Part III: The Flooding of Fredrick Street - Chapter 19

III

The Flooding of Fredrick Street

Extract from The Investigative Standard, November 12th 2013

THE TRIAL OF THE FREDRICK STREET EXPERIMENTS

The courts today will continue to hear the case against The Wells Foundation with regard to the Fredrick Street experiments, conducted by the organisation on the island of St. Kilda. 

The alleged experiments took place between 2009 & 2011, which claimed the lives of 10 out of the 12 participants. One of the survivors, Sarah Barr (the other surivovr has requested to remain anonymous) will today testify in court against The Wells Foundation. 

Ms Barr, 39, has also claimed the organisation are responsible for the deaths of at least 50 employees after the facility in which they were kept on St. Kilda was flooded. 

Whilst The Wells Foundation have confirmed there was an incident of flooding within their island facility (which they purchased in 2005), there was no loss of life as the facility was monitored remotely with a skeleton crew on the island. They have also reported that the work they are doing on the island has been solely related to measuring the fluctuating changes of the weather that has been reported around the island, in order to better understand climate change.

A spokesperson for the organisation has declined to comment on the allegations by Ms Barr or the ongoing trial.

Transcript of Interview with Ray Samson. August 26, 2015. Conducted by J.P. McNair.

As Ray told me the story, light had faded and the place had gotten a little busier. We paused as he helped clear a queue of hill walkers who'd stopped in. 

There was a fire crackling now, and I felt warm from the beer. The story, or Ray's side of it, was unsettling and I knew we were coming up to the difficult part. My mind was reeling with what I'd uncovered. I knew about The Wells Foundation and had reached out for comment but had heard nothing back. Now I knew why.

Ray re-joined me, with another beer for both of us.

"Sorry about that, it's hiking season."

I waved his apologies away. Despite everything he'd told me, and the part he'd had to play in what happened, I liked Ray. I could tell Sarah did too, otherwise she'd have given him up to someone more important than an author writing a book.

"Are you getting what you were looking for?" he asked.

More than I thought you would give me, if I'm honest.

Ray laughed. "It's pretty unbelievable, at first. I can't believe some of it myself."

What I can't get over is the extent of it.

He nodded. "It was a massive operation. We couldn't believe it ourselves."

One thing I haven't asked, you or Sarah, was how the participants were found?

"Now that, that was a particularly clever thing they did. Rather than finding people who were in jail or something, or kidnapping people, they advertised it."

They advertised it?

"They advertised it. I can't remember the exact wording but it was basically along the lines of 'Looking for a second chance for a new tomorrow? Join The Wells Foundation today.' Some cheesy bullshit like that."

And it worked?

"You bet it worked. The response was unbelievable. People applied in their droves, detailing why they deserved a second chance with essays or videos of themselves telling their story. It was like X-Factor auditions being submitted to Frankenstein. The only thing they didn't read was the small print. They didn't know what they were getting themselves into. And neither did we."

Did you think it would end the way it did?

"No." He drank.

Talk about the final hours. What happened?

"It all happened so fast, everything seemed to come to a head. After months of being stuck, we were suddenly against a ticking clock. And we ran out of time. We were so close. Tom had figured out how to bring them back and save who we could. But we were too late. And we didn't realise how much was against us. Getting back into the Complex was the easy part, but it wasn't easy for long.

19

Tom had figured out how to bring the participants back, but most importantly, he'd figured out how to give them a fighting chance of getting out of the Complex alive.

He drained the tank that he had filled, and removed the wires and the tubes and the needles and packed it away. It was tempting, he thought, as he watched the liquid disappear down the sinkhole. It was tempting to set up his own life again, the way it should have been, and just live in it. He, Issie and their daughter, Cassie.

Cassie.

When he'd been under, he had programmed his world to play the events of her death back to him, but with a different ending. An ending were she lived. It was like he had woken from a nightmare. For the week or so he spent in there, planting the dreams and seeds of doubt into the residents, following them, watching them, he had his own dream life. It was truly perfection, where no sadness, no hurt and no pain existed.  It turned out, though, that despite none of this grief, living the false perfection of Fredrick Street was the perfect place for the pain to grow. Because Tom knew; none of it was real. This wasn't Cassie; she was gone. This wasn't his wife; she was gone. And this wasn't him; he wasn't even there, not really. 

Packing up the last of his equipment and heading to the front of the house he waited, realising that of the past few days he had discovered the results of the experiment by becoming a subject himself. They could create the perfect life in their fake world, but it was no substitute for the real thing. 

He thought grimly of the mistakes they made which cost people their lives. It had to end, before anyone else got hurt. 

As he waited patiently for his ride out of here and back into the Complex to release the participants from their chambers, he thought of The Wells Foundation and the irony that now befell him. They had funded the project, under the guise that they were interested in it for the same reasons that Tom and Issie were. They too wanted to explore the human consciousness and the capacity of the human mind. They to wanted to put an end to the suffering we inflict on ourselves, to create a scenario that would revolutionise the human condition; making it possible to withstand anything. To find out what truly made us happy and find a way to improve the mental health of the entire world by finding out what the true meaning of perfection and happiness was. 

For Tom and Issie though, all they wanted to do was find a way to be with their daughter again, and to heal from the pain her death had caused them. The project to them was simple; what if you could erase the pain of loss or that which makes you sad by creating a world you could visit that was as real as the one you walked, eat and breathed in?

However, after the subjects were chosen and the project was underway, even after the first causalities, that was when The Wells Foundation wanted to change the game. They wanted to see if they could expand the mind. Expand the conscious to reveal hidden talents or skills or abilities that we could be capable of. Tom laughed them out of the room as being a bunch of rich kids who had watched too many bad science fiction movies. Increasing the capacity of the brain was not something they were interested in doing, nor would it be something they could predict the outcome of. They wanted to take those who had experienced trauma or tragedy and put them in a world where this was erased to see the impact it would have. 

