Suddenly an impossible thought streaks across my mind, like a news flash. Why else would my dad have had that exact photo in his office all those years ago?
This place has to be significant.
I run my hands across the photo, as if my fingers are touching the leaves, and I stop them at the bottom, at the thing that has been staring me in the face my whole life.
This isn’t a photo of a tree at all. It’s a photo of the building behind it. My youthful mind was blinded by nature’s beauty, disguising the small brick building in the background. It’s been there all this time, sitting at the end of a gravel driveway, sheltered from the sun by the gracious tree.
My father is not a sentimental man. He has no family portraits or photos of his past. Everything has a purpose; everything has a use. My father would only have had this photo for a specific reason, and if he was in on some cover-up, if he was part of Ernie’s disappearance …
My brain is spinning.
I suddenly realize that I know more than any of the men in the room. I know where Eve’s father is.
‘So, Mr Wells,’ says Frost.
‘It’s just Bram.’
‘Very well, Bram.’
‘And I’m not down here to join you,’ I say to them all, as I stare into Frost’s eyes. My heart pounds. I’ve not thought any of this through but somehow I know it’s right.
‘Oh, really?’ Frost says, digging his dirty fingers into the arm of his chair.
‘I’m here to lead you.’
45
Eve
‘Eve,’ I hear, while a hand gently shakes me awake.
‘Hmm.’ I stir, feeling groggy. My head seems heavy as I lift it. Mother Kadi is gazing down at me with a concerned look on her face.
‘We need to go to the doctor. For retraction,’ she adds, with a sad smile.
It comforts me.
That face.
That compassion for the situation I’m in purely because I was born.
I’ve barely slept. I felt so energized last night that I simply couldn’t sleep. The black of night seemed to go on for ever as I watched it linger from my sofa. I must’ve dozed off at some point and my body aches because I didn’t get into bed.
‘Come on. Let’s get you ready,’ Mother Kadi says softly.
‘Will you stay with me?’ I ask. ‘Retraction is nothing new, I know that. But this is different. This time I’m saying goodbye to my eggs, knowing they may find their way back to me.’
‘And that’s a good thing,’ she says encouragingly.
‘Obviously.’ I decide not to add that the thought of them gluing those fertilized eggs into me makes me feel physically sick.
‘I can stay.’ Mother Kadi extends a hand for me to take. She helps me to my feet and follows me through to the bathroom. While I’m undressing she turns on the shower, checking the temperature, then picks up the dirty clothes I’ve been wearing and puts them into the laundry bin. I didn’t shower last night. When we first left the safe room I was intending to, but those plans vanished once I found my mother’s note.
I walk into the shower, closing my eyes as the hot water hammers at my body, waking me fully. I keep my eyes closed as Mother Kadi applies shampoo to my hair while sitting on the ledge above me, massaging it into my scalp. She rinses it, then smooths on the conditioner.
She is about to climb down and leave me to wash it out myself, but I sense her hovering next to me, as though she’s waiting for something.
I open my eyes as she reaches out to cradle my cheek.
‘You’re stronger than you know, Eve,’ she whispers. ‘And your mother was too. Trust your instincts. Follow them.’
My eyes squint at her through the water running over my face.
She glances at the shower, then at one of the microphones hanging above us. It can’t hear us over the noise of running water, and we can’t be seen, thanks to the steam on the glass. Not if we’re careful. Yet before I have a chance to say or ask anything in return she’s gone to fetch a towel from the heated rack. The moment is gone.
I search her face when I get out of the shower but there is nothing to read. It’s as though I imagined the exchange.
46
Bram
Once the laughter dies down, the Freevers look at me with the strangest mixture of expressions, some confused, others angry, but Frost’s face is unreadable. He keeps his cards close to his chest.
He raises a hand and the whispers hush. ‘Lead us?’ he says calmly. ‘Where exactly are you planning to lead us, Bram?’
I pick up the photograph from the table and walk through the crowd to where the projector sits. I slip the photo of our first kiss off the light plate and replace it with this photo.
