Prisoners of Paradise

by Brandon Lars Erikson

  The bearded man’s thoughts raced as he felt the surge of data-rich energy, “We just needed someone to find the damn bomb! It was never supposed to go off and kill all those people! Damn it, Jacob! What have you done? Why did you turn your back on us and give yourself over to the very people you wished to defeat?!”

  The man in black’s eyes became consumed with an angry red hatred. His circuits tried to work their way around the data that was flowing into his body.

  The bearded man felt his pleasurable rush coming to a sudden halt as he felt a sharp pain in his chest. He opened his eyes and looked down to see a red stain on his shirt growing larger and larger by the second.

  The man in black snarled in the bearded man’s ear as he ripped the cables out his face. Angrily, he pulled the fist-blade from his bearded opponent’s chest in an artery severing motion. The defeated dissident fell into the puddle of blood on the floor and said, “There are more of us who have dedicated our lives to stopping your masters!”

  “They know about Wallace,” The man in black hissed into the bearded man’s ear. “Who are the members of the sleeper cell? They have used you for a decoy, tell me who they are and I’ll reactivate you.”

  “Don’t bother…we all made a suicide pact…and you can’t kill us all…you can’t kill us all…”

  The man in black used his blade to slash the computer system on the desk. However, he realized it was too late, and the damage had already been done. The digital information he had recovered from the cyborg back at the stadium, had been stolen, and was now on its way to someone else in the terrorist organization.

  The bearded cyborg slumped to the floor, his words slowing like a computer being powered down, “Like ripples in a pond caused by one small stone…the effect just keeps getting bigger and bigger. There are others…there are many of us…who are willing to die…if that is…what it takes…to…free…Ailana…we must…wake up…the Prisoners of Paradise…”

  The man in black sighed as he realized that he would now have to track down and kill someone else in order to stop them from getting the stolen digital information. He realized that he would have to kill someone else, who could use that data to stop the secret plan, and the powerful people, he was supposed to protect. He then smiled as he realized how much money he could make off those powerful people, who would soon be demanding that he fix this mistake he had just made.

  Location: The A1 Laser Highway…just outside of Polynea.

  Ailanian Standard Time: 0230 Hours.

  Kenny sat back and lit a Makani cigarette while Charlie drove as fast as he could without attracting any undue attention while they fled the crime scene. Charlie looked over at his small framed partner and smiled.

  “Ya know, Kenny,” Charlie said with pride in his voice. “In the few weeks I have known you…I grown to respect you a lot. At first, I thought you were just some skinny, selfish, foul mouthed punk with no ambition in life. But your quite altruistic, Kenny…you know how to be a team player. You know what’s good for the group and seem to be able to put your ego aside to do what is good for everyone involved. You’ve helped make this gang a lot of money with your talent for disarming alarms and cracking online accounts. You’ve done real good. We’ve made a great team, you and I.”

  “Thanks,” Kenny said as he sat back and relaxed. He was exhausted from the tense hours of cracking codes and uploading computer viruses into security systems. His mind still ached with the desire to keep an alarm from going off, so his fellow gang members could get away before a police officer would get an automatic request to drive by The Hydroplantation warehouse, where he would see several suspicious people loading up bags of chemicals, which would later be used to make Cutz, onto a truck.

  Charlie lowered the volume of his voice as he said, “But Kenny…you do seem distracted lately.”

  “What the hell, man?” Kenny said in a tone of voice that betrayed the fact that he was clearly stoned, “how come people, like you, don’t realize, that people of high intelligence, like myself…are simply lost in thought a lot. I’m thinking of our next heist, man. I’m always planning…scheming…I’m always on the job. At night, I even dream of hacking computer systems so we can do things like what we did tonight for our gang.”

  “Alright…fair enough,” Charlie said softly, “But are you still thinking about your wife and kid all locked up in that government building? I mean, the government’s new welfare system and attitude towards women in your wife’s position has gotten rather harsh over the last few years. Ya ever feel guilty for them being there? Don’t ya ever feel the need to do something about it?”

