Paradeisia: Origin of Paradise

by B. C. CHASE

  “And you think Antarctica could be the place?” Zhang eyed Doctor Ming-Zhen skeptically, “Zhou, this seems somewhat fanciful...”

  Doctor Ming-Zhen nodded, “I grant you, it's not a place famous for paleontology, but it has provided a wealth of fossils for those who have the resources to look. They have discovered ancient vegetation so fresh that petrification has not even begun. This vegetation was quick-frozen, just the same way that the frozen mammoths in the north were. They have also found plenty of dinosaur fossils, but only bones so far. So there is proof that dinosaurs lived in Antarctica before it froze.”

  “So, you really think there could be dinosaurs stopped dead in their tracks with their mouths full of food?”

  “Well, no. I'm not thinking of anything remotely so dramatic.” Doctor Ming-Zhen explained that, contrary to popular opinion, most of the frozen mammoths or mastodons had not been entombed in ice, but, rather, within the icy soil, with most of them standing upright, as if they had just been pressed down into the earth where they stood. He asked “Now how could that possibly have happened?”

  “Am I the paleontologist?”

  Doctor Ming-Zhen grinned enthusiastically, “Actually, the answer came from a seismologist”

  Unamused, Zhang asked, “And what was the answer?”

  United Nations Security Council

  Doctor Martin continued, “A neighbor of mine, originally from Russia, told me about something very strange that had happened. Her son was deployed in the navy to the North Sea. He had left his childhood dog at home in her care.

  “One day, the dog began to whimper and run back and forth, very agitated. She didn't know what the matter was, so she took it outdoors. That did not help. It continued in this fashion until she became convinced that it was ill, so she took it to a veterinarian. There was nothing physically wrong with the animal, but upon their return, it simply lay down on the floor and wouldn't move. It stayed like this for days, not eating, just lying and letting out an occasional whimper.

  “At the end of a week, she was contacted by the navy. There had been a horrific accident on her son's submarine. The vessel had sunk and the entire crew was lost.

  “She told me that the moment the accident happened is the moment the dog became agitated.

  “Effectually, the dog knew, without a doubt, that its best friend had died, and, by all appearances, furthermore knew the exact moment when the danger first struck.

  “As a biologist who has held senior academic posts most of my adult life, I was dumfounded by the refusal of my colleagues in the scientific community to take this seriously. What are we afraid of? Are the implications too terrifying for scrutiny?

  “Whatever the case, I proceeded with research. First, I looked into all the information I could on the subject, all the examples of animal intuition.

  “It turns out, they are everywhere, right before our eyes. You don't have to look at all. Someone simply must give you a tap on your shoulder.”

  The White House

  “Where is the President?” Karen asked, her hands on her hips.

  “He's in his private study, if you must know,” Abael replied, calm as always. She strode right past him, but he maneuvered his electric wheelchair around to block her. “I must ask you to stop.”

  “Get out of my way, you freak,” Karen said, stomping past. She opened the door off the oval office and walked down the corridor to the private study. She didn't bother to knock, but swung the door open and stomped in.

  What she saw stopped her dead.

  The President was sitting at his desk against the wall to the left. He was staring at a monitor displaying a group of uniformed officers with a Chinese flag in the background and the characters PLA in front. The President was obviously having a dialogue with them.

  Foreign policy wasn't her area of expertise, but she wasn't an idiot, either. The President was talking with the People's Liberation Army of China, a country with which military cooperation would have been unthinkable due to less than amicable relations of late due to friction in the South China Sea.

  She said, “Baraq?”

  The President, looking a bewildered, immediately switched off the monitor. “What is it, Karen?”

  “There's something... I need to show you something.” Eying him uneasily, she strode to a screen in the corner and turned it on to Fox News.

  On the monitor, the anchor was saying, “--Medical Center in Towson, Maryland, where a quarantine is underway. You can see the police have arrived and, we are told, also the Centers for Disease Control. On the scene now is Fox's Lisa Hamilton. Lisa, what's the situation in Towson?”

