Before Heaven

Chapter 7

VI

Three and a half weeks in.

Time sure flew. As Jenny said, there'd been a presentation to introduce Director Charles to the project. He'd flown in on the start of the third week. I'd only seen him, very briefly; he was accompanied by two of the Red Clover guards in full bodysuits. The Charles in Jenny's picture and the Charles I saw in person were certainly distinct people. From the glimpse I saw of him, Charles was a fairly glum fellow, with a receding hairline, hoary chestnut hair the same color as his daughter's and slowly being overwhelmed by the gray patches, sad little eyes that lacked any sort of glimmer, and a pretty run-of-the-mill gray dress shirt matched with dusty old jeans. I could tell those eyes held a weight that bound his heart.

More worrying, he was pale. Much whiter than he was in the picture.

Charles would be hands-off in managing the program, but he'd laid out most of the plans to begin with and everyone from Chayne to Ash answered to him. Chayne had been appointed to directly supervise pre-simulation. She was open for questions and concerns in a little office in the Nest. I hadn't spoken to her since initially registered, but she mostly seemed busy with her own affairs. The other applicants seemed to like her alright; she wasn't exactly Charlotte, who was possessed of a zest and an amazing amicability that made her well-liked to even people like Billy, but she was willing to listen to people's troubles and offer sincere advice. She was certainly more approachable than Ash, who was lewd, avaricious, and spiteful - in a good mood. Some of the applicants were incredibly averse to him, like he was carrying a nest of plague-bearing rats in the innards of the chewed-up trench coat he always wore. It wasn't just contempt or distrust, like we showed towards Harlow - who was generally just condescending and obnoxious, espousing the virtues of Red Clover's apparent mission and never shutting the hell up about them - but a single sharp glance from Ash was enough to send a few of the applicants into outright panic attacks. I didn't know what it was with Ash, but he'd done something to a few of them. Something he was proud of. Ash in general was despised by almost every applicant and even the other Red Clover employees seemed wary of him. He was sort of like a tiger shark on legs; sharp teeth, a vicious disposition, and savage little eyes I could see rolling up into his skull as he mauled someone. He seemed tired and impatient with the circumstance. We all were, at this point. Another thing I hadn't been anticipating was that I'd begun to talk with Arno and Ken a bit more. They and Daria always took the exact same table at the cafeteria, Daria always yapping and yapping, probably talking to herself most of time time, jingling her earrings and speaking of things I imagined were hopelessly vain and vapid. Arno usually just nodded his head like some broken bobblehead to whatever she said. Often, his eyes were on me and Alice; we'd begun sitting two tables down from them every time we frequented the cafeteria and that was probably what drew Arno's interest. One day, Arno and Ken just strolled up to us and tried to attempt their conversation again. It'd been on behest of Ken, apparently; Mom and Dad were apparently a thing in Japan. It had gone surprisingly swimmingly, despite the fact Arno said about four words per sentence and stuttered on each. I'd gotten to know a little about him, or at least what he'd said; apparently, he'd been born in Kenya and moved out of the country after his mother had been murdered. He was raised a Muslim and was still a fervent practitioner of the faith. He had some weird issues I chalked up to some form of delusion or psychosis; he'd claimed to have traveled half the world but refused to specify any countries excepting Pakistan, Iran, and Turkey. He'd apparently killed someone in Armenia and somehow got the good luck of getting into the program. He seemed heavily unsure of himself by all accounts, as if he didn't believe he was saying. Prying in a bit further, he'd told the interviewers almost exactly what he'd told me, straight to the wonky details and indeterminate history. Arno was strange. But at the very least, his thick, intimidating stature hid perhaps a gentle soul. At the very least, he was shy. Ken was even worse; he seemed a harsh glare away from breaking into little bits and pieces and always huddled to Arno. Arno sometimes didn't even pay attention to him, but I could still feel a sense of protection emanating from him. I don't know how they'd managed to get so close. I never saw Ken and Arno separate. I honest-to-God didn't know how Ken would have even made it out on his own. He had the dexterity of a noodle and the strength of a damaged napkin. He'd apparently been raised in a pretty squalid area in Japan – Nishinari-ku in Osaka, specifically the slums of Kamagasaki – where he'd been arrested for more than a few counts of robbery, trespassing, and riots (which had increased tenfold in the wake of the Phantom), the latter which had earned him a five-year jail stay in which he, in delicate terms, had become his cellmate's b***h. His cellmate had been one Yagato Matabei, a beefy, fat thug with a shaved scalp, weedy brown eyes, a beard like the ass of a rat, and a layer of fat and sagging man-breasts he'd been oh-so-keen on showing off in the prison, had been incarcerated for killing someone in a inhumanly depraved way with a screwdriver and some scalpels before eating the goddamned corpse and mailing his victim's liver to local cops in a greasy brown bag. He'd been caught quick, but his appetites weren't sated and Ken had been the unfortunate target. Arno apparently reminded Ken of Yagato, and due to some twisted, sick complex Ken had developed, Ken refused to leave Arno's side.

