Paradeisia: The Complete Trilogy: Origin of Paradise, Violation of Paradise, Fall of Paradise

by B. C. CHASE

  Karen started shaking her head, “No, noooo—“

  “We need to give them the option.”

  “No, Guy, no. Just be calm, let's find the cure, and stop it dead. That's it.” She sighed, “With Towson under quarantine, we'll control it.”

  Towson, Maryland

  Wesley's mother was still under observation at the hospital. Wesley was at the grocery store to pick up a four pack of puddings and other comfort foods she liked, as well as a sandwich for himself.

  When he had arrived at the store, it had been nearly empty. Now, as he waited for the woman at the deli to finish wrapping his sandwich, he saw an increasing number of people running up the aisles. The lady handed him the sandwich and he said, “Thanks.” When he turned around to grip his cart, a frantic man pushed it out of his hands and ran away with it. Wesley shouted at the man at first, shocked, but then gaped in disbelief as he saw that the canned goods aisle directly adjacent from him had filled with people who were feverishly emptying the shelves. He looked back at the lady at the deli, “Are you guys having a sale?”

  She shrugged incredulously.

  Almost in a haze, Wesley walked from the deli towards the dairy section. He asked a woman who shoved past him what was going on, but she didn't respond. When he reached dairy, he noticed that the refrigerators that held the milk were empty. Every last bottle of every kind of milk had been taken.

  An older man jogged up beside him, his arms full of goods. He swore in aggravation, “The milk's gone already?”

  Wesley said, “Yeah . . . can you tell me what's going on?”

  “You haven't heard?” the man panted.

  “No.”

  “Towson is being quarantined. Nobody in or out.” He nodded, “Makes you wish you had stocked up like those doomsday wackos, doesn't it?” He said, “Good luck, my friend.” And with that he took off.

  China Academy of Sciences

  “My proposal is that we go to Antarctica and find this dinosaur DNA.”

  “Ah, I see. Only that. A simple stroll down to Antarctica and ‘Oh look! Dinosaur DNA!’ and we pick it up and show the world.”

  “Something along those lines, yes.” Doctor Ming-Zhen felt his superior's eyes upon him, studying him contemplatively.

  Zhang finally said, “I am under great pressure by the State to remove you from the Academy.”

  “I understand,” Doctor Ming-Zhen replied calmly.

  “If I asked you to resign, would you do so?”

  “Certainly I would do anything you asked.”

  “The State is keen to redeem China from the disgrace of these overwhelming accusations of fraudulence.”

  Doctor Ming-Zhen looked down, sensing his fate. He would have to resign; his career was certainly over. What would he do to support his family? His daughter was only six years old.

  Zhang clenched his jaw and said firmly, his face almost trembling, “But I would be caught dead before I allow you to fall unjustly.” He stood and nodded to Doctor Ming-Zhen, “Your resignation is forbidden. You will lead our effort to fight these accusations, and we will fight them to the death.” He straightened his shirt, “Tomorrow I will speak with some friends in the Party to see what might be done to assist us in this effort.”

  Doctor Ming-Zhen stood and offered a quick nod, “Thank you, Xiàozhăng.”

  “The skull inside that dinosaur fossil was an extraordinary discovery, and you deserve all possible credit for your honesty. Any other would have buried it forever. You have my utmost respect, sir.”

  He was overcome with appreciation. He swallowed a frog in his throat, and managed a “Thank you.”

  Zhang nodded with compassion, then, with a wave of his hand, said, “Now be gone. You have work to do.”

  Xiàozhăng Zhang needed to do little persuading with his friends in the Party: Doctor Ming-Zhen's ambitions for Antarctica drew the government's immediate blessing, and funding for the research flowed generously. Any opportunity to save face in the debacle was welcome by everyone.

  Almost immediately he was officially adopted as China's champion, the one to restore the nation's fortunes in science and best the nation's detractors. He was featured prominently in all government media, and a special space on the internet was established to follow his exploits, like a twenty-four hour reality TV series.

