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

by B. C. CHASE

  Wesley withdrew in horror as a striking sense of spine-tingling familiarity dazed him.

  The ghost-figure suddenly disappeared. A mere flash in a second of footage, leaving them all speechless. Reebok licked batter off her fingers as she stared with dread at the others.

  Finally, Wiggins asked, “So you saw him there, but he looked normal. Not like this?”

  Karen nodded.

  Wesley said, “I’ve seen this before.”

  “This footage?”

  “No, that ghost-thing.”

  “Where?”

  “At the Convergent Science facility. In the basement-cave.” He looked at Kelle, “When we reached the bottom of the stairs.”

  Kelle declared, “I knew you had seen something! I knew it. You liar.”

  “I didn’t want to scare you. And then Doctor Compton showed up and chased us.”

  Wiggins nodded, “In that case, I think it’s safe to say Doctor Compton is not who he appears to be.”

  Karen rolled her large brown eyes. She firmly wrote:

  DUH.

  Wiggins said, “We have a sarcastic orangutan.”

  Wesley asked her, “Since you’re the only one here who has any power, do you have any ideas about what we should do?”

  I want to see my family.

  Everyone exchanged glances. Forebodingly, Kelle said, “I wouldn’t go anywhere near them if I were you. You could put them in grave danger.”

  Wiggins submitted, “And we have no idea what their reaction will be do your … transformation. They could put you in danger.”

  Karen rested her chin on her fist wistfully.

  “Any other ideas?” Wiggins asked.

  Wesley said, “We need to find out what is behind all this. What are they trying to accomplish?”

  Karen wrote:

  What do you mean?

  “A deadly virus kills thousands of people. Then they release a second virus that stops the first one and kills anyone who was a carrier. Why?”

  Karen:

  I know someone we can talk to.

  Wiggins said, “Is it someone we can trust?”

  Kelle was quick to interject, “Are you kidding? There isn’t anyone we can trust. No one.”

  Wesley said, “I think we should find Abael. Everything seems to point to him.”

  A USAMRIID team was working on the pathology of the virus. They might have answers.

  Wesley said, “What is USAMRIID?”

  The U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases.

  Wiggins said, “If they found any answers, they are probably dead or—”

  Wesley said, “Or what?”

  “Or turned into genetic experiments, like her.”

  Dr. Guy Giordano was leading the team. I can try to talk with him.

  “We can’t trust anyone,” Kelle said. “It’s not worth the risk.”

  “Well then what can we do?” Wesley snapped.

  They stared at each other as if silently arm wrestling until Wiggins said, “We can’t do nothing. I’m sure that one of their biggest priorities right now is tying up loose ends like us. They are looking for you guys. And, believe me, they will find you eventually. It is impossible to hide in today’s world.”

  “Listen,” Wesley said. “You saw what I saw, Kelle. And you were there too, Karen. You must know what they have been doing. They are killing thousands of people. This has to be stopped. We don’t have time to …” He tightened his jaw. “I’m going to kill Abael Fiedler. He is responsible for this.”

  “And how are you going to do that?” Wiggins demanded, folding his arms and leaning back in his chair.

  “I’m going to find out where he is and I’m going to shoot him in the brain. That’s how.”

  “What good do you think that will do?”

  Wesley was consumed by rage. He stood up and shouted, enunciating every word, “He killed my wife! He freaking killed my wife!” His whole body shook. Softer, he said, “I want to send him to hell.”

  Wiggins said, “Isn’t that God’s job?”

  Karen wrote,

  We need to find out more. This is bigger than one man.

  “I don’t care! Don’t you get it? I want to kill him.”

  Kelle put a hand on his arm, “The one who will end up dead is you.”

  Wesley said darkly, “That would make me just as happy, Kelle. Look, you guys can do whatever you want. I’m gonna kill him.”

  Wiggins said, “You won’t get very far without a car. Or a gun.”

  “Are you saying you won’t help me?”

  “You got that right.”