The relationship carried about a thousand disturbing connotations I didn't even want to think about. Arno had only been too happy to let me know the details – even some of the faculty seemed alarmed.

Regardless, things had slowed down to a crawl. We were twenty-five days in and since the Director had finally arrived, it was time for Paradise to start being prepared. The ordeal of what was being done with Paradise was a hush-hush sort of deal even though we all knew what was going to happen in Paradise itself; for another eight weeks, everyone would live within the simulated environment and interact under Red Clover's surveillance. We'd all be walking out with three-hundred million, rich as could be. I'd considered Alice's words; yeah, obviously my parents would try and take most of that money. But goddamn, I wouldn't let them. I didn't know how I'd do it and I'd given it some thought, but I'd keep it from them. I don't know what I'd do with three-hundred million. But I figured more than half of that at least would go to where it needed to go; towards medical research like those of the Associations to help fund further efforts to finding a cure to the Phantom, and towards helping those who'd already been affected by the Phantom in some way. One thing that pissed me off about Mom and Dad is that they refused to give jack-s**t unless it was for publicity. They were selfish as could be.

I'd been getting fairly impatient with the droll circumstance. Jenny had stopped coming to the pool after I talked with her, sadly, although I figure I could understand it. I always came with Alice and Maxine followed us a few times. We had a few more talks. I'd made a few more friends than I was anticipating. But I was still considering Jenny's plans of escape. I hadn't talked to her in a few days, now; she'd probably taken that chance to talk to Charles at some point. That had been egging on me for a while, and one day, I simply decided to skip the pool and visit Jenny in her own room at the evening of the twenty-fifth day. It was right after supper. I'd just had a little salami sandwich – something I'd let Ken finish for me when I got full, much to his apparent delight – and I'd told Alice I'd see them later. The halls were bizarrely quiet as I walked down them and towards Jenny's room. No faculty was active. No security guards. Not even Harlow, prancing and sneaking about the Nest like some shitty Scooby-Doo villain as he was keen to do. Jenny's door was closed when I finally reached her room, and all of a sudden, a foreboding sense of tense dread coiled around my heart. Somehow, I had the inert sense something was wrong. Just... wrong. I took a deep breath and gave the door a brief rap. I could hear Jenny sluggishly roll off what I presumed was her bed after four seconds of silence and take her sweet-ass time approaching the door. I backed up a bit as the door peeked open and her eye peeked through the door.

It was bloodshot. Weak, baggy, and tired, as though she were an insomniac. It looked like she'd been crying.

"Uh..." I begun, not sure of what to say as Jenny's sunken-in eye glared at me from the dark. "...Could I come in, Jenny? I've been wanting to talk to you."