  “I’d hope you’d understand how hard it is to live with this pain,” Kenny said softly as he took a long drag from his joint.

  Charlie said, “I do, man.”

  “Ya do, eh?”

  The undercover agent part of Charlie’s brain began mentally mapping out how much of the truth and how much of a lie he was about to feed to Kenny. Charlie took a quick breath and said, “I got a wife and kid of my own…or at least I used to. She couldn’t put up with what I do for a living…she left for Earth took my son with her. Now, I just kinda get lost in the job…it’s how I get by…I guess you can call me a devoted workaholic. I’ve got a goal I want to accomplish, and I ain’t gonna rest until I’ve accomplished it.”

  “Well…I get by in my own way,” Kenny said as he took another drag and exhaled a long stream of the narcotic smoke.

  “How’s that?” Charlie asked as he took a sharp corner and sped into another laser highway lane.

  “I guess I’m lost in the plan I have to get my wife and kid back…” Kenny said as he realized he might have just said too much.

  “So you are doing something selfish after all,” Charlie felt himself swallowing the fear in his throat as he said, “And just what are you planning on doing?”

  “My job, Charlie,” Kenny said as his face got serious. “Ya know my first loyalty lies with helping the Pilikoa family…which has now become my family…but what if I told you I have another job planned that will help them out a little, but will help me out a lot more…I mean, there is nothing wrong with looking out for one’s self interests…is there?”

  “That depends if your actions get any of us hurt or arrested…what exactly are you planning on doing, Kenny?” Charlie said as he tried to hide his fear.

  Kenny swallowed his fear as he remembered what the white haired man had said to him, “I want you to steal something for me, Kenny.”

  Kenny gave Charlie a serious look as he said, “can you keep a secret?”

  Chapter 28

  Location: The Hana Paloi Federal Building

  Ailanian Standard Time: 0800 Hours.

  “My plan now has to be modified to compensate for the poor decisions of my enemies…it is hard to play against people who cheat,” Van Dien thought as he sat in the dark room and pondered the future while he looked at his monitor screen, “And so far, I haven’t decided who will get to live…when it’s all said and done.”

  Van Dien dialed his com and grinned as he waited patiently for someone to answer. He seemed sympathetic as he said, “I’m sorry to hear about your sister’s death…she was an innocent, caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  There was silence on the other end of his com, except for some deep breathing.

  “So how is Jack doing? Is he out of the hospital yet?” Van Dien said into the com, with a voice that sounded compassionate.

  Again, there was silence on the other end.

  Van Dien paused for a few seconds and then said, “I understand his wounds should heal quickly…but I can’t help but think how this could have been so much worse. You really should be careful when you send your untrained troops into battle.”

  Again there was silence that seemed to last forever. The room was empty, dark and silent. Van Dien’s lips began to curl into a sm
ile as he said. “I have something that you might want…I’m willing to bargain for it…we could talk…about a lot of things, I can still help you. For instance…I know there are many people, who would like to know why you are so…afraid…of Captain Ronald James Harris. I mean, come on…you act so nervous…it’s as if he pointed a gun to your head or something…”

  “Go to hell!” There was the sound of someone hanging up on the other end of the com.

  “That’s too bad,” Van Dien said as he put his com back into his suit coat pocket. “Go ahead, play hard to get…I don’t care.” He then reached over and pushed a button on a keyboard that caused the monitor to light up with the following words;

  –-Intercepted Message–-

  HELP! WE ARE FORMER MEMBERS OF THE EVIL! WE WANT TO TURN OURSELVES IN! WE DIDN’T SET OFF THE BOMB! SOMEONE ELSE DID! WE DIDN’T WANT IT TO DETONATE! WE SIMPLY WANTED IT TO BE FOUND BY ONE OF YOUR BOMBSQUADS! WE JUST WANTED TO SCARE PEOPLE! WE THOUGHT IF RUMORS OF TERRORISTS ON AILANA WERE VALIDATED, THAT WE COULD END THE TALKS WITH AURORA! PLEASE HELP US! SOMEONE IS TRYING TO KILL US! WE NEED YOUR HELP! SOMETHING HAS GONE TERRIBLY WRONG AND WE NEED YOUR HELP!

