I scraped the remainders of my food into a bin marked ‘compost’, and placed the dirty tray on the designated metal rack. Al followed my lead, but I could tell he was distracted, trying to dissect my cryptic answer to his question. It wasn’t like it was some huge mystery to figure out. ‘Do you know why I’m here?’ he had asked innocently enough. I could have easily told him right then and there. Perhaps it would have been enough to save him from the potential dangers of committing his life to The Facility... or maybe he wouldn’t even have believed me; just the absurd ramblings of a pathological liar who had built up a world of fallacies inside her own mind. Best to let someone with a Ph. D. answer his questions... Or, better yet, let his own eyes answer them.
“Tell me why I am here,” Al said, a touch of worry in his voice.
We left Caf 1 and made our way back to the white elevator. As we waited for the door to open, I turned to him.
“Eddie is supposed to tell you,” I replied, trying to avoid telling him what he was eventually going to find out anyway.
“No, he’s supposed to tell me what is expected of me if I take the job,” he said, looking through my eyes into my soul. “Tell me why they want me here. Why do you need me?”
“You said it yourself, basically. They need someone I can relate to, so I cooperate—” I cut myself short. As we entered the elevator, heading toward floor twenty-seven, I wondered if I had said too much... I had.
“Cooperate with what? No offense, but you can’t possibly be so important that—” I cut him off.
“You may want to consider that I’m the only test subject in an operation with over one-hundred employees dedicated to monitoring me, before you finish that sentence,” I snapped, keeping my eyes trained on the closed, metal doors as we plummeted. It wasn’t that my ego was inflated; I certainly didn’t enjoy being the only patient, but it was surely something worth considering when questioning my role in The Facility.
The atmosphere of the floor we stepped onto was completely different from the emptiness of floor twelve. The white walls and floors still made their appearance, but all along the edges of the room were numerous computers and… well, I honestly didn’t know what half of the electronics in the room were called or what they did, I just knew they served a purpose, and almost always had someone fiddling with them. There were no hallways on the level; the entire floor was taken up by people and devices and things and stuff. It was divided halfway back by a huge pane of indestructible glass. It probably wasn’t glass, but I had never cared enough to ask about it. Behind the glass was a large, clear tank of water, one single metal walkway across the top of it. I realized that Al was stunned into silence, apparently not expecting to see all of this in, what he probably assumed was, a mental hospital. I started to walk toward the large pane of glass, but had to turn around and wave to get Al to follow me. He was hesitant, but curious enough to proceed.
It gave me a warm feeling to see Eddie on the other side of the glass, pushing buttons and giving orders like he often did. Eddie was in his early forties, but his faded green eyes seemed much older with a combination of wisdom and fatigue. His messy, red hair, which often started the day tidy, was beginning to sprinkle with grays. Eddie was like a father to me, whether because he was one of the kindest people in The Facility, or because I spent the majority of my life living in his house, or because I ate dinner with his family almost every night, I didn’t know. But when he spotted me, his eyes lit up, and I could tell that he was just as happy as I was.
I rapped on the glass door that was blocking us from entering the room until it slid open, jumping as it closed right behind us. I didn’t realize until my feet hit the cold, metal floor that I was barefoot. Oh well. Eddie rushed off the small platform of computers to greet me and give me a hug before turning to Al.
“You must be Alvin, It’s nice to meet you. I’m Edward Stein, but Eddie is just fine. Glad to have you on the team,” Eddie said kindly, a warmth in his voice.
Al was still taking in his surroundings, but managed to shake Eddie’s hand before telling him that he preferred Al over Alvin.
“Actually, Eddie, he hasn’t taken the job yet. I’m supposed to give him the tour and… whatnot,” I said quietly, just loud enough for Al and Eddie to hear. This bit of information changed Eddie’s expression drastically for just a moment, but hopefully not long enough for Al to notice.
“I see. Well, either way. It’s nice to meet you,” Eddie said reassuringly. “Angie, we’re not quite ready for you here yet. Why don’t you take Al down to The Village? Introduce him to the family.”
Much like William’s order to give Al a tour, this wasn’t a request. Unlike William, Eddie had a distinctly polite method of giving orders, which made them seem much more pleasant to carry out. He could probably tell a full-grown adult to use a litter-box, and they would happily oblige.
“Okay. What time should we be back?” I asked, growing more eager as the day moved on.
“Oh, give it about an hour or so,” Eddie said, looking around at his team for the day, then down at his watch. I was surprised to see it was already 9:30 a.m. “Half of these people are new, and have no idea what the hell they’re doing,” he said in a hushed voice, winking at me before we turned to leave.
