by Sean Platt
“Are they just workers? Maintenance people?”
“Seem to be. You’ll notice them changing trash bags, picking up public areas, setting up, stripping down, painting, fixing, cleaning, running treatments behind the aestheticians. But they’re like ninjas. Silent.”
“Why are their faces covered?”
“I asked someone once. Apparently, the hoods they wear are an enhanced reality display.”
“Like a MyLife recorder?” Ephraim gestured at his eye as if Sophie might not understand, but of course she’d have one of her own.
“Sort of, except a MyLife doesn’t block you from seeing other things — playbacks, paint lines, whatever. I heard the ghosts wear full hoods that let them see exactly enough to do their jobs … and no more.”
“What sorts of things would someone not want them to see?”
“Us, maybe,” Sophie said. “We have to sign nondisclosures, so you can bet the workers do. I know I want my privacy while I’m here, so that’s probably part of it. But maybe they don’t want non-essential staff to know too much about their treatments, either. You know how secretive Eden is. I couldn’t have told you how the spas handle minor treatments before coming here the first time, and I still can’t tell you about what happens with the big ones.” Sophie cocked her head, a sly smile crawling onto her face. “Well. Not yet, anyway.”
“Not yet? Does that mean you’re considering …?” Ephraim trailed off, unsure if the question was intrusive. If Sophie was talking about the Tomorrow Gene, it meant Ephraim was a little closer to learning what Fiona had sent him here to find out — but it was discretion, not fear of revealing his secret-agent status, that stilled his tongue.
“Let’s just say that if you see me in a week or two, I might look a little different.”
Sophie was playing, so Ephraim decided to play back, just a little.
“How different?” he asked. Because that was one of the things nobody knew for sure, but about which there were endless rumors.
Sophie gave him an enigmatic look.
“Wait and see,” she said.
CHAPTER 3
LUCKY SCREAM
After he tried his drink (a minty concoction that he immediately poured into a plant — he should have ordered a Coke), Ephraim forced himself to circulate. Doing so was a curious blend of difficult and easy. He was naturally an introvert but became an extrovert when pushed. So, he did the pushing, deciding that introversion helped no one.
Eden guest groups, Fiona had told him, were supposedly like summer camp for adults. You only had roommates if you wanted them, but the dwellings were arranged in semi-social clusters. Guests were supposed to have fun together, not by themselves — and “having fun with others” was nearly a requirement for Ephraim’s false identity, seeing as he was supposed to be a wealthy executive with a need for better mental health.
So, Ephraim circulated. He shook hands. He practiced his cover story. He was now a man with his real name but a different history.
In addition to Sophie — who said she was vacationing on Eden to “spend all the money I can, and my bookkeeper can go fuck herself” — there were plenty of celebrities. There were a few people whose names Ephraim knew but whose faces he didn’t, like Fulsom CEO Andrew Dubois. And there were plenty of faces he knew with names he had to dig for, like successful actors who often played bit parts. They wouldn’t be as flush as someone like Sophie Norris — but then again, you had to be rich to visit Eden. Not necessarily famous.
And even the rich had a hierarchy. The merely wealthy would book rooms on Eden and enjoy a week in luxury, but the ridiculously wealthy would rent mansions on the beach and stay. Maybe forever. More than one famous person had become a recluse on Eden, poking their heads out every year or two, always with their personal clocks turned way back.
The fountain of youth is on Eden, people said. And based on what Ephraim had just seen, it almost had to be true.
Ephraim met Pierra Page — a stunning Latino actress with breasts so deliciously on display that even Ephraim, who was usually more discreet, couldn’t keep his eyes front and center.
He met Richard Dean — an accomplished actor of both stage and screen whose refined British accent made Ephraim feel like a bumbler even at his most eloquent.
He met Titus Washington — a huge brick wall of a man with a Neanderthal’s jaw. He’d seen Washington in a few films, often made-up to look like a monster. In person, he was polite and soft-spoken. His build remained impressive even now that his hair and beard had gone white. (“But I won’t stay this old for long,” Washington joked in his canyons-deep voice, his enormous hand swallowing Ephraim’s.)
