The Eve (The Eden Trilogy)

We broke between the two half crumbled buildings and stopped in our tracks.

  Everything on the east side of the road was a crumbled, destroyed mess.

  “Ground zero,” Bill said.

  My eyes scanned the rubble, but there was nothing to see. The sweep had moved on.

  I heard Bill click the tank into park and everyone stepped outside.

  The road that had once separated the east from the west side was filled with debris. Chunks of concrete were stacked fifty feet high, but there wasn’t the shape of even a single solid wall. Steel beams rose out of the ground in abstract shapes, curving, some frayed and splintered.

  The Bane had leveled this side of the city.

  “You think their destruction caused the fire that burned the west side?” West asked. He shielded his eyes from the sun with his hand as he took in the damage.

  Dr. Evans shook his head. “Impossible to say. Could have been. But it very likely could have been natural from lightning. Everything is dry as a bone out here. It wouldn’t take much of a spark to set everything afire.”

  “Maybe that’s what started the sweep,” Avian said, his assault rifle sweeping the scene before us. “Maybe lightning caused the fire on the west side of the city. That could have woken up the Bane. Driven them east, starting the sweep.”

  I nodded. It seemed possible. But impossible to ever know for sure. “Whatever way it happened, there’s no denying there are more sweeps happening,” I said, relaxing my grip on the turret. There would be no Bane to shoot. “We have no way of knowing how many have started.”

  “The Bane,” Dr. Evans said with a sigh. “Their brains all work the same. Same generation of TorBane, same impulses, same way of thinking, if you can call what they do thinking. I would say worldwide sweeps will start within the next two months. It only took four months for TorBane to wipe out the world. That first sweep you saw was about a month ago, Eve. It’s probably safe to say the one you witnessed wasn’t the first one.”

  “Worldwide,” West said in a disbelieving breath. He swore. “So you’re saying we’ve got about eight weeks to get this transmitter built, or we’re all dead. That’s it for the human race?”

  “Or less,” Dr. Evans said. The pain and regret in his voice ripped through my own heart.

  “Let’s get moving then,” I said, dropping down through the hatch so I was standing on my seat, my upper half still out through the hole. “We don’t have any time to waste.”

  THIRTEEN

  The solar tank could not move fast enough, but at least the sun made it reliable.

  We got back on the freeway, and we drove. We did not stop, even when the Bane started showing up in small towns.

  There were many destroyed bodies lying in the streets, piles of parts and gleaming metal. My army had been here at some point. Those that were left we either blasted away with the turret, or I turned them on each other.

  From what we saw in Vegas and in our travels northeast, we could all guess that the Bane sweep had moved east. According to Bill’s maps, there weren’t any big towns for them to hit for over a thousand miles. If we could move fast enough, maybe we could save some lives.

  We were lucky that we had found sanctuary where we did and even luckier that NovaTor was located where it was. If both had been located on the east coast somewhere, we would never have made it out alive. But we were fortunate. There were only small towns, besides Vegas, between New Eden and the location of NovaTor.

  Avian passed around the packed last-forever food when the sun reached its highest point in the sky. Soon after that, we pulled off the main freeway and onto a highway. The road was badly cracked and potholes forced us to slow. We could drive no faster than thirty miles per hour.

  So we were only forty miles from NovaTor when darkness enveloped us and the solar tank rolled to a stop.

  Right as the first flakes of snow started to fall.

  I set up our tent as Avian made sure Morgan was set for the night. West had offered to keep watch over her and would get Avian the moment it looked like she needed him. I appreciated this small gesture toward normalizing the relationship between the three of us.

  I sat in the entry of the tent, my booted feet on the dirt, my rear end on the tarp floor of the tent. The cold breeze pushed my hair off my face. The air felt fresher out here, crisp and free. Not like in the city.

  A few snowflakes clung to Avian’s head and shoulders as he walked up to the tent. He sat next to me, tucking his knees up to his chest and wrapping his arms around them.

  “Is it weird that I both do and don’t miss the snow?” Avian said.

  I smiled. “I know what you mean. It reminds me of home, of Eden. But I do not miss winters.”

  “Do you remember two years ago, how much snow we had?” he reminisced.

  I nodded. “I think there was snow on the ground for ten weeks straight. I don’t miss sharing a tent with fifteen other people.”

  It had been a hard winter. In an attempt to stay warm at night, we had packed as many people into one tent as possible, hoping body heat would be enough to keep everyone from freezing.

  Avian chuckled. “Tye hated that. Did you know he slept up in the watchtower every night during that time? By himself?”

  “I didn’t,” I said, shaking my head. “But it doesn’t surprise me.”

  “I thought for sure I would find him frozen to death every morning when I went to check on him. He was always so stubborn,” Avian said. He leaned toward me, bumping my shoulder with his. “I guess that’s where you learned it from.”

  I met his eyes and smiled. There were days when I missed Tye so much. I couldn’t imagine how bad it must be for Avian. Tye was his cousin and best friend, after all. I wouldn’t be half the soldier I was if it hadn’t been for Tye’s instruction.

  Avian wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me into his side.

