The Tower — Ch 6

Sheryl awoke as the transport shuddered and touched down. Late afternoon sunlight streamed through the windows. She knew that meant they’d traveled west since the sun had already set when they left, but didn’t know how far.

“Where are we?” she asked as one of the flight attendants walked by.

“California,” the woman replied politely. “We’ll be here for an hour or so for filming of another contestant pickup, then we’ll head down the coast to pick up one more before heading to the island.”

Sheryl nodded, then her stomach growled. “Is there anything to eat?”

“Of course, what would you like?”

Sheryl blinked several times. “Ummm something light but filling.”

The flight attendant nodded. “I’ll bring a chicken dish. It’ll be about fifteen minutes.”

“Ok.”

Sheryl looked out the window as crews set up on the tarmac. Clay Grayson reclined under a large umbrella as a couple ladies touched up his makeup. He’d changed from the dark blue silk suit he’d worn in the hospital to a plum one.

The food was delivered and she watched as a limo pulled up. A woman who appeared to be in her early twenties got out, a large smile on her face. Clay Grayson strolled forward, arms open to greet her.

She made excited motions with her hands, and Sheryl knew that hers was much more the type of first interview that the host preferred. There seemed to be an easy banter from the vantage of the window, and after a few minutes both walked toward the transport.

There was a flurry of activity as crews readied to leave again, and Sheryl watched as workers ran back and forth tearing down the lighting and other odds and ends.

“Hi! Can I sit here?”

Sheryl looked up to see the contestant who’d just chatted with Clay on the tarmac. She nodded.

“Thanks!”

Sheryl looked at the other woman. She had an athletic build and dark blonde hair. Her green eyes sparkled with excitement, but spoke of intelligence. Something seemed familiar about her, but Sheryl couldn’t quite remember.

The blonde stuck out her hand. “Vivienne Dubois.”

“Sheryl Callaghan.” Sheryl took the proffered hand, even as Vivienne’s name seemed familiar. After a few seconds she finally remembered a news report from several days before the concert. “Wait… Vivienne Dubois, founder of a Tower training and simulation run gym?”

Vivienne nodded happily. “Co-founder actually: Elevate Training and Towers. We’re currently the most successful tower-based gym in North America, and just expanded to Europe.”

“Wow… so what are you doing here? If you’re that successful you probably don’t need the money.”

Vivienne laughed, a chiming sound that made Sheryl smile. “Cause I’ve always wanted to be a contestant! This is a dream come true.”

“Really?”

The blonde nodded exuberantly. “I think it would be obvious. I mean who else would open a gym specializing in simulated runs?”

“To be fair, a new one opens every other week.”

“How many are successful?”

Sheryl laughed. “Ok, you got me there.”

Vivienne studied Sheryl a minute, grinned and leaned in. “You want to know what the secret is?”

“You’d just share corporate secrets with somebody you just met?”

Vivienne shrugged. “Considering the research involved, even if you stepped off this transport right now with the intention of opening your own, it would take at least two years. Meanwhile Elevate is flourishing. Besides… I consider myself a quick judge of character, and I think you’re ok. So you wanna know?”

“Uh… sure.”

Vivienne laughed.

The transport shuddered as it took off again.

“People want to feel good about their simulated runs. Almost all the new gyms only look at the past few seasons. We’re the only one based exclusively on training and runs from over thirty years ago.”

Sheryl blinked. “Why thirty years?”

Vivienne laughed again. “How much of The Tower’s history do you know?”

Sheryl thought about it for a few seconds. “Pretty much what’s taught in schools. The show started in twenty-fifty, Dreams Island was purchased and expanded into a staging ground for the fiftieth anniversary. It’s been controversial, but has been immensely popular since the beginning.”

Vivienne put a finger to her lips. “I always forget how little of the show’s history is taught,” she said, seemingly to herself. She then looked at Sheryl again, “Sorry, I dual majored for my Bachelor’s degrees. Exercise Science was the big one, so I could open the gym, but since I knew I wanted it to be based on The Tower I also took a history major so that I could do an intensive on the show.”

“Wow,” Sheryl said. “You seem pretty young still. So when did you graduate?”

Vivienne paused. “Oh… well I’m twenty-four now. I got my bachelor’s degrees at sixteen, my master’s at eighteen, and used data from the first year of Elevate as the backbone of my thesis for my doctorate at nineteen. I’d been considering going back for another degree, but then I got the card.”

“What would you have studied?”

