‘I went to our old home,’ Saunders says, his hand waving over the beam of light and making it flicker. ‘It’s a wreck now, but it was all still there piled in boxes. You. I wanted you to have it, so that you can see what the world has witnessed of your life. It might give you a greater understanding of how the world came to love you … and where you came from.’
The last few words ring in my ears.
‘You mean …?’ I gasp.
‘Your parents.’ He nods.
‘I’ve seen so little of them.’
‘We can start with them, if you like,’ Saunders offers, clearly taking delight in my excitement. ‘They were caught on a surveillance camera moments before they were told about you. It was routine practice to document visits. For research purposes. The footage is a bit grainy, but …’
I stop breathing as two faces appear on the screen. There they are, Corinne and Ernie Warren, gazing at each other. They don’t appear to know they’re being filmed as they sit on a bench in a hospital corridor. The light is stark and bright around them. They are completely lost in each other. Other people walk up and down, going about their business, and the two don’t even notice.
I’m dizzy with excitement when someone knocks on the door, rooted to the spot, unable to look away. A split second later, I’m aware of Bram’s head peering around the door.
‘What’s happening here?’ he asks.
‘Look,’ I say breathlessly.
‘You’ve given it to her!’ He slaps Saunders on the back.
‘You knew?’ I ask.
‘Of course I did,’ he says, with a laugh, perching beside me on the armchair. ‘It’s Saunders’s pride and joy.’
‘Mine too now,’ I admit. ‘Look how affectionate they are. The intimacy is just …’ My voice trails off when the figures on screen lean towards each other and kiss, their mouths slotting together perfectly. Their lips part, but their heads stay close together. Their eyes might be closed, they might be sitting in silence, but there is total unity.
As we watch, Bram places a hand on my shoulder and rubs my collarbone with his thumb. I’m aware I should shake him off, with Saunders here, but it feels so soothing to have someone comfort me, the closeness mirroring what we’re seeing on screen.
Corinne, my mother, takes an audible breath. ‘I’m going to love our little boy so much. He’s a miracle.’
‘Could be a girl.’ My father smiles, and she rolls her eyes.
‘We’ll scan you now, Mrs Warren,’ says another voice.
The three walk towards a room, a bed and a screen.
‘She’s a midwife,’ whispers Bram. ‘They used to help mothers in pregnancy …’
‘Right.’ I nod.
‘You’ve lost before?’ the midwife asks.
I can see her face now. It’s cautious, making me wonder how many women she’d scanned, how many times she’d had to give bad news, and how draining that must’ve been for her.
‘Years ago,’ Mum admits nervously, while my dad takes her hand and gives it a reassuring squeeze.
‘Several times?’
‘That’s right,’ Dad replies. Mum is visibly shaken at the memories. ‘The last time was eight years ago.’
‘And you’re fifty-one and off the screening programme for failure to carry?’ She still directs the question at my mother, even though my father has taken over.
‘So they said,’ he replies. ‘But look at us now.’ He chuckles, attempting to soften the tension in the room.
‘Hmm …’ says the midwife. ‘Lie back, please.’
My mum obediently does as she’s told and blue jelly is squirted on her rounded stomach. Her face freezes with fear as the midwife picks up the probe.
The worry is now clear on both their faces. They don’t appear to breathe while the midwife pulls the screen around to block their view and punches at buttons with her fingertips.
‘I didn’t know you had this moment, Saunders!’ says Bram. ‘This is rare footage …’
‘Yeah. Really special,’ I hear Saunders say. I try to block them out so I can fully absorb what I’m seeing.
‘Oh,’ says the midwife, looking from the screen to my mum’s exposed bump, trying to marry the two.
‘What is it?’ my dad asks.
‘Another loss?’ asks my mum, the shake in her voice causing a lump to form in my throat.
‘No, it’s –’ She stops and stands tall, taking a breath. ‘I’m just going to get a second opinion.’ With this she leaps out of the room, leaving the bewildered couple staring after her.