Jenny didn't say anything. After staring at me like I was vermin for a while, she eventually creaked open the door and walked back over to her bed, plopping down on it with an air of tiredness. She'd actually bothered to get into her violet nightclothes, and she was wearing a sweater. Maybe she'd been cold. I approached her, very quietly shut the door behind me and made as little noise as possible whilst doing so, and walked deeper into the room, feeling like I was intruding just by taking a few steps in. Jenny still hadn't said anything, and as my eyes darted over to the shadows that danced on her desk, I got a pretty good reason as to why.

The frame was shattered. The picture – Charles in particular – had been torn to pieces.

"...I assume the conversation with your dad didn't go well," I said, stating the painfully obvious and feeling like a complete moron for doing so.

"Yeah," Jenny said, her voice hushed and a little tetchy. "I didn't know what the f**k I expected to gain by talking to him."

I pulled up a seat and looked over at Jenny with a measure of pity as she stared at her own legs, contemplating something. "What'd he say, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Confronted him on this f*****g thing..." Jenny said. "I just... No. He said no. I..."

Jenny begun her point-of-view.

A day earlier

I'd been in the waiting room on the upper level of the Nest. White-ass s**t, like a dentist's office, actually, black, rusty old chairs against the walls and Chayne waiting beside me. Charles was sorting a few documents in his office, which was apparently supposed to be off-limits to every applicant. f**k them. I'm the Director's daughter. Tara's too. But nobody knew that, did they? Wasn't it f*****g obvious?

Wasn't it?

"I'm sorry about this wait," Chayne said suddenly, breaking the vacuum of silence that had swallowed up all noise and atmosphere for the past twenty minutes. "Your father's a very busy man."

"I f*****g know," I said to her, irritated. "I know what this is all f*****g like. Mom's barely even around, you know."

Chayne sighed and leaned down, putting an unwelcome hand on my shoulder. "Listen. Your father regrets this whole ordeal. He really does. I'm sure he'll come to see reason."

I wanted to hear that from his lips. Not hers.

I could remember when the news came. I'd been taken up to a lab in upper Arizona, an Association-managed facility, where they'd taken a few samples out of my blood after apparently finding some bullshit abnormalities in my previous records. Analyzing my blood and cells, they made a shocking discovery; I was f*****g immune to the Phantom. They didn't know how it was. They didn't know why. Neither did I. But this had suddenly become a boon to everything and everyone. But the Association made the stupid-ass decision of covering everything up because of the incoming P.A.R.A.D.I.S.E program, which had been announced two years back and was three months away from commencing. Red Clover had already gotten a trove of applicants they were sorting through. But Dad was directing the program, and the Association had told him that if I'd been used in the project, it would have all been for the greater good. They'd never seen anything like it before. Of course Dad was saddled with a giant f*****g responsibility. If me – a natural immune – was used in the simulation, they could gloss all manners of knowledge they wouldn't glean otherwise from using normal, non-immune humans. But Dad had already lost a child, and that was what had almost destroyed him before.

I think the fact that my brother died was what motivated him to sign me up to the project. He didn't want anyone else to know loss by the Phantom's hand. The loss of a son, a daughter, a parent, a wife, a loved one, a dear friend, a pet, anyone; it was a grief too unbearable for him to take. The Association had told him it was for the greater good, that these would be the first steps to finding a cure and saving the world. Dad believed them. I could still remember being driven to the airport in Phoenix after the news had been disclosed to me that I was going to be taking part in the project, a week before it all happened. I'd initially fought against it. Bitched, argued, moaned, all like the f*****g temperamental teenager I was. Dad reasoned it wouldn't take long and I'd be fine. I argued back. Tara just sort of stared at me and Dad fire off at each other in an argument that really never should have taken place in a tearful silence, as if she still didn't believe I was immune. I remember meeting up with Chayne Summers at the airport, who had cheerily introduced herself as a longtime friend of my Dad's. She'd explained she'd be taking me to the island the program was located on and Dad would meet me soon. I didn't trust her. For a few minutes, even, I hated her. I could see remember when she took my hand and led me away from my parents. Mom and Dad just looked at her leave with me, deeper into the airport, with silent, brooding expressions. They didn't wave goodbye or anything. Mom just gave me a kiss on the forehead and told me she'd see me soon, while Dad just sort of looked at me like a bug on the wall. He was thinking about a lot of things. He was thinking about Jason. The responsibility the Association had heaved onto his shoulders. The fact his own daughter was now suddenly the key to unlock the cure to this curse that had befouled the world for years, now. I was a spot of hope in a hopeless world.

