The Facility | ✔️

Chapter Thirty-Three

^This song is my dad's all-time favourite. It's from The Man from Snowy River. 

I stood in front of the parliament house with Christian on one side of me. His hand found mine as he murmured, "It looks bigger than it does in pictures."

My eyebrows raised, "I was about to say it looks smaller than it does in pictures..."

Christian exchanged a glance with me before a shrill voice shouted, "Natalie, Christian, hurry up please!"

I turned my head and found Dr Demonico frantically waving to us to come to her at the doors. Tourists were walking around her, confused. 

Christian pulled my arm slightly to get me to move and we walked quickly up to Dr Demonico. 

She beamed, "Good. You both made it in one piece. How was the reunion?"

"Surprising," Christian said.

"Amazing," I whispered. 

Dr Demonico nodded once, "Well, come along, important business to get to today."

I struggled to keep up with her despite the fact that she was also in heels. The woman sure moved fast. She led us to a private elevator and it took us up to the top floor. I knew the layout of the parliament house from English so I knew we were headed to the office suites. 

A man stopped us as we exited the lift, "Your ID badges please?"

Dr Demonico quickly showed hers but I winced. I said to the man, "We don't have ID badges..."

"No ID badges, no pass," the man said firmly. 

Dr Demonico huffed, "Troy, these our Natalie Roberts and Christian Park. Surely, you remember them?"

"Nope," Troy shook his head, "No ID badges, no pass."

"Let them through," a deep voice said. We all glanced towards the prime minister. I let out a small sigh of relief. 

Troy stuttered, "B-but, Prime Minister, they could be a threat."

"These two teenagers, Troy, are more significant to the world than I am at this stage so stop worrying," Simon scolded, "Come along, you three."

Troy looked utterly confused as we were led away from him. I gave him an apologetic smile before I was in a room with another dozen people. 

"Take a seat, please," Simon asked, "And we'll be running through today's agenda."

I took a seat next to the blonde woman from the airport and the camera guy whilst Christian moved to sit between Dr Demonico and Dr Weston on the other side of the room. 

The Prime Minister nodded his head and took his own seat at the head of the table, "Alto Emus is an experiment first thought of back in 2010 by Dr Demonico and Dr Weston, here. It's design was to keep our population controlled and to ensure each person on the Earth suited another. It doesn't actually change the pairs' bodies but does, however, implant something called a dreamscape."

He gestured to Dr Weston. The familiar guy stood up and continued, "A dreamscape is, literally, your dream landscape. It captures how what a person dreams can change their emotional, physical and psychological attachment to a person. It doesn't force two people together, however, the doctors do come up with the pairings based on an extreme psychoanalysis."

He sat and Dr Demonico took his place, "We first found Miss Natalie Ann Roberts at the Food, Sleep and Wellbeing Centre Sydney. Her late father was in hospital," I winced slightly at them just giving away my information, "she was struggling with mild anorexia, moderate sleep apnea and severe anxiety, all at the young age of just fourteen. This was in 2013. Mr Christian Xavier Park was discovered in The Mental Health Institute Sydney just before New Years' Eve in 2012. He was suffering from mild bipolar disorder, severe insomnia and mild depression, again, at the age of fourteen. From what we see here, their old problems collided with each other. We didn't force them together in our experiment but gave them a little drug to stimulate a dreamscape with each other in it. Before they'd even met each other they'd created a safe place within their dreams inside one another to fall back into."