  “While officials here will not speak to anyone, we have received information from an anonymous source saying that the hospital is under quarantine due to a virus of some sort. The source stressed that the public should not be alarmed, but that a mysterious virus reminiscent of Swine Flu has turned up there and the hospital has been quarantined. And, while no one will speak to us here, it is quite clear that the hospital will not be accepting any new patients. Police have been cordoning off the area, and it is surrounded—”

  Karen muted the television station. “Mr. President, this is an illegal quarantine, but I ordered it. I ordered it because I gave Abael an executive order for you to sign that would have authorized it two days ago. Even though he said he'd send it back to me yesterday, I never got it.”

  The President looked apologetic, “I'm sorry, Karen. I've been a little….”

  “With all due respect Mr. President, what could possibly deserve your attention more than this?” she motioned to the screen.

  The President took a heavy breath and looked off to the side, appearing solemn. “Preparations.”

  “For what?” Karen asked almost breathlessly. She was suddenly not feeling nearly as important as she had before. In fact, although she would never admit it, she now felt a little unnerved. Especially when she felt Abael's presence behind her and turned to see him warning the President of the United States with a dark, icy gaze.

  The President raised his eyes and gazed directly at her, “You will know... When the time is right. You will all know.”

  Karen raised her hand to her hairline, gripped by a sudden headache. She lowered her hand and said, “If it's something more important than a national health crisis, don't you think you should have a meeting with your cabinet? Don't you think we should be prepared, too?”

  The President nodded slowly. “I have given that a lot of consideration. I certainly would not leave you in the dark unless it was absolutely necessary.”

  Although feeling less secure, Karen braced herself and demanded, “Why are you talking with the freaking People's Liberation Army? What is going on, Baraq?”

  Abael interrupted, holding up the signed executive order, “Here's the signed order. I'm so sorry I didn't have this brought over to you yesterday, Karen.”

  She eyed Abael distrustfully but snatched it from his rigid grip.

  The President said, “Thank you for coming over, Karen. Now, please, I was in a meeting...”

  After she had left, the President turned to Abael, “You know, a man who has only five bucks to his name spends them differently than a man who thinks he has a full bank account. Don't the people have a right to know?”

  “You know as well as I do that if they wished to be illuminated, they could be. The truth has been self-evident for all of history, but modern man has decided to turn a blind eye. They choose to be ignorant for the simple reason that they don't want to know.”

  Paradeisia Airport

  Aubrey immediately spotted the source of the voice: a short man, overweight, wearing a beige, short-sleeved safari shirt with huge pockets. On his head was a pith helmet, and he had a giant belt, giant shorts, and giant boots. His face was plump to the extent that he had no jawline, and it was cleanly shaved except for a broad, gray mustache. His eager, smiling eyes peered out from under huge bushy eyebrows.

  The man strode over to Lady
Shrewsbury and, removing his hat to reveal a bald head with a crop of white around the crown, gave her a bear hug, much to her consternation. “I've been begging you to come for how long now! And at long last you're here!”

  Lady Shrewsbury brushed her pantsuit, regaining her dignity, and said, “Very well, Ignatius. But we haven't come on holiday, you know. We want to see what you've done with the place. But first, you must meet Mr. Potter.”

  “But yes, yes indeed!” the man exclaimed, eying all the suited men at once.

  Henry stuck out his hand, “I am Henry—”

  But before he could finish, the man scurried to him and shook his hand very vigorously, “Mr. Harry Potter himself!”

  “Henry Potter, Henry,” Henry corrected, being jostled by the energetic handclasp.

  “It's truly a pleasure to meet you, my good man! And an honor, too, I daresay, what with your reputation! I hope you have plenty of time over the next week as I've planned a delightful turn around every nook, every cranny, I say, of the island.”

  Lady Shrewsbury, with a grunt and a slyly raised brow, said, “Mr. Potter, as you've gathered by now, this is my nephew, Fitzgerald Ignatius Jinkins.”

  Jinkins, who was still shaking away at Henry's hand, turned his face up to him with a childish grin, “The one-and-only, the one-and-only, sir!”

