Province 51: Chapter 1



It was a jaded, leafy paradise. She had expected a small corner room with plastic walls and a couple dozen plants, but what Paige had walked into was a vast atrium, with walls that came up to a dome way high above her head. They were made of hundreds of hand- sized glass triangles that fit together in the most perfect way to create a roof for the thousands of test subjects that would be housed. The afternoon sun stood high and clear in the sky, piercing its illuminating rays through the atrium and onto the surfaces of the vine ridden glass. It made the whole room glow with pleasantly warm sunshine.
“ And you found all of this by accident?” she asked.
“Yes, I did. Do you think that I just have a place like this hiding in my back pocket?” Lyv smiled at her. “I was thinking we can fix it up, get all the equipment in here in a month or so. I didn't want to wait for some government donated dump to be offered to us and then take a whole year off to renovate it,” he took in a big breath of the air and spread his arms out wide. “I can feel the importance of this project, its going to be big!”
Lyv was the producer of all of Paige’s dreams. Every occasion she woke up and had some idea, he’d be the first to know, the only other one to see it all through, and sometimes when things didn't go as planned, the one who stuck around to help clear the fallout. When they were younger a project could've been opening their own zoo starring Paige’s golden retriever and any wild-things the pair could find in her backyard forest. He wasn't the sidekick, it just so happened that he and Paige had a lot of the same ideas and she came up with them first.
But now it was some twenty odd years later, both Paige and Lyv were way past the turn of adulthood. Paige found herself turned towards genetic botany without limits purposefully to benefit the general population. Her friend had took a different road, starting out as a journalist and evolving into a book editor. Nevertheless, the projects continued but now instead of geckos covered in “deathly poisons” and tree house turned lounges, Paige dreamed of creating a solutions. And this, it was everything they've wanted, a place to possibly change the world. And they did change the world, more than they ever thought they would.
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Paige stared out to where their beautiful laboratory had been. It now lay overgrown with vines, missing complete sections of the glass ceiling. It was a relatively small to the nearby town but with a three mile radius of empty dirt rung around it, the lab was hard to miss especially from the roof of town hall.
Staring was her hobby, it’s how she became so observant which, was her secret to conquering anything. She took one last inhalation of her cigarette and threw it over into the grey rubble that lay below. Paige continued remembering the place that sheltered her dreams but then turned into everyone else’s nightmare, the thing that took Lyv away from her.
On the last night, known to herself and peers as day 186 but to the rest of the world as day 00, it was normal testing as usual, nothing suspicious or different. Soon a night of routine check-ups, boredom, and cartons of takeout would end in ear splitting screams, pools of blood and flashing lights. There were no plants anymore. All that was left were empty vials, shattered glass, and live wires. At least that’s how it was the last time she was there, it must have been seven months since the incident.
This place, Paige recalled, which used to go by the name Baeport, a small town just west of Hoboken is now referred to as Province 51. There used to be small shops, a suburban town that was always quiet, a place where rarely anything happened. Until that unfortunate day, when a boom so loud occurred, it reached those far in Vancouver; so destructive it shook the whole country. But today, Baeport has returned to its silence, a stillness that bellowed the promise of the end. A soft whisper can be heard over a mile away. Not that there were any people to whisper anyways. And there is no point in whispering to yourself.
Paige continued looking out at Province 51, this time taking in all of the district. Everything was pushed out from the epicenter, as if an atomic bomb had detonated there or something. That would have been easier to clear out. She laughed to herself and dragged her gaze up to the sky. It was unnaturally orange even though her wristwatch read noon. It was like that day and night here, stuck in a neutral sunrise- sunset mode, no clouds or even a glimpse of the sun. You just had to trust it was there.
The day was brisk for the middle of August, when a breath was taken Paige could see the vapor form in front of her face. It was one of those simple things that brought a smile to her face. Though the world was on edge, she found it best to look on the bright side. Might as well die with a smile than with an ugly frown. She went down the stairs and onto the street. A nice walk always did some good. Soon Paige took interest in an empty soda can and attempted to play a solo soccer game. It’s not like they expect me until five days from now. She took her time reminiscing about her old high school soccer games, where she would play on lush green fields with her friends surrounding her. Paige took extra care in not noticing where she was now. Main Street certainly was not a healthy grassland but instead a grey, wasteland composed of metal pieces and the remains of buildings. By focusing on it, the setting would just take away from her fantasy.
She ran and ran, getting more involved in her imaginary game than she should have. Because if the brunette had stopped just a few kicks back, she would have noticed the army of plastic suits, swiftly and silently closing in on her. By the time she had ended her game to search for an escape route, a blindfold was wrapped around Paige’s face, and it was too late. She felt a sharp pain at her thigh and relaxed into an involuntary slumber.