Prisoners of Paradise

by Brandon Lars Erikson

  “Hey man, would ya help a brother out and pass that bong this way…some of us ain’t stoned enough to make any sense of what you’re saying.”

  “Those who are altruistic are not always leaches…it must be made known, that there are many people on Ailana, who got very rich, very illegally, and in a very immoral manner…they should not be protected by the gods or the prophets who make the claim that certain altruistic, humanoid endeavors, such as Socialism, lead to death and despair…while philosophies like Capitalism, and that god of the free market, with the guiding hand, are pure and wholesome…”

  “The gods never decreed that the people, who control our government, should be allowed to have the power they have over our lives. The gods never decreed that corporations should be the ones who control our fates and destinies. The way our government has been allowing certain wealthy and powerful people, to live their Ailanian dream, without oversight by their fellow man, or without any concern for the well-being of their fellow man, is killing Ailana…this planet is facing a period of social unrest like no other in the history of Ailana…and now they want to blame us…fuck them…”

  “Yeah!” Pete remembered yelling at one of them as he took a long drag from a hallucinogenic, Makani cigarette, “Come on, baby! Eat the rich!”

  “I want to become a teacher, my sister wants to become a social worker, my brother works for the government making sure that poor children receive health care…my oldest brother works as a public defender, and under the system the Moralists want to put in place, we will all be labeled as looters and moochers…not everyone can be an entrepreneur…not everyone can be like the disciples John Galt and Howard Roark, who the Prophet Ayn describes in those parables within the scriptures…just because we desire to help our fellow man and earn our money from taxes…or what the conservatives call the redistributed wealth…doesn’t mean that we are leaches and parasites. Altruism is not evil…it is a virtue…Capitalism is not evil…but greed is…our planet’s economy and government are dominated by those who are greedy…and now they’ve found a religion that justifies their actions and makes us evil, because we don’t accept the status quo, and desire a better way to live…”

  Pete felt his heart skipping a beat as he saw a gaunt, young man with shaggy, blonde hair in the middle of the room that had just become the center of attention. “Don’t worry, folks…consider another religious parable…the meek shall inherit the world…and I’m here to tell you about how we can speed up that process…”

  Pete felt the sight returning to his eyes as he felt the dirty carpet pressing into his cheek.

  “Oh gods…oh my head…” He moaned as realized that a large drop of drool had escaped his lips and was now soaking the carpet that his head was resting upon. The first thing that he saw when his vision cleared was his arm, stretched out on the floor, and his hand that was clutching an empty bottle of whisky. He then realized how much he reeked of alcohol and sweat.

  “Oh my gods,” He moaned painfully.

  His head was ringing with a massive hangover, and his body felt incredibly sore. His back ached as he tried to sit up. His apartment was the atrocious mess that belonged to someone who no longer cared, and was now just concentrating on drinking themselves to death. His head rang as he remembered someone’s voice shouting, “Look at you! You’re a drunken imbecile! Who in their right mind would listen to a thing you say?”

  The monitor was on. A newscaster was saying, “The Ailanian CIA still refuses to release any information pertaining to the bombing that killed nearly a thousand people, and injured thousands more at a rock and roll concert earlier this week.”

  “OH MY GODS!” Pete shouted as he sat up in shock. “OH MY GODS!” Pete suddenly realized that his head ached like someone had dropped an anvil on it.

  The reporter continued. “Among the dead reported were Chief Tipsy, a local musical sensation and political activist, and twenty-nine year old Kara Kalapana, a local activist, and one of Chief Tipsy’s more prominent supporters…”

  “OH SHIT!” Pete exclaimed, “MOKE! Oh no! Oh shit no!” Pete ripped off his sweaty T-shirt and began looking around him, for something, anything. He saw a bottle on the floor and picked it up. He threw it on the floor as hard as he could. The bottle shattered it into small glass shards.

  “AHHH!” He cried as he picked up a sharp, triangular shaped shard, and fell onto his back again. “No you don’t, you son of a bitch!”

