Before Heaven

Chapter 5

IV

Two weeks in.

Two weeks and two days, actually. We were sixteen days into the pre-simulation and the Nest was slowly growing to a sort of standstill. I was getting used to everything now. Talk with Alice, get some food, swing by the arcade, chill in my room, the like. I'd stopped tuning into every news article about me and my parents because every one pissed me off. I still didn't want to be here, of course, but I'd accepted I wasn't leaving. Alice had stopped updating me on Jenny a week ago and it had slipped my mind to ask. Regardless, on the night of the sixteenth day, I'd spontaneously decided I wanted to swimming. I hadn't used the pool, yet, and my bathroom's shower was shitty – hot water ran out in a minute and the towels seemed perpetually wet. I rented some swimming trunks, waited until dark, and decided to go for a swim on my lonesome. Why not?

The change rooms were empty. There was a single buzzing light, of the fluorescent type, flickering above my head. The marble-white tiled walls were cracked and disused, a long wood bench cutting through the center of the change rooms and a series of dented old lockers by the sides. There was a bathroom at the upper right side of the change room, but from the look of it, the door's lock was faulty and the toilet was rancid and overgrown with some horrid-smelling thing that made me instantly turn up my nose and recoil to the end of the change rooms.

Real decrepit place. I wondered how long this thing had actually been built and whether or not it had served any purpose prior. With a lingering sense of paranoia someone would barge in and see more than what was warranted, I quickly changed into my swimming trunks, absentmindedly tossed my clothes into one of the lockers – not bothering to actually lock it, as I was bereft of quarters – and paced into the shower room. My hair was a little flaky; I'd been stalling on actually washing it with hair conditioner during the morning showers, out of laziness. I stretched and allowed the feel of paranoia to slowly ebb away as the steaming hot waters of the shower trickled down my naked back. It was a soothing feeling and something I was in damn sure need of with the tension of everything that had been going on. Still, I could still imagine Billy suddenly bursting into the showers with a posse of high school-style ass-kissing bullies and dunking my head into the moldering toilet bowl. That was a thought so inherently preposterous it gave me cause to chuckle in the shower. As it automatically switched off after a minute, I cracked my neck and walked into the pool.

A cold air overtook everything. There was a series of windows up above on the end wall, where others could look into the pool from one of the paths above. There was a hot tub – complete with a little whirlpool and bubbles like a Jacuzzi, of sorts – and a rectangular swimming pool beyond that, the shallowest end marked 1.8 feet and the deepest end about 5.2. The dim reflection cast by the pool shimmered like waves on the wall and gave everything a sort of nice ambiance that relaxed me further. I went in expecting everything to myself for the hour I planned to be here.

Nope. To my surprise, Jenny – out of her room, for once – was drifting on the pool on her back and her face up to the sky, her eyes closed and her form motionless. She was in a green-and-blue two-piece, her form pretty gaunt. Evidently, she'd gotten the idea for private relaxation here first. I nervously regarded Jenny for a second. Even as the door creaked closed behind me, she didn't seem to notice or at the least pretended not to, her eyes remaining closed and her mind either blissfully unaware of my presence or silently hoping I'd leave posthaste. I very quietly sighed, a little disappointed I'd been cheated out of some alone time, and walked over to the hot tub, submerging myself. The bubbles were pleasant beyond all belief against me, the jets within the hot tub sending a wonderful tingle up my spine as they jettisoned into my lower back and massaged my worries away. My troubles, for the moment, evaporated from my heart like the steam around me and dissipated into thin air. I sat back and let my head lie back.

Seven minutes passed, through which everything was silent. I thought about a variety of things. None of them ended up as relevant and simply came and went like flies to a piece of bread. They kept my mind company. I didn't want them to go. I eventually felt the water of the main pool disturb and a pair of wet, dripping feet echoing across the empty room walk over to the hot tub and pause for a bit. My eyelids had been closed the time and groggily drifted upwards to stare upwards at the disturbance.