  Henry pulled his hand away with some effort and said, “Yes, well, I was going to say that unfortunately I will be leaving tomorrow for important business in China, so if you could curtail the tour...”

  “Curtail the tour?” Jinkins said as if it was the most dreadful and inexplicable thing he had ever heard. “Oh, but Mr. Potter, this is the most fantastical place in the world—another world entirely, in fact, and it would be—” he interrupted himself, saying with frustration, “Well I couldn't possibly curtail the tour!” His face went pink.

  Henry looked up and took an impatient breath, “My visit to China is urgent.”

  Jinkins looked from person to person, blinking in consternation, until he finally clasped his hands together and smiled, “Well, we'll just take the tour up where we left off, upon your return!” He then proceeded to go around the group and make the acquaintance of every person, including Aubrey, who immediately appreciated his grandfatherly demeanor. Then he stood in front of them, “Now all of you follow me. Since your business is so very urgent, Mr., Potter, the tour begins soon—” he giggled, plopped his helmet on, “and by 'soon' I mean now!”

  He led them toward a long row of what appeared to be dozens of escalators. As they were all riding up the long length of one of them to the next level, Henry asked, “Tell me about this airport. How much did it cost?”

  Jinkins explained, “Aha, well moving people quickly to the fun was one of our primary concerns. We are prepared for passenger traffic of about 69.3 million per annum—and we have allowed for easy expansion."

  “How much have you spent?” Henry persisted.

  “Oh, it's all in the balance sheets,” he chuckled. “All in the balance sheets!” He flitted his hand, “And, you know, I don't really trouble myself with trifles like that—not when so much is at stake!”

  Henry shot Lady Shrewsbury an incredulous glance.

  She leaned forward and asked, “And what is at stake, Ignatius?”

  “That the world experience Paradeisia, of course, and have the time of their lives!”

  As they reached the top of the escalator and stepped off, Jinkins said, “What you are about to witness is perhaps one of the greatest technological miracles of Paradeisia: our transit system. We call it the FlyRail, a tourist-friendly term for Suspended Rail System. We think we could easily market the FlyRail to major cities around the world!” Above sliding glass doors was a yellow sign with the words "Anaconda Alley" and a picture of the snake. The doors whooshed open and a burst of warm tropical air greeted everyone as they went through. Outside was a long platform with a railing. Peeking over the edge, Aubrey saw a dizzying drop to the ground below. Across the gap was another platform (for exiting passengers, she assumed), and suspended horizontally over the chasm was a thick, steel, green-painted beam—the rail.

  Henry said, “So you said passenger traffic of 69 million? What is the capacity of the island?"

  Jinkins replied, "Well, we have 165,000 hotel rooms with more on the way. The retirement community, StarLine Haven, has an additional 5,000 suites. When we are operating at full capacity, Paradeisia will host about 95,000 workers—”

  “And that will be changing,” Henry said.

  Jinkins ignored him, “—or Visionaries, as I like to call them.” He chuckled at himself, then said, “Some of them will live on other islands or South America, but about fifty thousand will live here. For them there will be a compound, a city, really, on the south end of the island. So, the short answer to your question is that Paradeisia has the capacity, at the moment, to house and feed somewhere around 700,000 happy people at one time if every space was occupied—but of course it won't stop there, Disneyland Paradeisia will be opening in seventeen months. That will add an additional seven thousand rooms.”

  Henry interrupted, “And Disney agrees to this?”

  “Well, we haven't spoken with them yet, of course, because it's still a secret, but once we let the cat out of the bag...” he chuckled, “the House of Mouse will be begging our permission to erect one of their little castles here!”

  Henry said dimly, “I see. And have you projected an occupancy rate?”

  “Occupancy rate? I'd expect 100%, no question. Who wouldn't come to see the paradise of dreams we have here?”

  “Paradise or not, Mr. Jinkins, occupancy rate is important to establish. Orlando, for example, is lucky if they get eighty-one percent.”

