I had not found any solace in pondering the possible outcomes of Al’s decision. If he had decided to leave, it seemed improbable that they would let someone who had just witnessed one of the world’s best kept secrets back into the public.
I was never sure of what happened to the former employees of The Facility when they decided to leave. I had asked William about it when I was younger; I wanted to know what happened to my first psychologist. He had been a relatively older fellow, and never seemed to really approve of my captivity. There was a period of about three days where I hadn’t seen him, which was odd considering I had seen him nearly every day of my life up until then. On the fourth day, I was introduced to my ‘new’ therapist, with no explanation as to what had happened to Dr. Holk. The only information William had allowed me was that Dr. Holk had decided to ‘retire’. As an experienced liar myself, I was able to instantly conclude that Dr. Holk had, most definitely, not decided to retire.
If Al decided to stay, he would at least be safe from the unknown, most likely grim, outcome of the previous option. But he would also be subjecting himself to a hectic world, which revolved around one dishonest and distrustful freak of nature. He would never be able to see or speak to his friends or family, thanks to the very strict privacy policy The Facility observed. And if my small intuition that he was somehow connected to my kind was true, there was a huge risk that The Facility would find out. There was no saying what the outcome of that particular situation would have been, but it probably would have been incredibly traumatic.
I hoped, against the odds, that Al had decided to leave, and that he had been allowed to go back to his normal life. Maybe they could have performed some sort of brainwashing thing that replaced his memories of the day with recollections of something normal; like gardening, or an Alcoholics Anonymous retreat.
Thoughts raced through my mind as I made my way down to the sixteenth floor for dinner at Eddie and Emmy’s house. The elevator doors opened to the seemingly perfect town just as computer-generated nighttime was beginning to fall. The fake Sun was low in the fake sky, and the fake half-Moon was starting to show its fake face. I chuckled to myself, thinking that that about summed up mostly everything at The Facility; fake.
I waved to Dr. Helmsworth, who could always be found reading a book of poetry on his front porch at about the same time every night. He was one of the few folks living alone in a Neighborhood. Most of the scientists had brought their families, or started families at The Facility. Dr. Helmsworth, however, believed that subjecting a family to a sheltered life of seclusion was unfair. I was inclined to agree with him, but felt a strong sense of sadness knowing that the old man had always lived alone, and would eventually die alone, most likely in The Facility. Even though Dr. Helmsworth had been single-handedly responsible for the development of my Electro-Cuffs, we had always gotten along quite well.
I hung my head as I continued on past identical houses with identical fences and yards. Walking up the path to Eddie’s door, I felt the warm breeze on my face. I thought of the younger children living in The Village, and wondered how they would feel when they eventually found out that they were prisoners of a company that their parents had, for whatever reason, decided to work for. I wondered how many of them were already aware that their lives were so abnormal, unnatural, fake. I wondered how many of them would ever be aware of those things.
All thoughts previously crowding my head were immediately erased as I opened the front door to be greeted by a pair of cheerful, arctic eyes. Al had decided to stay, and appeared to be very satisfied with his decision, as he helped set the dining room table for dinner. He grinned at the temporary statue I had become.
Eric, who was helping to set the table, took a break from glaring angrily at the new psychologist, in order to meet me with a beaming smile.
“Hi there, Slushy!” Al called with a wink. He was definitely taking to the whole ‘freak of nature’ thing better than any of the previous shrinks. Suspicious.
Al’s comfortably familiar attitude toward me caused Eric’s face to turn a shade of scarlet I had never seen on a human before. Out of, most likely, jealousy, Eric moved to kiss me on the cheek. I started to lean away out of impulse, but quickly caught myself and bitterly allowed him to express his public display of affection, keeping my eyes trained on Al. The therapist’s face was unwaveringly content. Not knowing how to respond to Eric’s unexpected act of fondness, I patted him awkwardly on the head.
“Oh hi, Angie. Congratulations on the lab-run, today!” Emmy cooed warmly, rounding the corner with a tray full of delicious-looking side dishes.
“Thanks!” I smiled, putting my reservations about the men of the room on the back burner. “Can I help with anything?”
“I think we’ve about got everything taken care of, sweetie,” Emmy said, standing back with her hands on her hips to look at the table full of scrumptious foods. “We’re just waiting for Eddie to get home.”
No sooner was his name mentioned, than Eddie walked through the front door, soaking wet from his hair to his shoes. We all stared at him, mouths agape.
“I fell in the water tank, again,” Eddie explained, though no one had asked.
I shook my head, snickering as he plopped his drenched shoes on the mat next to the door.
“Do I even want to know how you managed to do it this time?” Emmy asked, arms crossed and eyebrows raised.
“I sincerely doubt it, dear,” Eddie replied, hanging his head in embarrassment as he shamefully exited up the stairs to dry himself off.
“Is that a common event around here?” Al inquired, setting the last plate on the table.
“More common than it should be,” Emmy huffed, picking up the saturated shoes for examination. Her blonde locks bounced angrily with her bobbing head as she walked the shoes to the ornate bronze trash can in the kitchen.
“Is she really mad?” Al asked in a cautious whisper. I replied only with a smirk.
Emmy returned with a dry towel to clean up the drips on the dark, hardwood floor. She muttered angrily to herself, dropping to her knees to mop up the mess.
“We’re not going to let this dampen our evening, are we?” I joked.
Emmy shot me an irritated look at first, but her expression quickly turned to one of amusement. All presence of hostility was eradicated from the air of the room, and was replaced with light-hearted laughter.
Upon Eddie’s return in a mostly-dry state, we all sat down to enjoy a lovely dinner and conversation. I didn’t get to have many ‘getting to know you’ discussions at The Facility, as most of my therapists weren’t very fond of letting their patient ask the questions, and we didn’t often get new residents. Still, I found the average ‘I’m a Taurus, and my favorite color is potato!’ conversations to be rather detached and irritating.
