The Remedy Files: Illusion

by Lauren Eckhardt

  My heart begins racing even faster as I near the first row of Paired housing. This is where I have to be the most careful as people could still be coming in and out of them as they please. If the wrong person saw me, it would be over with. I’m sure Impetus would flat out kill me this time. No sense in punishing someone that has already broken through Remedy and has seen the truth. I’m much more of a danger now.

  There are several rows of houses I would have to get through and who knows which one Jacqueline is in. It suddenly becomes apparent to me how daunting of a task this could actually turn into. I may not even find her by the time most dinners are over with. But there’s no turning back now. I’m too close to finding my friend and rescuing her. I can do this.

  Each house has one door and window, and that pattern repeats one after another, each connected until one row ends and a new one begins. I decide my best bet is to stick closely to the back of the houses across from the row I’m checking, and quickly go down the line, hoping to catch a glance of who may be sitting in the window.

  As luck would have it, I make it all the way down towards the end of the back row before seeing Jacqueline’s face in the window, three houses to the end. I almost went by it with being in such a rush, but her face registered in time for me to pull back on my run.

  I remain motionless as I watch through the window. Ethan is sitting across from her and they are both smiling, looking to be in a deep discussion. If she knew what happiness was, I would think that’s what she’d realize she’s currently feeling. At least that’s the way it looks. The fact that she doesn’t understand that feeling makes my heart ache. I know what I need to do.

  Glancing at both directions on each side of me to confirm no one else is coming, I walk straight to her door and knock two times, trying to be as quiet as possible but loud enough for them to hear.

  The door swings open and there she is, standing in front of me. Her hair is pulled back into a tight bun, showing deep set lines around her eyes. She already looks years older despite me being gone for only a few months. Her clothes, her hair- everything looks so much more mature- including the way she’s standing in the door, so comfortable with her house and her life.

  “Evangeline!” Jacqueline squeals out as her brown eyes light up. She gives me a big hug and says, “Come in!”

  I am grateful for the invite, to be somewhere within closed doors and not exposed to anyone else that could possibly see me and know that I’m not supposed to be back in Impetus. I’m also relieved to see her personality hasn’t changed at all.

  When the door closes behind me, I can’t help but give her another hug. I can feel her for the first time in my life and it makes her hug an amazing thing- something actually intimate and special. I pull away, taking a couple of steps back and say, “You look beautiful as always.”

  She flashes her big smile at me. “Welcome to our home.”

  I look around at the quaint space. In the main room, there’s a tan couch, wooden bookshelf filled with a variety of books, and a few other decorations and odds and ends. To the right is a room that looks to be the bedroom and then a smaller door which I’m assuming leads to the bathroom. The kitchen is to my left with a small table, several cabinets, refrigerator, and stove.

  Ethan waves from the table. “Good to see you, Evangeline.” He stands up, pushing his chair back. “I’ll give you ladies some time to talk.” He grabs their plates and places them with a clink in the sink. He slips behind us, disappearing into the bedroom with the door closing quietly. It’s weird to think that Jacqueline lives with a man now.

  “Come sit.” She pulls me to the couch. I take a seat on the soft couch at her request and peek over at the open window, aware that I could still be exposed if the wrong person walks by.

  “I can’t stay for long.” I declare sadly. I would give anything for this to just be a regular visit where we talk about our days. But if I can get her out of here, we can have those days back and they will be better than ever before. “I’m sure you’ve been looking for me. I can’t imagine what you must have thought happened to me after that fiasco.”

  “I haven’t been looking for you.” Jacqueline admits matter-of-factly, blindly stinging me with her words. “I believed I would see you again. And here you are so I was right.”

  It hurt to think that while I was suffering in that box, she wasn’t worried about where I was. Then I correct myself, realizing that of course she can’t be alarmed. Impetus prevents her from having feelings of anything including concern. Still, she admitted that she hadn’t been wondering about where I am. That hurts and she doesn’t even realize it.

  “Things aren’t right, Jacqueline. This life here… they’re not telling us the truth. Bad things are happening. There’s something so much more outside--”

  “I know.” She responds, harshly cutting me off.

  “You know? How much do you know?” I am flabbergasted. How has Jacqueline been able to figure this out?

  “Shhh.” She chastises me. “If someone walked by and heard you asking a question, you’d be punished.”

  I’d be punished for other reasons, I think to myself but stay quiet, hoping she’ll still answer my question.

  “I guess I don’t know specifics.” Jacqueline admits. “In one of the early trainings with the Doctor, he told me he can’t be on Remedy. He has to be able to feel to do his job. That’s why I didn’t want that path… I knew I didn’t want to be forced off Remedy. I don’t want to feel.”

  Liam had shared with me that Doctor Bordine and a couple of the other Community Board members are the only ones not on Remedy due to the delicate requirements of their profession. That’s why they’re so careful with who they choose to move into those prominent positions in order to still function under the regulations of Impetus while holding the strictest amount of confidentiality. So although this information didn’t come as a surprise to me, the fact that Jacqueline has known about this for years is a shocking revelation. Apparently I wasn’t the only one with secrets throughout our friendship. It also now makes sense to me why her and the Doctor had such a strained relationship.