Jenny was standing right above me, impossibly tall from my perspective. Her arms were folded across her chest, but her face seemed less irritated – as it usually was – and more just confused. I was too content to give her much in the way of a proper greeting, so I just weakly acknowledged her with a motion of my eyebrows and a swirl of my hand. Jenny sighed and, after a moment of deliberation, stepped into the hot tub and sunk herself in. I didn't really know what to think of this. I was way too relaxed to get out, now, and it'd be simply impolite to tell her to piss off or whatever. I summoned the strength to push myself up a bit and open my eyes again. Jenny was looking me in the eyes. There was ten seconds of relatively awkward silence as we mutually pondered one another.

My eyelids still heavy, I blinked and finally spoke. "You're up late."

Jenny's look of vague irritation returned. "Mmmhm," she grunted, her voice quite boyish. "Could say the same about you, you know."

Another spot of silence.

"...Water's nice," I said, in a futile attempt to prolong the conversation. I know, somehow, she wanted to talk to me. Just not in a way this casually.

"Yeah," Jenny said, brushing it off. "Came here for some relaxation. Wasn't expecting anyone else to be here."

"Neither was I," I said, sighing and rising my arm out of the water and on the floor behind me.

More silence. Jenny decided enough was enough and skipped over to what she wanted to ask me.

"Your parents," she said, suddenly. "f*****g Winter twins, or whatever?"

Oh, joy. Back to that subject? How original.

I gave her a withering look, not really happy about my asshole parents being mentioned again. "About them? You a fan or whatever?"

"No," she said. "...They left you here, didn't they? Sold you out for publicity?"

I closed my eyes, surprised she knew, the pleasant feeling induced by the hot water gone. "...Yeah."

Jenny seemed shrill all of a sudden. "Doesn't that f*****g make you feel angry? Like you're a f*****g tool?"

I opened my eyes and sat up a little straighter. "Like you wouldn't believe. It's not my choice to be here. They just want their 'hero son' to participate in some shitty experiment for cash. Fame. They already got plenty of that but they still want more. Yes, I feel used, Jen."

Jenny paused for a bit. I'd raised my voice and it had echoed across the pool. She considered my words for a bit and looked at me with a more sympathetic face.

"...I know the feeling," she said, suddenly.

I looked at her, confused. "Excuse me?"

"Look," Jenny suddenly said. "You're maybe one of the only f*****g people in this hellhole I can relate to in any regard. I got some stuff to tell you. Maybe we can f*****g understand each other a little better because of it. Don't you f*****g tell nobody about this; it'll screw you over, it'll screw me over, and the Director's gonna fly into a tizzy have both our asses on a fireplace."

I frowned, confused. "...Okay?"

Jenny sighed. "They haven't told anyone this. I don't know why. Dad said he doesn't want the people's hopes raised in case this all comes crashing down and he wants the course unchanged."

I raised an eyebrow. "What hopes? Who the hell is your father?"

"Charles Waits. The Director. CEO of Red Clover. Tara's my mom. And – get this – the Phantom that's been f*****g everyone up? I'm immune. That's why I'm here."

Brief silence. I should've been surprised. Maybe it was just the feel of the water, but I only felt a mild sense of shock rise up before that deflated like a sad, flattening balloon.

"...You're bullshitting me," I said, not really certain whether or not she was being honest.

Jenny looked at me in contempt. "Jackson. Why the f**k would I lie about that? Tara brought me here. Soon as they discovered I was immune, they f*****g just up and took me out to this hellhole after a small registration process. I had no f*****g say in the matter, Jackson. Just like you."

She seemed iron-hard in her conviction. It was a perplexing, hard-to-believe scenario. "That's... Why are you immune? How?"

"Don't know," Jenny said, swishing her hand out of the water. "That's what they're supposedly trying to find out. Exposing me – their own kid – to the raw energies of another f*****g world in the hope there's gonna be a scientific breakthrough. It's bullshit. This entire program is bullshit. It's over-complex, needlessly costly, impractical in every f*****g way... you get what I'm saying?"

