The Quest For Perfection (Is A Damn Fine Thing)

Part II: The World Beyond The Water - Chapter 15

15

Tom surfaced and drank in the air like it was an icy drink on a hot day and waited. After a few moments of silence, he was happy enough that there was nobody in the house and got out of the tank. Removing the wires, pads and needles, he wrapped a towel around himself, and checked his vitals. Stable. His body was scarred, from all the needles and wires but other than that he was fine. For now, at least. He had stayed under for longer than he had originally planned. For someone so very smart, he was so very dumb. Issie would say that to him a lot. Issie. She was the reason he'd stayed under for so long. It was a mistake, he knew, to build his own life within the machine. The original plan was to enter the world the surviving members of the experiment were inhabiting and try and wake them up within that world in an effort to wake them up in the real one. But, the truth of it all was, he was scared. He'd built this backdoor into the world of Fredrick Street on his own, without the resources he had at The Complex and, for the most part, on his own. He didn't know if it was going to work, and he didn't know if he would be able to come back without anyone on this side to pull him out. He had a theory, on how to return, which he had made sure to program. Which had worked, despite how painful it had been to relive it. So pain, because he had made the life inside the world he'd helped create the one he yearned for every day.

He had programmed his own perfect life within the world beyond the water, in his consciousness. It was exactly the life he and Issie had lived before they had started messing around with the project. And to program that had been his first mistake. When he woke up in that world, it was next to Issie. And when she looked it him, there was no anger there. No pain. No betrayal. Just love. Just the life they had before they had come up with the idea, before the pain and suffering that had caused them to embark on this experiment before they'd put all those people in those tanks. Before they had all...

He had intended on beginning to dismantle the world of Fredrick Street as soon as he had passed through but he didn't. He'd taken days. He'd taken time to spend with Issie. It was time he would never have again, but it was also time he could not afford. Now he was against the clock. He knew that now. Another had been lost whilst he had been in, meddling, trying to make them remember. He knew that everyone at The Complex would be looking at what went wrong and would detect an anomaly in the system – and they would know the anomaly was him.

Now that the residents of Fredrick Street were aware of their world, that it was a fantasy and a construct, things would move quickly. He had put the wheels in motion. If what had worked to bring him back into the real world would work for them, he didn't have long. None of them did. He had no idea how they would react when he revealed the secret that tied them all together, more than just a street lined with picket fences. He hoped the shock wouldn't initiate the wake up right away. Tom needed the time to get into the Complex and help them escape and end this program before any more lives were destroyed.

Tom dried himself, and threw on some clothes, listening to the silence. He knew they would be trying to track him but he was confident that he would be OK. It helped to have someone on the inside. Besides, he was hiding in plain sight. He'd never left the island. Now that his plan was in motion though, he didn't know what would happen next. It could come crashing down. So far, though, so good. He hadn't been detected.

At least not yet, anyway.

He limped his way into the kitchen, using the worktops and the walls to support himself. His legs were weakened, and not back to full strength yet. His stomach screamed at him for food and his mouth was dust-dry. He yanked open the cupboards and the fridge and pulled out anything he could see. Milk. Cold Meat. Cheese. Chocolate. Peanut Butter. Bread. He didn't even think. He tore at it all, famished. Thirsty. It was only then, after this impromptu feast that his body started to regain strength and his mind came into focus. Came back to reality.

If this was how he felt after a few days in the tank, how would Sarah, Albert, Mark & Kim feel? If they stood a chance of escaping, he'd have to think of someway to clear a path for them. Because there was no way they would be allowed to leave that Complex. It wasn't Issie that he was worried about. It was The Wells Foundation.

The Wells Foundation, thought Tom, cursing that he'd ever heard the name.

Every single research grant and funding opportunity, whether it be from colleges, universities, the Government or scientific insitutions, had rejected their proposal for the experiment. Each and every one of them had wrote it off as hocus, a waste of time, a drain of resources that were better used elsewhere. Tom had to be removed from one office because they had accused Tom and Issie of being desperate frauds that didn't need funding for their experiment but a few sessions with a grief counsellor. The idea may have been born from grief, and of suffering, but they were not desperate. And they were not frauds.

Then they found The Wells Foundation. Or rather, they found them. They offered a staunch belief in the project and agreed to fund it, in full. The only caveats were Non Disclosure Agreements and the signing over of all control and power to them. Should the experiment prove successful? They would own it.  They would hire the staff, with certain members of the team being approved by Tom and Issie. They would also find the participants, providing they meet the essential criteria, stipulated by Tom and Issie. Tom remembered asking how they planned to find participants. He was offered a wry smile, by one of the lawyers, Henry, that oft flanked Harold Wells.

"This isn't something you want to advertise in the papers. The less people know about this project, the better. We can find people who want to start over and who nobody will look for," Henry had said. Tom didn't trust him; he didn't even believe he was a lawyer.

Reluctantly, Tom and Issie agreed to the terms laid out. In theory it was fine, but they knew that in practice, the experiment could violate moral and ethical boundaries, including the law. They insisted that they wanted to make sure that everything was carried out above board and in accordance with the law; if they came up against something that was illegal they would change their approach. The Wells Foundation, however, waved that away. They were willing to overlook that.

"It's what lawyers and contracts are for," smiled Harold Wells at the time. Tom wondered if he was still smiling.

With a stroke of a pen, they signed the contract and their HQ, The Complex, began to get built on St. Kilda, while Tom and Issie took a deep dive into the research as to how best take their theory into practice and determine what they were looking for. Which was easy, really. They wanted to see Cassie again. But more importantly, they wanted to stop hurting. They wanted everyone to stop hurting.

Tom poured himself a glass of water and drank, taking a bite out of some chocolate. He looked around the dark, dank kitchen of the house he was holed up in. This wasn't his life, surely. When he was 21, meeting Issie for the first time at a party of a mutual friend he had saw it all in a moment, their life. Not as scientists and certainly not apart. They were together. It was the strangest feeling but he could see it all. Their first dance, their first house and their first child. They had only spoken a few words to each other, but something grabbed hold of Tom in that room in that moment, something that no science could make head or tails of, and he knew it would all happen. And it all did happen. Then it stopped. Then it was lost. All of it.

There was movement outside the house then. It was the shuttle bus. Tom could see it from the kitchen as it moved slowly through the makeshift suburb. He held his breath and froze, trying to get a glance of anyone on board. He recognised nobody. Or more specificially, he recognised that the one person he was looking for wasn't on board.

Finishing the last of his feast, he took a napkin and wiped his mouth. He felt a little better, but the world he'd inhabited still echoed like a shadow in his mind. He took out his mobile phone and sent one single message to the one contact he had saved. Almost ready. Time to tell her. Then he snapped the phone in half and headed back downstairs into the basement.

He had some more work to do.