Paradise of Lead Trilogy

by Mackenzie Morris

  Blice is uneasy entering this room again after so long and to think . . . it's not his father's room anymore. It's his.

  The crowd of guards leaves and only the one agent stays. He goes to the desk and slides out a large black leather book and a small wooden box. "Here is your PDA and dossier. Everything you need to know is in that book. I have arranged for your inauguration to be at eight in the morning. I'll send in your secretary, Miss Aveline, to arrange your appearance details."

  "My what?"

  "Just let her do what she does best . . . making you look presentable. Being out in the wasteland hasn't helped your complexion or clothing choices."

  Blice looks him over, his black suit and slicked back hair of the same color. "And you are?"

  "Agent Monroe, head of your Secret Service." The agent claps his hands at Isidore and points to the door. "Leave us, computer."

  Blice glares at him. "No. Isidore stays with me."

  "But Mr. President-"

  "Isidore stays at my side no matter what."

  "Computers can't-"

  "He's my vice president."

  Isidore looks at Blice with surprise and fear showing on his face.

  He doesn't know if he can actually do this, but he's going to try. "I'm reinstating the position of vice president and Isidore Williams is my vice president. If he can't be, then I resign. However, I don't think you want the Unified State to be without a leader when we are on the verge of a war."

  The agent leans close and whispers in Blice's ear. "Sir, a lot has changed since you've been out in the wasteland. Inquisitor Clark of the space program has taken over as Master Director of the Inquisition in your place. There are rumors of dissenters even now who would rise against you. Having an android as your right hand man is a dangerous move and I have to advise you to get rid of him."

  "Get rid of him? You want me to get rid of the greatest man alive all because some asshole doesn't like him? Get out of my office and let Paradise know that I will be there for my inauguration in the morning. Go ahead and let them all know that Vice President Williams will be there as well and they are to treat him with respect and dignity."

  The agent sighs and bows before roughly pushing past Isidore and slamming the door.

  Blice sits behind the grand desk and holds his head in his hands as he thinks of all of the leaders who have sat here before him. It smells like his father's pipe smoke. As soon as he is sworn in, he will be the youngest president in Unified State history as well as when this was the United States of America. Twenty-eight. There's no doubt in Blice's mind that he isn't ready for this. Even his experience running the Inquisition couldn't have made him prepared for this. The entire country and the world will be looking to him for guidance, diplomacy, and peace. That last one . . . he can't guarantee it.

  Isidore walks around the room looking at the pictures of past presidents on the walls. "Am I really your vice president?"

  Blice reaches into his pocket and fetches a cigarette then looks through the drawers until he finds his father's silver engraved lighter. "Yes. Well, if you want to be."

  "I'll do it."

  He leans back in the chair and puts his feet up on the desk. "Thank you, Niko. I can't do this without you. How's your face? Looks like it's healing well."

  "I'm okay."

  Someone knocks on the door and slightly opens it. "Sir, I have your suit."

  "Come in, Aveline."

  The petite blonde woman in a blue pencil skirt and white blouse enters and winks at Blice. "Good to see you again, still in one piece."

  "That's questionable. Are you going to continue being my secretary?" Blice asks. "I don't think anyone else will be able to manage the tiny details like you do."

  "Of course." Aveline lays out Blice's suit and purple shirt the same color as his eyes then holds up another one. "And here is Isidore's."

  Isidore looks puzzled. "A suit? I've never worn a suit before."

  He's so cute when he's confused. "You have. You don't remember. Anyway, you have to look good and authoritative as a leader of this entire country. Your life is never going to be the same. You only answer to me now. All of Paradise and the Unified State will be looking to you as a leader. Since you love those green apples so much, I thought you'd like to have a pastel green dress shirt. How's that?"

  He smiles and looks it over.

  There's the smile Blice loves so much. "Thank you, Aveline."

  "Will there be anything else, sir?"

  Blice looks out the large windows at the streets he had really started to miss. "Actually, I'd kill for a beer."

  "Certainly. And you?" She turns to Isidore.

  "Just some water, please."

  After she leaves, Blice motions for Isidore to join him. He puts his arm around his back and they look out across all of Paradise and out to the wasteland beyond the lead walls. The expanse of the city stretch nearly to the horizon. "This is ours now, Niko. Once we are sworn in, we will be in control of it all and every other city like this across this great nation. Can you believe it?"

  "No. Does this always happen so fast?"

  "When the successor is chosen before the president's death, yes. There hasn't been an election since the first president of the Unified State when Paradise was just starting to be built. Think of it as a monarchy rather than a democracy or a republic. The power has been handed down through bloodlines. I knew long ago that I was probably going to take my father's place, but after that debacle two weeks ago, I thought for sure he would have changed that."

  "Why do you go by McSage and not Evans?" Isidore asks.

  "If you had a father like mine, you would make up a new name for yourself too. I first made it up when I was about thirteen. I was so fed up with my dad and I wanted to be someone else, someone not constantly made to be like him. So I started writing Blice McSage on my papers at school. It stuck. Now that's all I go by and the only name most people know me by."