I could agree with her a little more firmly now. "Completely. I don't want to be here any more than you. The only people who do are greedy assholes."

Jenny was smiling now. Apparently, we were a lot more like-minded than we thought. "Exactly," she said. "We don't want to be here. We don't need to be here." Jenny suddenly stopped and sunk a little lower into the water, warily gazing up at a security camera in the upper-right corner I hadn't noticed before. She swam a little closer to me.

"Jackson. Let's bust out," she said, her voice with a dangerous, ambitious edge to it.

I shrunk back a bit. "Bust out? How do we even get off the island?"

"Boats," Jenny said. "There's a few docking areas around the island. Tara told me about them when we flew in here. All we need's a boat key, a shred of free time and maybe a few diversions, and we can ride out. They've got ninety-eight other willing suckers they can test on, so why us?"

I hesitated. Jenny's offer was tempting but it was risky as all flaming hell. My mind frantically tried to weigh the pros and cons in between the three seconds Jenny proposed the offer and my answer came out. Where would we go? What if we got caught? My mouth opened to formulate something to stall Jenny further while I thought.

The sound of the door to one of the change rooms opening suddenly cut off the question and caused us both to turn our heads towards the source of the sound. It was Alice. Their hair was damp and sticking to their head. Surprisingly, they were wearing their round glasses instead of the contacts they'd once told me they wore, the lenses of them thoroughly steamed up – probably from the sauna in-built into both of the change room's shower rooms – enough to hide their eyes. They were in a mostly featureless, white, blue-striped one-piece swimsuit, something appropriate and modest. They had a pleasant smile on their face and they approached the hot tub, waving.

"Bonjour, Jackson, Jen," they said, completely ignoring how inopportune – or perhaps, lucky – their appearance was to the circumstance.

Surprisingly, Jenny didn't blow them off and quietly returned the wave, swimming back to where she was sitting. I looked up, surprised. "Alice? What are you doing here?"

"Heard you get up," they said, nonchalantly. "Wanted to investigate. That a crime?"

I smiled. "Not at all. Come on, water's nice and warm."

Alice strode into the water and exhaled, bobbing over to me. "You're both here?" they said. "Weird. How's the plan been going, Jen?"

Plan? They knew?

Jenny's casual response cemented it. "Good. Waiting for an opportunity. Trying to talk Jackson into coming along. You two are pals, right?"

Alice nudged up next to me and spoke before I could with a sizable smile on their face. "Yup."

I just felt weird now. I was happy Alice was here. I was mortified Jenny wanted to pull off such a daring escape. And I was, above all, most confused Alice apparently knew about all this.

"Wait," I said, swimming a bit away from Alice. "You know she wants to escape, Alice?"

Jenny laughed. "Sure they do. We've been talking for a week now, already. They've been helping me with some personal problems. Heck, they convinced me to escape to begin with."

Well, that was a plot twist. I guess that was why they stopped updating me on Jenny.

Alice shrugged and looked back at me. "She looked desperate. So I just gave a suggestion. She ran with it, I guess."

"No kidding," I said, taking a deep breath in and standing up out of the hot tub. "You two mind if I go for a swim? Need to cool off."

Jenny frowned. "Hey, man, are you in or out? You didn't answer."

I took a shaky breath in and stepped out of the tub. "Uh, give me some time to think about it."

Jenny shrugged. "Whatever. Don't think too long."

I walked away from the hot tub as Alice and Jenny struck up a conversation. I brushed some of my wet hair out of my face, paced over to the deep end of the pool, and dove in. An onrush of cool water flooded my senses and my vision was overtaken by a hazy, stinging blue, the sudden cold shocking against my skin at first but relaxing after a while. I swam up and took a breath in, floating in the middle of a pool for a bit and letting my warm body adjust the rest of the way to the water. After I'd settled in, I swam back over to the end of the pool, kicked off the wall, and started swimming laps.