‘Oh, my gosh,’ I say, my eyes watering as I look up at Bram. I fight the urge to jump into his arms as tears fall down my cheeks on to his hand. He holds me a little tighter. I reach up and squeeze his arm in response.
‘Look, I’m actually on duty,’ Saunders says, slowly rising to his feet.
‘But it’s not finished, has it?’ I say, my eyes going back to the screen, willing it not to end.
‘No, it hasn’t. I’ve just got to go. People will wonder where I am and … you two watch, I’ll –’ He breaks off and makes towards the door, just as the screen is invaded by half a dozen officials in white coats, making no attempt to reassure my mum, who stares at them in fright.
The door clicks shut and I’m aware I haven’t thanked Saunders, but as the midwife picks up the probe and places it back on that beautiful bump, the professionals in the room gasp and mutter, and as the penny drops for the couple on the bed, who are now sobbing with relief and love, all thoughts of him disappear.
I was so loved. I was so wanted. And not in the grandeur of what my life became and what I symbolized to the world beyond, but within that couple. My family. They are why I’m here.
Suddenly I feel myself yearning to know more of the love and joy they had for me. With a pang, I long to be wedged between them, sitting side by side, like they were at the start of the footage. Oh, how I’d love to listen to them talk, knowing I was exactly where I belonged.
A moment with my mum is out of my reach now: that was snatched from me long ago. But there’s still hope for me and my dad.
Hope.
I need more than hope.
I need to do everything I can to make it happen.
24
Bram
Eve yelps with pain.
‘You okay?’ I stand instantly.
‘Yes! Chill, I just bit my lip!’ she says, pulling me back into my seat at the breakfast table. ‘At ease, soldier, before you cause a scene!’
‘Sorry.’ I sit and notice the gossip-hungry eyes staring at us from around the dining hall.
She dabs her mouth with her finger and examines the few drops of blood.
‘Should I fetch the doc?’ Helena asks her quietly.
‘For biting my lip?’ Eve frowns.
‘How bad is it?’ I ask.
‘For goodness’ sake, you two! You were fine with me leaping off a building last week, and you bundled me into a bag! Now you’re worried about me biting my lip.’ She laughs. ‘You need to get out more … We all do!’
I nod to Helena, who returns to her meal.
‘You don’t actually need to chew the floodweed, you know. I find the easiest way is to just neck the stuff.’ I demonstrate by gulping down a mouthful without chewing and finish with a satisfied exhalation of floodweed-scented breath.
Eve rolls her eyes and nudges me in the ribs.
My heart leaps. I’m still not used to the feeling, the realness of it. The sensation of her touch versus the kinetic suit I used to wear that simulated it. Will this ever get old?
‘I’m serious, though. It’s like mass cabin fever down here,’ Eve says, looking around at the room of sunlight-deficient soggy men. She decided to eat with the Freevers rather than in the privacy of her room.
‘You’ve lived your whole life in a “cabin” and got along just fine,’ I say, knowing full well this is a hell of a lot different from the EPO experience.
‘But this time I actua
lly know I’m in a “cabin”,’ she says. ‘Plus we had the Drop. Real or not, that place was an escape.’
‘I know. Despite everything, I miss it. We had some good times up there.’
‘We’re having better ones down here,’ Eve says quietly, secretly placing her hand on my leg.
My stomach flips.
Floodweed sticks in my throat.
I choke.
Cough.
Green water comes out of my nose.
Eve laughs.
‘Helena, maybe we do need the doctor after all,’ she teases.
‘Bram.’ Saunders approaches our table, interrupting my embarrassment.
‘Yes?’ I swallow hard on the lump of food in my throat.
‘A word, if you have some time?’ he asks, and his unreadable expression suggests he doesn’t want a casual chat.
‘Sure, I’ll just finish this,’ I say, nodding at my almost empty cup of slosh.
Saunders heads back to his seat two tables away.