“Probably The Tower.” Vivienne shrugged. “It’s fascinating. Oh…” she brightened. “That’s right, we were discussing why Elevate uses training and runs based on the show from over thirty years ago.”

Sheryl nodded.

“So it made news at the time, but’s been relatively forgotten since. About forty years ago The Tower ran into financial difficulty. Before moving to the island they were always able to just buy buildings about to be demolished for staging, but there were no high-rise buildings on the island. They have to build each one. Building and destroying so many buildings every year is insanely expensive.”

“I can see that.”

Vivienne nodded. “The production company went through several high-level shakeups. Four CEOs in ten years, even a near complete replacement of the board as investors lost faith. The show was on the verge of collapse.”

“Really?”

“Oh yeah. Of course they tried to keep it as quiet as possible, but it was big news in financial circles. Anyway, they finally landed on the current CEO and his team. Erik Wilkerson was young at the time, barely thirty, and everybody in the business world thought he’d be out as fast as his predecessors. But he had ideas, and they worked. Within two years he’d turned the show profitable again.”

“How’d he do it?”

Vivienne leaned in, excited. “That’s the question! It’s another one of those secrets, but there are before and after trends that hold some clues. One of the most obvious is the difficulty. Before he took over, around seventy percent of contestants escaped, after it dropped to forty percent. It made the show more exciting. Scenarios became more complex, and the training level increased accordingly. Of course they still look at long term survival ratios, so can claim around fifty percent survival, but that’s only if you go back to the beginning. It’s steadily creeping down.”

“Wow…”

Vivienne nodded again, missing Sheryl’s disheartened tone. “I’ll tell you all about it. It’s fascinating. Anyway, I realized that people want to feel good about their Tower runs, and almost all of the gyms base their training and simulations around runs from after the big staff shakeup. It’s the wrong approach. People want to feel like they would survive, and that’s almost impossible without the intense training for current scenarios.

“So we took some of the best elements from classic and current training methods, and combined it with classic run scenarios. More customers ‘escape.’ They feel good about themselves and come back to do it again, because there’s a thrill to it. We did start implementing difficulty levels last year for those who wanted more, but the majority of Elevate clients are happy with the classic model.”

“It doesn’t get boring?”

“That’s one of the great things. Even ignoring some of the scenarios from the past thirty years, we have almost a hundred years of history before that to draw from. We have the favorites of course, but the designers have always been nothing if not inventive. We can always find some obscure challenge that was used only once or twice, but feels fresh to our customers. We change out scenarios regularly too.

“You should come by sometime after you escape. I can give you the tour, and I’m sure you’ll see just how much thought went into it.”

Sheryl smiled. “Maybe I’ll do that.”

Clear blue water extended to the horizon outside of the transport window as the sun set.

“So what’s your story?”

Sheryl blinked several times. “Huh?”

“Well I’ve wanted to be a contestant since I was a child, but you don’t seem all that excited.”

Sheryl looked out the window and sighed. “I really didn’t have much of a choice…”

Vivienne’s face dropped. “Oh… want to talk about it?”

Sheryl almost refused, then realized that her story was about to be public anyway. “I… well…” Sheryl paused and took a deep breath. “I’m probably the season’s sob story.”

Vivienne winced.

“Six months ago I had a loving husband, two beautiful children, a job I’d worked hard for, even a little house. We weren’t rich, but we were comfortable. Now I have nothing.”

“What happened?”

“My family was killed. I was in a coma for almost six months. Of course I lost my job, and the bank seized the house. I’ve only been awake three days.”

“Oh…” Vivienne made a face and turned to look out the window.

“Can I be honest?” Vivienne asked after several quiet minutes.

“Ok…”

“I hate contestant stories like yours.”

Sheryl blinked several times. “I… um…”

Vivienne trained her emerald green eyes on Sheryl. “It’s nothing against you personally, nor anybody in your situation. But… it’s a perverse kind of exploitation. You’ve already told me everything I need to know. You have a tragic backstory, and woke up to insane medical bills with no place to live and no way to pay them off. You were left with the impossible choice of trying to survive under a mountain of debt, or risking your life on the show.”

Sheryl blinked several times before nodding.

Vivienne grimaced. “It’s a cruel enough world that stories like yours even exist. But it’s so much worse when companies decide to profit off them. It’s extortion in a way, they dangle the carrot of freedom from that life, but in exchange you have to play their game.”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe it works for some people, they see stories like yours and think that if you were selected they might be too. It’s a glimmer of hope… but the reality is far different.”

