The Remedy Files: Illusion

by Lauren Eckhardt

  Listening carefully for any people close by, I poke my head out of the thickets to do a quick visual survey. When it looks like the coast is clear, I push all the way out, swiftly stand up, and walk innocently as though I was just taking a look at the gardens. I’m sure some people think I have an obsession with the gardens. “They’re just beautiful.” I always claim if I run into anyone soon after I re-enter Impetus. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Community Board assigns me to take care of the gardens as part of their decision for my future. I’m sure I’ve given mixed signals to them over the years.

  The most important thing is making sure that no one discovers that I actually go outside of Impetus walls. It is considered extremely unlawful and positioned in the community as a sign of rebellion not only against Impetus but also my own life. Our wrist monitors only work within a three mile radius of the Lightstones which is precisely where the bushes decorate the edges of Impetus. Venturing past that point leaves people at their own risk. There’s a high probability that your Remedy level would drop low and your wrist monitor would not be able to notify you of your need to regulate it. The result then is death. As Mr. Pancioletta reminds us, “We are here to protect your lives and value to Impetus. If you are caught breaking law A013, it tells us you no longer want your life since you choose to risk it. Putting your own life at risk puts the lives of all the community members at risk. You will be punished and banned from Impetus.”

  Despite these threats, every single day since I was 6 years old, I’ve taken the chance. I leave Impetus and go see someone that has always seemed like an instinctive piece of my life. I do it for Gavin. And there’s not a thought in my head that tells me it’s not worth it.

  CHAPTER 4

  Impetus is surrounded by thickets of genetically manufactured foliage that is as thick and impenetrable as bushes but stand as tall as the Redwood trees that supposedly exist out yonder. They are weapon and weathered proof, meaning that no fire could burn them and no man could chop them down. If someone was walking by, they may not even notice that there is a community behind the bushes. Supposedly the birds in the air would be the only ones to notice since there is nothing but open sky above Impetus.

  I bypass the gardens, staying close to the shadows casting down from the buildings that precede them so no one notices my descent from the thickets. The first building is one of two that sit on the outskirts and have always been a mystery. They stand out with an exterior of gray steel frames which make them look so cold and dark. No one talks about these buildings and I’ve never seen anyone go in or come out. I walk a little faster to hurry past the one closest to the Clinic. There’s just something disconcerting about a part of the community that all of the members have silently allowed to be a menacing obscurity for all these years.

  “Good afternoon.” Mr. Frank is standing in his usual pose with a hose in his hand as he’s watering the plants around the shed. I thought no one was around. It seemed like the coast was clear. Now I wonder if he saw me come out of the thickets.

  “Hi, Mr. Frank.” I search for something else to say to cover my tracks- some story as to justify what I was just doing. I can’t think of anything. It’s a losing battle anyway. There’s something about Mr. Frank’s soulful brown eyes, set deep with aged kindness that prevents me from lying to him. It’s like he would still know the truth, and even if he didn’t, he would simply be the last person in the world I’d ever want to betray in any way.

  He turns off the water and smiles at me. “Beautiful day today.” His voice is low and sweet, as though every word he says could be a song in itself that you want to play each morning as the sun is rising.

  Nodding, I say, “It is. You seem to be working a bit late.”

  “Well, it began with a visit to the Clinic today that set me back a couple of hours.” Mr. Frank looks up at the sky and chuckles. “I keep defying Respite despite its attempts at trying to get me. It can be a good thing to be a fighter, you know.” He brings his eyes back down to look into mine. It’s almost as though he’s trying to tell me something- a secret message that I’m not able to decipher.

  He must know that I sneak out. Yes, he’s secretly trying to convey that he knows. This isn’t the first time he’s found me so close to the edge of Impetus. It would be like him to keep it quiet. I wonder if he knows how often or even the reason why which could be worse than just me sneaking out. It would then put Gavin at risk.

  I remind myself that no matter what, though, Mr. Frank has proven over the years that he won’t ever report me to the Officials. He has had multiple opportunities to do so yet has never taken the step. I would hate for him to think bad about me personally, though. That fact alone would be worse punishment than what Impetus could ever do to me.

  “I should probably get going to work.” I’m reluctant to leave as a part of me wants to discover how much he knows. There aren’t many times the two of us are alone in conversation with no one else around. But there’s no way for me to ask without blatantly breaking Impetus rules even more than I already have.

  “Have a wonderful evening, Evangeline.” Mr. Frank turns the water back on. “By the way,” He folds the hose together, temporarily preventing the water from running. “I know you’re graduating Level 17 soon. Please know that you’ve always been my favorite.” He turns the water back on with the release of the hose, humming as he walks around the side of the shed.

  The tone of his voice as he said it registered more like a goodbye than a random compliment. Maybe it is goodbye in some sense. It may be the last time we talk if I do end up as a Paired. Or maybe he’s just thinking that he will be whisked away into Respite soon if he just had a doctor’s appointment earlier today.