“Uh, Eddie…” Al said, finally finding his words. “You’re supposed to tell me what I’m expected to do, I believe.”
Eddie, in his fatherly way, took a step toward Al and placed a hand on his shoulder.
“We’ll get to that later,” Eddie said, giving Al’s shoulder a final pat, before retreating to his computer on the small, protected platform.
Al gave me a questioning look, as I lead the way through the glass door back to the elevator, directing us to floor sixteen. I could tell he was uneasy, probably going over and over in his mind the potential situations he may have become involved in. In my head, I went through what I knew that he knew: He’d been offered a job as a personal therapist for a girl who was required to wear shackles; This was some sort of huge, underground, research facility, and Shackle-Girl was apparently the only thing being researched; People were avoiding telling him what his duties would be if he accepted the job; There was an entire neighborhood in front of us.
The elevator doors opened to reveal that we were outside—except that we really weren’t. If it hadn’t been for the elevator as a dead giveaway, there would be no way of knowing that we weren’t standing in an upper class, suburban town. There was real grass, sidewalks, children playing, dogs barking, sunshine—simulated, of course— and the walls were rigged with the same type of deceiving hologram that played in the small window of my apartment. Once again, Al was in shock.
“What is this?” Al breathed, sounding not unlike a little girl who had just received a live unicorn for her birthday.
“It’s The Village, one of The Neighborhoods in The Facility,” I answered, leading him down one of the sidewalks past identical houses with white picket fences and swimming pools.
“One of? There are more of these?” he asked, shielding his eyes against the bright sun as he tried to see the ceiling.
“Kind of. There’s The Village, The City, The Pole, and The Desert. They were designed for the scientists… Er, doctors… To give them a sense of reality, of home I guess. It’s the same concept as my window, except on a much larger scale,” I explained, swinging open the front gate to the last house on the street. There were no cars, but the roads and garages added to the false reality, and made for brutal games of street hockey.
“This is amazing,” Al said, still looking around as I knocked on the front door of a cream-colored house.
“It’s something,” I mumbled.
The front door opened to reveal the lovely Emmy Stein, the epitome of ‘mother figure’. My entire life, I had been fairly certain that there was no better person than Emmy. She was the sweetest woman in The Facility, at least. She was in her early forties, like Eddie, but the years had treated her more kindly than they had her husband. Long, glossy, blond
e hair fell below her shoulders, hanging in the type of ringlets you would expect to see on a young girl. She was shorter than me, which added to her likeness of a child, but her deep blue eyes showed years of wisdom, which could only come from age and experience.
“Oh hi, Angie!” Emmy cooed, wrapping me in a warm hug.
“Hi, Emmy.” I pulled away from the hug, smiling, “This is Al—”
“Eddie just called down and told me. Al, it’s wonderful to meet you,” Emmy said, her voice so soothing that it could have been bottled and sold as a sedative. She embraced Al in the same hug I had received.
“You too... Emmy, was it?” he asked, appearing slightly relieved of his worried and shocked alternative.
“That’s right. Come on in, you two! Have you eaten?” she asked, backing away from the door to let us in.
“I took him to Caf 1 a little while ago, yeah,” I said, situating myself on a plush, green couch in the middle of the living room, which had much more of a homey feel than my jail of an apartment.
My shackles clanked against each other as I crossed my hands on my lap. Self-conscious, I decided to tuck my hands under my legs.
“Well how about some coffee, then?” Emmy asked, motioning for Al to sit down on a matching loveseat across from me.
“I would love some, thanks,” Al said politely, taking his seat.
“You know I won’t turn down coffee.” I grinned.
“I’ll be right back.” Emmy beamed. As she left the room, I heard her yell up the stairs in a tone that only ever applied to her son. “Eric! Angie is here!”
An unmistakable crash came from somewhere upstairs, followed by rushed footsteps across the top hall and down the top half of the stairs. In reaching the first floor, the steps became noticeably less hurried. A moment later, a tired looking boy rounded the corner.
“Hey Angie!” Eric said, trying to conceal his excitement.
The best way to describe Eric Stein is by saying he was my biggest fan. He was a year younger than me, but we grew up together within the walls of The Facility. When I was young, I was raised in the Stein’s house, though made fully aware that they were not my biological family. Eddie and Emmy were deemed my legal guardians, leaving it up to them to decide which tests were too extreme to perform on a kid. Eric’s first word was ‘Angie’, and he had been attached to my hip ever since it came out of his mouth, like a tumor with teeth. Even though I had always known that the Stein’s were not my relatives, they’d only ever felt like family, making Eric my little brother. He, however, had never thought of me as a sister. Eric’s hair was short and choppy, somewhere between his mother’s innocent blonde and father’s fiery red. His forest-colored eyes had always looked at me in a way that made me feel guilty for being unable to return the same sort of feelings. There was no doubt that Eric was a handsome boy, but I felt he would always be my brother, and that I would never be able to look at him as anything more.
