The Forever Ones (The Iduna Project)

by DeLuca, Marjorie

  At the far side of the parking lot is a security checkpoint in front of a big grid work of tracks running up the sheer rock face. Small shuttle cars swoosh down bringing people to and from the summit and the whole place is bustling with security guards. Though I look the same as everyone else I panic. Gina and Lara think I know everyone here since I’m supposedly from Central Control. There’s only one thing for it. I’ll have to lose myself in the crowd. I feel a twinge of guilt leaving them after all we’ve been through but I’m beyond letting that affect me now. I figure if I can get to the top and into the core of the headquarters I can find the CEO. I need to know who he or she or maybe even it is. Knowing that will help us make plans to overthrow the entire organization and put a stop to their evil. Right now it’s all such a mystery we don’t even know what we’re dealing with. I tell myself that once I’ve done some snooping I’ll head straight back to meet the others and we’ll plan from there.

  “My head’s pounding,” says Gina, climbing out from the transporter. “I need water.” She stretches her arms and gulps in the fresh air.

  “I need to crash,” says Lara whose face is streaked with dried tears, her eyelids swollen fat.

  “I can look after the transporter if you want to grab a drink,” I say, spying a water stand next to the washroom. “You can freshen up in there before we go up.”

  I can’t believe how easily they hand the keys over and take off into the crowd. This kind of slackness could be a major weakness of the organization. Once they’re out of sight I lock up the transporter and head off in the opposite direction, losing myself in the crowd. There’s a small group just getting onto the next shuttle and I push in among them as the doors swish open. Inside it’s a blue interior with a gold Iduna logo right up front. I sit down on a small bench seat and follow the others as they strap themselves in. When the doors hiss shut I breathe a sigh of relief to have shaken off the other two girls.

  We’re forced backwards in our seats with the momentum of the shuttle as it surges forward in its climb to the top. Outside a whole panorama spreads before me with the blue expanse of ocean on one side and the road we just travelled on the other. Beyond that clouds of smoke and bursts of flame mark the line of battle. Far past that is the smoky outline of the mountains where the fighting rages on and the people of Realtown are hiding. But as we get closer to the top something catches my eye. Something in the far, far distance I’ve never seen before. Small black specks in the sky that seem to be hovering above the battle action. I’ve heard of flying machines. Lynette told me about how she and her ex flew to Vegas in a passenger plane and they even served little plastic boxes filled with chicken stew, rice, little bread rolls and a wrapped square of chocolate brownie. But I’ve never seen one and certainly the Iduna security forces don’t seem to have any. Maybe the Crime Lords have a secret weapon.

  I’m just contemplating that scary thought when the shuttle lurches to a stop and everyone’s up on their feet ready to exit and let the waiting line of people in. I struggle out between the doors and stand blinking in the bright sunlight, amazed at what I see. High white marble walls tower all around a vast courtyard that spreads as far as the eye can see. Colorful mosaic tiles form pictures among the cream marble slabs. Lush greenery and bright pink flowers surround vast pools of clear water from which ornamental fountains shoot sparkling water into the air. It’s all so beautiful I can barely speak. After years spent in the artificial surroundings of the Iduna compound I’m breathless in the face of such glorious natural beauty.

  Guards in their scarlet and black uniforms mingle with other people dressed in black, their Iduna logos shining from the sleeves of their jackets. I wonder who these people are and where they came from. Are they from Realtown or somewhere outside the mountains? There’s also a tall watch tower with a telescope pointed in the direction of battle to check the progress of the fighting.

  I remember the communicator in my pocket and take a quick look to see if there’s any reception up here. But I have to be careful in case someone here can detect the signal from it. The blinking red light is still visible but it looks like they’ve left the Shoshu and are back in the area of the Sanctuary. They must be going ahead with their plan to empty out the feeder pod. I feel sure they’ll get through the security checkpoint without a problem because the guards are either dead or trying to find me at the bottom of the cliff.

  There’s one building even more beautiful than the rest if that’s even possible and I find myself drawn towards it. It towers higher than all the others and has a wall of tall, gleaming windows. The entire frontage is reflected in a pool of mirror-still water. A cluster of pearly rocks surrounds a familiar golden statue that stoops down towards the glassy surface holding her basket of golden apples as if she’s just about to wash them – Iduna, the image I looked at every day of my life in the compound sits prettily in front of the building that represents her legacy.

  This must be Central Control and somewhere inside there is the CEO. I have to get in somehow but just as I reach the edge of the pool its shimmering surface begins to ripple and there’s a massive explosion that sounds closer than any of the others. Suddenly an alarm begins to screech and a voice comes over the loudspeaker. A familiar voice ordering All security forces to the shuttles. Emergency defense mode activated. It’s the CEO. A river of uniformed guards surges towards the shuttle dock but I manage to duck into a doorway before I’m knocked down in the stampede. Pressing my body against a glass door I try to shrink into the corner so nobody sees me and tries to drag me along with them. Because I’m not leaving here. Not until I find the owner of that voice – the CEO of Iduna Corp.