  I give a little wave while taking one look back at Mr. Frank. Even with a lanky body and back that has steadily stooped more over the years as his age continues to show, the top of his head is just about a foot away from the shed’s roof. He’s by far the tallest person in Impetus.

  Gavin once told me that in The Before, there were buildings that stood as tall as sixty of our buildings stacked on top of one another. I’ve seen pictures but never knew the facts behind them. These were demolished during the wars and never rebuilt as officials discovered Remedy need levels increase dramatically the higher from ground you get. The Lightstones are the only edifice set higher than all the other buildings since they provide natural light for the community during the Sleeping Hours; but even they fail to compare in height to the thickets that surround Impetus.

  The Lightstones are now guarded every night because of an incident that happened around the time I was born. The legend is of a boy who wanted to see like the birds in the sky. Since the thickets are impossible to scale, he set out during the Sleeping Hours to climb the Lightstones. As he ascended higher and higher, his monitor started beeping, warning him of the need for Remedy to regulate his body. The boy only made it two-thirds of the way before his body stopped functioning completely and he fell to his death. This situation then caused an even bigger problem when there was a higher demand of extra pills to help community members deal with the death of the little boy. The consequence of this all resulted in a Remedy shortage, causing several other lives to end as well because they could not manufacture enough pills in such a short amount of time.

  Impetus officials remind us of this story often, emphasizing the marvel of Remedy and emphasizing that if we didn’t have Remedy to rely on, there would have been many more deaths in that situation. “Remedy would have saved lives in The Before,” they always say, “but at least we have it to save our lives today.”

  However, when I disclosed this to Gavin, he argued that the need for extra pills came from the stirrings of emotions that can sometimes still emerge in extremely unusual situations. Because, he always explains in such a damning matter, despite modern science, we are still the same species of people from The Before. “It would have been better for everyone to feel than to take all the pills. Taking excessive pills kills people; not mour
ning a person’s death.” If anyone in Impetus heard him say that, he would be immediately reported and punished. It’s probably a good thing that Gavin isn’t a part of my community because with the way his mind operates, he’d be banned by now.

  The basic story of the Lightstones Legend had been shared with us for as long as I remember as a continual reminder of the importance of our rules and existence; but it was at the Clinic where I learned the details since more comprehensive history is shared specifically with students and employees of the Clinic and the Guard. They further highlight such rules like A112 which states that we have to get our Remedy pills from a Monitor Cube in order to regulate the levels of Remedy in our system and A152 which now assigns personnel to keep inventory on the amount of Remedies available in Impetus. This is also when they began to strictly enforce A066, better deemed the Curiosity Ban, which makes both the thinking and asking of what, why, when, and how questions illegal. “Of course quite reasonable since it was the boy’s unlawful curiosity that ended his life and those of some of his community members.” The instructor said, using the Lightstones Legend as a primary example.

  “You’re late. Have you been running off with your imaginary friend again?” Jacqueline whispers, her dark brown eyes were lit up, presumptuously waiting for details to be shared as I walk through the Clinic door.

  “Shhhh…” I look around quickly as though I am covering a big secret even though the waiting room is empty and Doctor Bordine is nowhere to be seen. I wink at her. “Maybe I was.”

  “Evangeline!” Jacqueline waits for me to come around the corner to the front desk and then grabs my hands, turning my body to completely face her. “Tell me details!”

  I laugh, pulling my hands from her and turning my attention back to the appointment books that were open on the desk. Jacqueline is always interested in the details of other people’s lives. She has a constant battle with the questions we are never supposed to ask but does a great job of holding them in. Because of her rebellious curiosity that is a smaller scale replica of my own, we became friends at a very early age and have always remained close through each Level.

  When I had first met Gavin, I ran back to the community, joining my Level classmates in the Home cafeteria. Once I found Jacqueline, I pulled her to the back of the room away from earshot of all the others. In hushed whispers I told her about the strange boy I met that lives in the woods.

  Jacqueline, who has always been esteemed as one of the smartest students in each Level of school, had put her tiny 6-year old hands on her hips and said, “People don’t live in the woods. They would be dead. We can’t see dead people.” Even at such a young age, her confidence in the world and her beliefs were so strong that it even made me doubt whether or not I had indeed met a boy that lived in the woods.

  I had returned to the same spot the next day to meet Gavin once again to prove to myself that it was real. I quickly learned from that situation to not share my secret with anyone else so I never brought up Gavin to Jacqueline again. But I did continue to see Gavin day after day.

  When we were 9 years old, she took notice that I was disappearing more often. Jacqueline never forgets details so in reference to three years earlier when I told her about the “boy who lives in the woods”, she started saying I was visiting my “imaginary friend”. It became a regular joke between us, but I could always tell she wondered about the truth. There were days when I learned something so amazing from Gavin that I wanted to rush back to Impetus to share it with Jacqueline. Unfortunately Gavin made me promise to never share the details of our visits with anyone else.

  “They wouldn’t understand, Evie. You would be putting yourself and me at risk.” Gavin would always say.