The projected tree fills the centre of the room and the men step back out of its light.
‘I’m leading a rescue mission for Ernie Warren, here.’ I point to the brick building sitting in the tree’s shade. There are murmurs and whispers from every Freever in the room as they stare at the photograph before them. I glimpse Helena’s long grey hair and see her still batting off the whisperers around her, asking her opinion. She tilts her head, waiting to hear more from me.
‘And what makes you think this is the place?’ calls a thin voice from the back. ‘Of all the hundreds of thousands of locations where he could be, of all the possible photographs on the table, you just happen across the one photo of his whereabouts?’
The rabble immediately erupt, firing more questions in my direction. Frost remains a silent observer of the chaos.
‘Listen.’ I calm them with my hands, but it’s not enough to silence them. I step up on to a bench at the table, raising myself so I can see the whole room and they can see me. ‘Listen to me. You’ve been searching for years, with no luck. Yes, I know it sounds hard to believe that I would walk in here and pick up this photo, but it’s even crazier for me to find it here.’ The room of damp people quietens as they pause for a moment to listen. ‘Or maybe it’s not crazy. Maybe it’s meant to be. Maybe I was meant to be here, to find this photograph, because I know one thing for sure. There isn’t anyone else in the world who would know that this is the place, not anyone on your side anyway. You’ve only known me a short time, but you’re just going to have to trust me. It’s too important for you not to. I’ve spent nearly my entire life up there, inside that Tower, working to keep their lie alive. Staring into Eve’s eyes, delivering their messages, getting Eve to cooperate with their demands, and she would do it for me every time. Why?’ I hold up the photo of our kiss. ‘Because Eve trusts me, more than she trusts anyone else, and that’s why you should too. That’s why you have to, for Eve.’
I have the room’s attention. Helena raises her eyebrows, impressed, I think, with my speech.
‘This is where Eve’s father is, I know it. I’ve looked at this photo more than any other image and only just realized what it is.’
‘What are you going to do with him when you find him?’ asks Chubs.
‘Are you out of your mind? He’s not going to be there. He’s dead,’ calls one of the older men of the group, starting a series of exchanges about my spontaneous plan to lead them on a search for Eve’s long-lost father.
‘What if he’s lying? What if he is just another EPO spy?’ cries another of the more mature men.
‘What if he isn’t?’ Helena says, her raspy voice demanding people listen. ‘What if he’s right?’
The heads in the room turn to her, but her powerful gaze is fixed on me. ‘This kid could be everything we’ve ever wanted.’
There is a silence as they absorb her words.
‘If we’re ever going to have a shot at finding him, surely it’s with Bram,’ Saunders adds clumsily.
‘How can we trust him? What if he’s just luring us into a trap?’
The noise erupts again, reaching an unbearable volume. Frost stands up, his arms raised. Silence falls over the room and I realize he owns these people. It’s not them I need to convince, it’
s him.
He turns to me, looks me in the eye, and I can see the cogs of his mind working.
‘Look,’ I say to him, ‘I want to get Eve out of that place as much as all of you, but I’ve got to know the truth and Ernie is the key, I know it. If he’s still alive this is where we can find him.’
‘Okay, Bram,’ says Frost.
Silence. Stunned silence.
‘Okay?’ I reply.
‘Let’s do this your way. You call the shots. You wanna lead this bunch, they’re all yours.’
The room twitches silently. I can feel the discomfort his decision causes. ‘For real?’ I ask.
‘For Eve,’ he replies. I nod in agreement and reach out to shake his hand.
‘For Eve!’ the room shouts in unison, some voices more reluctantly than others.
Frost takes a seat and ties his thick dreadlocks behind his head. ‘So, Bram, what’s the plan?’
The pods are loaded with supplies, mainly weapons. We leave through the broken glass of Ben as weak sunlight turns the pollution clouds from thick purple to heavy grey.
‘You sure you know what you’re doing?’ Saunders asks, stepping into the pod I’m waiting in.