He met the boy band Leaving Las Vegas, whose five members did look as attached at the hip as the media suggested. Ephraim wanted to ask them what treatments they’d booked, seeing as they were barely out of their teens. Were they here for a base-level spa experience, like Ephraim’s false identity was? Or had they come for the top-secret Tomorrow Gene treatment, wanting to turn themselves into babies?
Finally, Ephraim met Altruance Brown, arguably the world’s best athlete. Out of everyone, Altruance struck Ephraim as the most grounded — shocking, since he was easily one of the richest. Altruance towered above even Titus Washington and had hands the size of dinner plates. His voice was a mellow bass in a smoky jazz club. He had soft brown eyes, a kind smile that emerged reluctantly, and none of the pomp he showed on the basketball court.
A waiter passed with tiny vials of liquid on his silver tray. They reminded Ephraim of the wax bottles he used to buy from the retro candy shop near his childhood home. He loved to bite off the tops and suck down the nectar.
“Already?” Altruance asked, watching the tray pass. “A little early in the trip to get that freaky, isn’t it?”
They’d settled into two of the lounge vestibules on the speeding tram after rotating the chairs and walls to make two single compartments into a double. Ephraim was kicked back with his feet up. Altruance was too big to do the same thing without blocking the aisle, so he was sitting up, his tight coils of coarse black hair inches from an overhead compartment.
Ephraim looked at the tray of vials. He turned his hands palms up and said, “What is it?”
“Lucky Scream. You ever done it?”
Ephraim shook his head. He’d heard the rumors, same as the whole world. But before now, he wasn’t sure the drug even existed.
“Maybe we try it later. If you get to feelin’ crazy. But, man, on the ride in? There’s people here ain’t never even been to Eden before.”
“I’ve never been here before,” Ephraim pointed out.
“Exactly. And you never done Lucky Scream, but you’re smart enough not to mix first with first for me to laugh at. You know about Scream?”
“Just rumors.”
“You know how it gets its name?”
Ephraim shrugged.
“If you’re lucky, it makes you scream.”
“And if you’re unlucky?”
“Depends on the person. Supposedly everyone reacts differently. I heard people say they go on trips. See funny shit.”
“Like old people falling down?”
“Like shadows that come alive. Like demons.”
“Oh. That kind of funny.” He thought of the “ghosts” he’d seen earlier with Sophie and wondered if they qualified as funny.
Here’s a machine that needs dusting, but there’s no need to see the famous model prancing naked beside it.
The ghost workers lived an enforced NDA — one that was experienced rather than signed. In its way, the idea was nightmarish. And Ephraim hadn’t even taken a hit.
“Depends on your mood, people say,” Altruance continued, his large hand covering his drink — more an eclipse than a taking. “If you’re happy, it can make you happier. But lots of people on this tram, they have never been to the island. They only know the version of Eden they see on commercials. Take Scream now, you’re asking for a freak-out.”
; Ephraim felt a chill. Was it emotional exhaustion as he tried to balance his cover story with the truth? Fear of discovery? Anticipation — being closer, perhaps, to unraveling the mystery of Jonathan’s disappearance than he’d ever been before? Or was it all this talk of ghosts and demons and visions?
Ephraim had suffered from breakdowns before, even if his fictional wife’s leaving hadn’t caused the one on his entry form. He felt suddenly fragile, like a newly sober alcoholic tempted by an abundance of drink.
“Have you done an Eden commercial?” Ephraim asked.
Their heads turned to a flat screen farther up in the cabin. It had been playing Eden’s famous ads nonstop. Maybe it was a loop and maybe it wasn’t. There was no way to tell. They’d been traveling for fifteen minutes and the thirty-second spots hadn’t repeated.
“Not yet. But I imagine they’ll ask me afterward.”
“After your treatment?”
Altruance nodded.
“If you don’t mind me asking …” He stopped. It was the same question he’d kept himself from asking Sophie.
