A Beautiful New Life

by Irene, Susan

  “What about Vince?” Michael was there holding her hair and rubbing her back.

  “When I was having my nightmares, they weren’t just dreams after all. They were my memories coming back. Vince tried to rape me.” She leaned her back against the tub and thought back to that dreadful day that she now remembers so well.

  “They used electric shock therapy.”

  The word shock sent chills up her spine. “I remember owing Betty so much for being there for me. She is one of them. What is this place?”

  “I don’t know for sure. I stumbled upon the place by accident and saw something I shouldn’t have. I probably could have a left but something was pulling me to stay. I saw you at the resort and knew I was here to help you.”

  “Why didn’t you say something sooner to me?”

  “Megan, you have to understand, you had no memory at all of your past life. Do you really think you would have understood what I’m telling you now? Even with the pictures you may not have remembered.”

  “But I was getting my memory back. I was having those dreams.”

  “Yes and you went to the doctors. I suspect they used electroshock therapy on you again. That is why your dreams went away.”

  She fiddled with her hand and felt the lump. “This lump in my hand, you said it was scar tissue. I remember when I tried to leave that room they held me in I crushed my hand when the door slammed on it. Is that what it is from?”

  “You have to understand why I couldn’t tell you earlier. No, it’s not from your broken hand. It’s not scar tissue; it’s some type of chip. We all have one.” He got up from the chair and sat next to her on the couch. He put his hand in hers so she could feel the same lump in his hand.

  “What is it for and why is it in your hand? Why not somewhere that is wasn’t so noticeable?”

  “It has a double usage. It is a GPS tracking chip so they know where you are at all times. So they can find anyone if they try to escape. It is also used as a way letting you know when you meet people that they know they are part of the organization.” He put his hand into hers as you would when meeting someone knew. “See you can feel it.” She let go of his hand and just shook her head. This was too much information for her to wrap her head around; but there was one more thing she needed to know.

  “Did you know I was married?” She saw the look in his eyes as she said it and already knew the answer.

  “No, I didn’t. I really don’t know much about you other than from what I know of you here.” He reached out to her but she pulled away.

  “I can’t, I’m sorry. It was wrong for us to get into a relationship. I’m sorry.” She tried to be sincere but she, or Megan was in love with Michael or rather Jordan. As much as she needed to feel his arms around her right now, to feel his strength and want his protection, she fought hard not fall into his arms.

  “I understand, really I do. I still want to help you, help both of us to get out of here. Will you be okay with that…me being your friend?” She could hear the hurt in his words and it tore at her as she thought about the man she came to know and love and the memories of the man she had forgotten.

  “Yes I’d like to be your friend. We can no longer be anything more.” She reached for his hand and when he pulled her into his arms, she allowed him to comfort her as she cried for the lives she had lost.

  Chapter Fourteen

  She had lay awake long after Jordan had left. He had wanted to stay but she would not allow him. He offered to sleep on the couch saying he would worry about her. Now sitting up in bed the next morning she wished she had let him stay. She needed to find out about this place and between the two of them they would shut it down. First thing was first though. She had to get to work. She got out of bed. The cold shower did wonders to make her alert. She dressed and walked to work hoping the cool air and extra time would allow her to clear her head so she could fake her way through this day. One thing that she did not understand was how they keep people from ever leaving, how they chose them, how they get them, and probably most importantly, why? Louise was not going to be a victim; she was too strong for that. She had to find the answers before attempting to leave.

  She got to work and made her way to her computer. Mark was there waiting for her. She was not in the mood to deal with him today. She detoured to the restroom where she took a deep breath, planted the picture of her kids in her mind, and made her way to her desk to face Mark.

  “Good morning Mark.” Her being nice was not enough anymore since she had moved out of the dorm. He harassed her every moment he could. She was thankful for Edith who had more than once rescued her from him and as she thought of her now she walked up to her desk.

  “I just stopped by to say good morning. I’ll see ya later.” He hastily walked off toward the exit.

  “What did he want?”

  “He said to just say good morning.” Louise pulled her chair out and sat down.

  “Are you okay this morning?” Edith was so sweet always worried about how she was doing. She now wondered what her story was. Was she someone she could trust? Jordan said to trust no one.

  “I’m fine. I think I’m coming down with something.” She smiled at her.

  “Okay then, just don’t give what you got to me.” She laughed and walked to her desk.

  Louise went to work scanning the documents as she had for months. It was a slow process and as she worked on scanning the old documents, she realized that maybe most of her answers were right here in front of her. Maybe the Office of Vital Statistics will be more vital to her quest than anyone would imagine. She pulled a few random files she had already scanned. She checked birth dates against residency dates. None of them matched. As far as she could see, none of the adult residents was born here. Some children were born there, but none is old enough to leave. She thought of her friend, Gwen, would they allow her to leave if she wanted to?

