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

by B. C. CHASE

“That’s not numbers,” Nimitz said. “It’s Latin. Look at it the other way.”

  “It says ILLUMINATI.”

  “Illuminati?” Henry scoffed. “A conspiracy theorist to the bitter end, eh Nimitz?”

  Nimitz shrugged.

  Aubrey couldn’t keep looking at the bodies. Something about them didn’t seem right. She spun around to face the gaping doors of the dark rooms. She screamed. A pair of eyes was glinting from the inky blackness inside, motionless.

  “Give me a light!” Babel commanded. A soldier quickly produced a flashlight which he shone into the room. A host of beady-eyed, expressionless faces stared back at them. They wore a number of different uniforms. They were hosts, servers, mechanics, cleaners …. As they peered into each room, they saw more and more of the figures.

  “The Biobots,” Henry uttered. “They’re here, too.”

  A voice came from the end of the atrium, “Yes, Harry. This is where they all went.”

  Layla

  “I’m sorry,” Doctor Katz said. “I’m sorry.”

  She looked him in the eye but didn’t respond. Something about the way he said it, something about his face looked dishonest. “What are you doing every night?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Every night you sneak away.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Don’t lie. You do. Where are you going?”

  He took a deep breath. He said, “Come, let me show you what I found.”

  They stood at the edge of a clearing in the jungle. Dead leaves and debris covered the ground. Doctor Katz started to brush the debris with his foot, revealing black dirt and something white. As he cleared more and more of the debris, Layla stepped back when she realized what had been revealed.

  A skeleton.

  “We’re not dead, Layla. And we’re not the first to come here. There have been many more.”

  “Many more?”

  “Yes.”

  “But this is only one. How do you know there were many?”

  She jumped as a sudden whisper spoke in her ears, a foreign tongue that she somehow understood, “I can tell you.” She felt eyes on her from behind. She turned around.

  Stepping down a grassy slope, its movements smooth, deliberate and elegant, almost as if the steps were merely a performance and its body drifted freely through space, a giant figure, androgynous in build, and menacing, walked toward them. Its mouth did not move as the voice spoke in her ears, “We are the ageless and the powerful, the builder of empires and the maker of kings, the perfect, the beautiful Aten. You have entered our domain.”

  She felt Doctor Katz’s hand on hers, an unwelcome touch. “In death, we can become one with them and receive all the power and all the knowledge and all the understanding there is.”

  Diyu

  The pupils of the sinornithosaur’s red eyes had become tiny as it stood there, screaming. Doctor Ming-Zhen aimed the gun at the animal, hoping Zhang had left him with more than one shot. Without warning, there was a flash of red, and white as a dinosaur swooped down from the left, knocking the gun out of his hand. The sinornithosaur in front of him charged. But it didn’t charge at him. It raced past to Jia Ling, who had crawled away from him, Gary and Donte while they were distracted, making herself an easy target for the dinosaurs that had glided down from the trees. The sinornithosaur made piercing shrieks as it ferociously attacked, tearing at her face with its talons. Her frail efforts to fight it off did little to stop it.

  Zhang and the others were rushing up to surround them.

  “Yue! Help us!” Doctor Ming-Zhen pleaded as he sprung for the gun. Another dinosaur struck her from behind and she fell onto her side. In an instant the whole flock was upon her, a mass of flashing wings, claws, and teeth. From inside, Jia Ling was screaming in a single, long breath.

  Doctor Ming-Zhen lifted the gun off the moist forest floor and rushed toward the flock, shouting with all his might.

  The sinornithosaurs raised their heads to shriek at him, their snouts dripping with blood. One of the animals flapped toward him, and he tripped onto his back as he staggered away. Satisfied at his retreat, the animal turned and squawked as it pushed its way back into the group.

  He stood and saw Jia Ling’s bloody face, her teeth exposed where her lip had been torn. The animals were eating her while she was still alive. Right before his eyes they were eating her, one small bite at a time. He had to stop it, but there was nothing he could do. He fingered the smooth metal object in his hands. He aimed at her head and turned his face away. He hoped there was one bullet left.

  He pulled the trigger.