“Where are you from, Al?” Emmy asked, loading tuna casserole onto her plate.
“I was born in Maine, but I’ve been living in New York City for the last seven years,” Al responded in between bites of food.
“I suppose they will be setting you up in The City, then?” Emmy questioned curiously.
“That was Mr. Slate’s suggestion, but I asked to be placed on the eleventh floor,” Al replied. At this, Emmy and Eddie shot each other interested looks.
“That is generally for lower level employees. The apartments on eleven aren’t very, er… accommodating,” Eddie explained apprehensively.
“I shared a studio apartment with five other people while I was in college. I’m sure it’ll be alright.” Al laughed, taking a sip of water.
“You’re awfully young to be a psychologist, aren’t you?” Eric accused from the seat next to me.
“Eric, don’t be rude.” Emmy snapped, eyeing her son in the way one might glare at a dog that was caught chewing on the bedroom rug, which might have been a family heirloom brought over from the old country by Great-Aunt Bertha.
“What? I’m just making an observation. He’s at least twenty years younger than any of Angi
e’s other shrinks.” Eric defended himself aggressively.
“It’s okay, he’s right. Honestly, my family pushed me pretty hard to excel. I graduated high school at sixteen, with offers of full scholarships to a few different schools. I only went to college in New York so I could stay with my aunt and uncle until I was eighteen, then I moved in with some friends. I am the youngest person in the United States to have earned my type of degree,” Al divulged openly.
“I guess that explains why you were offered a job at The Facility,” Eddie said, impressed.
“Yeah, that explains it,” Eric muttered sarcastically, only to be silenced by the sharp jolt of my elbow in his ribcage.
“Well, welcome to the team, Dr. Waldreck, and know that you are always welcome in our home,” Emmy said kindly, eyes glimmering with a hint of empathy.
“Thank you, I appreciate that,” Al said gratefully. “If you don’t mind me asking, where are you guys from?”
Eddie cleared his throat discreetly. I really couldn’t tell if he was signaling to his wife about something, or if a piece of asparagus had gone down the wrong tube. As he grasped at the gray and red hair on top of his head, I quickly realized it was neither, rather annoyance at the story Emmy seemed absolutely ecstatic to tell.
“Oh, we don’t mind at all! It’s been so long since anyone has asked! Let’s see, Edward is from Nevada, and I’m from Oregon. We actually met at a science convention in Las Vegas when we were seventeen. I had snuck out with a couple of my girlfriends to go, and by the next day Eddie and I were married. Of course, those were different times. My parents were what you’d probably call hippies. They thought it was wonderful. Eddie’s parents, on the other hand, were horrified, and all but disowned him. So he came to live with us in Portland. He went on to get his degree in Biology, and I got mine in Botany. A few years after that, I was contacted by The Facility to develop a self-sustaining greenhouse. When they found out Eddie was an accomplished biologist, they asked if we would be interested in relocating for permanent employment. I was already pregnant with Eric, and we had been going through a rough financial period, so we jumped at the offer. We’ve been here ever since.” Emmy recited her story without seeming to have paused for a single breath. Eddie had been nodding in irritation the entire time.
“Emmy… I think a simple ‘I’m from Oregon, and Eddie is from Nevada’ would have sufficed,” Eddie said, exhausted by his wife’s ramblings. He was met by her angry glare.
“It’s quite alright, I think it’s interesting,” Al said courteously.
“Then you’ll probably find this interesting, as well,” Eddie said, pausing for dramatic effect as Emmy’s eyes widened, “it wasn’t a science convention. It was a comic convention. There was a lot of spandex involved.”
Emmy’s cheeks burned as the rest of us chuckled around the table. The remainder of the evening was filled with arguments over who was a better captain of an intergalactic spaceship I had never heard of—I think it started with an ‘E’. The night ended rather abruptly, when Eddie nodded off into his mashed potatoes. I promised Eric that we would have lunch together the next day, before thanking Emmy for the wonderful dinner.
Al and I walked together along the dark, empty street. False stars glimmered on the screen high above our heads as we made our way toward the elevator at the end of the road. Silence loomed around us for a while, apparently becoming our new trend.
“Why did you stay?” I asked suddenly, not even expecting the words to come out of my own mouth.
Al took a moment to dissect the question, and answered accordingly.
“It seems like a great opportunity,” Al replied simply, making sure not to meet my eyes. Lie.
“There are all sorts of great opportunities that don’t involve cutting your family out of your life,” I said somberly.
“That is true… But I don’t really have much family left,” Al said, a bit of emotion seeping into his voice.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered sincerely as we reached the elevator.
Al said nothing, but threw an appreciative smile in my direction as we stepped into the large, white box. The small button that read ‘11’ lit up under my finger, the doors closing us in. We held our places in the quiet as the elevator shot upward, opening to a level that looked not unlike my own. White walls, white linoleum flooring, sickening fluorescent lights, and doors that led to apartments even smaller than the one I would be retreating to. Al stepped through the doorway, and took out a small piece of paper with ‘22’ scribbled on it, presumably his apartment number. As he turned around, I expected a handshake, perhaps an ‘It was nice to meet you,’ or an ‘I’ll see you in the morning, to reveal I’m actually one of the evil shrinks you hate so much,’ but the words he spoke, and the tone in which he spoke them, surpassed any expectation I could have ever had.
“Sweet dreams, Angela Dawson,” Al said with a wink. His eyes glimmered with a type of knowledge that was dying to escape their ocean-colored prison, as the doors divided us once again.
CHAPTER SIX
Butterflies and Cockroaches