  “I miss them,” I said. I knew Avian would know who I was including in “them.” I wouldn’t have admitted it to anyone else. Saying it to anyone other than him would have made me feel weak, too human. But this was Avian. It was different.

  “Me too,” he said.

  The snow continued to fall, soft and light. The night grew darker.

  Reaching for the lantern he’d set at his feet, Avian slipped his hand into mine. We stepped inside the tent and I zipped the flap closed behind us.

  Avian had set the lamp on the floor. He sat on the sleeping bag and slipped his boots off.

  As I looked down at him, I marveled at how I could have ever doubted I had loved Avian. As I recalled the last year, it should have seemed so obvious. The way no one had ever been able to understand me like he did. The way no one could comfort me the way he could. The way I could never stay angry with him, no matter what he had done.

  I didn’t believe in soul mates, but I did believe in the better half of two wholes.

  Avian was mine.

  “Tell me what it would have been like,” I said as I knelt and straddled his lap. I brought my hands to either side of his face, letting my fingertips barely brush his cheeks. At that moment, I was drowning in his beauty. “If the world hadn’t ended and you and I had fallen in love.”

  He hesitated just a moment, his eyes locked on mine. And then he rolled, making me roll with him, until I was lying flat on my back and he hovered over me.

  “I would have swept you off your feet until you couldn’t stand to be away from me,” he said, dipping his head and brushing his lips along my throat.

  “That’s true now,” I said, letting my eyes slide closed as his lips trailed slightly further south.

  “I would have talked to your father or mother,” he said, his lips tickling the hollow at the base of my throat. “Gotten permission.”

  “Permission for what?” I whispered.

  “To make you mine forever.”

  A smile curled on my lips. Even though I felt completely relaxed, my body was alive and hyperaware of every inch of Avian.

  “And then
I would have gotten a ring. Something that suited you, but told the rest of the world that you were claimed.” His fingers traced slow, careful patterns up my arm, and finally, his fingers linked with mine. “Remember how I said when I did ask, it would be grand?”

  I nodded.

  “It would be,” he breathed. The warm air from his lips sent a wave of goose bumps across my skin. “And you’d be speechless.”

  I bit my lower lip as his brushed the neckline of my shirt. And I was speechless.

  “We’d set a date for the wedding. Make plans. Invite people we loved to attend. You’d find a dress. There’d be flowers, and cake, and music.”

  I tried to picture it all behind my eyelids. But that was made difficult because of the way Avian was making my body feel.

  “And on that day, you’d walk toward me and I would probably start crying.” His voice suddenly broke into a chuckle. There was emotion behind it though. Avian could more clearly see this picture we would never quite have. If it brought emotion out of Avian, it must have been beautiful.

  “We’d say words that would last forever,” he now whispered. He released my fingers to trace invisible lines on my chest with his own. “Nothing to do with ‘till death do us part.’ Because I know love lasts much longer than that. I believe in infinity—which never ends. We’d exchange rings and then kiss for everyone in attendance to see. And we’d be pronounced inseparable.”

  As he spoke, I felt my own throat tighten and the back of my eyes stung. While I didn’t care for the glitz and dress and attention, I wanted everything else Avian spoke of. Forever.

  I felt a change in Avian’s mood and he shifted himself so his lips could tease mine. “And then it would just be us that night, and for many nights to come. And I would have my way with you as my wife.”

  I laughed and in the same movement, flipped him so I ended up on top of him. I pinned his hands to the ground on either side of his head with my own hands. “I think that it would be the other way around,” I said as I lowered my lips to one of his ears.

  Avian laughed and growled at the same time. He lifted his head to fiercely take my lips.

  FOURTEEN

  A fresh blanket of snow covered everything in the morning, three inches deep. Thankfully, West had thought to keep clearing the snow from the solar tank’s panels throughout the night. By the time we packed up the tents and had eaten, they were charged enough to get the vehicle going.

  One hour.

  That was all that separated us from the place where I was born and altered.

  Avian took my hand in his when I stiffened and the air caught in my throat.

  “It’ll be okay,” West said, looking over at me. I didn’t miss the mixed emotions still behind his eyes. But there was one that was unmistakable: support.

  I could always use another friend in this dismembered world. I was grateful for the peace we were beginning to form between us.

  “This is the turnoff,” Dr. Evans said after thirty minutes. I was impressed he even saw it. Two log posts jutted up from the ground, unremarkable, roughly six feet tall. One of them had two rusty metal letters nailed into it: NB.

  NovaTor Biotics.

  We had driven down a small, two-lane highway into the middle of nowhere and it looked as if our turnoff went further into nowhere toward a barren low mountain.

  “You certainly wouldn’t have unwanted visitors out here,” Bill said, correcting the wheel when the dirt road gave a violent jerk to the right.

  “That was the point,” Dr. Evans said, his voice muted from the glass box. “Everything we worked on at NovaTor Biotics was highly classified. We didn’t like to be disturbed.”

  As we rolled through the snow into the wilderness, I felt something in my heart sink. There were very little resources out here. Little food to find or water to drink. There was no way my sister was within a hundred miles of NovaTor. She was still human enough to have to do what she had to in order to survive.