Issie had listened, of course she had, she just wanted the project to be a success so she could go into the tank and heal herself and would jump through any hoop necessary. But Tom didn't. He didn't want to start playing God; to create super soldiers or super heroes or super fucking anything. The representatives of The Wells Foundation insisted they had no interested in these facets either, but Tom knew they were. They had money, sure, but they wanted power. Money wasn't enough unless they could make more of it. And so came the irony now, that, in order for Tom to give the people in the tanks a chance of making it out of there alive, he had come up with an answer of what happens when the brain chemistry is altered. When it's adjusted, expanded by the use of chemicals, drugs and adrenaline. He still couldn't predict the outcome, but unless he tried, they would never survive and would be put back in the tanks.  He swore to them he'd get them out. They wanted real life, flaws and all.

There was a knock at the door, snapping Tom back into the present. He steeled himself. He knew who was on the other side. A friend and a colleague, who had vowed to help him. But as soon as he opened the door, there would be no going back. For either of them. The end was almost upon them. 

He opened the door and smiled at his old friend. 

*

The car trundled along the dirt road, moving away from the house Tom had been holed up in and into the mud and gravel of these forgotten roads. The driver, one of his oldest friends, gripped the wheel tightly, like he was afraid it was going to roll away. He stared out of the windshield at the road with the same grip, his eyes locking the road in place just in case it wanted to move. They sat in silence for a long time. Nothing but the roar of the engine filling the space between them, each waiting for the other to fill the vacuum with something other than dust.

Tom observed his friend, the expanded waistline and the thinning hair. When Tom had left, Ray had seemed as young as he did when they first met. It's amazing how time accelerates when you stop seeing people every day then meet up again. Whether it was the project, what Tom was asking him to do or just plain growing old, he didn't know. And he wouldn't ask. It was Tom that broke the silence first. "How is she?" he asked. 

Ray risked a sideways glance at him before sighing, and checking to see if the road was still there. "She's broken.  And she'" 

"How did she take it, when you told her?"

Ray laughed. "She wasn't happy."

"I thought as much. I don't blame her, she never liked the feeling that I was trying to rescue her."

Ray stole a glance at his friend. "Especially as its you that needs rescuing."

Tom smiled. "We all need rescuing, Ray. We're damsels, every last one of us, in search of a saviour."

Ray laughed. "Fucking hell. You've spent too much time on your own."

"I know."

Ray's grip seemed to tighten on the wheel a little. "You didn't have to be either."

"I know that too."

"Do you? Christ, Tom. Part of me wants to kick you out of this fucking car and leave you to the wind and the rain. You left. Issie. Me. You didn't tell us your grand plan, because I think you left intending on running until you got cold feet."

Tom took the hit before shifting his gaze out of the window, like he was going to find a priest-riding shotgun in a car across the next lane and have a highway confession. "I'm sorry, Ray."

Ray shrugged. "Yeah well, save your apologies till we're out of this mess. I assume you have a plan."

Tom nodded. "I do."

"Well at least you've spent you're time wisely. How did you manage to avoid getting caught? They stopped looking for you on the island."

"I made it look like I left the island."

Ray chanced a glance. "And that worked?"

Tom smiled. "Adult don't enjoy playing hide and seek as much as when they were kids. They give up easy."

Ray couldn't help but smile. He was glad Tom was alive, but more so, he was glad that it seemed like the end of this nightmare was upon them. "So, this plan, you going to share it?"

"Sure. We extract the surviving participants, evacuate The Complex and initiate the flood protocol. Drown the place."

Ray shook his head, laughing. "It's that simple. We don't even know how to get them out of the simulation safely.  We don't know how to wake them up."

"I do."

Ray raised an eyebrow, taking the car off road and into the forest. "How?"

Tom stared at him, as the overhanging branches brushed the car and the leaves blocked out the light. "You put them face to face with the trauma or tragedy that put them here in the first place."

Ray stopped the car. Silence between them. He stared at Tom. "Christ. And you're sure that it'll work?"

Tom nodded. "It worked for me." 

They both fell silent for a while, nothing but the crunch of the forest underneath the car tyres. "What was it like?"

"It was perfect. Until you remember it isn't real."

Ray clicked his tongue. "Well, wouldn't you know."

The car pulled to a stop and Ray turned the ignition off. He opened the door and got out the car. Tom followed. 

"Come on. We're on foot from here. And I'm going to have to make it look convincing to get you past security Tom." Ray opened the boot and took out some rope. 

"I'm sure you'll manage."

Ray came behind Tom and tied his hands together then nudged him forward, both walking toward the ramshackle hut in the middle of the forest. They stopped at the entrance. 

Tom glanced in and saw the old man behind the counter. Gerry, looked like Santa if Santa was a marathon runner. He sat and watched an old TV and flicked through a newspaper. 

"It's Gerry. I like Gerry."

Ray looked too. "Yeah Gerry's a fucking delight. Are you ready? Once we go in here, it's go time.  And if somebody recognizes you when we get through here, the people at Wells will be notified and they'll be here in a few hours. You good to go?"

Tom nodded and smiled. Ray raised an eyebrow. "What the fuck are you smiling for?"

"It's good to see you again. This is fun."

"You trying to make it easier for me to hit you?"

"Maybe. Is it working?"

"It is. And for your information, there's nothing about this that's fun."

"This is really going to hurt then."

"Let's hope it's only this is where the hurt ends."

And with that Ray covered Tom's head with a bag, and pushed him through the door of the hut.