“I don’t mind.” Altruance nodded. “Yeah, I’m going to get the Tomorrow Gene.”
“But you’re only … what? Thirty-five?”
“Thirty-seven. But man, that’s ancient in sports.”
“So you want to … what? Have them make you twenty again so you can do it all over? Win a bunch more NBA championships?”
Altruance laughed. “Man, I don’t know where to begin telling you how wrong you are.”
“I’m sorry. I know it’s personal.”
“Told you I don’t mind,” he said with a flick of his giant hand. “But hell, I started getting attention for playing ball when I was fifteen. You know what it’s like, to be called the next legend? My moms, my sister, my coach — hell, me myself — none of us wanted to ease up once agents and scouts started watching. It was nothin’ but practice, 24/7. Got worse when I started up with baseball. There’s the intense on-season schedules, and the postseason and all the off-season workouts. Not that I get much of an off-season. I was tired as hell by the time I started in the pros. You think I’d want to do it all over again?”
Ephraim looked at Altruance. The question was apparently rhetorical, but Altruance Brown owed everything he had to hard work and the intensity of his practice.
“I want the treatment to turn back my clock, yeah. If the Gene is everything people say it is, then you bet I want my body put right back to its twenties. But this time I want to grow up proper. No practices. No games. None of it. I just want to live my life. Be a man this time, not a fuckin’ legend.”
“You’re still Altruance Brown. You’ll get mobbed whether you look thirty-seven or twenty.”
“Maybe for a while, but people forget in time. And if they don’t? Hell. I’ve already thought about staying here.”
“Staying on Eden?”
“Sure. They got a whole resident island. I already asked for info. The place they keep full-timers is called the ‘Denizen.’ I think it might be that island—” he pointed out the window at something barely visible, “—right there.”
Ephraim looked, curious. If Jonathan was somewhere on Eden, the resident island would be a logical place. “Are they going to take us there on the tour?”
Altruance shook his head. “No tours of the Denizen. You can’t even go there until you’ve paid and signed a lease or mortgage. You can’t even look at homes before you buy them. It’s all pictures and virtual walk-throughs. Just try swimming to the Denizen from the Retreat or any of the other restricted islands. Security ain’t gonna let you past the first buoy.”
“Why would they care?”
“Because it’s residents only. Privacy is a huge fucking deal on the Denizen, with all the money that moves there. And the shit you hear. Man, I wouldn’t test Eden’s security. I get the feeling they mean business.”
Wearing an uncomfortable smile, Ephraim said, “What, are they going to kill me if I try to go somewhere I shouldn’t?”
Altruance didn’t laugh like he should have. Instead, he shrugged.
“We’re in international waters, bro. Out here, the Evermore Corporation makes all the rules.”
CHAPTER 4
WELCOME TO EDEN
Ephraim excused himself, checked the trip clock, and saw that the tram had five minutes before its arrival at their first stop on the Retreat island. That’s where he and most of the others would be getting off. There was a second stop, apparently, terminating on the Strand, where higher-paying guests would find more privacy.
He went into the bathroom, leaned toward the mirror, and adjusted his contacts. He used the facilities, washed his hands, then spent ten seconds panicking that he’d disturbed the counterfeit resin on his fingertips by washing. Once Ephraim determined to the best of his ability that the resin was in place (it was nearly impossible to see) and calmed himself, he started panicking about cameras in the bathroom — or perhaps a rudimentary AI parsing what it saw from behind the mirror.
What is the strange man doing, checking his eyes and fingerprints? Why is he sweating so much? And why do my sensors detect a rise in his pulse, a heightening of his blood pressure? Let’s look up his records. And yes, his real name is Ephraim Todd. But what’s this about the authorizing party? What’s this about the company he works for? Time to call security, who can do anything they want to the intruder. Because we’re in international waters, Bro.
Ephraim blinked into the mirror anyway, then ran his fingers through cool water spilling from the tap. He swiped the fingers across his forehead, took a moment, then wiped the water off with the back of his hands.