‘No,’ I say honestly. ‘But if there’s a chance I’m right we’ve got to take it, yes?’ Before he has a chance to reply Frost steps into the pod behind us.
‘Ready when you are, Captain,’ he says. He pulls the hood of his deep green waterproof jacket over his matted locks and awaits my orders.
We’ve planned for this as best we can. It was Helena who realized it might be a sanctuary, meaning that it’s kept well hidden. Protected. But that information at least narrowed the search. If Eve’s father is there, it’s a clever move from the EPO, hiding a man in a place no men are allowed to go to. Smart. The kind of thing my father would have thought of.
Whether this place is still standing is another question. The most recent charts of that area are all BE, pre-flood. It could be in ruins now, but my gut says differently. All that’s left is to go and find out, to see if I’m right or if I’m leading Frost’s rebels on a wild-goose chase.
‘I know that not all of you are comfortable with this mission, but I thank you for your commitment to me,’ I say, sounding far too rehearsed.
‘It’s Eve we’re committed to, dumbass,’ says a young blond Freever from the second of the three pods we’re taking out. I see Chubs elbow him in the ribs to shut him up.
‘He’s right. It’s Eve we’re all committed to. Let’s go and find her father.’ I nod at Saunders and he eases the throttle forward. We cruise out on to the open river where I see the city alive for the first time.
I can’t believe how busy it is. So different from the night I arrived. There are large boats, almost ships, moored to the rooftops of sunken buildings. Men walking along gangplanks suspended hundreds of feet over the water, bridging the gap between building and boat.
‘Pretty amazing how fast they built these,’ Saunders says, noticing my eyes gazing up at Central.
I’d forgotten what this place was like. Vast structures attached to the old buildings, like sitting on the shoulders of a drowning man, soaring towards the sky. Square buildings that tower over the rivers flowing between them. These new cloudscrapers weren’t designed to look nice, just to withstand the storms and provide homes so life could go on.
And life did go on, surprisingly normally, considering what happened. I take in the sights and smells all around as we sail north, over Regent’s Lake. Men out here look happy. I see men chatting, kissing, men drinking coffee simulants, reading the news on their holo-players on their way to work as they tread the weather-beaten pathways of this place.
No women, of course: it’s not safe enough for the few who remain to leave the female-only communities. I guess the women of the Deep are living outside the EPO law. Another reason to stay hidden.
‘Everything sits about ten feet above the current waterline, allowing for the flood level to rise, which it will,’ Saunders tells me, shaking his head. ‘They might have stopped dropping bombs but the oceans didn’t stop rising.’
Our pod is rocked by the wake of a larger ship cruising past us in the opposite direction.
‘I’d keep your head low if I were you, kid,’ Frost radios over the intercom, from his pod, and as the ship passes us I see why. On the side of its black hull the words ‘COLD STORAGE’ are printed in large white letters. A blue light flashes on top, signalling other boats to clear out of its way. Armed guards pace the top deck, wearing the EPO’s security uniform under the same black body armour as Ketch’s men.
‘Deliveries for the Tower?’ I ask, and Saunders nods. A cold vapour pours from the back, like a heavy steam that sits on the surface of the water. I watch the huge ship sail in the direction of my old home and wonder how many women it’s carrying, all headed towards their prestigious place in the depths of the Tower, beside my mother.
I instinctively reach for the silver cross around my neck.
As the EPO ship disappears between buildings, I follow the furthest structure upwards. I strain my neck and see the enormous realiTV screens strapped to the sides, my father’s tech. I can’t escape him: it’s like he’s looking down on me wherever I go.
‘They used to pump out constant updates on Eve,’ Frost’s deep voice says, over the intercom. ‘Everyone watched – we’d all gather out here for the latest news, to see how the saviour was getting on, what she was doing from one day to the next. It gave everyone hope. Made us remember what we were living for. That we had a planet to protect for our kids.’
As we sail out over the open stretch of water I look back at the city skyline, every building covered from top to bottom with screens. ‘Who wouldn’t want a glimpse of the girl who was going to save humanity from extinction?’ Frost says.
