by B. C. CHASE
“Nobody’s that bad.”
Chiang-gong said, “God will destroy this horrible world, He make new good world, wipe every tear from eyes, no more ignorant people like you waste his time!”
“But—”
“No, when you perfect, make universe, know everything, then you tell God what right. But now your sin shut your mouth. You just stupid man. If God open your eyes, then you see. In your evil you see nothing!”
Gary looked at him like he was crazy. He certainly sounded crazy. Gary didn’t even bother to argue with him. You couldn’t help that kind of ignorance. He was too tired to try, anyway. He quietly dozed off to sleep to the sound of obnoxious hymns on the stereo.
Keelung, Taiwan
The fifteen-floor buildings on either side of the roads in Keelung were commanded by tall signs with large Chinese script. Traffic of buses, vans, cars and mostly motorbikes was beginning to clog the morning streets. The clustered buildings were made of concrete, painted all colors from pink to yellow to baby blue, or tiled with dark ceramics.
They were now traveling east, the sun rising before them. Stacy awoke with the honking of the horns and blinked out her window with interest. Finally, they were slowed to a stop in the traffic. Gary stared out the driver's window at a morning market that was filling with shoppers. On either side, people bustled to the stands which sold all kinds of trinkets, food, and apparel. Beyond, down the street, Gary could see the cranes of the port shadowing the water. Gary nervously tapped his leg while he waited. The traffic jam was wasting valuable time. “Preseption Logic is just down by the port, right? Do you think we should walk?” Gary asked Chiang-gong.
“Gary!” Stacy suddenly breathed, staring out the windshield.
Walking down the street, accompanied by a troupe of military vehicles, were uniformed soldiers. They approached each vehicle and appeared to be examining each passenger.
“This is the road to Preseption Logic?” Gary asked their driver.
“Yes, they know you come!” Chiang-gong exclaimed. “This not safe.”
CDC
Karen Harigold staggered out of the office building on busy E Street SW. NASA was across the street. A group of tourists were walking the wide sidewalk on that side.
The President’s cabinet, Guy Giordano, and General Fox had all been in the room with her when the President died. They tried to call the vice president who couldn’t be reached—he wasn’t responding to calls. And where was the Secret Service? The President had shown up all by himself.
One thing was certain, nobody wanted to stay in that room with the corpse.
If the virus that had been morphing him into a reptile was contagious, they could all be carriers. They had agreed to go to their homes in isolation until the vice president could be reached and a plan formed.
Her mind was in a daze and found that she wanted to talk with her husband, a desire she had rarely experienced in the last few years. She pulled out her cell.
As she looked at all the people who surrounded her on the street, she realized that had been an irresponsible idea.
Suddenly a black van bounced up onto the sidewalk directly in front of her, people leaping out of the way to avoid being hit. The back doors popped open and three men with strange, gray faces and wearing Washington D.C. police uniforms jumped out. One of them held up a device which emitted loud, stuttering pops. The other two raced around directly toward her. They gripped her firmly by the arms, lifting her off the ground.
“What in the world are you doing!” she exclaimed. Her body tensed up as a tremendous electric current suddenly surged through her. She couldn’t move. The soldiers were generating the shock with their bodies, like moray eels.
The tourists had raised their cells to snap photos of the commotion, but she heard exclamations of disappointment that their electronics were not functioning.
Her captors said nothing, simply rushing her to the back of the van and lifting her inside. The doors slammed shut and lights came on, revealing a metallic environment with a gurney and thin cabinets lining one wall. She was violently slammed on her back, onto the gurney. Straps were quickly fastened to restrain her. The van started to move, wheels squealing.
Facility AII-B
On the ground beyond the armed chimp, Wesley could see Kelle struggling against the gang. One of the apes squeezed her neck, its face right next to hers, seeming to smile as it watched her vain struggling. Then it ran its tongue from her neck up her face with lustful fervor.
The other apes had seized her arms and legs and were jostling for position. They were clawing at her pants. A feeling of sick, disgusted rage filled him as he glared at the maniacal frenzy.
These were not normal apes. These were devils.
The chimpanzee blocking his path fired a shot, but missed. That gave him just enough to time to throw the javelin. The ape dropped to the ground. Wesley loaded his revolver and, running up, fired into its forehead to be certain it was dead. Then he jumped over it and ran over to Kelle, shooting many of the apes in quick succession. The rest of them leaped at him angrily, but he was in a rage and clobbered them with the gun. “Kelle, your gun! It's over there!” he shouted as they pulled him to the ground, their clawed fingers gripping him with excruciating strength.
He could see her dashing over to retrieve her weapon from the dead ape, but then he felt a rock hit him in the head and saw stars.
Wesley opened his eyes to a throbbing pain in his head. In fact, he hurt all over. But Kelle's face was above him, crying, “Wesley! Wesley!” When she realized he was conscious, she said, “Are you okay?”
“I think so,” he replied, sitting up. “How long was I out?”
“Just a couple of minutes.”
He sat up and looked around. They were still in the same place, ape corpses piled around them. She immediately clung to him, bringing her legs up to her body. She was shaking uncontrollable.
