The Eden Experiment

By Linda Chehey

It's the year 2040 after the USA has suffered three decades of disasters both natural and man-made that have decimated the population, reduced tax payer base and bankrupted the country. A small group of highly placed and morally bankrupt politicians undertake to establish a covert operation meant to reverse the trend. What started with good intentions swiftly evolves into something else that is not so admirable. When Misty is dropped into their midst, it is the beginning of the end. She ignites the fuse that lights the fire that brings it all crashing down.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Sep 24, 2014
• ISBN: 9781483537085

Book preview

PROLOGUE

2040 A.D.

As a cold, unrelenting blizzard blasted the nation’s capital; a black limousine made its way slowly up the drive to the service entrance of the White House and stopped.

A silent group of men passed through and made their way toward their destination, led silently by a presidential aide.

In the late hours after midnight, they encountered no one as they neared their appointed meeting place. No one spoke or made eye contact. They removed their heavy coats and hats and seated themselves around a small mahogany table in a soundproof room and waited silently.

The door opened and their leader entered and came to stand before the table. Gentlemen, thank you for coming.

The eldest of the five spoke first. Mister President, it’s an honor to see you again. I think I speak for all of us when I say we’re happy and proud that you’ve been elected to serve our party in this nation’s highest office.

The President looked each member in the eye as his gaze moved around the table. After a long pause, he spoke earnestly. Gentlemen, no one is more grateful for your support than I am. Each of you has been a valued member of my party and close personal friend and confidant for many years. I think we’ve all played major roles in putting each other at the top of our political careers. We now have the power we need to do what needs to be done for the sake of all mankind. What I am about to propose must be kept in the strictest of confidence. The oath of secrecy must never be broken. It would mean the end of life as we know it. Our nation’s future will depend on what we do pursuant to this meeting. Do you trust me?

Mr. President, this sounds serious. Are we in some kind of crisis or being threatened in some way? I’ve heard nothing on the Hill to indicate such a thing. So spoke the most newly appointed Cabinet member.

The other four followed suit with a flurry of questions and concerned expressions.

No, no, the President held up his hand to signal quiet. There is no security breach threatening our borders. Please be assured of that. The President spoke reassuringly. Gentlemen, the threat I am referring to is occurring well within our borders and has reached critical stages. My goal in becoming President has been to gain a position where I can begin to reverse the trend.

The Senate Majority Leader raised his eyebrows and spoke, Now I am really puzzled. This is something new to all of us, I believe. Just what trend are you speaking of Mister President? What is it we should be aware of that we are not? And why is it so important that we’ve been summoned in the dead of night during a blizzard?

I chose this night and time because of the secrecy we must maintain. Reporters and watchdogs, except for certain of my Secret Service agents, are safely tucked away, out of the storm.

As we all should be, the Secretary of Defense groused somewhat irritably.

Gentlemen, the President began, "for some time our major threat has been the rapidly declining population of this country. Have any of you noted the recent census report? The devastating terrorist bombings in the early part of this century decimated populations in many urban sections of our country. Then there came the years of expanded anthrax and other biological attacks, followed by the chemical warfare. It all has taken a great toll.

In the administrations of the past, the concentrated effort has been to wage war on drug traffic and terrorism by closing our borders to all immigration and rounding up and deporting them all. However, closing the borders also has contributed to a reduction of population growth and has resulted inadvertently to the deep reduction in our taxpayer base and work force.

Further reducing that base and source of taxes to support this nation was the birth control disaster. We lost nearly an entire generation of workers when that drug company released the birth control vaccine which accidentally sterilized a majority of the nation’s women of child bearing age.

In our efforts to regenerate the population, we tried and failed miserably at outlawing abortion, and public outcry has beaten us badly in our efforts to openly fund reproductive experimentation, genetic engineering and cloning experimentation.

So, gentlemen, forty years into the twenty-first century, we are at a crossroads. We can ignore the present population decline, raising taxes on each generation of workers until we’re all mere slaves of the state, or we can come up with a long-term plan to repopulate this nation by using new research and cloning. Presenting the subject for public debate will only result in failure. So I am proposing that you and I work together under the cover of absolute secrecy. Someday we will be seen as heroes for having saved this nation from bankruptcy and extinction. However, we will be silent heroes. No one outside of this room is ever to know the real truth of what we are about to do. Each of you will have your assigned task, which I will lay out for you in detail."

But, Mister President, aside from the fact you are asking us to break all moral and ethical laws, where will the funding for this project come from? I mean, surely whatever you are proposing will cost billions of dollars. Committees must be formed and budgets proposed and voted on by Congress. You can’t do anything on the Hill without the public or the press taking notice and the details winding up on the front page of the Washington Post. The chairman of the budget committee spoke with skepticism and concern in his voice.

