Visiting Eden

As you should know if you've seen the comments in my previous post, I was recently invited to visit the esteemed Eden facilities, run by a man who calls himself the Overseer.  For those who don't know, the Eden facilities are a group of 12 facilities that are run as safe-houses and rehabilitation centers for both runners and proxies, in addition to researching the Slender Man, or the Product, as the Overseer calls him, and incidents relating to him.

Out of consideration for my recent trip to California, the Overseer offered to provide me with transportation to New York, where the facility I was going to be visiting was located.  Of course I agreed, however I am a bit paranoid over advertising my exact location, and so on Friday, January 6th, I found myself returning to Memphis to meet with some new.  I naturally arrived at the rendezvous point early, but not five minutes after I found myself a nice all-day parking spot the limo arrived.  I'll say this much, if you visit Eden Two, you visit in style.  But you aren't here to hear about the accommodations, so I'll skip forward 24 hours to the next morning. After a quick breakfast I left my hotel to meet the limo again and we headed straight to Eden Two.  Honestly I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I'll confess to being somewhat surprised when we stopped right outside what appeared to be a typical private law firm.  I got out and approached the well dressed man standing out front, who I knew from our correspondence to be the Overseer.

The Overseer looked to be in perhaps his late forties or fifties, I've always been bad at identifying age.  He had gray hair and gray eyes, and was already smiling kindly as I approached.  After we got formally reacquainted he welcomed to into the building.  The lobby was exactly what you'd expect from a legitimate law firm: a reception desk, a few chairs, and some plastic plants scattered about, and after a quick look around I joined my host at the elevators.  The Overseer informed me that from floor 19 down the building actually was simply a law firm, then he produced a small key and inserted it into a small lock in the elevator, lighting up the buttons for floors 20 through 48.  Floors 49 and 50 however remained inaccessible, their contents confidential.

We began by going up to the 20th floor, where several of the offices for workers in the Eden facilities were located.  It wasn't until the elevator doors opened that I truly appreciated just how big this operation was.  The 20 and 21st floors were connected through a sort of balcony in the middle of the entrance area.  There was another reception desk here as well, set up for when visitors from other facilities came through, as well as several hallways containing offices.


And people, lots of people.  Well that may be a bit of an exaggeration, but there were several people moving around, and a few working behind desks.  Most of them seemed very focused, and even a bit on edge, they went about there tasks without even appearing to take much stick of their surroundings.  Evidently these floors were used  to keep track of field agents, investigate potential and confirmed "Product-related activities," and mange office paperwork that's inherent in any business, regardless of how public it's existence.  It was the sheer fact that there were several more floors like this, filled with people and offices, that made me realize just how large this operation was.   Even when you understand how big something is in theory, seeing it in person adds a new level of understanding.


But I digress.  Next the Overseer offered to show me to one of the offices, and naturally I accepted.  We walked down one of the halls and he opened one of the doors to an office.  It was a nice enough space, though it was shared by three different people.  It had a very professional feel to it, two of the men were typing away at computers, while the third had just stood up to get a file.  While the office was certainly big enough for the three men, it still felt a little small with all three of them in there.  This group of men was responsible for keeping tabs on one of the field agents in England, keeping him informed on important occurrences in his area, while at the same time staying aware of everything he was doing.  They seemed a tad uneasy, and one of them kept tapping his desk nervously.  I imagine they didn't report directly to the Overseer himself and weren't used to his presence in their workspace.  taptaptaptap


After that we went to visit an office built for one of the Operatives.  While the office itself was smaller it felt much more comfortable, and even had a picture vase with flowers in it sitting in one of the corners.  While the person to whom this space belonged clearly didn't spend all of her time there (she was "in the field" during the tour), she had still taken steps to make sure it was identified as her own space.  After we were through looking through her office we returned to the elevators and went up to the 27th floor, which was the first of the lab areas.

The Lab floors were naturally a bit more sterile.  The walls and floor seemed much more clean and several even appeared reinforced.  There were also more cameras on this floor, and keycards were required to enter most of the rooms.  The first lab we visited was the room where the Azoth experimentsAzoth, which I found quite surprising, of course I'll let the Overseer explain exactly what the results were if he wants it shared.

Then we looked at one of the rooms where the perception filter was tested, which I also found quite interesting.  The lab was set up roughly the same as the other one, with an experimentation area and an observation area, however in the experimentation area there were several mirrors set up, so that the subject of the perception filter could be viewed indirectly.  The filter itself seemed to be set up on two stands in the center of the room, though I'm not quite sure how to describe it.  It looked very technical and complicated, though most of the actual components were inside the device.  When one of the scientists in the lab actually stood between the stands I lost track of him for a moment, and it took a lot of concentration to focus on him again, which I was really only able to do because I knew what I was supposed to be looking for and where it was supposed to be.  Still, I haven't looked that hard to find something right in front of me since I gave up on trying to find Waldo.

Then we went to one of the security rooms, it also required a keycard to enter, and when we stepped inside we were again casually greeted by the security officers assigned to that room.  Most of the monitors showed hallways, and the rest showed several labs, both the experimentation and viewing areas.  A few of the monitors were turned off, I was assured that these were associated with rooms that no longer got use, and they were turned off for power reasons.  The room itself was fairly nice, it was large enough for both of the men working there to move around a bit, but other than the screens there really wasn't a whole lot to the place.

The last place we visited was the residential floors, which were dramatically different from the two floors we had previously visited.  The whole area was very "homey."  There was wood flooring, wide comfortable hallways, a more natural color scheme, and even some paintings here and there.  For a moment I almost forgot that I was 40 something stories high, the only reminder that we weren't in an actual house were the occasional signs directing people unfamiliar to the layout towards places like the indoor gardens, the cafeteria, and other notable areas.  The Overseer then took me into Arua's room.  Aura, if you're reading this I apologize for entering your room without your permission, in our defense it was the closest door at the time.  However, out of appreciation for your privacy I won't be to specific about the room, instead I'll just say this: it was very comfortable.  Aura had been able to customize the room in a way that gave me an insight into her personality and interest, and had arranged the layout in a way that was comfortable and casual.

After a few moments in the room Aura entered, and scolded us for looking inside without her permission.  After I had reacquainted myself with her, we went up to the Overseer's office, which was on a separate floor, and I had the pleasure of interviewing them both.  I'll have those interviews up sometime tomorrow, I still need to transcribe them from the audio recordings.  Anyways, that's the basic rundown of Eden Two, at least that's the tour I got, it was an interesting experience, and I enjoyed the chance to see it for myself.

See you around

FreedomCaged