  Pete began to wiggle along the floor, until he reached the rickety sofa that was sitting against the west facing wall. He began to crawl underneath it, his nose barely made it under the wooden brace that separated the legs.

  “You bastard! Where are you? I gotta get this to him before I forget again!” Pete began looking around the frame of the sofa. The air underneath it was stale and dusty. His eyes burned as he searched for the area where he had carved into the wood of the couch. Pete’s eyes began moving rapidly back and forth, until he saw the Earthen symbol for the letter “G”.

  “Ah HAH!” Pete cried out with a bit of hysteria. “I found you….you bastard! I was the spy who infiltrated The Evil…I was the one who helped Moke find out who Jacob was! And now I’m going to help him find the way to bring you down!”

  Pete looked at his left forearm, and then at the piece of glass he had in his right hand. Pete gashed his teeth together and took a deep breath. Ignoring the pain as best he could, he used the piece of glass to carve the letter “G”, into his forearm. He began to wince and groan a little as sweat began to drip off his forehead. His mood swung to a sobbing sadness as his eyes suddenly found themselves fixated on a small photograph of a young girl that he had stuck in between the wooden frame beams of the couch. He sobbed as he touched the picture with his finger tip. The young girl in the picture appeared to be about five years old and smiling happily.

  “Oh my sweet, little girl…I’ll be seeing you soon…I promise…Daddy’s coming home soon…just as soon…just as soon as I find…”

  Pete slammed his hand against the frame the couch and shouted, “just as soon as I find the…the…”

  His eyes frantically moved all around.

  “Just as soon as I find the…next one,” He whispered, and began scanning the area under his couch again. He soon found the symbol for the letter “O”. He gritted his teeth as he carved the letter into his arm, the blood made the letters appear to burn.

  “It’s here…it’s all here.” Pete said softly, as he found the next letter, and the next letter, and so on and so on. Five painful minutes later, the skinny, haggard human, began laughing. It was quiet at first, and then, as he felt the endorphins canceling out the pain his handiwork had caused, he began to laugh louder and louder. In the crux of his aching head, things were looking somewhat better now.

  Location: An Alley between the Miliani and Topaz districts, Polynea.

  Ailanian Standard Time: 1800 Hours.

  “This shit is getting too hard for us, Wallace…our friends are dying. They killed Kara, Landra, Ignesia…they killed both our cyborgs and most of our other friends! They were able to get to them because someone betrayed us! They know who we are and they will stop at nothing to defeat us!”

  Wallace gasped as he handed his friend a computer disc, “I know, our time is running out, but we can’t stop trying. Listen to me, before Henry was murdered, he was able to send me this! I was able to make two copies before they were able to get a fix on me. If I get killed, you have to pass this on to our next contact. There are important people in the government who know about the plan…they know of the disaster that is coming and we have proof that they stockpiling emergency food to prepare for it. But not everyone in the government is involved in the plan…there is someone who can help us…I am going to try to reach them soon. But if I fail, then you have to make sure to contact them before it is too late!”

  His friend took the disc and said, “I don’t know i
f we can stop this thing…they’ve got the upper hand now. Wallace, we are quickly starting to lose this fight. We’ve been able to hide under their radar and retreat deep into the city, but since the explosion at the stadium, we have now become Ailana’s most hated enemy. Our faces are all over the Internet and the rewards they are offering are getting higher…it’s only a matter of time before we are all rounded up. I am telling you, man…we are losing.”

  Wallace said with a stern face, “We may have lost some battles but the war is far from over yet…have faith, my friend. Now get the word out. We cannot deviate from our plan, there is too much at stake for us to just give up now!”

  Chapter 29

  Location: The Kalapana family summer home.

  Ailanian Standard Time: 2300 Hours.

  “The enemy that once only used words…has now used weapons. Massive, deadly force has been utilized on Ailana by some Immoral, terrorist group. We have had problems and disagreements with our counter-culture before…but now…they have gone too far…and because of that…one of Ailana’s great daughters…is dead.”