  “She’s not going to be here, is she?” West said. I looked over to see him observing the scarce terrain as well.

  I didn’t answer him. And thankfully, Dr. Evans didn’t either.

  At first it was difficult to distinguish what was the rocky side of the mountain and what might be building. Everything was covered in snow, which didn’t help, but I could see square edges and flat lines that indicated there was something there.

  The closer we rolled, the more I could pick out the rock colored walls and occasional windows.

  West had once told me of the size of this building.

  I had underestimated him.

  The bit I could see was larger than the largest of warehouse stores I’d raided. And I had little doubt there was more that extended back into the mountain.

  West swore under his breath as Bill slowed to a stop fifty yards from the building. “This is too bizarre being back.”

  He opened the door and climbed out, me right behind him. I shielded my eyes from the sun as I looked up at the facility.

  I once again had the feeling of memories dancing just under a watery surface. I could tell they were there, but they were just down far enough that I couldn’t make them out clearly. Even though I had only been outside of the building once in all my life, there was something familiar about seeing it.

  “Welcome home,” Dr. Evans said as he climbed out of the tank.

  I shook my head. “This was never home.”

  Avian slipped his hand into mine and then I was there.

  “This is where it all began,” Avian said. There was awe and fascination in his voice, accompanied with disgust.

  No one said anything because nothing was needed.

  I took three steps toward the building when Dr. Evans called my name.

  “This is, indeed, where it all began,” he said when I turned back to him. “While there were very few people who lived in the surrounding area, there were over one hundred employees who worked for and lived at NovaTor. I’m afraid you might find many of its residents still occupying the building.”

  “Right,” I said, nodding and turning my eyes back to the building. “I’d like all you humans to get back into the tank while I get this over with.”

  “Come on, Eve,” West said with a sigh. “Seriously? It’s been, like, eight days since I’ve killed a Bane.”

  Everyone except Dr. Evans laughed.

  “Fine,” I said, shaking my head. “You ready?”

  West, Avian, and Bill all held up deadly firearms.

  They should have been afraid. Who knew how many Bane were inside that building. If even one touched them, it was game over. Especially being this far from the Extractor.

  But they had confidence in me.

  Maybe it was time for me to start trusting in their confidence.

  “Get ready,” I said, turning back to the building.

  Come out, I thought. My eyes squinted as I concentrated. Come meet your queen and your end.

  Thirty seconds later, the main front door burst open and three bodies piled through. They climbed to their feet as another fifteen filed out the door as well.

  They moved towards us, now controlled and calm. The sun gleamed off their mechanical parts, which considering this lot, was most of their entire bodies. They were all very advanced.

  There was a mix of doctor looking individuals, men of science. Others had military looking clothing clinging in shreds to their skeletal forms.

  “Fire at will,” I said.

  My team unloaded at the approaching bodies and they dropped without hesitation or fight. More and more bodies started filing out of the building and dropped when they were clear of the entrance.

  I caught a glimpse of a familiar face two seconds before a bullet took her down to the ground.

  The woman.

  The one who had taken care of me, the one who had been in charge of my education and made sure I was where I needed to be when I needed to be there.

  The woman I had never known the name of.

&
nbsp; Now it really didn’t matter.

  But it still seemed a shame I had never thought to ask it as a child.

  By this point, I hadn’t realized that the shots had died out and there were no more Bane filing out of the building. There were eighty-one bodies lying before us.

  “You okay?” Avian asked, nudging me in the arm with his elbow.

  “Yeah,” I said, snapping out of it. “We good to go in now?” I asked Dr. Evans.

  “If you’re sure you drew all of them out,” he replied.

  I nodded. “I’m sure.” I walked toward the building and the rest of the team followed me.

  We carefully stepped around the bodies and toward the front doors. Sparing just a moment to take a deep breath, I crossed the threshold.

  We entered into a simple lobby. There was one solid wall that was completely white and rose to the height of two stories. In big, blue letters, there were the words NOVATOR BIOTICS. In front of that was a desk. To one side of the desk, there was a hall that stretched back as far as I could see. On the other side of the desk there were two sets of elevators. And tucked way back in the corner was a door with a sign for stairs.

  Bill swore, sweeping the space with his rifle, even though I knew it would be clear. “This place gives me the creeps.”

  I couldn’t help but nod in agreement. It wasn’t just knowing that the end of the world had begun here. It was that there were bullet holes everywhere. There were papers scattered across the floor, traces of glass littered every flat surface. There were dark stains on the floor that could have been nothing but blood.

  The chaos that had once taken place was obvious in every square inch of the building.

  “Where do we go from here?” I asked.

  “The main floor is mostly offices for those who ran the company, meeting rooms,” Dr. Evans said. “The upper level is residential units. Everything of value took place underground.”

  “How far down does this place go?” Avian asked as he took the building in.

  “Five stories.”

  One of the few memories I had recovered surfaced. When I had been kidnapped, they took me outside the building for the first time in my life. The sun had seemed so bright. It was the first time I had ever seen it.