Before Heaven

Chapter 2

I

"And what did you say your name was?"

Silence.

"Come now, #21. No need to be shy."

"...Jackson Winters."

He was plump, in a formal outfit suggesting he was about to go out for dinner or something, complete with an obnoxious double-knot tie and an extra layer of odious shampoo on his near-bald scalp. He had glaring spectacles and beady little eyes that hungrily looked me over like I was a skebab. He had rich dark skin, his accent deep Indian and with a very professional tone. From his bulging stomach that peeped ever so slightly out of the bottom of his shirt to the rather noticeable stain on his dress pants, he was trying far too hard to be something he wasn't.

Harlow Grave. We all just called him Dr. Grave, or Dr. Fatso, occasionally. He was a smug sort. We got the hint that he didn't really care for any of us fast. But, lo and behold, it was time for our second interview – and I'd been unfortunate enough to have been selected by him.

"Ah," Harlow replied, "so I remembered correctly. You're the child of that magnate couple... Betty and Hilson, I believe?"

"Don't mention Mom and Dad to me. Please," I said.

Mom and Dad – the Ice Couple, as the media had dubbed them – were media magnates, entertainment moguls, specifically, and the owners of the network company Winter Entertainment. They'd gotten filthy rich off their exploits off of the Phantom pandemic. They'd become billionaires, eventually. I was their esteemed son, the fourteen-year-old Jackson Winters, sort of a celebrity in my own right solely by proxy of my rich-ass parents. Tabloids loved me, the paparazzi tried to take pictures of me whenever I accompanied my parents anywhere, and I pretty quickly got tired of it. Life, on paper, was nice. I was a privileged kid; I got to live in the expensive house Dad had bought and had a s**t-ton of allowance money. But I'd also been born just a year before the Phantom virus had broken out.

It had started in Australia, initially just carried by a few bugs or whatever. They started biting people. The Phantom infected them. Then the wave washed over the world. It was hyper-contagious; mere contact was enough to get infected. The Phantom gradually shut down people's immune systems. It worked over a period of months, destroying their systems from the inside out and making them susceptible to even the common cold. Worse, it made them lose their will to eat, turning them skeletal and pale and sapping away their vitality, until they finally just either perished from starvation or the other diseases they contracted. It was a slow and drawn-out way to die; not necessarily painful, but a horrible fate nonetheless as your body turned against you and common survival instincts suddenly stopped working. People died by the hundreds, thousands, and eventually millions. Most of Australia died in a few months and the rest of the virus was carried skyward to the rest of the world. It didn't just affect people; animals, bugs, even the simplest of lifeforms were eaten up by the Phantom. It was at that point humanity collectively realized that, unless the Phantom could be stopped, life on Earth was doomed.

Paradise Association, a powerful corporation known for its revolutionary departments in science and the advance of medicine, suddenly became one of the most powerful of its kind worldwide for its research on the Phantom. Red Clover, a subsidiary of the Association, was formed to directly research how the Phantom had come into being. It hadn't been earth-borne. From what they could only deemed as a weak spot in reality – a middle finger to the laws of physics itself – the Association made a discovery that once again shattered the world's concepts of what was normal. Another world entirely. The Phantom had manifested from these weak spots billions upon billions of years ago, until they somehow managed to find their way onto Earth. Nothing Red Clover did to combat the Phantom worked; every single attempt at an anti-virus simply resulted in the Phantom evolving to combat it. A risky move was decided, eventually; what if a cure could be pulled from the source itself?

With that, the announcement for the P.A.R.A.D.I.S.E. project – Paradise Association Rapture Assignment: Dimensional Interference Simulation Exercise (or just the Rapture Assignment to the rest of the Association, and just "the program" to people like me) – was made worldwide by the Association. It was an experiment of a kind never before done in the history of mankind. It was a multi-billion dollar project that resulted in the construction of a fifty-floor environment on an island bought out by Red Clover for the purpose of punching holes in reality to the alternate plane from research already glossed by Red Clover. The effects of this world, however, would first require testing their effects on live humans. They didn't use trained professionals, oh, no. Red Clover made a sort of game out of it; one-hundred people from around the globe could apply to this project for a four month, two-part program for the purpose of living in the simulated environment for eight weeks, each to be paid a whopping three-hundred million dollars at the end of it. Millions of applications came in. Only a few were selected. Unfortunately? I was one of them.