  30

  I wait until the entire courtyard is empty and the last shuttle has left. I’m just about to leave my hiding place when I realize I’m still wearing the security uniform. Luckily I kept the black dealer tee shirt underneath so I rip off the red and black shirt and throw it behind a garbage can just in case I need it later.

  Trying to look as businesslike as possible I walk towards the Central Control building until I’m standing in front of the giant doors. I’ve waited for this moment so long I find myself holding back, afraid to enter. What will I find inside? And will I regret even knowing the real secrets of this organization.?

  Finally I take a deep breath and approach the glass doors which slide open soundlessly. Inside it’s deathly silent. I’m in a vast entrance hall with glass on three sides of me and many balconies stacked up ahead. The sun beams onto the gold Iduna logo and shining out in the centre of it all is a massive statue of Iduna that towers at least three stories high, her hair curling in tendrils of frozen gold and her palms cupping a single golden apple. I hear talking and see a row of video screens running simultaneous movies. Moving closer I see they tell the story of Iduna Corp. The first shows happy young people lining up outside a spotless lab and explains how the donor parents program selects only the healthiest candidates and ensures that complete confidentiality is maintained though selected information is recorded for the mental well being of the resulting child. The next screen describes the application of the Iduna serum to the growing fetus and beside it is a live feed from the Iduna Compound. I feel suddenly dizzy when I see the familiar plastic décor of Tropikis and Beachside and the Rock Bar and the partying keeners travelling from one bar to another. It all looks so harmless. The other screens show the dealers and recruiters and finally the feeder pods. The voice calmly explains how the forevers are kept in pain-free comfort and fed drugs that let them live in a hallucinatory dream life.

  The voice is that same bland woman’s voice that narrates all the announcements and her final messages resonates on the last screen in vivid white letters on a black background: Immortality is the only true success. The voice repeats this over and over and I listen almost hypnotized.

  A noise from above snaps me back to reality and seems to come from the top balcony. I see a slight movement out of the corner of my eye as if someone’s watching me then
slipped back into hiding. There’s a steep moving staircase at the far side of the hall so I step on and climb gradually higher stepping from one floor to another until I’m at the top. There are no doors on this floor. Only an open expanse of white marble tiles. Windows at the far side reveal the blue expanse of ocean and the clouds of smoke rising up from where the fighting rages on. Maybe I’m too late and the CEO has gone into hiding. I fall back against the wall and try to catch my breath. It’s so strangely quiet and yet I feel like someone’s here.

  I decide my eyes must be playing tricks on me when part of the window seems to move and suddenly a huge glass cube appears in the centre of the room One side is open like a portal. My hand goes to my pocket to check for the laser and I stand there trying not to breathe, but out of the silence I hear a familiar voice say.

  “Come in Paige. I’ve been expecting you.”

  I enter a room made entirely of glass that looks out over the ocean. In the centre is a huge white swivel chair. My heart thuds so loudly I swear I can hear it throbbing. “Don’t be afraid, we’ve met many times before,” says the voice as the chair swivels round and I see Yul perched there, his long black hair stark against his snowy white shirt.

  “Why are you…” I can’t find the words.

  “The secret’s finally out, Paige. I’m the CEO,” he says with that smile I’ve seen so many times at the Beachside Club.

  Suddenly I lose my centre of gravity and feel the room spinning. “I thought you were captured…”

  “Oh - yeah – I guess I should thank you for going out of your way to rescue me but please take a seat. I have a lot to tell you,” he says, motioning me towards a transparent chair. He offers me a glass of water and I gulp it down greedily. I feel instantly better but I still can’t fathom what I’m seeing here.

  “Of course I’m not the original CEO,” he says, flipping back a lock of hair. “The first one was a genuine scientist. PhD, Nobel prizewinning intellectual and all that. He came up with the original concept, engineered the serum, built the compound and planned a strict, controlled launch to the outside world. That was over seventy years ago.”

  “But what happened…I mean how did you…?” I can’t take it in that this person I trusted and worried about is the engineer of all this misery.

  “I was curious like you, Paige, so they couldn’t keep me locked up in that miserable plastic paradise. I was one of the first to escape and when I got out into the big wide world what did I find? A society obsessed with youth. A population of rich people who wanted to live forever and hold onto their precious money. I mean who wants to die and leave it all to someone else after you sweated to earn it. It didn’t take me long to realize I had something they wanted more than anything in the world and I knew it would just be a matter of time before someone sold the secret. I also realized I was a target – people kill to stay young. You have no idea how they’ll go. I’ve seen it all” The colour seems to drain from his face at this point but he takes another deep breath and continues. “I started small, selling samples of forever serum to some of the wealthiest people around but it got to the point that I couldn’t take any more from my own body. So with the money I’d made I gathered a small army of hungry young people from Realtown and staged a few raids of the Iduna compound. At first we just stole bottles of serum and traded them for megabucks but soon I knew I’d have to take over the whole operation. About fifty years ago we staged a takeover and I installed my own guards in the compound, set up a new transportation system and introduced the feeder system. Soon I was wealthy beyond my wildest dreams and protected by all of those very grateful and wealthy clients who make sure I keep them supplied with as much forever serum as they want.”