  There was an empty click.

  Her hands were clawing up to the sky between the dinosaurs. A ribbon of flesh was dangling from one’s jaws. It dropped the flesh. It fell down. Something was happening to the animals. Feathers were erupting everywhere. The sinornithosaurs were all falling.

  Chao was stepping toward them, armed with a machine gun, spraying ammunition everywhere. He was shouting at the top of his lungs, while Zhang grabbed his arm in protest, to little effect. When the dinosaurs were all dead, he dropped the weapon and rushed to Jia Ling.

  Doctor Ming-Zhen joined him. She was still alive, but where her eyes should have been there were pulpy hollows. Her breaths were shallow. They quickly lobbed the dead sinornithosaurs off her broken body. Doctor Ming-Zhen tried not to look at her wounds. He just cried, “Jia Ling, daughter!”

  She struggled to reach into her pocket and withdraw an object. Her bloodied fingers soiled it, but it caught a glint of light from the auroras overhead. It was silver. She pulled his head down to her mouth and whimpered, “I’m sorry—” Tears streamed out the sides of her eyes, “Forgive me ….” She squeezed his neck as she forced the words out, “I should have told you.”

  “Told me what?”

  She pressed the object into his palm and folded his fingers over it. Then her breaths ceased and she fell motionless. “Jia Ling!” Doctor Ming-Zhen cried. “Jia Ling!” Then, his body trembling with rage, he stood. He reached for the machine gun Chao had dropped. He stood and faced Zhang, who had moved closer now that the danger was past. “What is the matter with you!” he screamed. He swung the weapon around wildly at all the soldiers, “All of you! Where is your humanity?”

  Nobody moved. Zhang stood there, staring coolly. “There is no humanity here, Zhou. They are genetically engineered soldiers. Doctor Han and his team programmed them to know my thoughts and trained them to do my will. And now I am beginning to wish that I had not brought you with me. You are dangerous. Unpredictable. Emotional. Foolish. Psychologically impaired. You know that ever since you went to Lake Vostok the first time you have suffered from paranoia.”

  Doctor Ming-Zhen countered, “That was because of the trauma I suffered. I received therapy. I fully recovered.”

  “Did you?” Zhang said with emphasis. “Did you recover? Or do you still believe your delusions? Do you want to know what really happened in the video from your trip? The video of you and Toskovic?” He shook his head, “After he died, you said that a creature like a ghost piloted Toskovic’s submarine in his place, spoke to you in his voice, and ultimately collided with your submarine to knock you unconscious. But that is not what the video showed. A ghost didn’t strike you unconscious as you said. It didn’t collect all the organisms it wanted. It didn’t pilot the submarines back to the exit and was destroyed by a fire-breathing plesiosaur as you described. No. Those were your lies. In the video, you were the bad actor. You collected the samples. You piloted back to the exit. And you struck Doctor Toskovic unconscious and left him for dead. You returned to the surface and told us the lies, never thinking we would be able to recover the video you thought you had erased. That’s why you are not the one who should be making judgement calls, here,” Zhang accused. “You tell lies that you believe to be the truth. Your mind has become so warped that you believe the web of delusions you are spinning.”

  Doctor Ming-Zhen couldn’t believe wha
t Zhang said was true. He had spent so much time trying to forget his nightmarish memories from Lake Vostok that he now had difficulty bringing them back. He closed his eyes, tried to remember. The black water. The white, pristine, claustrophobic subs. Toskovic, the charismatic Russian who had taken on a devilish persona once he was under the water.

  Zhang smiled. “Why are you here?”

  “I’m not sure what—”

  “You said you wanted to come because you believe this place to be diyu, the spirit world of penance for the dead. You are here because you think your wife and daughter may be here in some spiritual manifestation—certainly the belief of an unimpeachable mind! I see a narrative. So now, despite being spectacularly unscientific, this brainwave of yours is going to be the next big breakthrough. First the prodigious Doctor Zhou Ming-Zhen miraculously brought us the man-eating cretaceous dinosaur, and now he will conjure up real ghosts from the underworld. What next? Alien visitors from outer space?” Zhang laughed with relish, “You are indeed the greatest scientist the world has ever known. Is there no field immune to your meddling?”