  His Aunt Ulu’s eulogy of Kara rang in Moke’s head as he sat on the cool sand, looking at the pitch blackness of the moonless night sky that sat over an unlit ocean. Looking into the darkness over the water was like looking into a void in one’s soul. He felt the blackness engulfing him, he felt it drowning him.

  Moke hadn’t moved in hours, he didn’t want to. Behind him, about ten meters away, Audrey stood by waiting, trying as hard as she could to be a supportive friend. He knew she was there, and he purposely ignored her. In a way he liked the silent company, but he also wished she would leave. He felt ashamed, vulnerable, and weak.

  Kara’s funeral had been a contemporary one and even though the flower arrangements were made in a traditional Kupano manner, there were no Kupano songs, no spirit honoring dances, and no traditional prayers. Moke had rejected his native religion and even though she had been a woman of the modern day, he was sure that his sister had been disappointed in him because of that decision.

  Moke didn’t have the time to make the funeral arrangements. He let some of his relatives take care of those details. His family members had quarreled amongst themselves, wondering if such a high profile funeral would be better off in the public eye if the inclusion of traditional Ailanian culture was kept to a minimum.

  “Those traditions and superstitions offer nothing but spectacle now. We are not savages anymore, Captain. We Kalapanas are descendants of royalty and must remain, looked up to.” His Aunt Ulu had said.

  Moke made sure of one thing though. He made sure his mother was heavily medicated during the service, which took place in a large, non-denominational temple just outside of Polynea. The temple was ambiguous. Its structure was composed of sweeping walls, blue stained glass windows and large marble pillars. Thousands came to mourn the loss of an Ailanian princess.

  Moke thought of the irony in it all while he stood in that oblique temple. He had been wearing a long, black coat and a pair of dark sunglasses to hide his weeping eyes. Kara would have wanted a very traditional funeral. Ailana’s Moralists would have been pleased to know that someone had changed her mind for her.

  The media had been there. Cameras showed hundreds of pro-traditional activists weeping while wearing traditional costumes. These people sat in the back, while the people of government, who knew Kara’s family, sat in the front, wearing modern clothes and haircuts. Moke thought of that as ironic too - beings that there was currently a sharp division between Ailanians who demanded the modern world, and those who wished to retain, or return to a simpler, more traditional way of life. The contrast was fitting.

  When the news cameras were pointed at Moke’s mother, millions of Ailanians watching from home, saw an old woman in a black dress and veiled hat, who had two young, female attendants with her, who helped her walk to her seat. She never cried once, she probably had no real clear idea of what was going on. Moke had spent that afternoon with her, held her hand, and let her mourn a bit. He then made sure her care-takers put her on a regular schedule of tranquilizers and anti-depressants. Moke knew these medications had allowed her to leave the mental institution and he knew that she would never allow anyone to put her back into any hospital ever again.

  Moke cursed himself, “I’m making her take chemicals that will keep her from experiencing a much needed catharsis. But the emotions that she keeps inside her are like sleeping dragons, they could kill her…and I am running out of family.”

  Five days had passed since what was left of Kara was cremated and laid to rest in a botanical cemetery just outside of the Sacred House Reservation, right beside the remains of her father.

  “Moke,” He remembered how his mother said to him in a shallow, chattering voice. “I want to go there…I want to be…right there.” He winced as he remembered how she had pointed at the ground where they were burying the ashes. Moke felt the urge to weep, but swallowed it. Thinking of the funeral made him feel the blackness, and it made him realize that the hole in his soul was getting deeper.

  Audrey sighed to herself as she looked at the back of Moke’s head. She had been standing right where the grass of the neatly manicured lawn, met the fine, white sand of the beach. Audrey often thought of the beach as being the color of a string of pearls. She often thought the sand felt like silk as it ran through her hands. But right now, Audrey was at a loss for words. Her thoughts were confused and jumbled, and she knew that if she was going to speak, she would have to choose her words very carefully. She went over the possible combinations of words in her mind for a few minutes and took long, deep breaths.