  “But, Gavin, if they knew what you’ve told me…”

  Gavin’s eyes would narrow in on me, his tone firm and rasp, “They aren’t meant to know. End of discussion.”

  I had a lot of secrets over the years because of Gavin, causing me to constantly refrain from sharing anything with Jacqueline. It was the worst part of my friendship with him.

  “Did you get today’s shipment in?” I flip the pages of the appointment book until I reach today’s date. I’ve become quite good at changing the subject.

  Jacqueline sighs, loudly throwing herself on the chair next to me and leans back into the table. She stares at me until I turn to face her. Her thin bottom lip is jutting out in a forced pout.

  Ignoring her look, I follow-up with, “Did you do inventory and check the cube levels?”

  Realizing that I am not going to expand on my whereabouts, Jacqueline sighs again louder for her typical exaggerated dramatic flair, spins once around in the chair, and leaps up. “No, miss Evangeline. I’ll go do that right now.” She slowly walks backwards down the hallway to the office in the back, keeping her eyes on me and the pout on her face evident. As she disappears in the room, she pops her head out one more time, sticks her tongue out at me, and slams the door.

  The door that had been closed to the right of it immediately swings open. Doctor Bordine walks out with one hand behind his back and his other scratching his looming belly that seems to have been steadily growing over the past four years that I have worked in his office. “Is there a problem?”

  “No, Doctor. The wind must have caught the door when it shut.”

  Doctor Bordine’s right hand reaches up to run his hand through his thinning red hair as he peers over his tiny glasses. “What’s the schedule look like for this afternoon?”

  “We only have three patients scheduled, sir. Mrs. Celticlane, Mr. Kevin, and Mr. Streedlink.”

  “Very good.”

  Doctor Bordine turns to head back to his office, but stops, his back still turned to me. Taking off his glasses and rubbing them with the sleeve of his white coat jacket, he says, “Oh, and please tell Jacqueline to be a little nicer to the office interior.” Putting his glasses back on his tiny nose, he returns to his office, the door shutting carefully behind him.

  I frequently tend to serve as the primary communicator between Doctor Bordine and Jacqueline. They do not understand each other and make it clear that limited interaction is the preference for both parties. If the rumors were true about her being the next Doctor, her avoiding Doctor Bordine doesn’t help as I don’t think she’s learning as was planned for her to do from this experience.

  I wonder if the Community Board’s plans for her have changed. We are nearing the end of Level 17; soon it will all be determined. I will be put in my new life and she will be told the decisions for hers. There is a strong chance that the outcome will lead to the first time since we were infants that we will be separated and put in different groups: Paired and Unpaired. The only thing that we will have as a link is the “line” female group that our first names will forever have in common.

  After work, Jaqueline and I walk back to the Levels 14-17 Home together. It’s a little shorter distance to go around the edge of the community circle to get to our Home from the Clinic than to go through the center of town to get there. However we both decided a couple of years ago that we would rather take the longer route through Impetus. I don’t like walking past the peculiar steel sheds as the sun is fading because the shadows grow deeper and darker. And Jacqueline enjoys seeing whoever she can from the community. Our reasons are vastly different from one another but at least we both want the same thing.

  There are four primary streets that are spaced evenly within the circle that encompasses the design of Impetus, leading diagonally from the Lightstones to the tall protective thickets outlining the community walls. In between the streets are rows of buildings ranging from the cooperative to the Levels and Homes to the Clinic and everything in between to keep the community functioning. We begin the decline down Street B to the Center as Jacqueline is telling me a story about how her and Ethan tried to make a song out of Pauline’s signature never-ending tapping she does with her fingers and feet. When we were younger, we used to complain about the noise. Over the years, we’ve
gotten used to it and simply expect to hear it every time we’re around her.

  I laugh distractedly at Jacqueline’s story, my mind more focused on the people that are lining up behind the Remedy Cubes in the Center. As we walk by, I listen to the steady beep of each person’s monitors, reminding them to reload immediately. Most of the community members in line are part of the adult workforce. It seems to be one of the most common times for Remedy levels to become sporadic- especially for the Unpaired who seem to use these right before the Sleeping Hours the most.

  Gavin informed me that the need for Remedy has increased throughout the years. Apparently when Impetus was first founded, the members just needed a couple of doses throughout the days to survive which actually left no need for a monitor. But as time went on, more and more Remedy has been needed to maintain life, and so the monitors were created to help people know when they need Remedy before the risk of death occurs. When a person’s levels get too low or too high, there is a yellow flashing light and a steady beeping sound. The beeping speed and volume will increase as the need becomes more severe and the light will change from yellow to orange to red. A few people have claimed to see the orange light, but no one has claimed red. Red means it’s too late and you are about to breathe your last breath.

  I never thought I would see the orange light, let alone the red. But as with all things, that was soon to change.

  CHAPTER 5

  At first it sounds like the wind breezing by my ears, but then it becomes more distinct. The shattering whistles. It’s coming for me. This time, I sense that it’s alone.