‘I remember him. From inside. His Holly,’ Eve says.
‘You do?’ I reply, surprised.
‘I remember all of you. You were all different. Subtly, of course, but when you have only one friend you find yourself knowing every detail about them,’ Eve explains.
‘What about him, then?’ I ask. ‘What was his interpretation of Holly like?’
‘Emotional,’ she replies, with wide eyes, and I nod in agreement.
‘That’s what got him into trouble,’ I explain.
‘I assumed.’
I finish my food and stand.
‘Don’t be too long,’ Eve says, as I leave the table. The implication sends electricity through my body.
I reply with a smile and reluctantly head to Saunders.
Let’s see what the hell he wants.
He leads me out of the dining hall in silence. We navigate the corridors of the Deep side by side, not saying a word until we’re climbing into the brass capsule that leads up. Our only connection to Central … to the world.
‘We’re going out?’ I ask.
‘I think we could both do with a change in scenery,’ he replies. ‘It’s okay. I’ve cleared it with the scouts. You’re safe.’
He must have read my mind as I remembered the images of my own face plastered over the screens that decorate the city. He might be a little irritating but I trust Saunders.
‘We were pilots once … Now look at us,’ he says, as the submergible ascends.
‘Squad H – brothers!’ I reply.
‘Brothers.’ He laughs. ‘Not many people know what it’s like to live two lives, spending years delving into the weird world of Holly, figuring out who she was, becoming her, collectively appearing as a new person, a unique personality. It’s a lot to leave behind.’
‘You’re not the only one who feels it. It’s weird leaving her. Like leaving part of our personality in the Tower,’ I say.
‘It’s impossible. She’s part of all of us,’ he replies, and the sphere jolts to a stop. He twists the circular handle 360 degrees and the sealed metallic door opens.
Grey shards of daylight pour in through the frosted glass of the half-flooded clock face, causing me to shield my eyes.
‘So where are we going?’ I ask.
‘I want to show you something.’ Saunders steps through the broken glass panel and out into the makeshift dock on our hidden part of the river.
I glance around nervously.
I hate being out here.
Exposed.
Not because I’m worried about being caught; I’m worried about revealing the Deep’s location. About revealing Eve. It takes just one person with a keen eye and the game is up.
Central is rife with opportunists sniffing around for their golden ticket to an easier life, and who can blame them?
‘Of course, Holly started with you, the first! The originale,’ he jokes, as he gets into a black dinghy.
I climb in after him.
‘Pretty crazy that those things you did instinctively as Holly, when you were just a kid, had to be analysed and replicated by us other pilots. We all adopted a little bit of you into our own thoughts,’ he explains.
‘I bloody hope not!’ I joke.
He doesn’t laugh.
Emotional.
He steers the light craft around a series of narrow canals that weave like capillaries between the organs of Central, the gargantuan cloudscrapers that loom over the old city.
Artificial light cuts through a slit in the concrete structures and I catch sight of our faces – Hartman, Ernie, Mother Kadi and myself. Staring out with guilty eyes. The words ‘WARNING – EXTREMELY DANGEROUS’ are plastered over mine as I’m the only one they don’t have. The one they want to make people scared of, make people hate.
Eve’s beautiful face appears next on the screen before the gap closes and we sail onward.
‘Nearly there,’ Saunders reassures me, obviously sensing my concern at being so exposed.
We pass boats, cruisers mostly, the permanent dwellings of people who have no tie to a particular location. They come and go as they please, some with as many as a few thousand people on board, sailing the floods to wherever they desire. Wherever is safe.
‘In there,’ Saunders says, pointing to a triangular spike of glass and metal pointing up from the flood to the sky. It’s totally dwarfed by the new buildings of Central but towers over anything I’ve ever seen from the city BE.
‘What is this place?’ I ask, as we drift inside the skeletal structure’s steel ribs.
‘Just a ghost from another time,’ he replies.