  “Moke…there was nothing you could do…it’s not your fault.” Audrey thought to herself as her heartbeat was speeding up. “Oh Moke Kalapana…what is it about you? You are pompous. You are arrogant. You are stubborn. You are ill-tempered. And sometimes, you are downright mean. But there is just something about you that makes me weak. What is it that makes me want to go to the ends of the world for you? Why do I find myself worshipping the ground you walk on….and then cursing myself for it? Sometimes I wonder where my loyalty comes from…and I wonder if it will ever stop. Am I crazy? Why do I keep doing this?”

  “So…Agent Winters,” Moke’s voice suddenly broke her concentration. “Do you have something you would like to tell me?”

  “I’d think I’d better sit down first,” Audrey said dryly.

  “Pull up some sand,” Moke said sarcastically.

  Audrey felt just enough anger to make her feel temporarily unsympathetic. She narrowed her eyes, and frowned a bit. “I want to express my deepest sympathies…but Moke, I have to get to the point…we’re in a lot of trouble…”

  “I know, Audrey…Malia talked to me this morning,” Moke’s voice was soft, but confident. “She told me about the charges that Wram Karamotzain wants to draw me up on.”

  “Moke,” Audrey paused because she realized that her voice was trembling a bit. But her confidence quickly returned when she saw the moon coming out from behind a large, dark cloud. “I think we can beat them.”

  “Of course we can…even if we can’t convict Glik and Semnor of anything ever again, we still have evidence that bribes, money laundering and extortion is occurring within the Ailanian government.” Moke realized that he needed to act in a more respectable manner. He tried to keep his emotions, which stemmed from his rage and his chauvinist upbringing, in check. “We have strong case going for us…but unfortunately, we have a minor problem at the moment…we have to get busy and start covering up the facts that would lead anyone to believe the accusations that we have been allowing mercenaries and terrorists to operate on this planet. We have bodies piling up all over Polynea. We need explanations as to why these street gangs are going to war. Things have gotten to out of hand lately. The CIA will surely be blamed for all this chaos that is happening. We need to start taking measures…that will ensure that
the blame…stays off our backs for a little longer.”

  “Moke,” Audrey said softly, her voice sounded more feminine. “I know you believe that we have a chance…that’s why I am willing to put my own neck out on the chopping block…”

  “Audrey, I can’t ask you to do that…these charges, might actually stick…you could be severely penalized…please, Audrey, don’t forget what I told you a year ago…if you need to turn me in…and tell them what they want to hear in order to save yourself…don’t feel bad about it…just do it.”

  “Moke,” Audrey said with a firm compassion. “I believe in the CIA’s new mission. We are supposed to be an agency that protects the people of this planet, and that includes protecting them from under-handed dealings that have been known to occur within the Ailanian government…I believe we have done a good job in doing that so far.”

  “Audrey, the CIA is what the government wishes it to be.” Moke said in a soft, gloomy tone. “Wram Karamotzain is putting this pressure on us, because he wants us to prove that there was some sort of voter fraud involved in the election that Klunka lost. We really should be following that track…and he is also demanding that we find out who was responsible for that bombing at the stadium. We are now obligated to fight the sources of this chaos…we have to at least make it look as if we are not opposing the High Senate’s demands anymore…we need to find the members of The Evil.”

  “Moke we’re working around the clock trying to find those people…but we can’t start investigating the voter fraud. If we do that, we will become counter-productive…we stand a chance of invalidating some of our case evidence because of conflict of interest problems…”

  “Audrey, I said we’d make it LOOK as if we are not opposing their demands,” Moke smiled and sounded friendly. “We will proceed as we have originally planned, but proceed with caution. Christ, Audrey…you work for me…and I’m probably the guiltiest liar that has ever worked for the Ailanian government…”