Eden (38 page)

A sigh escaped my throat
as the hot water poured over my beat and scarred body.  My
muscles relaxed and even my insides felt cleaner as I breathed in
the steam.  The water ran brown for a while, the desert we had
survived going down the polished silver drain.

I used the products Lin
had given me on my hair.  I ended up lathering it all over my
entire body it smelled so nice.  My hair felt so smooth after
it all washed out.

I stood with my hands
braced against the shower wall, the water cascading over my
head.  I didn’t want to go back out there, to where I knew
people didn’t trust me.  Facing Avian and West felt like too
much to deal with right now.  And what was going to happen
now?  It was all to exhausting to think
about. 

After almost an hour, I
climbed out of the shower, dried off with the towel Lin had given
me, and pulled on the stark green clothes.  Grabbing the gray
blanket, I curled up in my new bed.

I had finally hit my
limit.  Just a few seconds later I was out.

THIRTY-TWO

The ceiling above my head
confused me when I first woke.  Everything that had happened
in the last day, in the last week, came rushing up at me with
exhausting force.  Dim lights glowed along the floor as I slid
my feet off the edge of the bed.  I walked to the now open
window and looked out.

How strange, to live in
this concrete jungle.  Small patches of green cropped up but
it was being choked out by the gray concrete, steel, and
glass.  And everywhere I could see eyes.  How could they
stand it, being in the middle of them all, all the time?  How
had they kept them out?

The lights glowed brightly
overhead as I walked out into the empty hall.  My steps echoed
as I descended the stairs.  I had to take a deep breath as I
stood behind the steel door, gathering courage to go out into the
unknown.  Why was it so simple to go on a raid into the city,
knowing I might not come back, and yet walking out among those
strangers, among other humans, was so hard and
terrifying?

I traced my way back to
the infirmary, past the dining hall and kitchen, and out into the
bustling lobby.  I stood at the entrance of the hall for a
while, watching as they moved around. 

In a way, they were all
like soldiers.  They all had their orders, a task to
execute.  Some of them entered what I assumed was some kind of
information into black boxes, a few cleaned the area, other’s
brought in sheets of paper.  The guard seemed to switch as a
handful of armed men walked out those glass front doors.  I
wondered where I would fit into this hive.

I saw no signs of Avian,
West, or Tuck and I felt awkward for a while, unsure of what to do
with myself or where to go.  And I didn’t like the fact that I
didn’t know where any of my weapons had gone to.

“
Eve,” a familiar voice
called from behind me.  As I turned, I recognized Dr.
Beeson.  His smile was bright as he approached me, his eyes
always filled with awe.  “I was just looking for you. 
You’re companion, Avian, said you were still resting.”

“
I overslept,” I said
simply as we stood together.

He gave the slightest of
chuckles for a reason I didn’t really understand.  “Would you
mind chatting with me for a while?  I’m dying of curiosity as
to what has happened to you in the past almost six
years.”

“
I suppose,” I
agreed.  This man didn’t seem like a threat, and even without
any weapons I was quite confident I could overpower him if I had
to.

We walked to the elevator,
a dozen pairs of eyes watching us as we did.  He pushed the
number seven button and slowly we began to rise again.  When
it slid open I was almost startled at all the brilliant blue lights
that ran through the walls, along the floor, on the
ceiling.

“
We use a lot of power on
this floor.  This level has been specially wired to keep up,”
he explained. 

We walked down the hall a
little bit, stopping at a large solid black door.  Dr. Beeson
entered a code into a number pad and it clicked open.

The room we entered into
glowed with the blue lights, heavily contrasted by the darkness of
having no windows into the starlit night.  Screens glowed from
the walls, flashes of information bursting across them.

“
This is my office, my
lab,” he said as he looked around the room with me.  For some
reason all the information flashing across his screens seemed
familiar, like a language I had forgotten how to speak. 
“Please, have a seat.”

I sat in one of the two
overly comfortable black chairs, sitting on the edge of it, my
hands tucked between my knees.

“
So I assume you know what
happened to you?” he asked, his voice losing its cheeriness. 
“About the things that were done to you?”

I nodded my head.  “I
knew that West’s grandfather experimented on me.  He placed
some kind of chip in my brain but it didn’t just stay a chip. 
I was observed for years and eventually he used the information he
gathered from me to create the infection.”

I stopped there,
swallowing the lump in my throat.

Dr. Beeson nodded. 
“First, let me say that I never agreed with what they were doing to
you.  I was a young scientist then, working on my development
of the capacity of the human mind to receive wireless
signals.  I was fascinated with the work he was doing on
you.  But you were just a girl.  What Dr. Evans did was
wrong.

“
But, if we would have
been able to control what happened, we would have saved millions of
lives.”

“
Instead billions were
killed,” I said coldly.

“
Unforgivable,” he said as
his eyes dropped to the ground.  “I first tried to remedy what
I did by setting you free.  I used the wireless capability of
the chip in your brain to wipe your memory clean.  No girl
should have to remember the things you were put through.  I
assume it worked?”

“
I have dreams sometimes,”
I said quietly, my eyes falling to my hands.  “How much of it
is purely nightmare and how much of it is something real, I don’t
know.”

“
The brain is a complex
thing.  I’m sorry I couldn’t spare you from
everything.”

“
Will those memories ever
be recovered?” I asked.

“
No,” he said
simply.  “They were permanently wiped, almost as if that part
of your brain was removed.  Would you really want to remember
the rest of it though?”

I had to think about it
for a while.  “No.”

“
There were only five of
us that escaped that facility.  Everyone else Fell so
quickly.  It’s a miracle that I made it out.  That was
when I first realized that you couldn’t be infected.  I tasked
one of the other men who made it out to take you out into the
country and set you free.  I never saw that man
again.”

