The Eve (The Eden Trilogy)

  I took another step forward and placed a cautious hand on his arm.

  His instincts, impossibly fast, took over and he lashed out, wrapping a hand around my throat.

  “Dr. Evans,” I choked out. Everyone stepped forward, their weapons steadying on his form. “It’s me. Eve Two. We need you right now. We need you here, with us.”

  His hand did not tighten, but it did not relax either. His fully cybernetic eyes were fixed on me and I couldn’t tell if there was still any emotion behind them or if he was gone to us forever.

  Vee stepped forward, Creed held securely in her arms. “Dr. Evans,” she said, her voice calm and even. His eyes shifted over to her. “It’s Eve One. I know you can’t hold on much longer, but it is almost over. Just help us with this last thing, and it can end.”

  He stared at her for a long moment. Fractionally, I felt his fingers relax.

  When his hand released me, I rubbed at my throat and suppressed a cough. His eyes slid back to me and he took two steps back.

  “I…” he tried to speak. “I…am…sorr…sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” I said, but I didn’t take my eyes from him. “But I don’t think we can wait any longer. It’s time to do this.”

  He looked over at the rest of the group gathered around him and something told me there would be shame in his expression if he still retained any human qualities to express emotion.

  “Yes,” he said, stepping forward to the device. “I suppose…it is.”

  I turned to Vee and Creed and had the urge to hug them. I wasn’t sure why. She and I didn’t have the sisterly bond people talked about. But I felt like doing it anyway.

  She stiffened a bit when I wrapped my arms around her, but she didn’t push me away or act like she didn’t want me to do it.

  “I’m glad you are here for this,” I said quietly into her long hair.

  “I think I’m glad too,” she said back.

  I released her, a small smile upon my lips. I pressed a kiss to the top of Creed’s head.

  It was time to give her that future I’d promised her mother before she’d died.

  Royce opened the door to the lead box and the two of them stepped inside. He sealed it behind them.

  I turned to Avian. His eyes were terrified yet determined.

  “I meant to show you this,” he said as he took my left hand in his. “But things just kept happening.” Taking my ring between two of his fingers, he slid it down my finger just a bit. There, indented into the skin of my finger was what looked like a number eight, turned on its side.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “An infinity symbol,” he said.

  He didn’t have to explain any more than that.

  I placed my hand on his rough cheek and tried to smile. His eyes were intense and hopeful and scared. “Infinity.”

  “Infinity,” he breathed back.

  A low hum drew my eyes back to the Nova. Dr. Evans was pressing buttons, fiddling with something on a digital screen. I looked up at the satellite, pointed up and to the right just a bit. Somewhere, up above us so far that it escaped even my eyes, there was another satellite orbiting us, partnered by hundreds of others. But we had no idea if any of them were still functional.

  If they weren’t, we were all dead.

  The sweep was at our doors. There would be no time for the emergency water evacuation.

  I walked to the Nova and stepped between two of the panels. I looked up, studying the three bars that connected to one. The dish sat high above my head.

  Addie and Dr. Evans fiddled with the controls. She kept looking over at Dr. Evans warily and kept her distance as best she could.

  I looked up at the others, who stood twenty feet away.

  Avian. Bill. Tristan. Elijah.

  They all stood as stony faced as I felt.

  “I will input the code…here,” Dr. Evans explained to Royce with difficulty. He sounded every bit like a machine. “You will push…the initiate button…and then immediately the transmit one.”

  Royce nodded, his eyes studying the screen before him. His face was pale white.

  Dr. Evans pulled a piece of paper out. His fingers hovered above the keypad. And he suddenly seemed to freeze.

  “Dr. Evans?” Addie said, her voice quaking.

  Dr. Evans didn’t respond.

  His fingers crumpled around the paper in his hand. The one with the kill code written on it.

  “Dr. Evans,” Royce demanded. “I need you to enter that code.”

  But he didn’t move. His finger remained poised above the keypad, his other hand locked around the paper.

  Royce swore under his breath.

  “It’s okay Royce,” I said, forcing myself to take a deep breath. I then rattled it off to him. Each and every letter and number. “He had me memorize it back at NovaTor, just in case.”

  Normally, Royce would have made some sarcastic or annoyed comment at this, but he just gave a single nod as he entered the code.

  The thought that I’d never talked to him about how we were family crossed my mind just as shots were fired below us.

  An explosion sounded and then I could make out the pounding of footsteps on concrete below us.

  The sound of the air changed immediately after that, more rapid and choppy than it should have sounded.

  It was a sound I knew well. A sound that ended lives and changed the course of futures.

  “They’ve got a chopper,” I breathed. I turned to search the skies for it, but saw nothing.

  Avian, Bill, Elijah, and Tristan ran to the side of the building, scanning the skies and the streets. But they suddenly backed up, guns drawn, bullets firing. The sound got louder and the wind picked up in intensity.

  The chopper came up to eye level.

  I was staring directly at the two Bane who piloted it.

  “Now!” Royce bellowed.

  An electric charge ripped through my skin and the air was sucked from my lungs.