But the only thing I saw, in that moment, was someone who'd sold me out to an ethically-ambiguous project and didn't give a s**t about me. The plane ride – next to Chayne, the whole ride through, and not a word shared between us – was long as balls. The longest trip of my life. Both because the actual island was thousands of miles away and because I was suffocated in thought.

It had boiled down to this. I looked up at Chayne and didn't respond, simply brushing her hand off of my shoulder and squinting at her in chagrin. She gave me an understanding smile that all too easily could have been completely faked, conjured to make her look more empathetic, before Dad opened the door to his office and stepped out.

He just looked grim. He hadn't shaven, recently, and what was usually a layer of stubble had grown to a fairly frizzy beard that looks very off-place on him. He didn't look happy to see me. I imagine he'd been dreading the moment he inevitably confronted me again. I told myself I'd been looking forwards to this. I hadn't, really. Deep down, I'd been dreading this too, and when I looked into Dad's eyes for the first time in three weeks, that feeling arose and burst in my chest like a banging firework.

We just looked at each other for a few minutes. Chayne coughed. "I'll leave you two alone. Talk to me if something goes wrong, Jenny," she said, walking out of the waiting room and back into the lower levels of the Nest.

I sat down and Dad sighed. "First thing, I suppose, is first," Dad said. "I'm sorry for this whole hassle."

"Yeah," I said, irritated and throwing my arms down. "That's something I could've heard a long time ago. Like maybe before you sent me here."

"It was beyond my control, Jenny," Dad said, ruefully. "You're a miracle. An honest-to-God miracle. And that's the sort of thing the world needs now, Jenny; miracles. I feel privileged one of these wonders is my daughter."

I just looked at him in flat disbelief. "So that's all I am to you, then? Just some miracle you tossed over into an experiment that involved subjecting me to the unknown, probably dangerous as f**k energies to another world against my will?"

Dad sighed, as if the weight of what I was saying flew over his head. "You make it sound so... immoral, Jen."

"It is, Dad," I shrieked out in protest. "God, most of the applicants are just greedy assholes looking for a quick buck. I know a kid who's parents sold him out for money and fame – the son of the Ice Couple, actually. I don't care what the Association says. I don't give a damn if this is for the supposed good of the world or whatever. I just... why opening a portal to another world, Dad? Is there no other way to use the stuff I've got for something less extreme?!"

"We've all had to be extreme in the wake of the Phantom, Jen," Dad argued. "I don't agree with the Association's practices wholesale, Jenny. They've shot people in the streets for being infected. They've segregated the infected from the clean in horrible quarantine areas. They just can't afford to be humane."

"They can't 'afford' to be humane?!" I suddenly outburst. "What the f**k are they putting their costs into, Dad? Projects like this? It's human life they're casually throwing away, Dad! And look at you! I'm... You're using me as a tool, Dad! That's what it's all been about, hasn't it?! Aren't you f*****g concerned or anything?!"

"Of course I'm concerned, Jen!" Dad snapped back. He took a deep, quivering breath in. "Of course I'm concerned. Of course I didn't want to do this. Not a moment goes by where I don't think about you and what's going to happen, Jen."

I shrunk back a bit and considered things. I then sighed and looked him in his bitter, sparkling eyes. "...It's... You're thinking about Jason, aren't you?"

Dad flinched.

"I'm sorry, Dad," I said. "I never knew him, alright? I can't empathize. I'm just being selfish. Goddammit, I know I am. But... please, Dad, is there no other way? Is the Association so desperate that they're willing to f*****g punch holes to another world and bait people with f*****g money to take part in it?"