  Van Dien pushed another button, with one deft movement of his hand.

  –-Intercepted Message Deleted–—

  “Like I said,” Van Dien thought as a sinister smile crossed his lips. “I haven’t decided just yet who gets to live or die when it’s all said and done.”

  He exhaled noticeably as he reached into his pocket for his pack of cigarettes while he stood up and began walking. He placed a cigarette between his lips and suddenly began to feel a lot better after he lit it and took a long, soothing drag.

  He exhaled a cloud of smoke as he thought, “And speaking of those who get to live or die…we need to check up on a few people who were forced to accept the latter.”

  He pressed a button on the wall. A door slid open without making a sound. The light from the next room poured in and Van Dien could see the face of a worried woman as he stepped in from the dark.

  “My dear Cindy,” he said as he walked up to the gurney she was standing next to.

  “Good morning, sir,” she said with a timid voice, her lower lip appeared to be quivering.

  Van Dien took another long, pleasurable drag as he surveyed the scene in front of him. Four bodies were on the gurneys in the room. Three were human males and one was a human female. The bodies all appeared to have lacerations and gunshot wounds. Van Dien recognized Landra’s face right away despite the disfigurement she had suffered. The three, young men were unfamiliar to him.

  “Did you know any of these people, Cindy?” Van Dien asked as he exhaled a cloud of smoke.

  Cindy found herself involuntarily biting the inside of her cheek as she looked at the female’s body. Her mind suddenly felt as if someone was forcing her to watch a television set while someone was flipping through the channels.

  She remembered how a female voice had once said to her, “We all unwittingly helped them with their plan…those three guys didn’t realize that they were helping to build prisons for the white haired man’s plan…they were simply young guys who had just graduated from University…they had engineering degrees and expensive student loans to pay off…they took the first, good paying jobs they could get. They knew they were helping a security company build high tech locks…but they didn’t know what their intellect and labor was really being used for…none of us did…but this plan…that we are all apart of…is our chance to make things right!”

  Van Dien seemed fascinated in her facial expression as he said, “Cindy? Do you know them?”

  She felt her breathing becoming shallow as she remembered how she had heard someone yelling, “They came for them last night!”

  “Who?”

  “The men in black!”

  “Why? What is going on?”

  “We don’t know…all we know is that we have to hide until we can find someone we can trust! We know something that they don’t want us telling anyone about! We know too much!”

  “Cindy?” Van Dien said softly and took a drag. “Did you know these people by any chance?”

  Cindy closed her eyes and exhaled out the bad air before she said, “No, sir…I don’t know who they are. We’ve gotten so many dead people in here lately…I don’t know…”

  “Cindy?” Van Dien said as his mood became lighter, “would you like a cigarette? You look like you could use a break.”

  “Just tell him what he wants to hear! You can’t let him send us back there!”

  “Thank you, sir,” Cindy said with a bit of relief as she realized that everything would be alright. “I would love a chance to hurry up and give myself cancer.”

  “Don’t deny yourself the small pleasures in life, Cindy,” Van Dien said as he handed her his pack of cigarettes. “You should know better than anyone…that something has to kill you.”

  Location: Uluku Living Quarters…Downtown Polynea.

  Ailanian Standard Time: 1200 Hours.

  In the dream, Pete had saw himself surrounded by young people, who were smoking some really good drugs. They all looked educated, they all looked hip. Most of them were some of the most attractive people he had ever encountered. And they had good taste in wine.

