The Paragon of Eden
Chapter 3

Without her will to live, Deelia was a husk of her former self. Would that husk be filled so easily again? Sure, she was saved. Her parents weren’t. Her friends weren’t. It was easy now to just ignore that fact. It was her mind blocking it, whether it was against her conscious will or not. The fact was real, she could acknowledge that. The nature of this reality, however, could not come to light. The stage lights. Yes, her mind was like a stage, and only some of it was lit. That dark spot illuded the audience, and it made the show incomplete. Deelia was not quite Deelia without the fullness of her mind, and now, that husk of her former self floated peacefully in the cockpit of the Paragon, more unthinking than it had ever been before.

But she should allow herself to think. That man who stood there in the air, suspended in space and peering through the invisible wall, was something she should be thinking about. He had just saved her, but hadn’t he murdered all those who were in the pirate base with her? Just like her people were on their home world…

No! don’t think of that. Or rather, here is that wall that prevents you from thinking of it. Deelia was still not aware that it was any doing of her own that her thoughts were dimmed.

That man… Where were they going? What was his name? That’s right, people had names. Her name was Deelia.

“Deelia…” she spoke softly.

Having heard, the pilot cocked his head slightly. He wasn’t too focused on keeping the spaceship going. They had only been drifting for a few minutes, though Deelia did not know how fast they were going. Her home world had come close to being a functional cog for one of the two major factions in Ookon, but it never got to fully explore the span and technologies of either side. How did they go from system to system in such a short time? Well, the officials of her home world knew that, but she was just an average girl. And here she was, experiencing the wonders of what used to be the unknown. And how did this come to pass? No method that was worth thinking about at the moment.

“What was that?” the pilot asked.

Deelia said nothing. She simply looked at the man, unsure of what to do. This kind of situation did nothing in the way of comforting her. This man could be anybody behind his appearance. The nature of humanity had come into question these last few weeks.

But he spoke her language. Deelia didn’t even realize it until now, but of all the people she had come across now, he was the only one who spoke despite being of one of the two factions. He was part of one of those two governments, wasn’t he? The UPOA, and the other one she couldn’t remember. And he wasn’t part of the UPOA because of what he had said in the prison.

“Hey,” he said.

Deelia felt cornered. She still didn’t feel like talking.

“Once the TH engine powers up, we’ll be near a place where we can relax. It’s that cool city I was talking about. Some place far away from the UPOA and the Empire. Think of it as a safe haven, if you are thinking at all. Are you doing any thinking?”

Deelia looked at him, amazed at the relaxed tone he used with her. Some part of her had expected to be treated like a delicate flower by anybody with good intentions, especially now. But, was he different? He almost seemed to relieve the tension within her. And she still didn’t feel like responding. For all he was doing for her, she might have only been heightening the tension. Christ, she was most likely the source of any tension. And was she doing any thinking? For all she could control herself, she would rather not have been.

“Listen,” he began, “I’ll make sure you have a clear head while we’re there. If not then, maybe later. Still, you can rest easy. I’ll make this easy for you, okay? Okay. We can get some ice cream, get less shabby clothing, maybe a few other trinkets. We can have ourselves a fine time for a little while over there.”

Deelia liked the idea of the ice cream. Soon, she could imagine eating it again. Soon, it would all be okay again, and soon she could hopefully speak again.

Soon, they came to a stretchy hole in space. It looked like the iris of a great cosmic eye, with a pupil in the center that looked into another world. They coasted through, letting the strands of warped starlight and wispy dust pass by them. In this environment, the Paragon looked right at home. Two contrasting kaleidoscopes, shifting in unison.

And the other side of this outer space portal showed something shining on the other side. It was distant, and they weren’t going very fast. It would take them another hour or so to reach it.

As they reached the other side, the hole in space warped back up. It vanished, and it seemed that nothing was there to begin with. They were now somewhere completely different, and maybe even exciting. The pilot looked out of his invisible wall, trying to gaze at the object in the distance. He controlled the monolith so that it picked up speed, and then it zoomed its way with an incredible pace. Within a minute, they were approaching a great, shimmering bubble. It was another DA, a deployable atmosphere. This one was huge, however, as the structures that housed the large generators were a complementary size.