  Wesley sat down belligerently.

  Paleozoological Museum of China

  Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences

  Beijing

  Doctor Ming-Zhen stood in the dark room, the illuminated, gigantic skeleton of the infamous deinocheirus he had discovered looming before him. Cowering underneath its enormous jaws was a human skeleton.

  It was, without doubt, the most dramatic paleontology museum exhibit in the world.

  The door at the far end of the exhibit hall suddenly opened. When she stepped through, he couldn’t get even a glimpse of her face because her head hung so low.

  Despite treating her as if she was his own daughter, despite investing tremendous time and effort into making her the best paleontologist she could be, despite pouring himself into her, she, with her boyfriend Chao, had lied to the world, calling him a fraud and turning his life upside down. And, worst of all, she had never spoken to him since—or even seen him. He was surprised to find that the years-long passage of time since her betrayal had done nothing to dull the pain. The mere sight of her shot a pang of sorrowful regret through his chest.

  As she neared him, he said “Jia Ling,” his voice unsteady. He was clueless as to what she was thinking.

  “Jia Ling,” he repeated, “Bao is dead. My daughter Li is gone too. The only family I have left,” he said, his voice breaking, “is you.”

  She whimpered, but still hung her head.

  “Jia Ling, look at me!” he ordered.

  She raised her anguished eyes, her face awash in tears. “I am not your family!” she said.

  He looked away indignantly. So she had no remorse for what she had done, even after all this time.

  “Please, don’t say I am your family!” she cried. “Please, I do not deserve that honor.”

  He studied her sad face, realizing that these were not tears of anger or of hate, but of shame. He opened his arms to her, “All is forgotten, Jia Ling. You are my family, and always have been.” After embracing her, he held her shoulders and looked into her eyes, “My only question is, ‘why.’ Why did you tell them I had placed the human skull inside the deinocheirus?”

  “When they started to push. When I walked into classrooms and they would laugh. When I saw our pictures all over the internet, cartoons that mocked you, all the denunciations by reputable universities and journals. And Chao. Every day, all day he was pushing me. I wasn’t strong enough. I gave in. I started to believe that it was a hoax. I am sorry. And still, after I changed my mind, I left Chao. I left China. I joined his competing firm in Taiwan.”

  “It is unfortunate that the world holds consensus in greater esteem than the truth. There is a very dear price to be paid by those of us who defend it. I am sorry, that you were forced to bear that burden. But, as I said, it is over. Now, how much do you know about my expedition to Antarctica and the search for dinosaurs?”

  “Everything I could learn,” she said eagerly. “I was watching you every minute on the internet.”

  “So you must know I had vowed never to return?”

  “Yes, I read that.”

  “Well,” he said, “I have had a sudden change of heart. I am going back. And I wish … I hope that you might go with me, if you are willing. I told Zhang that I would not go unless he found you.”

  “What changed your mind�
��about going back?”

  “When I was there the last time, my Russian research partner, Doctor Toskovic, died. Now, I must warn you that this takes some trust, and a leap of faith to believe that I have not lost my mind, and I confess I am not certain of that myself. But something was left in Toskovic’s place, what I believe to have been his spirit or his soul. It was an evil spirit because he had very negative energy, as it turned out. However, it leaves me to wonder… is diyu a real place? Do spirits leave the body and go into the earth when we die? I have no other logical explanation for what happened, how he died and left what was apparently a spirit in its place. And, if this is true, then could the spirits of my daughter and Bao be there too, now that they have died? I don’t know, perhaps it isn’t the speculation of a person with all his wits at all. But I do know that I have been called upon to go down there again. I lost them, and if it is possible they are down there, I would do anything for the possibility, no matter how slight, of reaching them.”

  She nodded thoughtfully. Then she ventured, “What is to become of my friends?”

  “What friends?”

  “Xiàozhăng Zhang brought them on the helicopter. Gary and Stacy?”