  There was a sharp ringing sound, so high pitched and intense I was sure my eardrums had burst.

  The sound of crashing metal and breaking glass erupted through the ringing, the ground beneath me shook, and then—

  THE END

  PART ONE

  --WEST--

  I could only recall a small number of times the intercom had come on in the hospital. It sounded into every room and into every corner of the building.

  “I need every able-bodied person to the armory, now!” Graye’s voice bellowed throughout the building.

  Screw what Dr. Sun and everyone else had said about me resting. My hands still worked.

  There was a set of crutches leaning against the far wall of the infirmary room I was told to recover in. I hopped across the space on my good foot and grabbed them. Next I slung my rifle over my shoulders and made my way down to the armory.

  The halls were loud and chaotic. Everyone ran around with a firearm. As I glanced into the dining area, I saw that the steel, protective window coverings had been drawn back a few inches. Two teenage girls were firing shots out them.

  “What’s going on?” I asked as soon as Graye came into view.

  He was standing just inside the armory and was handing out weapons like candy.

  “There’s hundreds of them out there now,” Graye said, not even glancing at me as he tossed a handgun to a boy that looked no older than twelve. “I think Eve told some of them to destroy other Bane, cause some of them seem like they’re fighting, but most of them are trying to get inside the building.”

  Finally, I noticed a noise over the chaotic sound of our residents heading to firing posts.

  A pounding.

  “They’re trying to break through the walls,” I said.

  Graye nodded.

  “If this doesn’t work, we’re all dead within a few hours, aren’t we?”

  Graye finally looked at me. His eyes were cold and determined. Reaching into his pocket, he produced something flat and square.

  I??
?d seen enough movies as a kid before the world went to hell to know what it was.

  “A detonator?”

  Graye stared at me with hard eyes again before glancing both ways to make sure no one was watching us. “If Eve can’t save us all I’m not letting any more of us fall to those demons. I’d rather die.”

  “What gives you the right to make that decision for everyone?” I asked.

  Even though his actions disgusted me, I didn’t condemn him for them.

  I’d rather die too than get infected again.

  “I need you at the west side of the building, if you can still fire that thing,” Graye said, ignoring my question.

  I glanced back at him one more time before heading to my appointed post.

  The west side of the hospital housed a few offices and I headed into one. Using the hand crank, I drew the steel covering back four inches. I drug a stool over and knelt on it with my bad leg, propping myself up. Positioning my rifle, I observed the layout before me.

  From my position I had a clear view of the top of the building the Nova had been built on. The hospital was far enough away, though, that all I could make out was the form of the gigantic transmitting dish. And Bird circling the building.

  The roads around the hospital were a mess. Destroyed Bane lay in the streets, their mechanical parts sparking and shining in the sun. Graye had been right, Eve commanded some of them to destroy other Bane.

  Just as the thought crossed my mind, one Bane tackled another to the ground on the sidewalk, right in front of me. It ripped the others left arm clean from its body. And then it pummeled the rest of the Bane into a scrap pile of metal.

  Behind it, a group of four Bane started running toward the hospital, like a rabid pack of wolves.

  I fired.

  Two of them dropped to the ground. The others continued to rush directly toward me.

  One of the Bane drew something small and oval shaped and in a tiny movement, seemed to pull something out of the object.

  A grenade.

  I emptied a magazine firing at it. It finally dropped to the ground, as did the other one, just a block and a half from the hospital.

  The explosion from the grenade was brilliant.

  Gleaming parts flew into the sky. Two cars that had been in close proximity blew sideways, rolling and crashing into the surrounding buildings.

  Movement to the far west caught my eye again and the breath caught in my chest.

  Rising to level with the Nova building was a helicopter.

  I saw tiny explosions as Eve’s team fired at it. But I knew their odds of taking it out before it could fire and destroy every one of them and the Nova.

  “Vee,” I breathed. “Eve.”

  My hands flew to my ears and my eyes squeezed closed as a sharp ringing shot through the air, high pitched and painful.

  I could have sworn my ears were bleeding.

  This was it.

  Through the ringing, even from this far away, I could hear the crash.

  My eyes shot open just in time to see the blades of the chopper slicing into the Nova building. It disappeared from view and then there was another explosion.

  Twelve Bane. That was how many of them I could see from my position.

  And that was exactly how many bodies instantly dropped to the ground.

  One second they were fighting, rushing the building. And the next they were limp and still.

  I couldn’t move for an unknown amount of time. My eyes fixed on one body that had collapsed. It must have been a female at one point. It had longish brown hair that covered its face completely when it collapsed.

  It was going to move. This was only a temporary thing, Eve would only be able to make them collapse, knock them out for a short while.

  They had to get up and try to infect us once again.

  But they weren’t getting up.

  Cries and screams and cheers erupted from the halls.

  Finally, my eyes broke from that body. I looked back toward the lobby. People were gathered there, staring out into the streets.

  It took a lot of willpower to turn from the window. There was no way I could relax enough to leave my weapon, so I somehow managed to use the crutches and hold it at the same time.

  I pushed my way through the crowd to the doors.