They had to slow on the way into the atmosphere. Even then, the fires of reentry scorched the outside of the Paragon. Deelia doubted that there would even be a mark on the perfectly white shell when they landed.

Now, they coasted along the gusts of air. The stars still shone, but the night sky was populated with multicolor shimmers. There was no up or down in this bubble besides the gravity, which the Paragon had adjusted to upon entering, but that place in the distance, the floating city ship, would give them a clear ground to walk on.

“It’s called Jonce. Every place has got a name, you know?”

Deelia watched the glowing towers grow as they came closer. “Eden…” she murmured.

The pilot looked at her, almost surprised, and then he smiled. “Yes, like that place I mentioned earlier at the pirate base. But this place is not Eden. You’ll see. What about your name? I can’t just say, ‘Hey you!’ while we’re there. And anywhere else we go.”

Deelia looked at him, expressionless.

He smiled. “Oh, of course, you already told me your name. Deelia. Nice. I guess I should pay you back, shouldn’t I? I’m Hau. And You already know what I call the thing we’re piloting. That would make you a hazard, you know that? But I won’t call you that. I’ll just call you Deelia.”

The city was in full scale as they circled the outskirts. Its neon lights reflected on the mirror windows of the giant skyscrapers. It was almost like home, only larger. What was the purpose of making the towers so big? Well, if the whole place was manmade, then it shouldn’t have hurt to make everything large enough to fit the aesthetic.

But the place did almost look natural. It was so big that the design was lost at some point under the walkable platform. Blocks and needles protruded without order down there, like an abstract piece of art. Above, the chrome flooring would sometimes slope and rise like land. It was lived in, wasn’t it? Giving the inhabitants a chance to see what nature looked like was a kind gesture in Deelia’s eyes.

They circled around for a bit, a little out of sight of the populace. They came across a field of what Deelia didn’t expect to see here: tall, grassy crops. She supposed that they were there to keep the people here from starving. It only made sense, but she still didn’t expect it here.

The Paragon slowly descended on this field. Its engines made no hum and pushed no wind. It simply moved through the air like a lantern, and its only effect on the grass was the movement it caused in the wind around it. With precision that could have kept an egg from cracking, it touched down on the soil. From the inside of the machine, Deelia saw the outside shapeshift once again. It didn’t turn into the star it had been when she first saw it, but it did accommodate for being on land and staying hidden.

The invisible walls became opaque, and then they opened up, like a box unfolding, revealing the same sight she and Hau had seen from within. Only now, they were not separated by the vessel’s shell. As the gravity of the ship deactivated, Deelia fell a small distance to the floor, which was slanted, so she rolled out onto the ground. Hau landed on his feet and strode towards her. He picked her up, and then they both gazed upon the distant towers. How long would they have to walk to get there?

It was a question that Deelia couldn’t help but ponder after enough of the monotonous traveling. She still didn’t feel comfortable in her own mind, but time had done its due diligence.

Well, it wasn’t long that they had to walk. As they came into an opening, a vehicle drove into view. The two of them stood in its tracks, and though Deelia entertained the thought that they would both be crushed, Hau held onto her hand tight.

The thing slowed, its large wheels coming to a stop. The whole thing looked sleek and new, with colors that made this scene a work of art. Like most of the city from the view above, this machine was made of a reflective sort of metal. It did not support any sort of farming equipment, and it seemed to be built to move fast along the changing soil as well as the constant roads.

The driver stepped out, a large man with a leather jacket and puffy pants. That was similar to the clothes Deelia and Hau wore, but cleaner, and he was obviously a farmer.

“Name’s Kej,” Hau said.

The other man looked at him, and he considered for a moment before saying: “Jon,” gesturing to hop in. The three of them fit comfortably in the thing’s seats, and Hau seemed to take up as much space as possible by laying down on the extra seating. Deelia sat modestly, although it could only be called that by the current standards.

It did not take them long to go from the center of the fields to the city. Jon tried to make small talk, but Hau had fallen asleep on the seating and Deelia was nowhere close to talking to this Jon person. The ride was quiet, and though Deelia was still rather absent-minded, she enjoyed the view of the passing grass. The dark sky provided just enough light to see every detail, but whatever color it originally was, she would never know.