Dad gave a long, rueful sigh. "Not at this point. There are so many other projects the Association wants to move onto after this one. And trust me, if we had found out you were immune sooner... we probably would have refocused our efforts onto you. But when we found out you were immune, the program had already been set up. It would have been too costly to simply shut it down then and there, so we resorted to using you."

I looked down. I still couldn't believe what I was hearing. I didn't even want to be immune.

"So I'm just a tool to the Association," I said, my voice sharp. "They don't give a s**t about me. They don't give a s**t about anyone else they're supposed to be protecting. Sure. I can live with that. I don't give a s**t. But why you, Dad? Didn't you at least argue with them? Didn't you at least tell them there could have been some other f*****g way instead of forcing me to expose myself to the energies of another f*****g world?!"

Dad was quiet. I wasn't having it.

"Answer me, Dad! Tell me you at least fought for an alternative measure!"

Silence. Dad was ruminating and a silvery tear dripped from his baggy eye.

"Please!" I said, my voice cracking. "Please, Dad... Please, just tell me you at least considered my well-being. Just tell me you gave a s**t. I know it's hard for you. I know you've already lost Jason and you're desperate. f**k, I can understand that. Maybe I am just being a selfish brat, but please... Just tell me you tried something else and I'll just shut my worthless mouth and go along with the rest of the project."

Dad finally let out a long sigh which ended with a wheezing, hoarse cough, as if someone had just punched him in the ribs. He put a tender hand on my shoulder, and the moment I looked into his eyes, I felt I was looking at a total stranger.

"...I'm sorry, Jen," he said, his voice regretful. "But I had no say in the matter."

I finally just teared up. "...Why!? Why did you have no say?! How could you possibly not have any say in the matter of your own kid!?"

"Because a sense of responsibility for the world is a colossal thing indeed, Jen," Dad said, his voice a little firmer. "I'm sorry, but... either way, the choice had already been made in my head. I didn't want anyone else to know the grief I felt when I lost Jason. They said it was all for the greater good, Jen – and it is. This project is, by nature, for the good of everyone."

I just looked at him, coldly, withdrawing from his hand. "...And what about for the good of me, Dad? Or am I just a means to an end after all?"

Dad took in a sharp breath. "Jen-"

"No," I spat, cutting him off and backing up towards the office's exit. "Save it. Just... f*****g save it. I don't care what they've told you. I don't care what practical f*****g effects this shitty-ass project will have in the long-term. It's immoral. The Association is immoral. And you're subscribing to those immoral beliefs because..."

My mind conflicted with itself and I just screeched out in anger. Maybe Dad and the Association had a point. Maybe I was just being a selfish fuckass. Maybe Dad had a damn good reason for being as desperate as he was. But his little speech there just confirmed to me he'd stopped thinking about me and was just thinking about how he could feel. How he could gratify himself by means of this project; how he could silently pat himself on the back and tell him he'd done the right thing, and that nobody would ever have to feel that loss from the Phantom again.

At what expense, though? Was I just a tool to him?

I suddenly felt an influx of empathy towards Jackson. His own rich-ass parents had just cast him to the project for a sense of self-gratification. Maybe it was just my anger diluting everything, but the only thing I could feel, at that moment, was that Dad's treatment of me with this was the exact same thing.

I didn't even wait for him to respond. I just buried my face in my arm and darted off, leaving him to eat his words. I was feeling a million things at once; a horrific mixture of guilt, self-blame, rage, and defiance of the system all welling up inside of me and blooming into a flower that ensnared my heart with its thorns. I inwardly knew I was acting irrationally and Dad had his reasons, that if I'd just stayed and listened a little longer, this wouldn't have had to happen.

At the moment, though, I simply no longer cared.

Jenny finished, cupping her face in her hands and silently crying. I thought things over for a long while. There was a hundred things I could say, honestly.

I decided to just put a hand on Jenny's shoulder and comfort her for the rest of the night. She didn't resist. I think one part of her welcomed it, now.