  "What about me?"

  "Your name? Williams was the last name of the man you believed was your father and whose genetics you have in an altered form. As for your first name? You were a priest, right? So you know about Saint Isidore of Seville from before the war?"

  "I'm not Catholic, but yes, I know of him. Patron saint of computers. Oh. Oh I see. I never made that connection. Clever." Isidore looks troubled again. "So where are we going to live?"

  "We will live here, in the Presidential Suite, of course. You'll live with me like you have been. Don't worry. I will always take care of you." Blice turns back to his desk and absentmindedly searches through the deep drawers until he finds a folder underneath a stack of encyclopedias. He slips it out and opens it on his desk. An old photograph falls to the blue carpeted floor and he picks it up. The back reads The Evans Brothers June 17, 2275. Evans brothers? He turns it over and looks at the two tiny children playing with his father. Two? Blice was his father's only child. Right?

  Blice puts it down and flips through the manila folder as the truth dawns on him. "Dear God. Niko, read this."

  Isidore picks up the paper and scans over it. "Whoa. This is interesting."

  "What's this?" Blice flips to the back of the stack of papers and holds up a compact disk. He slams the folder shut and hides it under the desk when Aveline enters again with their drinks.

  "Here you are, sir." She turns to leave, but Blice stops her.

  "Aveline, I need you to go find someone for me."

  "Who is it?" She asks.

  "Byron Erikson. Bring him in here to me immediately. It's urgent."

  * * *

  Blice turns around as the door opens and Byron steps into the room.

  "So . . . do I call you President Traitor now?" Byron asks.

  Blice sighs. "I didn't call you here to fight. Niko, please go to our suite and give me and Byron some time together alone."

  "Sure. Anything you want me to work on?" Isidore asks.

  "No. Relax and get cleaned up. I'll meet you for dinner later."

&
nbsp; Isidore leaves and the room is motionless and silent as the two men look at each other. They've never been friends and Leena only served to form a deep rift that neither one of them has been able to traverse. Now might be the time to build a bridge.

  "Something wrong?" Byron asks as he sits across from Blice.

  "I found something in my father's desk that I wanted to watch with you here. I have a bad feeling about what might be on this disk and I think you need to know." Blice slides it into the CD drive on the computer and turns the screen so they can both see it.

  As soon as it plays, Blice bites his lip until it begins to bleed. He was right.

  His father and mother are arguing in their room, the camera on its side on the bed as if it got turned on accidentally.

  "I already have my perfect son. I don't need another. You're taking Byron with you until I have a use for him."

  Their mother's face is streaked with tears as she pushes a young Blice behind her legs and holds a toddler in her arms. "I won't let you split them up. Brothers need to be together."

  "They are both my sons and I will determine what needs to be done with them." Evans says. "I'm keeping Blice. Byron can die for all I care. I never wanted him. We'll need him to help Blice."

  "How? He's not a M.A.G.E."

  "In a few years, we'll come get him and make him into one. Then we will use his magic to provide Blice more stability with his power."

  "Why Blice? Why do I have to watch you siphon the life from our son to make life easier on the other?" Their mother asks.

  "Blice is perfect. He was born with his beautiful abilities. He's truly a blessing and I don't want him to be distracted from honing his powers by being around his failure of a little brother. Draining the power from Byron will nourish Blice's rare abilities and ensure that he will be a powerful leader after me. I guess it's a good thing you fought against me making you have an abortion. Pack your things and leave Paradise or I will have the Inquisition escort you out. Take that mistake with you as well. I never want to hear his name again."

  The screen goes black and Blice takes the disk out. He looks over at Byron whose arms are crossed and looking out the window. "Byron, I didn't know."

  "You knew. How could you not know? So you're my actual full brother."

  "I am, but I had no idea."

  Byron scoffs. "You grew up here and had everything handed to you."

  "It wasn't perfect and all happy like you think."

  "Do you know what I went through living out in the wasteland?" Byron asks, his voice resonating with emotions that can only come from a life of scars and struggle. "By the time I was eleven, I had seen six people die. I killed my first person when I was ten. I started drinking when I was eight. I had to provide for the children because our mother and whoever that man was I believed was my father didn't give a damn about them. I was forced to do whatever I could in exchange for food. I lost my innocence a long time ago."

  "I'm sorry, but there was nothing I could do for you. I didn't even know I had a brother. I was told that you were my half-brother and nothing more. If I had known . . ."

  "If you had known? What would you have done if you had known? Said 'Daddy dearest, please bring my brother to live with us in Paradise?' No. You had your fancy little life getting everything you could ever need or want. Why? Because you were born with those eyes of yours. Damn you and your dark matter."

  "It's a curse, you know?"

  Byron slams his fist on the desk. "Shut up. I don't want to hear it."

  "Really!" Blice grabs onto Byron's arm. His eyes begin to sting. "There haven't been dark matter M.A.G.E.s in nearly four decades. I'm the only one and neither one of our parents were M.A.G.E.s. I don't know why I was born like this. It's not my fault that our father did this to us. Don't blame me. I was five years old when we were split up. What did you expect me to do when I didn't even realize the gravity of it all?"