‘I knew they showed people what was happening but not that it was like this,’ I say. ‘It’s like some reality show.’
‘Are you kidding? Your girlfriend was the biggest realiTV star on the planet once,’ Saunders jokes.
‘Once?’ I ask.
‘Yeah, until they decided we weren’t important any more, that it was better keeping secret what goes on up there,’ Frost explains. ‘They shut down the live streams from the Dome, just gave us momentary glimpses of Eve when it suited them. Mostly doctored footage and faked images. We all knew they weren’t real from the moment they started.’
Suddenly the screens flicker to life. Three huge letters illuminate the fine mist that hangs in the air like fog. EoM.
‘EoM?’ I ask.
‘Eve of Man,’ Saunders explains. ‘That’s what they’ve branded her. They want us to think she’s our Eve.’
‘We just get this propaganda shit now, that’s all. Whatever the EPO want us to see, whatever they think is going to keep us all in line,’ Frost tells me from his pod, sailing along to my left. ‘It’s about keeping the powerful powerful, and the rest of us, well, who cares? Eve’s just their poster girl. We’d pull the screens down if they weren’t protected.’
‘Protected?’ I ask.
‘Yeah. They’re all solar panels. Those screens feed us lies and give us energy. They power the whole city. Can’t live without ’em so we gotta put up with this crap,’ Saunders says.
‘Pretty clever.’ It would have been another of my father’s genius ideas. It’s got him written all over it.
‘Here we go,’ says Saunders, pointing to the video that begins to play across the surface of every building around us.
Eve picks flowers in her garden inside the Dome. Cut to Eve exercising, sweat dripping from her chin. Then she gracefully pliés at the barre in her ballet shoes. Now she’s drinking green juice.
A deep voiceover booms out, echoing across the lake.
‘ Eve is working hard, preparing for the future, for your future. She is your saviour. She is Eve of Man.’
Eve stands on the Drop alone, looking out at the sunset.
‘This is all old footage,’
I tell Saunders.
‘Yeah, we know,’ he says. ‘They re-cut these things all the time, flip the images around, change the camera angles, anything to make it seem new and fresh. We rarely get any current glimpses of her.’
The three large letters, EoM, glare out at us one last time before the screen fades to black.
I turn away and look ahead to where the open stretch of water narrows. I hear that deep voice echo in my mind and can’t help but wonder if I’m prepared for the future. I guess I’m about to find out.
47
Eve
‘She’s staying with me,’ I say firmly, as I enter the clinical examination room with Mother Kadi at my side. My chaperoning Mother is usually sent away, told she isn’t needed within these walls, but today Mother Kadi is needed. By me. I need her comfort. Her kindness. Her compassion. Her presence.
Vivian’s eyes dart between us as though she’s trying to work out if I’m up to something, but she seems to dismiss the idea with an exasperated sigh. ‘Very well. Glad you’re feeling up to speaking, Eve.’ She smirks. ‘I see you’ve been eating too. Good, good.’
Ignoring her jibes, I stand by the metal chair in the corner of the room, stripping off my clothes. Then Mother Kadi helps me into the garment laid out for me, a blue hospital gown.
I thought about saying something before this process took place. I debated whether or not to go to Vivian and tell her I’d changed my mind and didn’t want it to happen in this way, but I know that would give her the upper hand and an inkling of what’s going on in my head. I’d have to give reasons, and I didn’t want that. I didn’t want to tell her that I’m doubtful of what they’ve given me as a reality. I have to be sure of the truth first.
It’s the same reason I’ve not spoken to her about Bram and Holly. Anyway, I’m not sure how much it matters now he’s gone. She wouldn’t let him be my Potential. I’m certain that if I asked she’d refuse and mock me because I’ve fallen for him. She’d resort to belittling our love as a childish crush. I know what we have is far more than that. I’d have loved Bram and Holly regardless of their form. Part of me would be happy to keep things as they have been, with us out on the Drop for ever more, that’s how much she, he, has affected me, but I know that could never happen.