Sheryl nodded.

“Sorry…”

Sheryl shook her head. “No, it’s ok.”

Silence fell between them for several minutes.

“Wanna explore the transport?” Vivienne asked. “We’re not restricted to passenger seating you know. I hear there’s a full bar upstairs. We just can’t go to areas marked for production staff.”

“Thank you, but it’s a bit hard for me to get around without a wheelchair right now.”

Vivienne grinned. “That’s no problem. I run a gym, remember? I’m stronger than I look. I can easily carry you.”

“Are you sure?”

Vivienne waved off the concern. “Of course.”

“As long as it’s not a problem.”

Vivienne grinned. She turned and crouched in front of Sheryl.

Sheryl looped her arms around Vivienne’s shoulders and the younger woman grabbed Sheryl’s calves then stood.

“And we’re off!” Vivienne exclaimed as she stood. “Where to?”

“You’re driving so you choose.”

“I think we deserve drinks then! To the bar!”

Sheryl laughed, something that felt good after so much sadness.

“You’re not on any medications that we need to worry about, are you?” Vivienne asked as she took the stairs to the upper level.

“No, just nanomachine therapy. Apparently I had a lot of internal injuries.”

“And you were out for six months?”

“Yeah.”

“Amazing you survived without major brain damage then. I’m not a medical doctor, but I keep track of a lot of the latest research, and most people on nanomachine therapy, even in a coma, are usually fully healed within a month.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, there’ve been a lot of advancements in the past decade. Nanomachines can do a lot and in a much shorter time.”

“Apparently they still can’t keep muscles stimulated enough to keep them from atrophying.”

“No…” Vivienne lowered her voice. “And just between us, don’t let them try to talk you into them either. The island is one of the approved testing locations for a new muscle stimulating nano.”

“My therapist in the hospital said the same thing.”

Vivienne paused on a landing and looked around for a moment. “Don’t get me wrong, they get results, but there are indications that it’s a short term boost that does more harm than good. Do the work yourself if you want longevity.”

“How do they do harm?”

“They’re indiscriminate. They stimulate everything. They have to supplement with an anti-nano to protect your heart and organs, and because you’re not using the muscles as you would naturally move they aren’t developed in ways that are proper to you.”

“Wow…”

“I had a client I had to work with personally after she managed to bribe herself into a trial. She was a mess. There was nothing wrong with her before except that she was getting older and losing strength. After… she had a hard time controlling herself because she was strong in places that she wasn’t used to. Then… she rebounded. The muscles got used to the intense stimulation and when the nano therapy stopped she had to work twice as hard just to be as strong as she’d been before.”

“You said you had to work personally with her. Did you get her turned around?”

“Eventually we started to get her back to equilibrium, but I had to turn her over to another of my top people when I got the card.”

Vivienne resumed climbing the stairs.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Sheryl said.

They arrived at a lavish upper level, and Vivienne set Sheryl down in one of the plush seats.

“What do you want?” the younger woman asked.

“Something girly.”

Vivienne grinned. “Perfect. I’ll be right back with drinks.”

A few minutes later they were sipping something fruity and sweet while the last rays of sunshine glittered on the ocean below.

“I wonder where the third person is…” Sheryl mused as cabin lights turned on and the sky turned dark blue outside.

“I heard the next stop was in Chile,” Vivienne supplied. “Apparently he’s an athlete that was training.”

“Oh.”

“We’ll probably be there in an hour and a half or so.”

Sheryl nodded and turned her attention outside again.

“So you mentioned you’d recently expanded to Europe?” Sheryl said after a while, turning back to face her fellow contestant.

Vivienne smiled. “Technically only France so far, but I expect it’ll grow fast.”

“Why France?”

“My parents wanted to go home. They only fled because of the civil unrest. I was born in the US, but they always wanted to go back. Since things have settled down the past few years, and I was doing so good with Elevate, they decided it was time.”

“So you exported your business with them?”

Vivienne laughed. “I guess you could look at it that way. They were excited to introduce my company to their country though.”

Sheryl chatted easily with Vivienne, and they lost track of time until the transport landed in Santiago.

They both looked out and watched the crew set up to film another contestant.

“This is a lot more prep than you had,” Sheryl said after a moment.

“How much prep did you get?”

Sheryl sighed. “I got a ‘Hi, we’re here,” in my hospital room. Then Grayson walked in for the interview.”