  “Zhang said they are to join us. They have some value to the PLA, I understand. Something about political leverage. But I want them to come because it seems that if my hypothesis is correct; that it is diyu and the souls of the dead…” he trailed off. “Then I want many people who were close to someone who passed away, with us. Gary and Stacy fit that bill, as does Donte—him even more so. He received word that his brothers and sisters have died from a virus in Baltimore. He can’t go home. So I’m bringing him, too.”

  “When are we leaving for Antarctica?”

  “In the morning.”

  “But I don’t have anything to wear for cold weather.”

  “I am told,” he replied, “we won’t need anything for cold weather.” Then he turned to stare at the sixty-five-foot fossil, its largest teeth the length of a man’s forearm.

  “It troubles me, you know,” he commented.

  “What?”

  “This fossil.”

  “Why?”

  His heart beat a little faster. “Perhaps I have been trying to imagine them as real for too long,” he said. “But I’m terrified.”

  Jinkins’ Villa

  “Henry Potter,” Babel said. “What can you tell me about Paradeisia? The portal, specifically? Let’s cut to the chase.”

  “I am quite ignorant of what you are getting at.”

  “Marco Gonzales. You’ve been here awhile. What about you?”

  “All I know is that the portal is a gondola that rides on a track which takes passengers down to a subterranean env—”

  “No, not that,” Babel said.

  Suddenly there was a commotion as a man and woman in suits and holding handguns emerged from a hallway, pushing Maggie in front of them. She was bound with her hands behind her back. Her eyes were red, her hair disheveled, she was barefooted, and her face was swollen. An open gash marred her left cheekbone. Maggie wept, “I’m sorry, Henry! I was jealous! Of Aubrey! I didn’t know!”

  “Shut up!” the man yelled, blunting her in the back of the head with the end of his gun. Then, to Babel he said, “She wasn’t able to tell us anything more, sir.”

  “Thank you. Take her outside. I don’t want any mess in here.”

  They shoved her forward, toward the door.

  “Wait!” Henry shouted. He swore, “What is going on here?”

  Babel nodded to one of the inhuman soldiers. It stepped forward and shot Henry with an electric prong. An incredible pain coursed through him as his muscles stiffened and he fell backwards.

  They took Maggie by both her arms and dragged her toward the door, screaming.

  Gonzales watched helplessly as one of the soldiers dug an M16 into his back.

  Maggie was screaming uncontrollably, struggling against her captors, but they pulled her by her hair, and her feet disappeared around the doorframe.

  Henry only regained his ability to move as a shot rang out and Maggie’s voice ceased.

  A heavy barrage of rain was thundering the roof. Gonzales was silent, but Henry exclaimed, “What do you think you’re doing?”

  Babel coolly said to Henry, “You have the power of salvation! How many more must you allow to die?”

  Henry seethed with fury as he said, “What is it you really want with this island?”

  “I told you. It is to be illuminated. We want only knowledge and understanding.”

  “Power,” Henry said under his breath.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Knowledge is power. That is what you want, isn’t it?”

  “Knowledge can be power. But it can also be empowerment. What we learn will empower humanity.”

  “Where is President Surrey? Does he have any idea what you are doing?”

  “I hope you’re a little quicker on your feet than Jinkins was.” He raised the weapon to aim at Henry. “How many people must die before you save them?”

  Henry said nothing.

  “I will kill your aunt. I will kill you! YOU HAVE THE POWER! SAVE YOURSELF! WHERE IS PARADEISIA?” Babel screamed.

  The lights suddenly went out and the room was engulfed in blackness.

  Henry felt a large, sweaty hand grip his and pull him away. His vision began to acclimate and he recognized that Gonzales was leading him down the hallway off the main room. Before he had time to think, they had opened and passed through a door between two decorative urns. They were in a bedroom with a king-sized bed with tall posts, a parquet floor, and tall, white draperies surrounding wall to wall windows overlooking rolling hills. The hills sloped down toward the ocean, where gigantic thunderheads loomed, rimmed with moonlight. The room had been ransacked as if someone had been searching for something. A myriad of amphibious craft were pulling up with the waves onto the beach, soldiers pouring out like ants. Far in the distance were the ominous forms of mammoth warships, lights faintly blinking on their masts.