Because this project will be funded secretly, cloaked under the names of a multitude of grants and research projects and even military operations, that on the face of it, will mask the project. It will be up to you to see to it these projects are funded by slipping them into those voluminous bills that pass the House and Senate unseen amidst the confusing and misunderstood language you are all familiar with. The President paused to assess the effect of his response.

So, if I may appear self-serving, the Vice-President asked, what’s in this for us, besides the possibility of becoming unsung heroes, or more likely, destroying our political careers if we are ever found out?

For one thing, I can make or break your careers in an instant if I don’t get your cooperation. Each one of you has a dirty little secret that if made public, would destroy your careers, your marriages, and your life. The President’s expression turned hard. Secondly, you all stand to gain financially. He paused to let the words sink in. Each of us can become wealthy if this goes well. After the program gets going full swing, the sale of the end product will be very profitable, while operating costs of the project will continue to be funded by taxpayer’s money in the form of appropriations and grants as I have already mentioned.

You are asking us to break the law, Mr. President. You have no assurance that any of us will be re-elected term after term. Our house of cards could topple at any time at the whim of the voters. It sounds as if what you are proposing could land us all in jail. The Senate Majority leader began to squirm in his seat as he spoke.

Gentlemen, I think you all know what it will take to stay in office. It will be your duty and responsibility to make yourselves so invaluable to your constituents, by keeping all of your campaign promises and working hard on their behalf for the things that are important to them, that there will be no doubt that you will be re-elected to your posts year after year. You do your jobs well in the public eye, and what we do in secret will succeed. Our nation’s future depends on us. We must do this. Now will you hear my proposal, because if we don’t do this, America will die and most likely in our lifetimes. Is that what you want?

They each dropped their eyes to the table in contemplation of a bleak future, then nodded in unison to signify agreement with their leader.

Good, the President continued. "From this day forward, we will speak of this project only by the code phrase The Ranch and everything we do will be in absolute secrecy."

He stood straight and erect with authority. Tonight the Eden Experiment is born.

ONE

2063 A.D.

It was a slow night along Pacific Avenue in Tacoma, Washington. Traffic was light and the rain was heavy and unrelenting. Temperatures had dropped below fifty degrees and Misty was shivering in her fishnet stockings and leather miniskirt. She checked her cheap watch. It was almost midnight. Shit! she exclaimed as she hailed the next car headed her way. The driver leered through his windshield with an evil grin as he came close to the curb, but sped away suddenly, deliberately throwing up a rooster tail of gutter water onto her legs.

Fuck you, pencil dick! Misty screamed at the driver.

She was just about to give it up for the night and head for shelter when she heard a motorcycle approaching. She took the stance and smiled even though she knew she must look like a drowned rat.

The guy stopped and his engine idled as he sized her up and down. Want a ride, Toots?

He was dressed all in black leather which was studded generously with spikes. His teeth, when he grinned, were capped with silver with diamond insets, the silver matching his studs. His long hair which flowed out beneath his vanity helmet was rain soaked, trailing down his back in long wet ringlets.

Misty attempted to stop shivering long enough to ask, You looking for some fun?

Sure, Toots, the stranger replied with a wicket grin.

How much fun are you looking for? Misty asked.

The biker reached into his pocket and pulled out a hundred dollar bill. This and a dry room for the night, he taunted her.

She hesitated only a second as the rain surged again and the wind whipped around her. Throw a couple of beers and a hamburger in and you’ve got a deal.

Deal, he said as he patted the pussy pad behind him and grinned. Misty climbed aboard and wrapped her arms around his waist.

Hang on, baby, he yelled. This could be a rough ride.

TWO

Lying alone in the growing dimness of late evening light, Misty Blake struggled to force her way out of the black pit she felt lost in. Seemingly floating in and out amongst ebony and red swirling clouds, consciousness was fleeting, her mind tripping and stumbling over disjointed thoughts. She tried to find her voice, but the words stuck in her dry mouth. She could only moan and hope that the throbbing in her head meant she had just had one hell of a good time and nothing more could be wrong. Ringing in her ears made the sound of her own voice seem far away, resounding and ebbing to the rhythm of the throbbing in her brain.

Muffled noises filtered into her ears from somewhere far away, co-mingled with the sound of tuneless elevator music playing softly. She willed her eyelids to respond to silent commands to open.