  Cameras followed him everywhere, he was called upon for constant interviews, and he was even placed in ribbon-cutting ceremonies for grand public projects and other events.

  Thus, the solemn, unassuming Doctor Ming-Zhen ultimately found himself in the nearly unbearable conditions of the Antarctic, sent there as his country's unwitting hero.

  Paradeisia

  Poseidon's Platter

  After they had returned to the surface with the wretch Jinkins had called “Andrews,” Jinkins had insisted they all go to the restaurant where he would explain. Andrews was left at the island's hospital.

  Despite the circumstances, the restaurant awed them. It consisted of many tiers of tables centered around a circular stone grill where flames licked the food that four chefs cooked. A giant glass wall offered an incredible view of an aquarium full of sea creatures. The semi-circular wall that surrounded the rest of the interior featured coral reefs with bubbles blowing upwards, clams that opened and shut, and fish that peeked out from crevices. The ceiling looked like the underside of the surface of the sea and it undulated and shined as if waves were passing across.

  “We need know what's really going on here, Jinkins. And we need to know now,” Henry said. He was no longer angry: now he sounded tense, uneasy. They were all sitting around a large flat table shaped like a giant shell half. The kinkajou was wandering from plate to plate, sampling everyone's sweetest foods.

  Jinkins said, “Andrews will be fine, and I do mean,” he nodded as if to convince himself, “fully recovered. Our hospital here is state-of-the-art.”

  “Jinkins!” Lady Shrewsbury said, slapping her hand down on the table. “At this juncture we do not care about the state-of-the-art facilities! We care about what happened to that poor devil! Will you please elucidate, for heaven's sake?”

  Jinkins hesitated.

  “Now wouldn't be a moment too soon!”

  Jinkins looked down at his plate and took a long breath. He removed his pith helmet and placed it on the table. “Andrews was part of the first group that went down after we built the portal. They landed and did a little exploration. It was supposed to be just for an hour or so. They were very careful. Took samples of the air, the water, that kind of thing. Scientific data. But when it was time to go back up, Andrews was gone.”

  “They looked and called for him. They did everything they could. There was no sign of him. So they went back down over and over again, searching everywhere. It became a monumental effort.

  “He was a real explorer, Andrews. We decided he had wandered off on his own to do his own research. He would come back, we thought.” Jinkins sighed, “That was three years ago. I suppose he finally did come back.”

  After a long silence at the table, one of the board members spoke, “Well it doesn't sound that serious to me. The man wandered off, probably ate something that didn't agree with him. Been wandering around the last three years and finally spotted somebody.”

  Jinkins said enthusiastically, “Precisely! See? It's very sad of course, but nothing like what you all had been thinking. And now the story has ended better than I thought. He's alive and will likely recover!”

  Henry interrupted Jinkins' joviality, “Recover or not, how did he survive down there for three years all by himself? Is there really anything to eat?”

  “There are fish,” Jinkins said. “He could have eaten fish.”

  Lady Shrewsbury said, “The man doesn't even know his own name, for goodness sake. How could he possibly have had the discipline to catch fish, especially if he'd eaten something toxic already?”

  “Are there any edible plants?” someone asked.

  “We've found yellow tom
ato plants. And they're gigantic, too. Over thirty feet high with hundreds of tomatoes each.”

  “Now that's very interesting.” another of the board contributed. “Do you know what's causing them to grow that way?”

  “Well, Doctor Pearce analyzed the tomato's genes, and it turns out they are very unlike what we eat here on the surface. They are very old; a very ancient breed unpolluted by modern science. Since tomatoes back when Columbus arrived were actually very small and yellow, our scientists have theorized that the increased carbon dioxide and atmospheric pressure accounts for their huge size. Some day we think it's possible we could feed the guests from things grown down there.”

  “Getting back to guests, when were we originally scheduled to open?” Henry asked.

  “Ah! Well, actually we would be scheduled to open before long, and I do very mean soon,” Jinkins said, twiddling his thumbs.