  “I know what I saw! I know what happened! You cannot take a man’s memories from him.”

  “A man’s memories are meaningless. Men are liars, to everyone around them of course but most of all to themselves. Every witness will tell a different tale of the same crime. Men are weak, fallible. Memories from fallible minds can never be trusted.”

  Doctor Ming-Zhen was silent, staring at something behind Zhang. His hair stood on end. Standing under the trees was a translucent female figure, like a body made of naked moonlight. It strode toward them, the shadows from the trees passing over it and making it visible where the light made it translucent. The eyes were set wide apart and were unnaturally large, the shape of the head was oblong, and there were other subtly strange differences, but despite this there was no doubt in Doctor Ming-Zhen’s mind who she was. He recognized her.

  Paradeisia

  Aubrey was thrilled to see Jinkins’ diminutive figure, his little kinkajou on his shoulder. Although a little younger looking, his eyes were ringed with anxiety. She ran to hug him. The kinkajou greeted her enthusiastically.

  “Ignatius!” Lady Shrewsbury exclaimed.

  He half-heartedly grinned, “The one and only.”

  “We thought you were dead, my good fellow,” Henry explained, rushing up. The kinkajou hissed at him.

  “Did you indeed? Why ever would you think that? I left you a note.”

  Babel spoke, “We told them you were dead so that they would believe it. Now that we have found you, it confirms that we are truly in Paradeisia and not your virtual reality-in-a-dream version. So this is real. This is not the dream, and there is no lucid dreamer this time.”

  Jinkins nodded slowly. “You are correct. This is not the dream. You have found the real Paradeisia, heaven help you. What is it you plan to do, now that you’re here?”

  “The world will be destroyed. We are starting a new one here with perfect people.”

  “Perfect people will populate this perfect new world?” Jinkins chuckled. “You really do amuse me.”

  “Why?”

  “You believe it’s possible.”

  “This is a perfect place. We have brought the best of humanity with us. Humankind will enter an era of prosperity and happiness. Now tell me, how did you come to find Paradeisia?”

  “The circumstances surrounding Paradeisia’s introduction to me were strangely coincidental, in hindsight. A man who said he had made an extraordinary discovery on an island in the Caribbean came to me and told me that I might procure the island from its government owner. He wanted a payment of his own, and in exchange he would keep his discovery a secret so I could obtain the island without its government owners realizing its true value. I was intrigued and agreed. With my aunt’s money, I bought Paradeisia for a pittance. He showed us how to scuba dive into the deepest part of the lake where the portal is. Then we never saw him again. Of course at that time all we knew is that you could scuba dive there and were suddenly refreshed and reinvigorated, with any injury or ailment instantly cured. When we took a small submarine down and traveled through the miles of underwater cave, we realized that we had stumbled upon something even more extraordinary. A new world, separated by unknown time and space from our own.

  “I amassed a powerful cohort of investors and built the gondola system in order to start building the visitor’s center and hotel here. The investors never came and knew little about what I was doing, including my aunt. They knew just enough that the money flowed freely. A paradise where years are lost, vigor is restored …. A veritable fountain of youth. It was too good to be true. So without knowing or understanding, we laid down our plans and erected our buildings. But then disturbing things began to occur. It became very apparent that this place was dangerous to us. We were imperfect visitors to a perfect world, and we were not welcome.

  “When my best scientist came to me talking about his plans to make perfect the human race, I was deeply concerned. He was losing his sanity, and he had spent more time down here than anyone else. He refused to listen to me, or even talk rationally. He began to execute his plan in secret, despite my objections. He wanted to release a polydna virus that would infect the entire world and make the human race new again. He made a lab in this hotel and convinced the others to join him. Only Doctor Kaufmann disagreed, and, yes, I know why you had a change of heart, Kaufmann. Your friends from Basel.”

  Doctor Kaufmann lowered his head.

  “It quickly became apparent there was only one thing I could do to stop them. We had to evacuate Paradeisia and leave them behind forever.