“Wow! Impressive!”

“Huh?”

“You’re definitely planned as a draw. Usually contestants get the limo and a tarmac meeting. If he came to you then you’re expected to excite an audience.”

For a moment Sheryl wanted to ask how Vivienne knew that, but then remembered that she was talking to somebody who had studied the show in an academic setting. “I’m not that special…” she finally argued. “I mean you’re a founder of a company dedicated to catering to people’s desire to be contestants. You’re much more impressive.”

“Did you do anything noteworthy?”

“I called in a potential dissident attack… the night… of…”

Vivienne leaned back in her chair. “That’s probably it. Hero who clung to life only to wind up with nothing gets a chance at a tower run. It’s the kind of story the producers love. They’ll definitely play you up.”

Sheryl sighed and looked out the window again. “What are they doing?”

Vivienne looked out. “Fireworks?” She rolled her eyes. “I have the feeling this is one of those celebrity contestants.” She took another moment to stare. “And Clay is wearing gray… definitely a celebrity… or at least somebody who thinks they’re important.”

“You… really study the show, don’t you?”

Vivienne laughed again. “Like I said, I’d have probably focused on it for another degree if I hadn’t gotten the card. This is all just the topical stuff though, things anybody can pick up if they pay enough attention. I really wanted to dig in. There are so many secrets, but I’m sure there are ways to figure out what’s going on behind the scenes.”

Sheryl grinned. “Ok, you’ve heard my story, but my segment hasn’t aired. What color did he wear for me?”

“Blue,” Vivienne said without missing a beat. “Probably a dark shade too. He wears light blue for people with sick kids in the family, and dark for loss. Though he might have lightened it considering the circumstances. It’s a calming color, so it makes him appear empathetic.”

“I have the feeling I’m never going to look at anything about the show the same way again after talking to you.”

Vivienne smiled. “At least you got a standard color suit. I have no idea what to make of that purplish plum thing he wore for me. He rarely wears anything in the red spectrum. I’ll have to refresh my color theory later, there’s almost always a reason for his choices. It’s probably got an emotional hook somewhere.”

A limo pulled up outside.

“Oh here we go,” Vivienne practically vibrated as she pressed her face to the window.

Sheryl laughed and turned her own attention to the tarmac.

The fireworks sent cones of sparks into the air as a door opened and a tall man emerged from the limo.

“No…” Vivienne murmured. “They didn’t.”

Sheryl looked but didn’t recognize him. “Didn’t what?”

Vivienne had an intense look of concentration on her face as the man approached Clay and the men shook hands. More people were climbing out of the limo as the men spoke.

“Holy shit…” Vivienne muttered. “They actually took that idiot up on his offer.”

“Huh?”

“Oh, that’s right… you would have missed it. The man down there is Anthony Greene, pretty much an unknown athlete before he set a new world record in biathlon a couple months ago. After he won a major competition he bragged that he’d instructed his trainers to drill him harder than any contestant.”

Vivienne shook her head. “He said that he was more than prepared for a tower run, and even went so far as to proclaim that no more training for him was necessary. He’d be ready to go with only the simulations to prep the team. In a press conference he said that staff could call on him at a moment’s notice for a run.”

“You don’t sound convinced.”

“If it were just the physical aspects… maybe. But people die just as often from the psychological games.”

“You think they’d really send somebody out with no training?”

Vivienne let out a long breath. “I’d hope not, but he’s not let up. His fans even set up chats in virtual cafes to discuss whether it could be done or not. After last week’s training injury, this might have seemed the time to put the matter to rest. Still… if they’re doing what I think they’re doing, it’s a risky move for the season finale.”

An employee passed by and Vivienne reached out to catch his sleeve. “Do we have access to the global net, or are communication restrictions already in effect?”

“You should have limited access. Search and incoming is allowed. No outgoing communications until after processing and orientation on the island.”

“Thank you.”

Vivienne turned her attention to the tarmac again as her eyes developed the glassy tone of somebody searching for data. “Seventy-five percent…”

“Hmm?”

“His odds as calculated by bookies. Normally they only do them for confirmed contestants, but since he’s made so much noise… He’s currently looking at a seventy-five percent chance of survival.”

“Is that good? I’ve never bet on runs.”

“Higher than average for sure. Most people fall in the forty to sixty percent range.” She shook her head. “I still don’t like it. The training exists for a reason.”

“Who are the other people?”