  Byron pulls away from Blice and picks up the photograph of them together. "This is us, isn't it?"

  "Yeah. It's us. Looks like we got along back then."

  He tosses it back down on the desk. "How old were we?"

  "I was about five and you were three." Blice slides his unopened beer to Byron. "Want a drink?"

  "No. I want to figure this out. So, they were slowly killing me to help you?"

  "From what I've read in this folder, during the time you spent in the laboratory with Inquisitor Allen, they would harness your energy and transfer it to me. I don't know how."

  "The pills." Bryon says.

  "What?"

  "Your dark matter pills, the black ones. They would fill tiny crystals with my blood and then they would inject them with radiation. I think they gave them to you."

  Really? "God. I'm getting really tired of this creepy science crap. Wait. So all of this time I've been ingesting your blood?"

  "Seems like. All of the dark matter pills have irradiated blood in them from other M.A.G.E.s. I never understood why until now."

  Well now Blice wants to vomit. How many M.A.G.E.s have been used and abused for him? Has it always been this way? "Byron, I don't know what I can say or do to make this up to you. I swear I didn't know any of this."

  "You never bothered to ask, did you? You never cared that you had a half-brother out in the wasteland, but now you find out we are actual brothers and you want to help?"

  "I didn't mean it like that. I . . . thought you were beyond help."

  "Thanks, Brother."

  "If there's anything you want, tell me and I will get it for you."

  Byron turns away from Blice. "I have only wanted one thing in my life and she's gone now."

  Leena. Blice knows he's talking about her. While he can't give her back to him, Blice can tell him everything. "I guess I should tell you about Leena."

  Byron looks furious again. "What about Leena?"

  Blice rubs his eyes as a headache builds and his mind becomes weary. "Leena was supposed to be the T.I.M.E. matron."

  "The what?"

  "She was selected based on breeding, genetics, and reproductive capabilities in order to be developed into the mother of future T.I.M.E.s. With androids, the Inquisition found a way to decrease the duration of the gestation period to be a third of that of a human fetus. They were about to begin experiments where they would create an android embryo then implant it into a human woman in order to avoid the complications."

  "Complications?"

  "There's a reason Isidore is the only successful android. Before him, there were forty-one others that didn't make it."

  "Forty-one? What happened with them?" Byron asks.

  "It's all in the Inquisition database. They finally got it right with Isidore."

  "Tell me what happened."

  "You really want to know? I'll say this. They died terrible deaths and from the footage I've watched, they basically killed themselves when the pain and torture got too bad. Sometimes they even ate each other. They were deformed and screamed in agony constantly. Some didn't even have eyes. It was terrible. I couldn't watch all of the footage. I got physically sick. Some of the androids looked okay then their skin fell off. It just fell off and there was blood everywhere."

  "Blice, are you crying?"

  Yes. "I can't even imagine Isidore having to go through something like that. I'm so thankful that he was a success. Though sometimes I wonder about him. Have you noticed how he's a bit odd?"

  "Odd? You're one to talk. And no. I think Isidore is fine. He's just going through a lot right now and he needs you."

  "I thought you didn't want me around him."

  "I don't, but I know that he adores you and he needs to be with the man who can keep him from falling apart. What about her ring? I know you have it."

  "I have it right here." Blice reaches into his pocket and places the tiny silver ring on the desk. "I keep it with me always."

  Byron picks it up and holds it to his lips. "Do you know what this thing does? We put it in the ground then a flower and s
ome grass began to grow. Then as soon as it did, it all disappeared."

  "It's not finished. It was a work in progress that was meant to bring life back to this wasteland. Even the areas outside of Styx that are still viable for grass and a few trees aren't able to sustain that life for very long. The ancient trees in the forests out to the west of here aren't going to last much longer. We needed Leena's magic for it. She was the most powerful healer we had come across. She was amazing." Blice finds himself on the verge of tears again, but he pushes them back. "I keep wondering if she chose to not heal herself because she didn't want to be used like I had planned. I was a monster and tried to force her to do things she didn't want to do. She hated me in the end, but I never stopped loving her. I was stuck and had to balance my responsibilities to the Inquisition with being a good husband for her. Looking back, I realize that I failed at both."

  26

  Damien and Seth watch the clouds growing above the mountain range on the other side of Paradise as they lie next to each other on the hot desert sand with the sun beating down on their skin. Damien wishes they could stay like this forever, without the pressures of the world around them. They could be friends again like they were before Styx and Damien could spend the rest of his life worshipping Seth and paying him back for everything. Seth's voice brings Damien's thoughts back to the present.

  "We need W.A.N.D. up and running, especially with attacks from Common Ground. You have the upgrades for Isidore now and with Blice as president, we can do whatever we want. We're invincible and untouchable. Nothing can stop us from completing it now."

  Except the one crucial part. "Without the T.I.M.E.s, we can't create the decoy planet."