“
Avian found me,” I filled
in the empty blanks of the past.  “Nearly naked out in the
forest, covered in blood, but with not a scratch on me.  They
knew something was different about me.  They just didn’t know
what.  I only found out a few months ago.”

“
Tell me what you’re able
to do,” he said, excitement building in his eyes again.  “Has
the programming evolved more?  The cybernetics?”

I sat forward again,
rubbing my hand over the thin scar that had already formed on the
back of my hand from when I had punched a hole through the metal
door at the Air Force base.  “I heal quickly,” I
started.  “I don’t usually feel pain.  Electricity is
about the only thing I seem to feel.  It’s made me pass out
before though, pain.  My brain still registers it I
guess.

“
I don’t require as much
sleep as normal.  I don’t get tired very easily.  I don’t
need to eat as much as normal people.  I’m faster than
everyone, stronger than most.”

“
Have you ever been up
against a Fallen?”

The smile on my face
couldn’t be fought back.  “More than a few times.  I
didn’t understand what was happening the first time one tackled
me.  I thought I was going to change.  But I
didn’t.”

“
Amazing,” he whispered, a
smile in the corner of his mouth.  “Have you seen any traces
of the cybernetic parts that have saturated your
system?”

I nodded.  “The
Fallen had these metal barbs that shocked you.  I grabbed some
once, it burned away my skin,” I said as I turned my hand over,
observing the scars there.  “I could see all the gears and
wires.”

“
That must have been
frightening for you,” he said.

“
But you know that I’m not
supposed to feel fear,” I said quietly as my eyes rose to meet
his.

He didn’t say anything for
a while as he held my stare.  I wondered how he lived with
himself, knowing he had helped bring about the end of the world and
then survived to see the destruction.  I felt sorry for
him.  “You’re right.  You aren’t supposed to feel
emotion.  It was an anomaly that Dr. Evans chose to ignore,
the fact that you were evolving past the programming.  You had
to be reprogrammed every few years.  As you moved beyond it
though, your emotions and reactions were so strong.  When you
got overwhelmed by your emotions a few times, you just blanked
out.  Just like those Fallen you see outside.”

I swallowed hard, my
stomach knotting up.  “It still happens.”

“
Really?” he said, his
eyebrows knitting together as he sat back in his
chair. 

“
But only when I’m around
one certain person.”

“
And how do you feel about
this person?”

“
That’s the unanswerable
question,” I said quietly.

“
Do you have romantic
feelings for him?  Or maybe an extreme hatred?”

I gave a  hollow
chuckle.  “I think both.”

“
It’s one of the men you
arrived with, isn’t it?” he said with a sly smile.

I nodded.  “I didn’t
feel things like this until he showed up at our camp. 
Something inside of me started waking up when I was with him. 
I don’t know how to handle it.  He makes me feel alive and yet
he can anger me so much I almost tried to kill him once.  And
then I just black out.”

“
It’s probably overloading
you, or rather the chip.  Your brain and the chip can’t work
together and it shuts you down in a way.  I don’t think you
will be a danger to anyone.  It’s not like you’re turning into
a Fallen, you just kind of… shut off.”

It was a relief to have it
so plainly explained to me.  And to know I wasn’t going to try
and attack anyone.  If only the other parts related to it all
could be so easily explained.

“
Do you know what love is,
Eve?” he asked as he leaned in close to me.

I closed my eyes, shaking
my head.  “Please don’t ask me that question.  Everyone
wants to know and I don’t have an answer for any of
them.”

“
There’s something else I
need to tell you, Eve,” he said, his voice low and serious
again.  There was something in the tone of his voice that told
me this conversation wasn’t going to be a good one.  “I knew
your mother.”

At his words, my eyes flew
open.  My mother.

“
She worked at the
facility with me, with West’s father and grandfather.  She was
an incredibly beautiful woman, she looked a lot like you.  She
had your same blond hair, your same exact nose. 

“
There’s no easy or polite
way to put it,” he said, looking uncomfortable.  “Your mother
and Dr. Evans had an affair about nineteen years ago.  The
younger Dr. Evans.”

As I pieced together the
things he was telling me, my insides grew cold.  My mother and
Dr. Evans.  An affair.  Nineteen years ago.  West’s
father.

Could also be my
father.

My stomach gave a lurch
and I barely suppressed the gag that ripped up my throat. 
Stars formed on the edges of my vision.  Dr. Beeson guided my
head down between my knees.

“
There was another man
involved,” Dr. Beeson continued quickly.  “I didn’t know him,
he didn’t work with us but your mother wasn’t sure who the father
really was.  But there is a fifty percent chance that Dr.
Evans is not your father,” he said as he rubbed circles into my
back.  It wasn’t comforting.  “I’m sorry to be the one
who has to tell you this.  I just thought that enough secrets
have been kept from you, it wasn’t fair that there was one
more.”

“
He… West…” I
gasped.  “Could be my… brother.”

“
It was very public, that
your mother and Dr. Evans had had an affair.  His wife found
out and basically announced it to the whole building in her
rage.  Your mother had to come in to work every day, baring
the shame of what she had done.”

I continued to take
gasping breaths, my head spinning.  No, no, it couldn’t be
true.

“
Your mother had no
family, no real friends.  Her work was her life.  She
gave birth at the facility.  Dr. Evans delivered the baby
himself.  Your mother, she didn’t make it.  There were
complications.

“
We weren’t sure what to
do with you.  There was no family to send you to and we all
knew what foster care was like.  It was the senior Dr. Evans
that decided that you would be raised at the facility.  It was
as you neared your first birthday that we realized what his real
plans were for you all along.”