He wrapped her in his arms. It took about a minute for her shaking to subside.
“You okay?” he asked.
“This place is evil,” she said vehemently, through her teeth.
Wesley nodded. Chimp screams and hoots echoed in the distant, dark night. He said, “I think we need to get out of here. How are we going to get into the building?”
She shot him a look, “Why wouldja ask me?”
He smiled with a shrug, “You got us through the fence.”
“An electric fence is one thing. A concrete fortress is another, smart guy,” she grinned.
Suddenly, Wesley was very aware once again of how beautiful she was. She was streaked with dirt, but this almost enhanced her attractiveness, somehow. “Let's go, Kelle,” he said, standing and holding out a hand.
Suddenly, an orangutan leaped out in front of them. Kelle raised her gun to shoot it, but Wesley stopped her. “No, she’s a friend!”
“A friend?” Kelle said incredulously, stepping toward the ape who now cowered before her.
“Stop, she helped me! She gave me a spear. Her name’s Reebok.”
“Hmm,” Kelle said, lowering her weapon. The ape moved in and raised one palm up in the air at Wesley.
“I think she wants you to give her a high five,” Kelle said, one eyebrow raised.
Wesley complied and the ape formed her hand into a fist. When nothing happened, it pumped the fist impatiently.
“I think she wants you to bump fists,” Kelle said.
“Okay,” Wesley said, knocking the orangutan’s knuckles. It waved its fingers and made an explosion noise with its mouth as it pulled away. Then it turned and slowly loped off into the woods and out of sight.
“I didn’t know you were the monkey whisperer,” Kelle joked.
Wesley smiled, “Neither did I.”
The pair stood in the ditch before a giant wall of the building. He looked up. There was not even a small window; just smooth concrete to the very top, fifty feet away. Wesley said, “So I guess we shouldn't just walk over to the main entrance?”
“Probably not,” she said, holding her arms. The temperature had taken a nosedive. Thunder rolled in the distance.
Wesley said, “Let’s walk around the perimeter.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
Suddenly, voices echoed from the distance and flashlights broke the darkness. Kelle breathed, “I guess we’d better run around the perimeter.”
They ran away from the lights, along the wall, eventually reaching the corner of the building. As they came around the corner, they saw lights approaching from that side too, so they struck out into the woods. The ground had a steep slope that soon gave way to a craggy, 200-foot drop. As they approached the edge of the precipice, they stopped and looked back breathlessly. Flashlights were fast approaching, shining in all directions.
A strong wind suddenly swept over them as Wesley gingerly began to lower himself down the rock face, struggling to find footing. Kelle quickly followed. He heard the sound of heavy rain approaching from behind.
“They're coming this way,” Kelle said.
He felt the cold sting of drops hit him as he worked down the rocks. Holding onto a root, he extended his foot to find the next place he could wedge it, but instead felt empty space. He swung his leg around in a wide circle and found that there was nothing.
He pulled out as far from the stone as he dared so he could look down and realized that he was on an overhang above ten feet of open space with a concrete ledge at the bottom. The rain was drenching him and the rock face, made everything slippery as he looked back up at Kelle and saw lights illuminating the shower above her.
As carefully as he could, he tried to drop onto the concrete ledge, but his feet slipped and he slid off, his hands just catching the edge. He heard Kelle's desperate cry above him, “Wesley!”
“I'm all right!” he called. Unable to find footing, he dangled like wet laundry on a line. He squinted up into the cutting rain at Kelle, who was staring down at him in fear. Bolts of jagged lightning erupted across the sky, silhouetting her sporty form. “I can't hold on long!” A trickle of water flowing from the ledge was fast growing into an icy stream, coursing down his body. Kelle bit her lip, her eyes darting around for some way down. She tried to extend her foot and slipped, tumbling straight down toward Wesley.
Paradeisia
On the opposite side of the FlyRail hub from the Operations Center was a wing with several floors of offices. On the top floor corner was a large conference room overlooking the southern side of the island. Aubrey stood by the glass, surveying the view. The beaches and gigantic wave pool with a pirate ship belonging to High Seas Cove could be seen on the coast. In front of that was the Out of Africa area where she spotted some giraffes taking long strides towards a pond. One of them was backing up to defecate, like a cat in a litter box. “What is that giraffe—” she started to ask, but was interrupted.
“Aubrey, take a seat over here,” came Henry's voice from the head of the table.
She saw that he motioned to a seat behind himself where it was apparent her view would be blocked by the table and chairs full of people. She begrudgingly sat down, Maggie to her left. At the other end of the table was Lady Shrewsbury. Besides them, the only other person Aubrey recognized was Mr. Jinkins.
Henry said, “All right, I think I've met all of you now. I'm sure you've all met here plenty of times previously, so there's no need for introductions.”
An Asian man with small round spectacles interrupted, “Actually ... we haven't.”
“You haven't met in this room?”
“No. We've never all had a meeting together, at least, not since I came.”
Henry's jaw tightened. “And how long have you been here, Mr. Chu?”
“I was with IntraWorld since a year ago.”
Henry shot his gaze toward Jinkins, “Jinkins, is this true?”