  “When, precisely, is 'very soon?'”

  Suddenly, Jinkins' phone rang. He looked relieved at the distraction. He pulled it out of a giant holster on his waist. It looked like a giant radio from World War II. Answering, he listened to the voice on the other end briefly. Then he hung up, saying, “Doctor Pearce insists I go see him at the hospital at once. It's about Andrews.”

  Henry stood, “I'll go as well. The rest of you may turn in if you wish; it's getting late.”

  Jinkins added, “Yes, turn in, or you can go take a turn around Atlantis Bay. It's very pleasant in the evenings."

  Henry said, “Aubrey.”

  Taken totally by surprise, she replied, “Huh?”

  “Get my things ready for the morning.”

  Paradeisia Hospital

  “How is it that you didn't notice this before?” Henry demanded, staring in perplexity at the man lying on the operating table before them.

  “We didn't notice before because he was never in the dark before,” the doctor replied. Doctor James Pearce was originally from one of the near islands; Trinidad. He had a very solemn-looking face with a neatly trimmed white mustache.

  The three of them, including Jinkins, were standing in an operating room where Andrews lay anesthetized. The room was dark except for some soft lighting illuminating a counter on one side.

  “But what is it?” Jinkins asked impatiently. “And by 'what is it' I mean what relevance does this have?”

  Doctor Pearce folded his arms, “It has all the relevance in the world, I think. The man's been missing for how many years, he comes back, and now he has this. How do we explain that?” He motioned down to Andrews' arm where, glowing with a soft green tint from within the skin was a marking:

  Jinkins was between Henry and the doctor and he looked back and forth between the two of them, “It's quite simple, I'd say. He had this before he came to Paradeisia, some newfangled glowing tattoo.”

  The doctor objected, “Look closer. It's made of tiny dots of light. I extracted one. It's over here.” He walked them over to a petri dish on the counter. Barely visible was a tiny translucent ball smaller than the point of a pen. “As soon as I removed it, the light went out. It seems to have been powered by his body, maybe his warmth. Or, more likely, bacteria.”

  “Well that doesn't prove anything. I still say he could have had it before he came.” Jinkins snorted. “I mean if you're trying to say that somehow he received it when he was down the portal, why that's preposterous. How could that possibly have happened?” Jinkins wiped his forehead of a sweat he had developed.

  “There's still a lot we don't know about what's down there,” Doctor Pearce said quietly with a nervous glance at Henry.

  Henry had just been standing there, his hand on his chin, looking deeply contemplative. Finally he interrupted, “Let's drop it, gentlemen.”

  The other two stared at him.

  “It's late. There's no reason to speculate at this hour. Let's go to bed now and you can begin to pursue your theory in the morning, doctor. Some things are better addressed after a good night's sleep.”

  The doctor nodded and Jinkins, looking relieved, agreed with a, “Yes, yes, let's get some sleep. And I suppose you won't be going to China after all, eh Potter? Now that you've seen what's down the portal?”

  “I will be going to China. But I'll only stay overnight.” He turned to the physician, “Thank you doctor. You have my number if you have something worth telling me.”

  Jinkins simply shrugged and followed Henry as he walked out of the room.

  Henry stopped to use the restroom in the hospital before he left, so Jinkins was long-gone by the time he stepped out through the sliding glass doors into the still-warm night air. As he jogged down the steps to the road where a Jeep waited, he felt a tap on his shoulder. He swung around.

  “Mr. Potter,” said the person standing there.

  Henry replied, “Yes?”

  He was a stocky man with short-trimmed hair, a goatee and large eyebrows. He wore a tropically patterned loose polo and big shorts. An expensive-looking watch ornamented his wrist, but he had simple sandals on his feet. He took one last puff of his cigarette before flicking it onto the pavement, stomping it out. He held out his hand, “I'm Scott Nimitz, Operations Supervisor.”

  “Good to meet you,” said Henry, looking less than thrilled. “And what is your role this drama?”

