"You found me in Times Square, caught me at the harbor of the zero-emissions factory before flying away in the Black Helicopter, we had tea together in your villa on Hofmann Island, and it was you at the research facility who put me to sleep with a needle in my neck. I was in the family photo with you. Me, as a damn baby. You, as my goddamned father. And now you're dressed up as a train conductor? What’s with this whole act, this bullshit?"
"There must be some misunderstanding—on your end," Nicholas Curtis said calmly. "My job is to take you from Point A to Point B. That’s my only job. It’s what I do, day in and day out."
"You’re full of shit." Billy felt rage bubbling up inside him. Hastily, he fished the photo out of his pocket, glanced at it one more time, and then slapped it face-first against the glass of the driver’s booth.
"What do you have to say to this? Look at the man in the fucking photo!"
Still wearing the faint smile that played on his dry lips, Curtis looked from the photo to Billy’s eyes, seeming amused. Then, with an unhurried blink, he shifted his gaze back to the photograph. He studied it for a moment, his eyes scanning its details.
"Coincidence," he said.
"Bullshit," Billy snapped. "That’s you, mother, and me as a baby. My whole damn life is a lie. This photo proves it! My father never left—because I never had a real family. Even my mother was part of it! The Thandros Corporation is behind this whole conspiracy that defines my life. Just like they’re behind my sudden disappearance and the experiments they carried out on me. Look at me!" he yelled, his voice rising as it hit the glass separating him from Nicholas Curtis, who sat there, expressionless.
"Tell me," Billy hissed, his words dripping with menace, "are you my biological father?"
Nicholas Curtis shook his head slowly, so deliberately that there was no mistaking his answer. "I assure you, I am incapable of having children, and this is the first time I’ve ever seen you."
Tears welled up in Billy’s eyes, blurring his vision. They carried more than just salt—anger and despair mixed bitterly as he caught a taste of them on the tip of his tongue. He wiped his tear-streaked face with his sleeve. At that moment, a light appeared at the end of the tunnel, growing larger as it obliterated the tram’s headlights. The train was returning to the surface.
"Hold on," Nicholas Curtis said, spinning swiftly back toward the controls.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
"What?"
The tram braked so abruptly that Billy slammed against the glass of the driver’s booth. Blinding daylight flooded the compartment, bathing him in pure light. It reflected off his pale skin, making it seem as if he were glowing from within. As Billy Jones picked himself up, the tram slowed to a crawl before coming to a complete stop. Nicholas Curtis adjusted his conductor’s hat, which had been jostled slightly during the sudden halt. Leaning forward, he pressed a button and spoke into a microphone.
"We have arrived at our destination. This is the end of the line. I kindly ask the passenger to disembark."
The tram doors slid open, and an icy wind swept into the warm interior, followed by a howling flurry of snow. The old man didn’t move, as if the sudden drop in temperature had frozen him in place. Billy gritted his teeth, hesitated, then stepped off the tram, trying to make sense of where he had been brought as he took his first steps onto unfamiliar ground.
----------------------------------------
It seemed to be early morning. Everything around him was blanketed in snow. The street ahead was blocked by the military. The U.S. Army had set up high-fenced checkpoints, armored vehicles, and heavily armed guards to ensure no unauthorized access.
Billy wandered in the icy shadow of the palisades that shielded the Garden of Eden from the crushing poverty surrounding it on all sides. Paradise. No outsider had likely ever come this close to its gates. He stood near what was once Madison Avenue, now marking a stark demarcation line between the forbidden zone and the abandoned remnants of Midtown Manhattan. He’d bypassed all the security measures to get here only because the tram had delivered him directly from the underground to the other side.
The palisades towered over 150 meters high, dwarfing the tallest residential buildings in the city. Their moonlit shadows stretched far beyond the rooftops, reaching as far as Rockefeller Center in Midtown. The soldiers stationed in small clusters at the base of one giant wall looked like insignificant ants compared to the immense structure, their presence swallowed by the dark giant’s shadow.
The snow crunched under Billy’s boots as he approached the entrance to the corporate headquarters. He had no idea what he was doing, only the feeling that it was the right thing to do. The guards watched him warily, as if tolerating his presence in their territory but certain he didn’t belong.
"Why' you letting me roam free?" Billy asked a soldier at the entrance, who was brushing snow off his cap before setting it back on his head. The soldier rested his hands casually on his submachine gun.
"You’re expected," the soldier replied.
Billy looked around, scanning the faces of the other uniformed men for signs that their comrade was joking. But all he found were stony expressions, and all he received were icy stares.
"Oh, yeah? Who says so?" he asked.
The soldier shrugged. "Orders from the top." He pointed a finger skyward—straight up—and Billy tilted his head back as if to catch snowflakes on his tongue. The hem of his medical coat flapped in the storm. Squinting against the snowflakes caught in his lashes, he gazed up at the massive wall. Beyond it, the blurred outline of the winter moon glowed, and the bulk of the Thandros Tower disappeared into the snow-laden clouds above.
"Henry Thandros," Billy whispered. "Is it Henry Thandros expecting me? Is he up there in the tower?"
The soldier didn’t reply.
Instead, he opened the door to Paradise.