“Well,” Jinkins began, “we've never really needed to meet. I liaised between all the parties.”
“So you're saying that since the company began, you haven't held a meeting with your senior leadership even once?”
Jinkins fumbled with a reply.
Henry interrupted, “Well, going forward, this will be a weekly occurrence. Thursdays, ten o’clock, right here. And it’s not going to be an opportunity for everyone to show off or present themselves in the most favorable light. You’re going to tell me the problems that you have and we are going to figure out how to fix them. Now, what I want to know from all of you is, are we ready to open?”
Jinkins nodded first, followed by Sai Chu, the Chief Financial Officer. Then Anthony Bridges and everyone else began to motion in agreement.
Henry peered around the room suspiciously, “So you all agree we are ready to open?”
They sounded their approval.
“Are all of you aware of the second disappearance of Andrews?”
Chu spoke again, “Mr. Potter, we've been discussing it, among ourselves. Quite frankly, it's been discussed to death.”
“So now, even though he's vanished once again and seems to have been taken down the portal, you're still not concerned?”
“Yes, we're concerned.”
“So then?”
“There's something we're more concerned about. You haven't been by my office yet, so you're not aware.”
“Aware of what?”
“Our cash balance is such that, if we do not open as Jinkins has scheduled, we will never open. Without the revenue, IntraWorld Capital Corporation is totally insolvent. We have exhausted every source of credit. The most recent infusion that Lady Shrewsbury brought went to keep our creditors at bay.” He sighed, continuing. “Mr. Potter, I am as concerned as anyone about Andrews’s disappearance. But to me, that pales in comparison with the prospect of 75,000 people losing their livelihood.”
Henry took a deep breath, “75,000 people might be losing their livelihood anyway! It's a brave new world.” Then he cast a look of displeasure at Lady Shrewsbury, “And what do you have to say for yourself? You didn't tell me any of this when I signed onto this mess.”
She responded, “Mr. Chu approached me while you were in China. I trust, however,” she smiled coyly, “that a little bump in the road like this will not be enough to frighten away a great corporate thinker such as yourself. After all, you are the only turnaround expert in the room.”
After only a brief pause, Henry said, “All flattery aside, I do believe that this is the greatest challenge I have ever faced. That and that alone would be the only thing that could possibly induce me stay.” He pointedly looked at Lady Shrewsbury.
She gave a forced chuckle, “If that be true, I think it's time you hear the other bad tidings. Ms. Franklin?” Lady Shrewsbury nodded to a suited woman to her left.
Lakeisha Franklin, chief counsel, said, “Yes, well ... the bad tidings, as Lady Shrewsbury says, are that we received a letter several weeks ago from a group of our developers. Not all of them, but most signed it. They said if we did not open within four weeks, they would sue.”
Henry nodded knowingly, “Well that certainly isn't a surprise. And how many weeks ago, exactly, was that?”
“Four weeks ago. Our currently scheduled opening date would be four weeks to the day, actually.”
“Ah,” Henry tapped his hands on the table. “Now it's beginning to make sense.” For a moment he stared out the window as if absentmindedly distracted. Then he stood up, “All right. Here is the plan. We will open as scheduled. But we must find Andrews, dead or alive. He has a radio beacon chip inside him. It shouldn't be that difficult.”
A huge man in a black pinstriped suit spoke up, “Sir, my security teams have already swept every square inch of the island. He isn't here. Either that or the beacon has been destroyed.”
Henry said, “Yes, but the trajectory showed he was heading for the portal. Have you checked down there?”
“I do not believe so, sir. How could he possibly have ended up there? He'd have had to take the gondola, and he would have needed assistance for that.”
>
“Do you mind if I call you Marco, Mr. Gonzales?”
“No, sir.”
“Marco, let's assume he didn't go by himself because from what I understand he was sealed into that observation room. Let's assume he was kidnapped by whoever took him the first time. Let's assume that whoever took him is highly intelligent and technologically advanced—perhaps even more than we are. Let's assume that they have their own way down there, that they were there before you guys showed up and that they took a special interest in Andrews because he was one of the first to appear. If we assume all these things, I'd say it's safe to guess that they don't need our gondola in order to get down. Wouldn't you say that's a possibility, Marco?”
Gonzales nodded.
“Right, because at this point I'm working on the theory that this island has a long history with which we are totally unfamiliar. It has been passed between many different government and government agency's hands. It seems likely to me that at some point Paradeisia was found to be useful, whether for research or some other purpose, who knows, and that, although the island was sold to IntraWorld Capital, the chasm below was never vacated. If this is true, who is down there and what their purpose is we do not know, but we do know that they are destroying our business. And that bloody well means war. Anyone have a brilliant reason why that doesn’t make sense?”
No one made any move to contradict Henry.
“So who here isn't sitting on his bollocks? Who volunteers to take a team down there and get some answers?”
The room was totally silent.
Henry looked at them all with disbelief, “You can't be serious. What about you, Marco? You're Vice President of Health and Security. Isn't there someone on your team who can do it?”
Gonzales looked nervously from side to side, “You’re making it sound like a military operation. My teams are nothing more than mall security. I think what you want are some ex spec-ops people.”