  “There are sixteen of us along with four forecasters. We work the command center at headquarters—in the FlyRail Hub on the top of the mountain. We're there twenty-four hours a day. We have video feeds of almost everywhere on the island.”

  “Interesting,” Henry said.

  “And that's what I wanted to talk with you about. I was bored, you know, watching Poseidon's Platter when you guys were having your meal. Word's gone around that you're now the man in charge.”

  Henry said, “Indeed I am. There will be a formal announcement.”

  “I'm not a brown-noser or anything like that. I just think there are some things you should know if you're going to make this place a success, you know.”

  “I'm all ears,” Henry said.

  “Operationally this place is the bomb. Runs like clockwork. We get the occasional computer glitches—but who doesn't have those. But I'm more worried about other things. Now don't get me wrong, Jinkins is a good guy. He's a nice man, you know. We all love him. But I think he kind of . . . he's been in denial about some stuff. In operations, we hear most of what goes on here. In other departments you know how it is, the right hand doesn't know what the left is doing. But in ops we're the brain, the mind. There's not much that doesn't pass through.”

  “Yes,” Henry said, apparently getting impatient. “So what is it that you want to tell me?”

  “Andrews disappeared three years ago like Jinkins told you.” Nimitz said. “But Andrews isn't the only one who's gone missing. He was just the only one to go missing when he was down the portal.”

  “How many people have gone missing?” Henry said.

  “Including Andrews . . .” Nimitz hesitated. “Eleven.”

  Henry's eyebrows rose. “Eleven. And he's the only one who's come back?”

  Nimitz nodded, concern creasing his face.

  “Is there any pattern that you've noticed?”

  “They were all young, but no children were taken.”

  “Taken?”

  “Yes, I think they were taken.”

  “Hmm,” Henry said, looking skeptical. “Had they all gone down the shaft previously?”

  “No. Just people from all over the island, working all kinds of jobs. But Andrews was the first to disappear. Nobody disappeared that I know of until after the portal was complete. Of course, we didn't have nearly as many people working here back then.”

  “And what is the working population now?”

  “Seventy-five thousand, give or take.”

  “Well then, eleven disappearances doesn't sound all that extraordinary. Doesn’t it seem likely that they disappeared for legitimate reasons; for example, just walked off the job and went home? Or perhaps localized cri
mes?”

  “I wouldn't rule out localized crimes. But of course we have a security force here, a kind of police force, and they haven't resolved anything,” Nimitz said.

  “And most of the workforce comes from the surrounding areas?”

  “We have a good mix. Most of them don't work for Paradeisia; they're from the developers. A lot of Caribbean islanders. A lot of Asians. Plenty from the States and South America. A bunch of Cubans. We even have a lot from Europe. It's like Babel around here.”

  Henry stuck out a hand to shake, “Well, thank you for the information, I—“

  But Nimitz was shaking his head. “Mr. Potter, the disappearances are one thing. But there's something else that I wanted to tell you about; something that makes me even more nervous.”

  Henry dropped his hand to his side and said, “And that is?”

  “Sightings.”

  Antarctica

  A giant dome that allowed light in but kept the wind out had taken shape over the site, an inhospitable glacier far inland. If nothing else, the effort would produce strides in making Antarctica habitable—habitable being a very broad term.

  In the 1970’s, the lowest temperature on earth had been measured nearby, a mind-numbing -128.6 degrees Fahrenheit, and the dome did not succeed in warming the place much: it was more useful at keeping the sudden, furious winds at bay.

  Passing him with a loud engine was a snow tractor pulling a passenger trailer laden with eager, camera-snapping tourists; another load of the press. They had been summoned from all over the world to witness this. The camera crew for the government’s reality show had followed him around for two years now. It was a necessary evil, just like the physical maladies he had suffered since his arrival.

  He had been daily afflicted by bloody and chapped lips, chafing dry skin, eye twitches, and nose bleeds. But he was grateful for those paltry annoyances. In the beginning, it had been much worse.