  Gonzales closed the door behind them without making a sound, motioned to a pair of French doors at the other end of the room. As they crept to the doors, they heard a sound behind them.

  The door handle was turning.

  Gonzales flung open the French doors and they ran out onto a porch and down several steps to a soggy grass yard dotted with flowery bushes and centered by a large fountain. As they reached the fountain, Gonzales shouted, “Look out!” Bullets blasted the concrete, pockets of gravel blowing out where they hit. “Don’t stop!” Gonzales said, leading the way down a slight hill to an ornamented concrete wall about four feet high. They barreled over.

  On the other side there was a ten-foot drop to a thin rocky ledge before a dizzying three-hundred-foot cliff ended in forest far below. Gonzales lowered himself off the side as easily as he could, but when he landed on the ledge he fell and careened off the side, grasping wildly for anything to hold onto as he went. Henry landed securely on the ledge and spun around to look off the cliff. Gonzales was hanging there by a branch just off the edge. Between Gonzales’ panicked kicks and struggles and Henry’s assistance, he managed to regain the ledge.

  They scrambled across the ledge to a spot ahead where it met a thickly greened grade. Relieved for the cover of the foliage, they found themselves scurrying through tropical undergrowth across an incline. Gonzales said, “I know where we can find a Jeep. This way.”

  Henry followed him as they cut across the hill, navigating around rocky outcroppings which occasionally blocked their path. They emerged from the trees and found themselves at the back of a long, squat building. Gonzales led around to the front where there was a row of garage doors and a locked side door. Gonzales placed his finger on a print reader and the door quickly clicked open. Once inside, suddenly lights flicked on, revealing six cars: three classics from the thirties, one Rolls Royce, and two Land Rovers.

  “Ah, they’re onto him,” Gonzales said.


  “Who?”

  “George. At the power station. I sent him a message to switch off the power at the villa.” They approached the first Land Rover, and suddenly it blazed brilliantly with LED light, a flash of color starting at its nose and washing over it to the back. The image of a hummingbird flapped across the doors and the PARADEISA logo appeared. Then, under that, stenciled characters popped up, spelling, “BWANA.”

  They opened the doors. Gonzales sat behind the wheel and Henry, in the passenger seat, said, “How did you know asking George to turn off the power might be a shrewd idea?”

  Gonzales pushed a button and the garage door swung up, revealing a circle of black pavement linked to a road. While he disabled the automatic drive and pulled out slowly, he explained, “When we were in Marine Two, I heard someone say ‘We’re going down for the decapitation strike.’ That’s military jargon for taking the head off the snake, or eliminating enemy leadership. In this case, I took that to mean they were getting rid of us. So while we were still flying, I sent the message to George to switch off power at Jinkins’ compound.”

  “I do hope George is quite all right.”

  “I think our next move should be to go to the power station and pick him up. That will be their next target, if they’re not already there. It’s nearby, anyway, in Aloha Hawaii.”

  The dark greenery sped by as Gonzales careened down the winding road. Before long, the road began to verge into several Y-junctions with signs listing various locations: Oahu Gathering Place, Kauai Lodge, Lanai Suites. Gonzales glanced at his phone which he held with one hand on the wheel. “George says he left the power station and he’s at the Molokai Inn.” Just then, they came to a junction where a sign pointed to the left and read:

  FRIENDLY MOLAKAI INN

  Gonzales swerved onto the narrower, darker road, squealing the tires.

  “Take care, man!” Henry shouted, gripping the sides of his seat.

  “Yes, sir. I’ve got this,” Gonzales replied as he sped around a bend, a leafy branch slapping the windshield. The vegetation thinned until a grassy slope punctuated by tall palm trees graduated down to a beach. Hugging the water were three dozen small wood and stone buildings with thatched-looking roofs.