“Hey, how’s it going?” I asked, moving over on the couch to give him a seat.
Eric started to respond, but seemed to be taken a bit off-guard upon seeing Al sitting across from us. My faux-brother’s entire demeanor morphed in front of my eyes, from something eager and delighted, to that of an animal protecting its territory. I had never witnessed that look in his eyes before, and I didn’t favor the idea of ever seeing it again. Eric unquestionably looked at Al as a type of competition, having been the only boy in my age range in The Facility, even though neither were in competition for anything.
“Who is this?” Eric questioned rigidly. His pupils narrowed, inspecting Al with scrutiny.
“Uh… Eric, this is Al Waldreck. He’s been offered a job as my new therapist.” For some reason I felt the need to defend Al, while trying to make Eric relax.
“Nice to meet you,” Al said politely, extending his hand. There was no sign that he recognized Eric’s behavior as anything unordinary.
Explaining to Eric that Al’s role was to be my therapist didn’t seem to achieve the desired effect. On the contrary, it would appear that noting Al would be spending a lot of time with me, and alone, pushed him further into protective mode. At least he was polite in shaking his new competitor’s hand to say hello, before taking a seat beside me.
“Your dad wanted me to bring him down here and introduce him to the family, show him around a bit,” I explained to Eric, his mother returning to the room with a tray of coffee mugs. Emmy immediately noticed the tenseness of the room, and tried her best to ignore it while she handed out coffee to each of us.
“So, Al, what do you think of The Facility so far?” Emmy asked, taking a seat in an old-looking rocking chair in the corner of the room.
“It’s definitely impressive. I’ve never seen anything like it,” Al replied, taking a long sip of his coffee. Emmy nodded in approval of his answer.
“Has Angie shown you floor fourteen yet?” she asked, securing a slow steady pace in her rocker.
“Er… No. What’s on floor fourteen?” Al asked apprehensively.
“It’s just the entertainment floor, another attempt to keep the residents from going insane,” I remarked, noticing that Eric’s hands were balled up into fists on his knees. His knuckles were turning white from the lack of circulation. What was wrong with him?
“Oh Angie, people almost never go insane down here anymore, not since they started releasing anti-psychotics into the air,” Emmy said, winking at me. Al was taken aback for a moment, before he finally realized she was joking.
“Excuse me, please,” Eric said far too politely, before bounding from the couch in long strides. Each angry footstep echoed throughout the house, until they were silenced by the slamming of a bedroom door. Emmy, Al, and I looked at each other uneasily, before I finally took a deep breath and followed Eric’s path up the stairs to his room. Though I could never have romantic feelings for him, Eric would always been my best friend, and the thought that I had put him in an upsetting situation sent me on a guilt trip.
“Eric… can I come in?” I called, knocking a few times on the door.
“Yeah,” he finally replied, after a long moment of worrying silence.
I found him sitting on the edge of his bed, head in his hands.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of him, so I could see part of his face.
“What are they doing, Angie?” Eric asked in a tone that told me he wasn’t talking about the folks downstairs in the sitting room.
“I haven’t quite figured it out yet,” I sighed, distracting myself with a paper clip I had found on the floor.
In a place where everyone got paid to poke or prod me, restrain or provoke me, observe me or cater to me, Eric was the one person I had always felt I could trust. Sure, I was close to his parents, but their jobs still revolved around researching me. Eric was undeniably in love with me, and would never do anything to hurt me. Therefore, I always told him everything. He was the one person in the entire building who truly knew everything about me; all the things the doctors, scientists, and therapists had been trying to get out of me for years. And now he was worried about me, about some new plan they had devised.
“You know what they are hoping for,” Eric said, looking at me with tear-stained eyes. Hurt.
“What?” I asked, trying to sound sincere.
“Don’t do that. You know what. Why they would they bring in someone like that.” For some reason, this kindled a fire somewhere inside my guts.
“Someone like what, exactly?” I questioned, squinting a bit as if it would clear up the meaning for me.
The look Eric gave me was beyond heartbreaking. It was almost as if my utter naivety had shattered his life-long infatuation with me, like any hope he’d ever had was irrevocably snatched away from him. Pain, Realization… Betrayal? What seemed like a combination of all three emanated from his watery, mossy-green eyes. I considered the consequences of trying to get into his head, but his next words eliminated any need to risk electrocution
.
“Someone to fall in love with.”
CHAPTER THREE
Adolescent Rascality