  “We recalled the last gondola and turned off the track down the portal, shutting everyone else who knew about it down here forever. To prevent exposure of the truth of this place, we built the virtual reality experience. And we purged any record we could find of the real Paradeisia.

  “It caused me to delay the opening of the island as we built the virtual reality, but it looked like it would be a success at first. Then people began to disappear—a fact that you were very astute to be concerned about, Nimitz. And finally, when the investors came, Andrews appeared in the virtual reality Paradeisia, something that should have been impossible. At first I thought my subconscious mind had allowed him into the dream. When we awoke in the gondola, having supposedly returned, and Andrews was actually there, I was truly terrified. Andrews had found a way back up the portal, an impossible feat considering the miles of underwater cave one must swim to in order to reach it. Even more frightening was the fact that he had entered the dream and exerted some control over it. Although he appeared to have lost his mind, I suspected he was not what he appeared to be.

  “When I saw the ships of the United States Navy surrounding the island, I realized that our secret was no longer secret. I rushed down to the portal to find Andrews and learn the truth. And the truth I found is that Paradeisia is more dangerous than I ever could have imagined.”

  “There is nothing dangerous about this place!” Babel said. “You are dangerous! People who are frightened of progress, scared of humanity’s evolution toward greatness! They are the ones who are dangerous. The whole world could have been cured if not for you! We could have saved them all! But now it’s too late.”

  “Could we? Could we cure the world?” Jinkins cried. “When there is no more suffering or sadness or pain and perfect people are living perfect lives with no work and no worries and everything they want at their fingertips, what do you think will happen to them? Will they become better people? Will they work harder, be kinder, love more? No, sir, no! We’ve seen it already.” He shook his head and spit the word out, “Mankind. We become more selfish, more demanding, addicted to more pleasure, and consumed with more hate. The more others receive, the more we want. The more we receive, the more we must have. We’ve seen it in every prosperous empire in history. We see it in little children as they fight and scream for their petty wants. We see i
t in elders who plunder generations yet to come. We see it in governments, conglomerates, magnates, parents, societies of all kinds. We see it all around us in bigotry, hatred, jealousy, treachery, bribery, corruption, revenge, violence, lust, abuse, greed, gluttony, slander, murder, theft, lies, addiction,, and ruthless cruelty. All this from the same people you say are capable of perfection! The same people you say we can cure!

  “Are people born perfect and then corrupted as the troubles of the world overwhelm them? Or is it possible that we are born with every thought and inclination of our hearts bent on evil? We love ourselves above all. Humanity’s problem is not that we aren’t healthy enough or attractive enough or smart enough or wealthy enough. No, Mr. Babel. Humanity’s problem is right here,” Jinkins tapped his chest, “where it counts. We don’t need a perfect world,” he said. “We need perfect hearts!”

  “You’re a fool—” Babel started to shout until he stopped short, his face contorting and his body tense. He looked down at his chest where a red-stained blade was protruding from inside his ribcage. The blade withdrew back into his flesh and he dropped to his knees. Abael stood behind him, his face illuminated by a malignant grin. “I have imagined doing that for so long, but this is the first time I’ve had the strength.” He eyed the dripping knife with his beady black eyes before licking along its flat surface. He then handed the weapon to the waiting soldier and kicked Babel down to the ground where he lay sputtering, gulping for breath, his blood flowing freely onto the carpet. He gasped, “Abael!”

  “I’m sorry, but we both know I should have been Vice President, President, actually, if not for my condition. So Paradeisia has delivered me the justice that I have long awaited and deserved.

  “As for you, Jinkins. I am afraid you delivered your speech to the wrong audience.

  “Imagine, if you will, your bones fusing together bit by bit since childhood. You cannot run like other children. You cannot play. You are hated by everyone, but especially by your parents who wonder what they did to deserve this curse of a child. Stare outside your window and long for a better day. Study, study, study more because you think that is your only avenue to a brighter tomorrow. You sit out the high school dance in your wheelchair, not merely because you are unable to stand, let alone dance, but because your very presence is loathed.” He seethed, “Your life is an hourglass, every grain of sand a moment rushing toward the inevitable, painful end. No hope, no future, and no happiness.