He pulls up at a roughly made dock inside. ‘Don’t worry, it’s empty,’ he says, as he helps me out of our boat.
I follow him as he walks a path he’s obviously walked before. Through deserted rooms with cubicles and fossils of a life we left behind. Computers and telephones sit on desks that were once worked at. Saunders takes me to a stairwell.
‘That’s a long way,’ I remark, at the winding steps that disappear above.
‘It’s worth it,’ he assures me.
When we reach the summit of this man-made mountain, I’m speechless. I step to the glass and see the city sprawling in front of us.
‘Beautiful, right?’ Saunders says, looking out with me at the water that reflects the twinkling lights from the windows of surrounding cloudscrapers.
‘If you squint, you can pretend they’re stars,’ he says.
He’s right.
‘It’s the best view you’re gonna get of the city without being seen. Most people’s attention is on the EPO Tower right now. The last thing anyone cares about is a bunch of nobodies loitering around a dead building from the past.’ Saunders points at the mountainous monstrosity that is the EPO Tower spanning most of the horizon and disappearing into the clouds, ‘She’ll be pretty safe here, so long as it’s cleared with the scout team.’
‘She?’ I ask.
He looks at me. ‘Well, you didn’t think I was bringing you up here on a romantic date, did you?’
‘Eve can’t come here,’ I say. ‘It’s too dangerous for her. She’s got to stay below, for her own good.’
‘For her own good? This is for her own good. The view, the city, the height are what she’s used to. A bit of familiarity is exactly what she needs right now. There’s no place like home, Bram, and like it or not, that was her home.’ He taps his finger on the glass at the EPO Tower.
I stare at him in disbelief, letting him feel my concern. ‘That was not a home,’ I say, calm and slow. ‘That was a prison.’
‘And the Deep is different because …?’ he fires back, sliding his finger down the glass to the half-submerged clock face, the entrance to the Deep.
‘Because she’s safe there. Until the dust settles and we figure out what the hell we’re going to do next,’ I say.
‘Well, that’s convenient for you, isn’t it? You and your little obsession,’ he snaps.
‘Obsession?’
<
br /> ‘Oh, please, we all know what’s been going on. We’re not stupid, Bram. You and Eve have always been close and now the EPO aren’t there to stop it you can take full advantage of her feelings. Of course she’s going to be distracted by that, but you’ve got too close, Bram. Can you really put what’s right for Eve before what’s right for you and Eve?’
WHAT? I flush with anger at the suggestion. ‘Is that what you think? That I’m manipulating this situation for my own – my own … desire?’ I rage back at him.
‘Hey, hey, I’m just telling you what people are saying, man, that’s all.’ He raises his hands and backs away.
I take a breath and look out at the city, above and below. Here I am, caught in the middle.
Is that really what people are saying, that I’m too close to Eve?
My heart sinks.
Maybe … maybe they’re right. Of course Eve is going to gravitate towards me: I’m all she knows. I’m … familiar.
Like this place.
‘Look, I just thought I could arrange for Eve to come up here some time, if she wanted. No one has to know. I’m in charge of who comes in and out of the Deep, don’t forget. I could just show her reality, this world between the two worlds she’s known.’
‘Wait … you and Eve?’
He pauses. Says nothing.
He doesn’t have to. I can see it.
‘Oh, my God, Saunders. Is that what this is really about? This conversation is over. You know, you nearly had me with all that crap about Eve and me getting too close.’
‘No, wait, Bram. It’s not like that,’ he protests, but of course it is.
‘It’s not like that? Saunders, you were the classic case of the Eve Effect. Countless pilots became obsessed with her after working with her for long periods, acting irrationally, even dangerously! You were totally infatuated with her in there. It’s why you were locked up. We were told you’d been executed, for crying out loud! I thought your time out here had calmed those feelings.’
‘Well, maybe it’s time to look in a mirror, my friend,’ he replies.
The words bounce off me.
I’m immune to them now.
I know what Eve and I have.
The Eve Illusion Page 15