Why can’t I open my eyes? Misty moaned words that slurred over her lips as if she were drunk. Her arms felt like dead appendages lying uselessly by her sides, too heavy to defy gravity. Summoning all of her strength, she flexed her hands and fingers and gradually managed to lift them, bending her elbows to reach for her face. There, she discovered the blindfold covering her face and shoved it upward over her forehead.

Misty rubbed her eyes in an attempt to restore clear vision. The haze slowly lifted, two images merged into one, and she was able to roll her eyes about and see her surroundings. The room was no place she remembered seeing before. Her brow furrowed as her mind tried to form questions. Where---why---too tired. Blackness overcame her and she slipped into semi-consciousness.

Misty was unaware that the door opened as she lay in seeming suspended animation. She could only watch helplessly as a short, plump female figure shuffled into the room and approached the bed. The stranger lifted Misty’s wrist and checked her pulse. Nodding her head as though satisfied at the response to her light pressure, the woman replaced Misty’s limp hand in its original position and removed the blindfold from Misty’s forehead, placing it in the bedside table drawer. She ignored Misty’s grunted attempts to speak and the pleading in her eyes as she covered her with a light blanket. She switched on a small lamp by the bed and then retreated from the room. Misty could hear the sound of a bolt locking automatically as the door closed behind the woman.

Alone again Misty gave up the effort to stay awake and slipped into deep sleep.

Another three hours ticked away before Misty again opened her eyes, raising them just a slit against the harsh lamp light, then gradually wider as her pupils adjusted to the room. She rubbed her eyes slowly, noticing her arms didn’t feel quite as heavy now. The jackhammer that earlier had been tearing away at her brain had subsided to a pulsating throb. Try as she might, she still couldn’t remember how she got here. But then, this wasn’t the first time she had awakened in unfamiliar surroundings after a night of drinking and sniffing or smoking whatever the host served up.

She moved her head from side to side to look around the room. Misty found she was alone on a double bed. She instinctively reached her hand out to check the other pillow for an indentation left by some now-absent bed partner. The pillow was unused. Well, that was different. She usually awoke with a companion she’d picked up the night before, but this room was a little too sanitized to belong to any of her caliber of friends. Apprehension began intruding into her consciousness, and an uneasy feeling came over her. She wasn’t at all where she belonged.

Pulling herself to a sitting position, she drew up her knees and rested her head on them. Black spots danced before her eyes and that sinking feeling that precedes a faint swept over her. No, no. Don’t do that, Misty, she told herself out loud. Stay calm and take a deep breath. There’s an explanation for all of this. I just have to find it. She cast her eyes about the room, struggling to organize her thoughts and trying to figure out what she should do next.

The sudden urge to find a bathroom abruptly brought her to full attention. She could see three doors, one of which she assumed had to lead to a bathroom. Every motel room has a bathroom. That she was sure of.

Misty pushed herself off the bed gingerly testing the cold tile floor with her bare feet and slowly standing as erect as she could, carefully balancing her still-throbbing head as though it would fall from her shoulders in a moment of carelessness.

She tried the first door she saw, only to find it wouldn’t budge. It must be locked. Maybe it connects to an adjoining room. To the left, a narrow door stood slightly ajar. Urgency was sending her into a panic. Staggering through the doorway, she was relieved to find what she was looking for.

After the most urgent matter was taken care of, Misty groped for the light switch and turned it on. The bathroom was cleaner than any she’d used lately. It was attractively decorated with floral paper and pink towels and was fully supplied with all the basic grooming and hygienic needs. It had just about everything a girl could want, just like those really expensive high-rise hotels she’d only heard about. There was even a hair dryer and brush.

She gazed into the mirror over the sink and was relieved to see she was still the same on the outside. There were no bruises or cuts, so it wasn’t a car accident or anything that had landed her here. She felt her scalp for lumps. No lumps that she could find. So she hadn’t lost her memory from a bang on the head. She splashed cold water on her face and washed her hands. A hot shower would do more to revive her but she was so unsteady on her feet, she feared venturing into a slippery tub could be fatal.

She was still wearing the same worn black leather miniskirt and tight red tee shirt she’d had on the night before. At least she remembered that much. Both smelled of beer and stale cigarette smoke. But her shoes were missing and her leather jacket was gone, along with her shoulder bag that contained just about everything she owned, including her cigarettes, birth control pills, condoms, and cell phone.

Approaching the door on the opposite side of the room, she tried the handle and it gave easily. As the door opened, hope sprang forth that she had found the way out. Maybe she could find someone who could tell her where she was.

Disappointment quickly set in when she found herself in a small area enclosed in glass which appeared to be a sunroom. Through the glass ceiling she could see it was dark outside and a multitude of stars were twinkling overhead. The only thing visible at eye level was her reflection in the tinted windows of the room. It was too dark to make out anything on the other side of the black glass.