  Jacqueline glances over her shoulder at the open window and sighs. “Evangeline, I’m not stupid. I know things aren’t completely as they seem. But I believe in the system. I believe there’s a reason behind all of this. You’ve seen the books, the movies, the fractions of pieces of The Before like I have. There’s nothing out of that I want. They destroyed themselves.” She grabs her hair, pulling it to the side of her shoulder and subconsciously braids it while avoiding my eyes. “Everything I’ve ever wanted, I have. This system works. You just have to believe.” She shoots me a look from the corner of her eye. “And obey.”

  I ignore her purposeful stab at me. “But don’t you want to know the reason behind it instead of just believing? If there’s more, wouldn’t you want it?”

  Jacqueline sits up straight and looks at me head on. “Evangeline, if you’re going to sit in my house, you need to obey the rules. You are not going to put me and Ethan at risk.” It’s the most serious I’ve ever heard Jacqueline be. I never thought she would speak to me in that way. “I already told you, I have everything I’ve ever wanted. You would too if you’d just cool it. I don’t know what happened to you when we were younger, but I thought for sure you’d snap out of it after we graduated. Instead it’s like you’ve gotten worst.”

  I sit, bewildered. A part of me wants to cry at her words. She has no clue what I’ve been through! What they put me through! She wants to defend a community who tried to torture me and who knows how many others throughout the years! I want to shout out to her and tell her about all of these truths that I’ve discovered, but I’m at a loss for words. Here was my best friend for my entire life who now has been brainwashed to someone I don’t know. The only thing I can think to say is, “So you wouldn’t go with me somewhere else if I asked you.”

  “There’s nowhere else to go.” She firmly responds, making it evident she doesn’t
care to hear anything else. This conversation is clearly over.

  I feel defeated, heartbroken, outraged even. I want so badly to change her mind, to be able to give her the gift of emotions, of feeling. So she could look at Ethan and see him in a new light and be giddy and excited. We could share all the moments we should have had growing up- all of the emotions girls should share. But that’s not going to happen. We lost out. And she doesn’t want it any other way.

  I stand up and Jacqueline follows my movement. I almost give her another big hug, realizing it may be the last one we ever exchange, but I realize how pointless that is in this moment. She won’t feel it anyway and it’ll just make me hurt even more. Instead, I walk to the door, take one last look at her, and shut it quietly behind me.

  The chill in the air is more severe as I walk out, cutting through my clothes to my skin. I pull my hood over my head and zip up tightly. I finish my trek around the final three houses and swing up to go behind the back row and to the route back home.

  I replay the conversation in my head with Jacqueline, wishing that the outcomes I had practiced were the final result instead of how reality turned out to be. Jacqueline did always firmly believe in the ways of Impetus. I shouldn’t be as surprised as I am but thought she would be open to hearing about a different way of life. I thought for sure she would choose my friendship and value it more. But then I realize for that to occur, feelings and emotions have to be tied into it and for her, there’s nothing.

  I’m beginning to comprehend what Gavin meant by seeing in me that I always had some feeling. Even when I didn’t realize they were actual emotions, they were there, a basis under most of the things I chose and a guide for my thoughts. I just never knew until now.

  I consider the fact that it’s the second revelation I’ve had this evening of Gavin being right with the things he has told me. I do need to put more trust in him. If he says he can’t tell me everything right now, I need to believe that. Because, as much as I hate to admit, he has been right with everything else. I need to believe in Gavin like Jacqueline believes in Impetus.

  Then the kiss with Gavin repeats in my mind and my knees go weak at the thought. I suddenly feel the urge to run back to Rebirth, apologize to Gavin and cover him with kisses.

  I near the road at the end of the tool shed and scoop down, listening for noises and looking for signs of life. I stand up to run across when a strong bony hand covers my mouth and an arm pulls against my waist. Someone has a hold of me! I am being dragged backwards, so I stick my feet in the ground to make the movement tougher and attempt to bite down on the hand but can’t get my mouth to open up large enough to get my teeth out. I remember some of the moves that Liam taught me so I take my elbow and jut it as hard as possible behind me. It immediately connects to bones and I hear a loud “oomph” come out from behind me. But the grip doesn’t loosen. I try it again but he pulls back so I miss. “If you know what’s best for you, you better stop.” A deep voice growls.

  I fight hard to get him to let go, but his strength is too much and my angle is too off to be able to do anything different. I hear him kick the tin door and yell “A little help!” In a few seconds, the door squeaks open, lighting up the sky, and I’m pulled inside, watching as the door slams shut.

  CHAPTER 29

  “Who is it?” Another man’s voice asks.

  “Not sure yet. But she was sneaking around so I figure, no matter what, someone may have just volunteered themselves for our experiment.” His laugh makes my stomach turn. He whips me around and pulls the hood off my head.

  My eyes take a moment to adjust to the light, but when they do, my first look is at him. The peculiar man all in gray who I ran into by the thickets of Impetus. “You.” I manage to say.

  “You.” He repeats back, clearly mocking me with a smirk on his face.