I didn't apply myself. My parents did. They'd always been neglectful bastards and they saw this as a sort of chance to capitalize on their already gargantuan fame. So they signed me up, pulled a few strings to assure I got in, and two years after the announcement was made, I was flown into the island and given over to Red Clover. The preparation supervisor, Mrs. Chayne Summers, had warmly welcomed us, asked me a few questions, put me into a sort of waiting room for what I think was around two hours as my parents signed an ass-load of paperwork, before bidding them farewell and letting me know my registration and "compliance" to the project was all confirmed. Story of my life. Chayne was nice, at least; a little unemotive and a bit uptight, but possessed of a sort of grace that made her approachable. Aside from Chayne and Harlow, there were a few other executives assigned to the project alongside the staff that would be moderating us. One of them was Dr. Charlotte Morse, a ginger-haired lady with a strange zest and an apparent degree in bloody neurology. The other that came to mind was Dr. Ashton Sharpe. He was way different than the others. He was more a drunken college student than the sort you'd imagine managing a billion-dollar project. He had a face like a shark and the voice of a cheese grater. He was snappy at the best of times and possessed of more than a few eccentricities. Apparently, though, he was a brilliant neurosurgeon, renowned for his technique and virtually perfect record – despite a simultaneous record of drug abuse conveniently ignored for the sake of Ash's sheer skill. There were a few nasty faces here and there, but I eventually got a chance to see the complex built above Paradise I'd be staying at for the next two months. It was halfway between a community center and a hotel. We eventually all just came to know it as the Nest. Thus began pre-simulation. Some of the applicants were eager to begin the dive into the environment where the simulation would be taking place (dubbed "Paradise," for a reason you can likely guess). Some dreaded ever signing up. I never really wanted to be there to begin with.

Some things can't be changed, though. Two days in and the interviews begun. I'd been interviewed once shortly after registration. This was the in-depth stuff, though. I sat in a darkened room with a table between me and Harlow, a bowl of nachos between us and a jug of water, and a rectangular glass window where another member of Red Clover watched us. They often wore weird bodysuits embroidered with the Red Clover insignia, but they simply told me those were for the avoidance of contamination; people like those were working directly with research on the Phantom and, more importantly, with the weak spots in reality. They were legally required to wear them even in safe areas, mostly to avoid spreading potential infection.

Harlow leaned a little closer, taking a nacho between his fat fingers and plucking it into his mouth. He noisily crunched it and raised his eyebrows.

"Good stuff," he said, swallowing and coughing slightly. "Now, then... What were the circumstances of the registration, Mr. Winters? What motivated you to apply?"

"I didn't," I immediately said, steadfast. "My parents did. They don't give a s**t about me. Of course they pretend otherwise in front of the cameras and of course the news'll say I eagerly applied myself, but I didn't. My parents put me here so they can get attention. You can quote me on that."

I bitterly knew the truth probably wouldn't come out, anyways. Life as the son of a media hotshot couple meant that you learned the news quickly stretched and deformed the truth about what you – or anyone – said. Perhaps it was just a case of misinterpretation. More often it was just corporate assholes trying to twist the truth and create slander for a buck. That's why Fox got rich.

"Unfortunate," Harlow said, with not a speck of sincerity in his voice. "Do you have a good relationship with your parents?"

"They barely pay attention to me," I said. "I mean, hell, I can barely get a proper education because they're so busy being lavish on other goddamned things." I leaned back a bit, and considered. "The birthdays are always fun, though. It's during those days when they pay attention to me, I think... even when Mom and Dad are still using it for their advantage... that I think they still truly love me. Of course they'll never listen to what I say. Of course they use me as a tool. But... hey, at least they don't beat me or anything."

Harlow grinned. It had a weird feel to it, as though he'd just let one rip and felt proud about it. "I imagine you're at least thankful for that."

"Well, if I wasn't here, I might be a little more thankful in general," I said. "Can we get onto the next question?"

Harlow looked at a notebook he had in his lap and cleared his throat. "Mmm. What are your thoughts on this course? How do you figure this will go out for you?"

"Can't complain, I guess," I said, unsure of what to really say. "The program itself is nonsense. Is there any other way to test the effects of the other world?"

"We've code-named the other world 'Heaven,' Mr. Winters," Harlow explained. "And if there were, we would have taken it. Trust me. Everything here will be absolutely and completely humane. We're working towards a grander purpose here, after all."

Yeah, right.

"You'll be a part of saving the world, Mr. Winters." Harlow leaned in a little closer with a devious little smile on his weaselly features. "Doesn't that thrill you in the slightest? Don't you feel privileged?"

"I'm privileged enough," I said. "I've got enough money, I've got enough people who know about me, I've people literally writing my future as we speak. To be frank? A normal life seems swell."

Unfortunately, a normal life wouldn't exist beyond a dream. Not after this.

Not after any of this.