With effort, she shuffled across the room and pounded on the locked door with her fists while shouting, Let me out of here! Hello! Is there anyone out there? The pounding made her knuckles hurt and she stopped to rub them swearing under her breath, Fuck you.

She turned and took another look around the room. The walls were papered in a pale pink like sandstone in a muted stripe. Several framed prints depicting desert scenes and cactus flowers were hung here and there. The woodwork was painted off-white and the floor was finished in creamy ceramic tiles. The bedspread and drapes at the window were made of the same splashy pink cactus flower print.

Misty’s eyes swung back to the single window, noticing it was frosted, preventing her from seeing through it. She puzzled over that for a second, and then continued her inspection. The décor was okay, although not exactly what she would have chosen. But it was attractive, if you liked that kind of fluff. The pain behind her eyes made her grateful she wasn’t staring at her own choice of colors for the moment.

There was a television screen built flush into a wall, not free-standing like the ones in Motel Six. The management must be afraid she would steal this one. She picked up the remote and pushed the on button. The screen sprang to life. It stayed blank even though she hit the channel button several times. She turned it off. They need to pay their cable bill.

A small white love seat sat a few paces from the television, which had no programs, and there was an end table with a brass reading lamp. An empty three drawer bureau was situated against a wall. The room lacked a clothes closet. An attractive pink and beige area rug lay in front of the love seat and on it was a round brass coffee table. A small whitewashed oak dining table with two ladder-back chairs sat against the wall near the locked door.

Misty turned her attention back to the sunroom which was furnished with a wicker chaise lounge. A thick cushion and two throw pillows had the same pattern as the bedspread and drapes. A small wicker table sat nearby with some magazines stacked neatly on it. She sat on the chaise, fumbled for the switch on the floor lamp, and began thumbing through the outdated publications, looking to see if there were any telltale address labels. They had been clipped off.

The sound of a lock clicking broke the silence. A door handle turned and the door across the room opened. Misty numbly watched as a tall, skinny older gentleman entered carrying a tray. He placed it on the table. He neither spoke nor looked in her direction. He merely turned and left and she heard the lock engage as the door closed.

This is ridiculous! Misty yelled as she bolted for the door and pounded on it with both fists. Hey! Come back! Hey! Let me out of here! Where am I? Her voice trailed off to a tired whisper. Hello? Somebody please talk to me. Please.

There was only dead silence. Even the tuneless drivel of elevator music had stopped.

Now Misty was starting to panic. She knew something wasn’t right but she couldn’t figure out what.

The aroma of food wafted around the room and reminded her of the tray on the table. She couldn’t remember the last time she had eaten.

It’s obviously prison issue food, she fumed. She paced the floor and shouted countless obscenities to vent her frustration.

Fixing her eyes on the food tray, she calmed down momentarily and reconsidered, Well, maybe a bite. The thought of the food evoked hunger pangs in her stomach. Beneath the humidor cover, Misty found a bowl of cream of potato soup, a generous square of cornbread, and a scoop of creamy butter. There were crackers, a cup of coffee, a single serving carton of milk, and a slice of cherry cheesecake. She was suddenly ravenously hungry and devoured the contents of the tray inside of ten minutes.

After a hot shower and dressing in the nightgown she found in the bathroom, the desire for sleep overcame her as she crawled under the covers of the bed. She was simply too tired to think about her strange surroundings. Maybe in the morning she could figure it out. Her heavy eyelids closed and she slept soundly.

THREE

The door to Misty’s room opened and once again Bob shuffled in noiselessly while Misty slept. He replaced the wet towels with clean ones and scooped up her pile of discarded clothes from the floor. On his way out, he picked up the food tray and left as silently as he had entered.

Sleeping like a baby, Bob commented to Maggie who was on duty at a console of screens that monitored the guests in their rooms. This one looks like good stock; tall, blond and full of curves. She ought to turn out some healthy merchandise.

If she cooperates and doesn’t force us to keep her sedated, Maggie replied. Maggie’s face was a case study in the effects of solar rays on aging skin and too many years spent in the desert heat.

Oh, don’t worry about that, Bob spoke in his deep, raspy voice. The boss has a real persuasive way with these little ladies. They come around when they see what a bright future they can have for a few little favors.

Maggie chuckled softly. I might even have considered such an offer if I had been their age when I came here. She paused as she adjusted one of the monitors. If I’d had such an opportunity when I was young, I maybe wouldn’t have spent half of my life in a stinking prison cell, rotting my best years away. She leaned back in