  She searched by date of residency and of the ones she had already scanned in none dated back more than seven years. Of course, she was only a third of the way through the files. She needed to see her file but she was far from the letter S and was afraid they would be suspicious if she jumped ahead. She was on G and wondered if they had a file under her real name.

  She pulled open the drawer. Let’s see Ga, Ge, here we go Gi; Gifford, Gilab. Edith walked in as she grabbed the file and her heart started racing.

  “Hey Megan did you eat yet? I feel like going out. Do you want…are you okay?”

  Louise was shaking. Think of a reason.

  “Are you okay?” Edith asked again.

  “No…no I mean I haven’t eaten.” She took a deep breath, “but I think I need to. Whew I feel a little dizzy.” She slipped the file back into its spot and closed the drawer.

  “I’m glad you came in I would’ve worked straight through lunch again.”

  “So do you want to go with me?”

  “Yes, that’d be great. I need a break.” She laughed.

  After lunch, Louise did not dare look at her file. That was a close call and she was lucky she had an excuse to cover her anxiety. She needed to prepare herself for what could be in that file. She worked on the G’s the rest of the day but never made it to her file. When the day finally ended, she left work and went straight home.

  What could they possibly have in that file? She thought. She has already seen numerous files but until now did not realize what important information they may contain. She could not let what she see affect her. She needed to keep her cover. The doorbell rang and Louise got up to answer it.

  “Hey Jordan. I didn’t expect to see you today.” She opened the door wider.

  “Wow, Jordan? I haven’t been called that in a long time. It sounds strange. I had to see how you’re doing today after the news yesterday. Are you okay?” He stepped into the living room. The comfortable warm feeling her home always welcomed him with was now gone.

  “I need to move on from my life as Megan with Michael. So, if it’s okay, I’ll call you Jordan
and please call me Louise. It’ll just make things easier for me.” She waved him to take a seat on the couch.

  “Okay…Louise.” His hesitation showed. He had fallen for Megan and to him that was who she was.

  “But to answer your question, yes I’m trying to come to terms with all this and find a way to get the hell out of here.” She sat across the room from him now and the pain in his eyes showed. He knew what he did was the right thing but it hurt to know what he lost because of it.

  “Any luck with that?”

  “Yes…well…well maybe.” Louise explained about the files she worked with. How they had to contain the information she needed to find her way out of here.

  “Did you have a chance to look at your file?”

  “No, but they have a file under both of my names I’m sure, I only caught a glimpse of the one in my real name.”

  “A glimpse?”

  “Yes, Edith walked in as I pulled it out of the drawer. I started to shake afraid I’d gotten caught.”

  “Well that’s because you are pretending to only be Megan now. You have to accept that and act natural. You’re scanning the files right? So you have a right to access them. I’m not going to tell you that there aren’t people here who know who you really are; but for the most part the majority of the people don’t even know who they are let alone care who you are or what file you’re looking at while doing your job.”

  “You’re right. I need to stop acting guilty. I can do this.” This was one of those moments she would reward him with a kiss or hug and had to fight to contain herself. “What do you think I should be looking for?”

  “I don’t know. We both know we had previous lives; why not check our files and see what similarities there are.”

  “Yes that would be a good start.” They talked a little more and Jordan left. Louise made herself some dinner, set her clothes out for work the next morning, showered, and went to bed.

  The next morning found Louise at work scanning the files once more. Louise Gilab’s folder was among the stack she would be working on. As soon as she scanned it in, she entered the data fields as required. She pulled up her file and searched for Michael Dawson. If Jordan had a file under his new name, Louise would have scanned it already weeks ago. The first thing she noticed was there was no picture of her attached to the file but there was on the Michael Dawson file. She also noticed that her file had a date of death. She pulled the hard copy of her file again and skimmed through the pages.

  “What are you doing? You shouldn’t be looking at those. Just scan them.” Edith was moody today and Louise took it in stride.

  “I was auditing to make sure all the pages scanned. I actually caught one by chance where some of the pages were upside down so they scanned in blank. I audit one in every ten or so files, the rest I just fan through the pages and make sure they were all in the right order.”

  “That’s very smart, I would never have thought of that. See that’s why you’re so great at this. Well keep at it.” Louise found that as long as you had an answer, Edith was happy.

  “Did you need something else? You came in…”

  “Oh my yes, I wanted to let you know that Mayor Kramer will be dropping by today so I need you to clean up your area.”

  “What are these? They were here when I got here.” She pointed to the stacks of files all over the desk and floor.

  “Well since we were going paperless, I guess no one felt the new folders needed filed. I guess they hoped the system would be up and running by now.”

  “So can I just scan these in now and get them put away.” Her heart skipped a beat as she hoped that maybe Megan’s file would be among them.

  “I don’t see why not.”

  “Well I’ll straighten these up and get scanning.”