The towers that were distant before eventually became the new scenery. Each spire was designed differently, but many of them shared the same color scheme. Some were chromatic or dark and shiny, and some were reflective and pearlescent. Some were like tall rectangles, and some were like twisting blades of grass. Each of them looked clean and beautiful, and the spacecraft that flew in the DA were much the same as the space jets that she remembered. The people they passed all wore different clothing, but there were definitely themes and styles all around. This place was not quite a hub for travel. It was more of an archology, harboring a community that was self-contained and grew based on what happened in here.

Still, Deelia saw a few people who looked to be from somewhere else, who looked lost in this alien world. Perhaps she would get lost too, or maybe this place resembled her home so much that she would perhaps want to stay.

The car eventually stopped, and Jon walked over to Hau and Deelia. “Time to go,” he said. “Wake him up.” He was not of many words, it seemed, but he looked more worried to be rid of the two freeloaders.

After waiting for the idle Deelia to do something, he decided to kick Hau in the balls. That woke him up, and he groaned and rolled on the floor. Jon walked back to the driver’s seat and waited there for them to get off.

On the sidewalk of the city, Deelia realized that the two of them looked to be foreigners. They wore their strange, dirty clothing, and they were lost. At least, Deelia was. Some part of this place called back to her, giving her the subconscious desire to know where she was going. It gave her direction to be here, made her forget what she lost, almost revived her.

Hau was struggling to walk. If their clothes weren’t already drawing eyes, he was making a good effort at it. Deelia almost got mad at him. She almost helped him walk, to.

“Can I get… a little help?” he murmured.

Deelia helped him, and soon, they were striding like normal through the busy streets. There were seldom vehicles in sight, leaving the distance to be either walked or crossed by some other means that she couldn’t make out. Since they were not there for something extremely specific, they were on foot.

There were stairways and floating platforms everywhere, taking people up to separate parts of the city that seemed to be entirely contained within higher platforms. It was like a city-wide shopping center, at least for this section. Stores and restaurants were everywhere. The housing seemed to be at other locations, or maybe higher up in the towers.

They walked for a while, and Deelia spotted a clothing store. The outfits there also reminded her of home.

Hau, who had seen her stop in place, said to her: “That place isn’t really the best. Nothing on the outside is. It just gets the most attention for being in the open. I’ll show you another place.”

They walked for another while, and Deelia remembered how she and her friends used to walk and walk around shops until their feet hurt and they went home and slept. Her feet were tired now, and she didn’t know if it was the result of her previous state or if this place was so large that walking from here to there was just unexpectedly far.

It did take them a while to reach the shopping center that seemed to be inside one of the massive towers. There was a section near the center that displayed the interior all the way to the roof at the top. Many, many balconies spiraled up on the way there. And where they walked, they came to a floor a few stories above the level where they started. There, Hau stopped in front of a store of clothing that had a homely, unique design. It fit the aesthetic of the city, and yet it had the thoughtful craftsmanship of a masterclass seamstress. And the clothing was all very expensive. Designer.

Hau ditched his old clothes for a pair of flared pants and a dress shirt, which he tucked in. Did he know of the rock bands of her home world?

Deelia herself managed to choose a pleated skirt with a pastel belt. She found a cropped jacket and a shirt to go on top.

And then they belonged there, and it occurred to Deelia that she would be content if they stayed. If Hau was going to save her from the hands of pirates and treat her to this, the last thing he could do to make her life perfect was to make her happy in this city. And that was a little too much, wasn’t it? She didn’t really want a perfect life because she didn’t know what to do with it. Wherever Hau took her now, she should be happy for what he had given her up till here.

“You seem like you know what you’re doing all of a sudden, huh Deelia?”

The way he mentioned her name like she was the only person he was thinking of made Deelia happy. She had never felt the burning need to be desirable before. She still didn’t want to, but she could see it happening now. Instead, she just nodded her head.

“Hey,” Hau said, “What will it take to make you talk?”

Deelia looked into the distance. Time, she thought, but didn’t say.

“I’ll make you smile,” Hau suddenly said. He smiled himself, and that almost reached Deelia through her haze. “Just walk around for now. I’ve got something to look after, and I think it would bore you to death. Buy anything you want. The money is on me. I’ll be back.” With that, he walked quickly down the nearest set of stairs.