Vivienne looked out again. “I think his coach… fiancee… and possibly a parent?” She shook her head. “They’re doing it. That seems a classic support team setup, and they only bring support in for the last week.”

The group entered the transport and both women turned away from the windows as the crews prepared to leave.

Vivienne shook her head. “I can’t believe they did it. Nobody would have cared if they just reorganized the schedule, it wouldn’t have been the first time a training injury led to a shuffle.”

Boisterous laughter filtered up the stairs, then the newest contestant and his support team entered the bar. They immediately headed for a set of four plush chairs surrounding a low table, but Greene quickly stood to place an order at the bar.

“Should we head back down and get some sleep before getting to the island?” Vivienne offered, clearly displeased with the new arrivals.

“That sounds nice,” Sheryl agreed, picking up her glass to drain the remainder of the drink.

Both women were setting their glasses down again when Greene’s attention fell on them. He sauntered over, media smile plastered to his face.

Sheryl had to force herself to not scrunch her nose in disgust. Everything about the man was purposefully loud. Neon green tips turned every which way in his short and curly black hair. Sunglasses were perched on his forehead and some sort of dark eye makeup clashed with his pale skin. He wore an oversized, asymmetric, wife-beater with a huge star graphic under a bright green jacket. His shredded jeans seemed the tamest part of his ensemble.

Sheryl saw that Vivienne was equally disgusted, if not more. Even Greene’s body language seemed to anger the blonde as he stopped by them, an air of haughty contempt in his pose.

Sheryl couldn’t say she blamed her.

“Are you the other contestants they were picking up today?”

Vivienne glared and Sheryl nodded.

“I feel so sorry for you ladies, your arrival on the island will be overshadowed by my own.” He leaned in slightly. “Or maybe that’s a good thing.”

Vivienne rolled her eyes. “They film reactions and leaving the transport at different times you know. Unless one of us says something, nobody in the audience will know we all came in on the same transport.”

Greene seemed to deflate a bit, but quickly rebounded. “Just remember ladies, you’re looking at history in the making. I’m going to be the first contestant to escape without any show-sponsored training.”

“And you’re an idiot for trying. I can’t believe somebody signed off on that.” She turned to Sheryl. “Ready?”

Sheryl nodded, eager to get away from their fellow contestant.

The transport lifted off and started toward the ocean.

Vivienne knelt in front of Sheryl’s chair again.

“What’s this?” Greene roared with laughter. “Are you practicing weightlifting with her?”

Vivienne put her hand up to pause Sheryl before she stood. She strode to the taller man and glared at up him. “She can’t walk you jackass! She just woke up from a coma and is in physical therapy to rebuild her muscles.”

Greene studied Sheryl for a minute. “Why waste a tower on her? I bet she doesn’t make it any lower than fifteen.”

Vivienne slapped Greene across the face. “Wake up you son of a bitch! This isn’t talk any more! However foolish, the producers took you up on your offer. You’re talking about people’s lives now, and everybody has a chance of survival. She wouldn’t be the first contestant who needed physical therapy, and sometimes they’re the strongest ones.”

Vivienne knelt in front of Sheryl again. “Come on Sheryl, let’s go.”

Sheryl nodded and wrapped her limbs around Vivienne’s torso again. They left before Greene had a chance to respond.

“Do you know each other?” Sheryl asked quietly once they were on the stairs.

“One of the major news networks had Greene and I on the same roundtable when he started in with his claims that he could escape without training.”

“Really?”

“I’d become somewhat an outside expert on training matters between Elevate and my deep study of the show. It wasn’t unusual to be called, but that man… He’s so damn arrogant. And outright dismissive of others’ abilities. The producers kept having to cut his mic or go to commercial in order to get him to stop bragging about himself and hogging the air time.

“I was asked by several other networks to do more panel discussions with him and I refused. Elevate didn’t need me in the press, and I didn’t need the headache of interacting with that jerk.”

“Wow…”

They reached the seating section again and Vivienne lowered Sheryl back into the seat from before.

“Better sleep while you have the chance,” the blonde said as she took her own seat and reclined it. “We just left Santiago, and the island is supposedly somewhere east of New Zealand. We’ll probably be there in three or four hours.”

Sheryl nodded and pulled a blanket over herself.

“Vivienne?”

“Hmm?”

“Thank you… for standing up for me.”

“You’re welcome. Thanks for being the type of person it’s easy to stand up for.”

Sheryl sputtered and Vivienne laughed as the cabin lights dimmed.