  Edith left and Louise quickly went through the pile of folders. She sorted them alphabetically and stacked them in neat piles on her desk. She was working on the last pile when she came across Megan Strauss’ folder. She took a deep breath and calmed her rattling nerves.

  Must stay calm, she thought. She went to the scanner and scanned it in the document. As she had thought earlier Megan’s file had a picture of her. Her birthdate was off by one month, one day, and one year. How creative, Louise thought. Megan’s date of residency was the same as the date of Louise’s death. The record number was the same on both. As standard practice, Louise knew this field would be a unique identifying number. She pulled up Michael’s file and found he had a different number.

  Hmmm…I need another file. She thought for a minute, Vince. She searched by Vince and found a Vince Franklin. The picture confirmed it was the same man. He had a different record number and it was then she noticed the sub classification code or lack of a code. He did not have one. She pulled up her files and noticed the sub class on Megan’s file was LG and the sub class on Louise’s was MS. It was for cross-referencing the real name and the given name. This numbering was all making sense now. So why didn’t Vince have a sub class. A sickening feeling came over Louise. Louise knew it would take her months to get the rest scanned in and she just did not have months. She had to get them done now.

  Chapter Fifteen

  She worked on getting the documents scanned and only entered their names in the computer. This sped up the process and within a month, she had all the files scanned. Now that she had scanned all the files, she felt more comfortable pulling the ones she needed to look at closer. She felt confident that Mary would accept her explanation if she questioned her. She began confirming her suspicions. She started with Mayor Kramer whom she had met a few weeks ago. She pulled up his file and sure enough, he did not have the sub classification that most of the others had. She checked a few more and found that the doctor, Mark at the dorm, and Edith, her supervisor also lacked the sub classification. She checked one more, Betty, the motherly nurse she had become close to as Megan. To her surprise, she did have one. She was sure she was one of these people who founded Genesee or determined wanted to be there willingly. She searched by record number to find her matching file. The search resulted in four records.

  From her initial review, Betty and her husband were there together but forced to take on separate lives. She was not familiar with who her real husband was and upon closer review found the answer. Stevie, her real husband, had passed away years ago. She reviewed a few more names, picked at random. Of those names she did not really know them other than from time to time, she would pass them on the street. Now that she thinks about it, she was always seeing at least one of them every day.

  This was good information to have if she was planning an escape. She needed to work on getting copies of all of these. She still needed to find out how she got here. Why her? She thought back to her life with Arlin and the kids. Everything seemed normal and she does not recall anyone or thing being suspicious or out of place. If someone had followed her for a time, she would hope she would have noticed. Of course, though, she was so busy with work and the kids. Arlin was always away busy at work site after work site. Did this have something to do with him? Did one of his jobs go bad? Was she the collateral damage? That did not make sense to her. One thing she knew for sure about Arlin, he was an honest man when it came to business.

  With the files completed, she was worried that they would let her go and she may never have a chance to get copies or search for more information that would answer her questions. Her worries were soon resolved when Edith walked over to her desk.

  “Well good news Megan, we found some more work for you to do.” She walked up to her carrying a stack of folders. This time they were an olive green folder with confidential stamped in big black letters across the front. Edith explained that these were the financial records of the city and she needed to handle them discreetly.

  Louise got to work on the financial files and quickly noticed yet again a duplication of record numbers. She came across one that had the same record number as Louise and Megan. There was no sub classification on this record as
there had been on the others.

  Why would they have financial records on me? She opened the file and pulled out the small stack of papers. This file was small compared to some of the others she had already scanned. She wanted to look but Edith had been eyeing her all morning. She scanned the file and hummed a tune she had heard on the radio that morning. As the first page pulled into the scanner, Megan could not help but notice Arlin’s name on the second page.

  When she reviewed both her and Megan’s file there was no mention of Arlin. As she looked, the scanner sucked in the second page. She was sure that her eyes were playing tricks on her. She had been thinking about him that morning and how much she missed his touch. She could not shake the feeling that was creeping up on her.

  “Is something wrong?” Edith came over to her. “You look like you’re about to pass out.”

  “You know you would think with paper being a big part of business that someone would have invented something to prevent paper cuts.”Louise held up her finger as the blood ran down it. “I’m not very fond of blood.”

  They both laughed and Edith handed her a tissue. “Here you go dear. I’ve had my share of those too. I’m so glad we are going paperless. I think I gave more blood to this place than I did to the blood bank.”

  “Well going paperless will eliminate that. Thanks for the tissue.”

  Louise’s heartbeat slowed as she finished scanning her financial file. She silently thanked Jordan as they had discussed things to do if caught in a situation. Louise remembers laughing at his paper cut excuse, but was now very thankful for it as it played nicely into this particular situation. Edith did not even notice what file she had been working on. She scanned a few more and went to her desk to enter the data necessary to complete the electronic file but as she sat down, she realized it was time to go home. Edith came over and grabbed the files Megan had just scanned.