  Oddly enough, the man in black nodded his head with sympathy as the mysterious voice in his ear said, “Let her send out her distress call…and when she’s done calling for help, don’t kill her right away…she helped Wallace, and now she has complicated what should have been a simple plan…and because of that…I want to listen to this traitorous bitch scream.”

  The man in black’s face didn’t change as he said, “this isn’t personal…it’s only business.”

  “There are more of us!” She shouted, “Whoever you are, I know you can hear me! I know you can see me! I know you hired this guy because you are too cowardly to pull this trigger yourself! This is not over! There are more of us out there to carry out our mission! You might have won this battle…but you will not win the war…I promise you that!”

  “No one here was innocent…and it’s only business,” He thought as closed his eyes and pulled the trigger. His gun went off with a blast and her body went limp.

  The man in black kept his eyes closed as tight as he could. The image of the young girl in Dr. DeWolf Miller’s house was haunting him again, and he wasn’t about to give his latest employer, the satisfaction of seeing this young girl’s last painful moments on Ailana, no matter how good the money was.

  Location: Undisclosed.

  Ailanian Standard Time: 1500

  Van Dien stared at his monitor with an expressionless face. The news channels were very busy at the moment. The channel he was now staring at was featuring a large press conference, in which High Senator Wram Karamotzain was speaking belligerently.

  Wram’s bushy eyebrows shuttered angrily as he said, “We are outraged. Simply outraged. Someone has to be held responsible for this terrible tragedy which has killed Chief Tipsy and thousands of other innocent people, who simply wanted to have some fun at a concert. There are government agencies that are going to have to explain this. There are some government officials, who need to be held accountable for not being able to foresee and prevent this outrageous action that has resulted in such a massive and tragic loss of life…as well an untold number of injuries.”

  Van Dien changed the channel, and saw Rammy Klunka looking positively horrified, as he said, “These people, whom we put into these positions of authority, they made us promises! They promised us that this sort of…horrific act of terrorism…could never take place on Ailana! This world, is a paradise, these kinds of things don’t happen in paradise!” His eyes looked ablaze as his voice rumbled. “This is what happens when we have leaders in law enforcement that allow Immorals to infest our great society? Now we must hold these leaders accountable for what has happened here today!”

  Van Dien’s concentration was interrupted by the ringing of his com. He answered it in a voice that seemed to be filled with boredom. “Yes?”

  “Sir, we think we might have something…we just intercepted a text message.”

  “Show it to me.”

  The screen on his monitor turned blue, and some words scrolled onto it.

  Audrey, two of those nut jobs, who were working with Jacob Colombe, just contacted the police to tell them that it was not their fault that bomb went off. Their names are Wallace Horanano and Ignesia Kun
ani, and they told them their location. They are at Wailuki Apartments in Room 23-876C. Something tells me that WE better get to them first! This is a D Squad mission now.

  Jack.

  Van Dien smiled as he placed his hand on a shiny, silver object that was now set in the seat next to him. The admired the shiny object as he said softly to himself, “This was not supposed to be part of my plan…two of these things is still unaccounted for. Someone will to have to die for this. Oh quiet night…oh sweet death, tell me for whom the bell tolls.”

  Location: Wailuki Apartments. Room 23-876C.

  Ailanian Standard Time: 1800 Hours.

  The monitor, on the small desk, was flashing a multitude of brightly colors words,

  What the hell happened?!

  What the hell happened?!

  MY GOD!! WHAT HAVE THEY DONE?

  THEY SET OFF THE DAMNED BOMB!

  THEY KILLED KARA!

  THEY’VE KILLED ALL OUR FRIENDS WHO WERE HELPING US!

  THEY KILLED CHIEF TIPSY! THEY DID IT AS A MEANS TO START THEIR PLAN!

  CHAOS IS ON ITS WAY!! THEY NEED CHAOS FOR THEIR PLAN TO WORK!!

  YOU GOTTA GET THE WORD OUT!! THE ENSLAVEMENT IS ABOUT TO BEGIN!!

  THE DEVICE? DO YOU HAVE THE DEVICE THAT SHE STOLE FROM THEM? THAT

  DEVICE HAS SOMETHING VALUABLE THAT WE NEED TO PROTECT! BE SURE TO

  PROTECT THAT DEVICE AT ALL COSTS! CHAOS IS ON ITS WAY!!

  Audrey stormed into the room with her gun drawn.

  “It looks as if someone broke down the door before we got here!” Audrey shouted.

  The light, from the hallway, pierced the empty room. The light shined upon the monitor on the bare desk. The chair, beside the desk, looked like it had been kicked over.