  “You guys met before, boss?” I look over to see a new man, tall and slender but with broad shoulders and large arm muscles. He’s the one that grabbed me. He seems close to Gavin’s age with reddish-blonde hair and big, bold black eyes. Their voices… they’re familiar. They are the two men I heard speaking by the tin sheds.

  “We ran into each other once.” He states, keeping his eyes on me in the same creepy stare as the first day we met. “She was sneaking around by the bushes at the other shed. I knew you were up to no good. And then no doubt, a few days later you’re getting thrown into the chamber.”

  “Is this one of the ones that got away?” The younger one inquires.

  “Yeah, it’s her. The big deal one that got the Board all crazed by rebelling during the Futures Ceremony.” He turns back to me. “You really screwed up a lot here. No respect for our plans, huh?” He’s sneering at me now and leaning up against a metal desk that holds several different tools. He notices my eyes wandering over all the equipment. “We were just designing a new punishment chamber since apparently some of the old ones had holes. Some people managed to find a way out. You wouldn’t know anything about that would you?”

  I keep my mouth tightly shut, my lips formed in a thin line and attempt to look as strong as possible despite my rapidly beating heart and the sweat that is forming on my back. My mind is frantically searching for some way to get out of here. The tools were my first hope but he’s blocking those. If I can manage to get around him, I could grab one and protect myself.

  “Well, if you’re not going to give us answers, you just get to play the part of our first guinea pig.”

  The younger one laughs in a way that sounds like all of the evil in the world has somehow been bottled up in that sound. “You want me to notify them that we got her?”

  The older man rubs his chin. “Nah, we’ll do double duty here. We’ll report back on how the new machine works and be able to turn over her in whatever condition she ends up in.”

  The younger one grins in excitement over the plan. “Yeah, let’s do that!” He takes my arm, almost ripping it out of the socket as he drags me, my body scratching against the concrete floor. He pulls me to the corner where a clear glass box sits.

  It’s exactly like the one I was in, except a little shorter in height. My stomach wretches at the sight as all of the memories come flooding back. Inside, several thick ropes are coming out from the edges looking like brown twisted snakes ready to strike and a head strap is hanging from one side, like a screaming metaphor that my life is dangling by a rope.

  “No!” I yell, giving a brutal kick to the crotch of the younger man. He lets go of me to instinctively grab himself. I turn, picking my body off the floor and sprint to the door.

  The older man takes a large steel pipe and swings it at my calf. “Oww!”I shriek, as I fall to the floor in front of me, landing on my stomach with a loud thud. My leg is throbbing in ruthless pain. The younger man grabs both of my legs and drags me all the way back to the corner. I’m sliding on my stomach, the floor rubbing against my skin, as I claw at the concrete and anything nearby to resist. I try to kick but it hurts too much and with each attempt, I let out a cry.

  “Sounds like she’s still off of Remedy.” The younger one observes bitterly.

  Together, they flip me over and pick me up, one holding each side of me and viciously drop me into the box. They tie my wrists and legs down so I’m sitting with my arms behind me and my legs in front, bent so that my feet are just inches from my butt.

  “Tell ya what,” the older man says, breathing into my face, smelling like a mix of tobacco and chili. “We won’t use you as a guinea pig if you tell us how you escaped out of the last one and admit where you’ve been hiding since.”

  I glare at him. He takes me for a weak person. I spit in his face as my response. “No.” I am not going to give away any details about Gavin or Rebirth. They can do whatever they want to me. My pain or death is worth it to protect everyone else.

  He pulls back, wiping my spit from his face with the back of his sleeve. “Maybe we’ll just keep you for our own toy then. You can be the one we test every new punishment tool on
.” I know I can’t prevent the horror from showing on my face. Every part of me is screaming how evil these two are. I knew it when I first heard them speak, and it’s all been confirmed in the worst possible way.

  The older one grabs my hair and pulls my head back so roughly that I feel like my neck is going to snap. He then slides the headpiece over my face and adjusts the strap to make it tight. It leaves my neck straining backwards so that my eyes are facing the blinding lights from the ceiling. He makes one more adjustment to the straps that leaves my mouth slightly agape. I can’t move. I can feel every muscle tense up which makes the pain so much worse.

  “Shhh…” he says in a voice that sounds as though it’s from an immoral world, dripping in a thick evil blood.

  The younger man snickers as together they lift up a top that’s completely black and about three feet thick and lay it on the box. Now my view is total darkness.

  I hear locks being snapped and then squeaky turning noises like a faucet is being connected. All of a sudden, the sound of running water is obvious.

  “Do you like this?” The man asks in a sickly sweet way.

  “Let me go-!” I struggle to say as much as I can with my mouth forced open. As soon as I speak, water downpours from the top of the box, running over my head and into my mouth. I choke on the water, spitting up what I can but more continues to fall on my head. I can’t move, I can’t do anything, except let the water drown me.

  “Here’s a tip,” he utters in an overly syrupy voice. “Every time you make a noise, the water comes down. Every time you try to scream or moan from the pain- every single noise will trigger it. The box isn’t that deep, so keep that in mind. It won’t take long for the water to reach the top.”