Nobody’s after you. Nobody has reason to suspect anything. Besides, this is a resort spa, not a top-secret hangar for nukes.
Barely pacified, Ephraim left the bathroom. He looked toward Altruance’s giant, protruding feet farther up, then decided he’d feel calmer without more Eden rumors getting tossed in his direction. He liked Altruance a lot, but the man was a whole layer deeper in Eden’s business than Ephraim planned to go.
The possible revelations (which might not be revelations at all) both alarmed and excited him. On the one hand, maybe Jonathan was on Eden — maybe he’d flown to the Denizen or another of the quiet islands and simply resolved to stay. But on the other hand, how the hell was Ephraim going to find out, if security was as on-the-ball as Altruance made it sound — lack of nuke facilities notwithstanding?
Ephraim strolled the length of the tram, trying not to think. He overheard Sophie Norris talking to a dark-haired, bubbly actress Ephraim recognized. Sophie was saying, again, how much money she planned to spend on Eden, how she was tired of her damn keepers telling her how to manage her own damn money, and how much she planned to abuse her freedom while on Eden. To show them. Because fuck them.
Ephraim wandered away from the crowd of wealth and celebrity, facing a screen installed at the far end of the tram.
Alma Couch was on-screen, the eternal paragon of graceful aging. Ephraim wouldn’t know Alma’s age without looking it up, but she’d been famous fifty years ago or more — enough to have been one of his aunt’s favorites. Today she must be eighty, at least. But Alma stood tall and proud, effortlessly elegant, and was rumored to have been one of Eden’s first clients for a procedure one generation prior to the Tomorrow Gene.
Alma looked good but still old, Ephraim thought. Supposedly, she'd had her skin rejuvenated but her insides regressed by decades. But who knew for sure; it was all hearsay. Alma Couch had returned from a highly publicized trip to Eden a hiker — something she’d previously not been. As a new hiker, she’d climbed Kilimanjaro. Then she’d started entering 5Ks, small triathlons, half-marathons, marathons, ultramarathons.
While I was on Eden, the Evermore Corporation made my body new again, Alma told the world.
And now, watching her image while on the way to Eden himself, Ephraim had to wonder how true that might be.
Onscreen, Alma’s backdrop were the
familiar panoramas that graced most of Eden’s well-known commercials; white sand beaches, the famous copper flame atop the Reception building, mansions in the public areas, the parade of happy clients lounging on massage tables, kicked back in pedicure chairs, reclining in mud baths, and wrapped in towels. A soundtrack of serenity filled the aural landscape, punctuated by crashing waves.
And Alma said, her voice like velvet, “Wouldn’t you like to have the one thing … that changes everything?”
“Mr. Todd?”
Ephraim spun around. The blond man, Nolon, had sneaked up behind him.
For a moment Ephraim felt caught for no legitimate reason, his attention split between the newcomer and the commercial he’d just darted from like a teenager caught watching porn. Wallace Connolly had come onscreen, and Ephraim felt himself desperately wanting to watch. Caught or not, Wallace was the man who’d captivated the world.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you,” Nolon said.
“I wasn’t startled.”
Nolon didn’t look convinced, but he was polite enough not to argue. “I’m just checking in with all our guests to make sure every need is attended to.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“My name is Nolon.”
“Ephraim Todd,” Ephraim said.
“Do you have everything you need?”
“Yes. I’m good.”
“Have you enjoyed meeting the other guests?”
“Yes. They’re very nice.”
“Did you meet Gus Harmon? I understand he’s a favorite of yours.”
Ephraim’s brow furrowed. He was a big Gus Harmon fan, true, and part of Ephraim was already itching to head back into the crowd to find him. But he was confused, too — not by Gus’s presence, but Nolon’s insight.
“How did you know I liked Gus Harmon?” he asked.
“You mentioned it,” Nolon replied, smiling.
“When?” To Ephraim’s recollection, he’d said nothing about Gus Harmon. And until this moment, he hadn’t met Nolon.