  Tuck stood before us all. He held a radio in his hand.

  “Today is a day to move forward. Let everyone have their moment to celebrate.”

  It was Royce’s voice. And every syllable he spoke said something was wrong.

  THE END

  PART TWO

  --AVIAN--

  I fired seven shots. The first two shattered the front window. The fourth bounced off one of the chopper blades. The rest disappeared into the body of the helicopter.

  Countless other shots were fired, but the helicopter continued to rise over the side of the building.

  The adrenaline burning through my system brought everything into focus. I watch as a cybernetic thumb hovered over a trigger.

  The moment before it fired, Royce yelled something I couldn’t understand.

  A piercing ring cut through the air. I wasn’t one to put down my firearm, but I couldn’t fight the instinct to drop my weapon and cover my ears against the sound. Bill, Tristan, Elijah, they all did the same.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw Dr. Evans crumple to the ground and then the building shook. I looked over the ledge just in time to see the helicopter explode as it hit the ground. The building shook tremendously and all of the windows below us exploded.

  Out in the distance, the slight movement of the landscape stopped. A giant cloud of dust rose into the air. The Bane sweep ceased.

  I looked below us once more, and saw dozens of bodies lying still on the ground.

  “It worked,” I breathed. A startled, disbelieving chuckle rose up from my chest. “It worked!”

  I turned back to the Nova, ready to cheer and celebrate with our team.

  And my internal organs disappeared into oblivion.

  “Eve!” someone screamed and I would later realize it had been me. One second I was standing at the edge of the building, the next I was at her side.

  Eve was half in, half out of the Nova in a crumpled heap.

  I rolled her over, pushing the hair out of her face. “Eve,” I said again, tapping the side of her face.

  Her eyes remained closed. Her mouth hung just slightly open.

  Her entire body was limp in my arms.

  “Eve?” my breath barely came out.

  “What’s wrong?” someone behind me questioned and others gathered around. “What happened?”

  Tristan knelt next to me, his hands extended but not knowing what to do with them. Royce stood above us, a radio held in his hand, like he knew he was supposed to be doing something with it. But it just hung limp in his hand as he looked down at his niece.

  It must have been muscle memory or instinct or some other force of nature that made me raise my hand. My skin felt dead as I pressed two fingers to the side of her neck.

  Her skin was as still as the rest of her body.

  “Eve?” I said, giving her a shake. “Eve? Come on! Open your eyes!” I shook her again. Rougher than I should have. Something was birthed in my stomach and clawed up in my skin. A rabid beast that wanted to escape that very instant.

  “Eve!” I growled, shaking her again. “Open your eyes!”

  Her head lolled back as I stilled her, her mouth falling open once again. My hands felt numb.

  Royce knelt next to us, and placed two fingers against her neck, just as I had done.

  His hands shook worse than mine did.

  His radio crackled and then a voice rang over it, loud and true.

  “The test subjects are dead, sir.”

  No one moved. The air around us hung dead and stagnant—no one breathed. Every pair of eyes was transfixed on Eve, who lay in my arms. No one took notice how the shooting had ceased. How the plundering footsteps of the invading
Bane had died away.

  “Is she…?” a voice from behind asked.

  We all turned to see Vee step out from the lead room. Creed slept peacefully in her arms.

  The breathing I hadn’t done up to that point suddenly kicked into overdrive. My chest started rising and falling rapidly and my entire body broke out into a cold sweat.

  “No,” I said shaking my head and looking back down at Eve. “No, she’s fine. She’s just unconscious. The transmission just took a lot out of her.”

  I shook her again. “Eve,” I said, my voice calm but urgent. “Wake up Eve. Come on. It’s over. It worked. You need to open your eyes!”

  “Avian,” Bill chastised and I realized how hard I was shaking Eve. “She’s not—”

  “She’s going to be fine, Bill!” I bellowed, glaring back at him. “It isn’t like she doesn’t have a reputation for blacking out! Just give her a minute.”

  I met each of their eyes with red in my own. They all backed up half a step, resignation in their faces.

  “Sir,” a voice crackled over the radio again. “We’re mobilizing the solar tank with a long range radio to see how far the transmission worked. But every Bane we can see is dead.”

  Royce cleared his throat and gave a sniff. “Very good,” he responded. His voice sounded like gravel.

  “Is everything okay up there, sir?” the voice cut through the radio again after a moment.

  Royce squeezed his eyes closed for a moment and turned his face up to the sky. His composure broke for a few seconds and his shoulders shuttered. He took a sharp breath and wiped the back of his hand across his nose before raising his radio to his lips again. “Today is a day to move forward. Let everyone have their moment to celebrate.”

  I’d been numb these past few moments. Finally, I looked back down at Eve.

  Her chest wasn’t rising and falling. She was pale as a ghost.

  My medical instincts went into fight-or-flight mode.

  Covering her mouth with mine, I puffed five solid breaths into her. Positioning myself over her, I placed my hands on her sternum and tried chest compressions.

  Except I couldn’t make her chest rise and fall to squeeze her heart into working.

  Her cybernetic lined body wouldn’t let her bones flex.