  I sat there wondering how I’d never known about a takeover – how we’d all been so stupid. “And what about the original CEO?” I ask. “And all the other scientists?”

  “Many of them agreed to work for us when they saw how much better off they’d be. As for the CEO and his assistants – we disposed of them. They’d done enough damage.”

  “Like what?” I say.

  “Let’s just say I had a very personal reason to hate them,” he says, leaning his head back and closing his eyes. “One that I think you’ll really understand.”

  “I don’t think there’s anything we have in common,” I say. “You tricked us – Chale and the others. You pretended to be our friend.”

  A slow smile crosses his face. “But I really liked you all,” he says. “Those times at the Beachside Club were some of the best in my life. It gets kind of lonely up here so I thought why not use the compound as my own personal party place. I mean you can’t say it was a terrible existence down there. Your only responsibility was to have fun and anyway I didn’t say there’s something we have in common. Rather it’s someone.”

  I feel a terrible flutter of panic when I wonder if he’s going to announce he’s really my long lost brother or something.

  “You see the original CEO really screwed up some of his earlier experiments. He didn’t have much of a conscience when it came to messing up people’s lives so there were a whole bunch of people in the early years of the experiment who became prisoners of their own bodies. I think it’s time you met someone very important to both of us - or perhaps this won’t be a meeting but more of a reunion.”

  He takes a small remote and flicks a switch. Suddenly a glass door slides open and beyond it, encased in her own germ-free bubble is my lost friend Lynette.

  31

  “I’d like you to meet my donor mother,” says Yul blowing a kiss towards her. “But then I believe you both already know each other well.”

  I’m oblivious to Yul now I’ve seen Lynette. She smiles and presses her palms onto mine, the glass a reminder of the barrier between us. She stands there golden and untouchable.

  “I’ve missed you,” I say as noticing the glimmer of tears on her perfect cheeks. “Why did you leave?”

  “Yul took me away,” she says, her voice wavering. “He wanted me with him.”

  “I thought you were dead,” I say.

  She turns away from me. “I’m sorry I didn’t get to say goodbye. Everything happened in a rush.”

  “I need to know, Lynette,” I say, my voice catching in my throat. “Were those stories you told me real or were you just taking orders from Yul? Because they kept me going through everything.”

  “Paige – believe me,” she says in her familiar voice, “I didn’t know about Yul until much later. All the stories were real. I told you them because you had so many questions about the outside world.”

  Yul comes up behind me. “I didn’t find out about her connection to you until you went into the Psych Centre. Then our brain scans showed how she’d molded your entire thinking about the world outside. I realized I’d have to take her away before you made a move to get out.”

  My head starts to swirl again. How many people have been watching me – engineering my actions. I shake my head. “No - I wanted to leave. I did it for my own reasons.”

  Yul smiles that big, lazy smile I’ve seen on many party nights at the Beachside. “Sure,” he says, “but you just needed a little help to get you going.”

  “But why? Why would you want me to leave?”

  He throws his head back and laughs. “For a smart person, Paige, you sure have a hard time figuring things out. Look around you.”

  My head aches with confusion. “I don’t understand.”

  “Sure you do,” he says. “I wanted you here. I’ve wanted that from the first moment I saw you. He holds his arm out and with one sweeping gesture, takes in the incredible view outside. “Imagine – the two of us together – we’d be a powerhouse. Together for all time in this paradise, with all the money we ever wanted. It’s perfect. Besides, you already know my Mom and she likes you.”

  I know then that he’s crazy. Completely off his head. And I suddenly feel laughter bubbling inside me like a shaken soda and I can’t stop myself as it erupts and I dou
ble up, gasping and giggling. “Are you completely crazy?” I splutter. “As if I’d want to be stuck here with you forever.”

  His voice is hard and cold. “You’re the crazy one. You think you’re going to overthrow my organization? No chance.”

  “We’ve already started,” I say, looking straight into his burning eyes. “This all has to end.”

  “Now I know you’re entirely nuts,” he says, backing away. “So you and your band of little brothers set a few feeders free. Then what? Just what do you plan to do next? Lead them out of the city and over the mountains? You don’t even know what’s put there. First there’s the Crime Lords. They’ll chop you up and eat you for supper. And beyond them who knows what the hell’s going on. The only safe place for you is here with me. Why do you think I’m fighting to keep us in this time warp? In here it’s still 2014 – the most perfect time ever. Out there somewhere it’s 2084 and you have no idea what that looks like.”

  I look over at Lynette whose eyes are red and swollen with crying. “He’s right, Paige. I left that world seventy years ago and I hated it then. Now I don’t know what’s happened to it. At least it’s familiar here.”

  Suddenly everything I’ve been fighting for seems hazy and unclear. I back away towards the door. “But the feeder pods – it’s brutal – I mean draining their entire blood supply…”

  Yul edges closer, his head tilted to one side and his voice slow and soft as if he’s explaining something complicated to a child. “You’ll get used to the idea, Paige. Besides I do it so humanely – they’re drugged so heavily they live a life of blissful hallucination. Better I control them than someone with absolutely no conscience.”