  “Mr. Potter!” Jinkins exclaimed, clearly affronted. “I certainly hope you're not trying to compare Paradeisia to Orlando, because there simply is no equivalence. This is the most extraordinary place on earth and, given the chance, anyone staying in Orlando would immediately drop whatever silliness Mickey had them doing and jet straight over here!” He moved closer to Henry and furrowed his brows at him, “What they discovered when they were digging is beyond anyone's wildest dreams. I hope you understand, Mr. Potter: I am not toying with some pixy tomfoolery: I am offering people a chance to experience the impossible. So do not compare Paradeisia as if it's like anything else at all. It's not.”

  Jinkins then cleared his throat and continued, “Now all the projects on the table, including the Disneyland, will expand total capacity to some 180,000 guest rooms—aha. It's coming!” Jinkins smiled, staring down the tunnel in the foliage.

  Aubrey could tell that something was coming because a deep rumbling sound rose above the adventurous music that was playing over loudspeakers. Everyone looked down the suspended track in anticipation, and with a blast of air, the gondola arrived, slowing to a stop. It had a sleek nose, tinted glass windows, and a blown-up image of a toucan at the rear. The guardrail on the edge of the platform receded into the floor and, with the sound of escaping air, two round doors on the gondola lifted up.

  “Come in, all of you!” Jinkins exclaimed. “There's room for fifty, and by fifty I do mean forty-eight precisely!”

  The gondola was cool inside as they boarded. Except for the floor, the entire circumference was glass.

  Jinkins commented, “It's acrylic glass, in fact. So the passengers have a 360 degree view! It's so strong you'd be safe from an explosion in here, and by explosion,” he chuckled, “I do mean a nuclear blast!"

  As everyone found their seats, Jinkins' recorded persona interrupted the music, "Please stand clear of the doors. Smoking is prohibited except in designated areas on Paradeisia." There was an unnatural pause followed by, "Welcome to Anaconda Alley. Our next stop is the FlyRail Hub." The doors closed and the gondola began to move. It gained speed as it cleared the walls of the airport. As it emerged over the foliage, Aubrey held her breath. The gondola was much higher than she had realized. It was a spectacular view:
to the left were the tropical mountain peaks and to the right were the coastline and the port.

  The resonant voice of Jinkins began again as the gondola ascended a forested ridge, "When visiting paradise, you would expect to ride on the wings of angels. Welcome aboard the most advanced transit system in the world: Paradeisia's FlyRail. The route you are currently taking, Anaconda Alley, is eleven miles long, but at a top speed of ninety miles an hour, we'll reach our destination shortly. Extending a total of one hundred eighty-six miles for your convenience, Paradeisia's FlyRail is one of the most expansive public transportation systems in the world."

  Henry muttered, "Don't you mean most expensive..."

  China Academy of Sciences

  Doctor Ming-Zhen explained, “During severe earthquakes, entire cars and even buildings sometimes sink directly into the ground, as if they had been built on quicksand. Why? In areas where the water table is near the surface or where the soil is very porous, severe earthquakes can cause the water to rise and the soil to become so saturated that it becomes a soup, a process known as liquefaction. It was recognized that the mammoths must have been trapped by this process—thus they were standing upright with food in their mouths when they sunk into the soil and were frozen.”

  Doctor Ming-Zhen placed his hands together, toying with his thumbs, “There were thousands upon thousands of these mammoths; entire herds of them. They were so numerous and so fresh, it was said that wild wolves regularly fed on their carcasses in Siberia.”

  “And you expect to find herds of dinosaurs in Antarctica?”

  “Certainly not. I only need one.”

  “One?” Zhang questioned, surprised. “How would one help?”

  “Well, besides the obvious wealth of answers it would provide to the unending questions we still have about dinosaur physiology, a frozen dinosaur would provide DNA—fragments potentially complete enough to compare with other animals, such as mammals. DNA,” Doctor Ming-Zhen said, “would kill the evolutionary tree of life once and for all and show that our discovery of a deinocheirus feeding on Homo sapiens was perfectly plausible.”