Alice and Jenny. Pals. How the hell was that for unexpected? Granted, we were all around the same age – Jenny was only a year older than me and Alice – but caustic Jenny and mild-mannered Alice seemed a pair not fit for each other, especially considering what Jenny had apparently said previously. How did Alice tempt her into friendship? The fact that Alice had apparently given Jenny the idea to escape was even more implausible. I didn't know they'd been talking. I thought Alice and I alone were friends. Was I jealous? Maybe. More so was I concerned for Jenny's safety. Trying to escape from the Nest was a suicide mission; Red Clover wouldn't shoot us, of course, but being tranquilized, drugged, and sent into solitary for a month wasn't much more pleasant. One part of me, the sensible part, I imagine, told me to turn down Jenny at that so I wouldn't have to take any risks. But the other part of my brain – the craving part of it that made my decisions through stupid instinct, through what I wanted and not what I needed, the part of my brain that made me binge on Doritos and watch Hammer Horror instead of doing homework – that part of me wanted to join her. Even if it was just a slim chance, I didn't want to be here. I wanted to stick it to my parents in any way I could, at this point, and this might have been my opportunity.

I really did need some time to think about it. The simulation begun in six weeks; Heaven knew Jenny would probably try to dart long before that.

Finally, after five minutes of just swimming laps and thinking, I stopped at the end of the pool, at the little set of stairs complete with the wet arm rail. Jenny was getting out of the water, as was Alice, and they seemed to be closing the conversation. I got out of the water, shook my head like a wet dog, and looked at Alice and Jenny.

"You two leaving already?" I said, confused.

Jenny looked back at me. "It's eleven-o'clock, fuckass. Pool's closing."

I looked up at the digital clock at the far end of the wall, cast in hard red letters. 11:00 PM.

Oh, s**t. I guess I should've gotten here earlier.

"Get a f*****g answer yet?" Jenny said, with impatience that nevertheless seemed fairly playful.

"A brief swim won't decide that, man," I said. "This is a lot to consider."

Jenny laughed. "Don't consider too hard, now, or you might wring your brain dry like a sponge. I'm going back to my room. You wanna meet up here again tomorrow so we can talk further?"

I shrugged. Anything to spend some time and get some thoughts off my chest. "Fine with me."

"Right," Jenny said. "Talk to Alice. They can help, I'm sure. Later, fucknut." With that, Jenny walked off, seized one of the towels from the towel rack by the hot tub, and strolled off into the women's change room.

Alice was standing there, watching her leave. "She's got a determined mind," they said, almost in admiration. "She just needed a little push."

I looked at Alice, in concern. The steam had faded from their glasses, revealing their sneaky little eyes bright with a hundred ideas.

"Why, though?" I asked, in genuine concern. "Why push her to that path? You know she could get hurt."

"I know," Alice said, somewhat apathetically. "But I'm trusting she won't. She wanted to do it, from the moment she came in this place. She just didn't realize it. So, I rose that passion up. She was grateful."

"Still," I said, still cautious on the matter, "don't you think that might be too much of a prompt, there? You shouldn't encourage self-endangerment."

"I'm not encouraging it," Alice said. "I'm making her realize her desires. Whether she acts on them or gets hurt in the process isn't my choice. It's hers."

I sighed. "Honestly, though..."

Alice put a hand on my wet shoulder. "I like seeing how people work, Jackson. I like to learn about them. What they do. What they like. What makes them tick. What they want to do. If I see something within someone they haven't realized yet, I always do my best to make it blossom. Life's no fun if you're oblivious to what you want."

I still remained skeptical. "And what do you want, Alice? What gain do you get by tempting people on these paths?"

Alice smiled. "The satisfaction of knowing people are becoming who they truly are. Who they want to be. Who they're meant to be." They tapped my nose with a grin. "I'm studying you too, Jackson. Whatever you subconsciously desire – I'll uproot it. Just you wait."

I felt a tad unnerved. Still, Alice's harmlessly happy smile and the bizarre sincerity with which they said everything put me at ease. "Alright," I said. "Let's get back before we're missed."

Alice nodded. "I'll see you tomorrow?"

"As always."

We went our separate ways to change.