The Eden Project | Episode 3: The Devil Herself
This is a continuation of an ongoing series. Click this link for the episode list:
Episode 3: The Devil Herself
By 5PM, the house was empty. Joel and his family sat in silence on the living room floor.
A knock came from the door.
Joel wondered if the repo-men had come back to take the clothes on their backs. He straightened out his holo-lens and answered the door. A beautiful woman stood on the other side. She had brown eyes with flecks of green on the edges of her iris, straight black hair, and a pale complexion uncommon among the denizens of the Mojave. She wore a grey business suit and a white blouse underneath. She had a sigil of a red tree pinned above her left breast. She offered her hand, smiling. “Good afternoon, Mr. Monroe. My name's Vicenta. I work for the Eden Project.”
Joel found her timing a bit suspicious. He crossed his arms. “What do you want?”
Vicenta lowered her hand but kept smiling. “You and your family have been invited to live in our premier city. You haven't accepted yet.”
“They're really trying to sell this scam, aren't they? Not interested.”
“The Eden Project is no scam. Our mission is to build a better tomorrow. It is real, Mr. Monroe. Surely, you must have seen our online videos.”
“I'm not impressed by CGI cities.”
“Then see it in person.”
“You expect me to believe y'all got together to build a shiny new city just for us? Where's the profit in that?”
“Profit is irrelevant. We have achieved the end of scarcity. It's the end of war itself. The kings and philosophers of old can only dream of what we're able to achieve today.”
“Uh-huh. Let's say this city is real. How much did it cost to build?”
Vicenta smiled wryly. “You still don't understand, Mr. Monroe. Dollars mean nothing to machines. The only currency they deal in is energy, which we have in abundance.” She pointed at the sky.
Joel suppressed a shudder at the thought of an entire city built and run by machines.
“Of course, the engineer still needs to be paid in dollars, it's a legal necessity...” Vicenta inspected her polished nails. “But in a world where the value of the dollar is backed by the engineer's labour alone, what can he exchange the dollar for?”
“Nothin',” Joel replied with a frown. “We're all useless to him. Is that what you're getting at?”
“Actually, I was just pointing out the absurdity of clinging to an obsolete system. We are enslaved to the dollar when we don't need to be. Don't think in terms of money, Mr. Monroe. That is not what motivates us.”
“When multinational corporations are motivated by something other than money, I get worried.”
Vicenta chuckled. “What are you so afraid of, Joel? I'm offering you paradise.”
“Ain't no such thing.”
“Come and see for yourself. Or are you more afraid of being wrong than seeing your own family suffer in poverty?”
“I ain't afraid to be wrong. Take us there. Show me you're not full of shit.”
A wry smile touched her lips. “A taxi is on its way. Nice chatting with you, Mr. Monroe.” The woman shimmered before him as though she were a mirage, then she disappeared.
He blinked. “What the?”
“Joel, who are you talking to?” Suzy asked.
He opened the door all the way, revealing an empty lawn before him. “I...” A text message popped into vision. It read: Congratulations! You have just accepted your invitation to City One. “Oh, those cheeky bastards.” He took off his holo-lens and chucked it towards his wife.
She caught it in the air. “What's going on?” She put it on and gasped. “My God, it's beautiful.”
Kayla and Aiden rose to their knees. “What is it, Mommy? What do you see?”
Suzy took the holo-lens off and looked to Joel. “Is this where we're going?”
Joel frowned. “We'll see.”
This story is set in the same universe as my first novel, Red Eden: Homeworld Bound. The Eden Project is set two centuries before the events of Red Eden: Homeworld Bound, so you'll get much of the backstory if you follow my new series.
You should also check out Saving Ever After, a full-length novella which I've posted on Minds. It's also set in the same universe as The Eden Project (but takes place two hundred years later). You click here for the episode list:
https://www.minds.com/ME2007Vigil/blog/saving-ever-after-episode-list-878019720530595840
If you're interested, you can support me by downloading Red Eden: Homeworld Bound for free and leaving a review. Just click the following link:
https://www.books2read.com/u/31xl7W
If you're feeling really generous, you can support me by buying the e-book or hard copy on Amazon and leaving a review:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07D56YKNV
Thanks again for reading! Cheers!
Michael E. Vigil