  “The CEO’s of The Hydroplantations…now that’s who you would want to be right out of University…all ya gotta do is bribe some High Senators…and you’ll be rich since ya don’t pay taxes…or have to give a shit about your fellow man ever again…if Capitalism is the only moral way to make an honest dollar…I don’t think I’d ever want to be rich…and so I’ll be poor, cause I live on Ailana…but I’ve become a enslaved by a bank with these student loans…so I need to become enslaved by a corporation so I can pay them off…either way…life is unfair.”

  “You are so right,” Pete dreamed himself saying, “Hey, are you gonna eat that cheese?”

  “It seems that we have a few people on this planet who didn’t pay any taxes at all…they were the heads of banks and huge corporations…the people we work for…the people we slave for…those people who won’t pay us a living wage…those people that essentially steal our labor and force us to accept the meaningless lives we lead…”

  “I couldn’t agree with you more,” Pete dreamed himself saying. “My life is about as meaningless as it can get at this point. Hey man, don’t bogard that joint.”

  “We need a world with more equality…not the ‘equality’ that leads to things like Fascism and Communism…we need a new economic system…we’ve thought of one…but everyone will accuse us of being Immoral…or anti-objectivist thinkers…all we want is a world were people who work hard and want to contribute to their communities are rewarded with at least a living wage…”

  “…and good housing that the banks can’t take away from you when their bad investments fail…why is it that when bank presidents make bad decisions, their mistakes destroy our credit and raise our taxes when they go crying to the government for bail out money…all because some rich asshole decided to pick the wrong numbers at the craps table of the stock market casino…”

  Pete dreamed himself replying, “Ya got me, man…hey ya got a light? This joint went out.”

  “Rich people, who got rich because they were inventive, honest and worked hard, deserve to keep their money…the government shouldn’t tax it all away…but they need to pay us a living wage…they need to accept the fact that they should live in a smaller house…just so that all of us can have a good house to live in…they’re hovercar doesn’t need to be the most expensive one on the lot…since we all need good transportation to live our lives…they shouldn’t get to take all the meat from the carcass and all the best crops from the field…since we all need to eat.”

  “Rich people suck,” Pete dreamed himself saying, “Oooh, are those shrimp?”

  “We all need good food…healthy food�
��nutritious food…there are multi-billionaires out there who have made a shitload of money selling terrible products that should not be sold because of the health risks they poses. And yet these rich people can go to the government…and convince them to pass laws to stop some young entrepreneur, who has a better idea for a better, healthier, more economically sustainable and environmentally friendly product, from getting their better idea to market…”

  “This recession…this depression…has not affected the rich, their pocketbooks, their paychecks…or their bank accounts. The people they laid off, after they refused to give them good pay and decent benefits, are now living on welfare and suffering…their Ailanian dream has been stolen from them…”

  “Fuck these rich, pseudo-capitalist assholes, who pay people like Jalapo, to make the bogus claim that the government should just stay out of the affairs of these so called Capitalists, these Objectivists and these Conservatives who are destroying our lives, our environment… and our way of life! Their so called freedom to do their business without government interference or taxation is what is turning us all into slaves!”

  “Oh yeah! Screw em’ dude…what have they ever done for us? Ya gonna finish your drink? If not hand it over man, some of us are less fortunate in the buzz department.”

  “Jalapo and most of those news people at Mele Entertainment only exist because our corrupt government simply wants underachieving, beer drinking, overly-patriotic, Ailanian Moralists of the lowest intelligence to believe that regulating the free market is the quickest way to Marxist slavery…but not regulating it is the quickest way to create poverty which also creates slavery…”

  “The Prophet Ayn, was wrong…profit is not everything…”

  “Atlas does not need to shrug so that those who desire to live for their fellow man will get off his back…he needs to shrug so that he can be free of those who have corrupted Capitalism and government in order to make themselves rich by stealing from the common people…like parasites…like leaches…”