Without tearing my eyes away, I slide my arms around Bram’s waist and pull him closer, breathing him in – not just his smell but all of him. My whole body relaxes as I bask in the delicious sunlight. How I wish this perfect moment could last for ever. That things could just freeze and leave me here for eternity.
‘Do you wish you’d never gone up there?’ I ask, nodding towards the Tower.
‘I didn’t have a choice,’ he says softly. ‘But I’m glad I did.’
‘You joined me in my cage and made it your own.’
He squeezes me a little tighter.
With our heads bowed together, I find myself thinking back to the video I saw of my mother and father sitting in that hospital corridor.
‘I really do love you,’ I say, pulling away to see his face.
A smile slowly spreads, even though I can tell he’s trying to suppress it. ‘You’re not so bad yourself,’ he says, moving his arms around my back and pulling me into his warm body. ‘I love you too.’
I sigh, enjoying the pause, the peace and the feeling of being exactly where I want to be.
There’s a flash of light in the distance.
‘What was that?’ I say, jabbing at the glass.
‘What?’ Bram asks, rummaging through his bag and pulling out a device that he holds to his eyes.
I don’t need to reply because he, too, is looking when the second explosion of light occurs.
‘Fuck,’ he mutters, his voice so grave I know it could mean only one thing.
The Deep.
30
Bram
The explosion is powerful and purposeful. Part of me hoped the flashes were just gas explosions, or parts of the old city giving way, as they do from time to time, but my eyes are already trained in the right direction and as another flash erupts it leaves no doubt for either of us that the Deep is under attack.
A plume of smoke gathers and rises from our home a few miles away, yet I feel it as though we were down there with everyone.
Our safe space is gone.
‘It’s them, but the explosions must be ours. The EPO would never put your life at risk,’ I say, not taking my eyes off the base of the black cloud as EPO drones swarm and circle through the thick smoke.
‘Then we need to help them fight!’ Eve says, turning her back on the view.
I grab her arm as she tries to run and pull her to my side. ‘Are you insane? You are the only reason they’re there. If we go back, it’s game over. Vivian wins. You’ll be taken back to the Tower!’
She raises an eyebrow as if to say, That’s exactly where I want to go.
‘This is on their terms, not yours. Getting caught now is not going to save your dad,’ I add.
She thinks about it and I see the frustration, the anger boil inside her. There’s nothing we can do.
‘We have to do something, Bram, I can’t hide up here while they suffer for me. We –’ She stops. Realization flashes on her face. ‘If you get taken back, they’ll –’
I nod.
They’ll kill me.
Without doubt, and she knows it’s true. After everything I’ve done, the uprising I’ve helped craft and execute, once they have Eve, I’m just trouble they won’t let happen again.
I sense her will to leave fade. If I weren’t with her, I know she’d be running to fight alongside the Freevers in the Deep right now.
Am I being selfish? Do I just want to stay here to protect myself?
‘That’s not why I want to stay, though, Eve. If helping them is what you want, I’m right with you,’ I say, my own heart pulling me towards my new family. The urge to help them is powerful but not as powerful as the instinct to protect Eve.
Another explosion blasts away my doubts as the shockwave ripples down the river, sending deafening vibrations up this ruin.
It’s far from the solid, unbreakable fortress of the EPO Tower but this is the safest place for Eve right now.
She sighs and settles on staying put, turning back to the attack with a heavy heart.
‘Who is it?’ she asks, looking through the glass at the shattered entrance to the Deep, just visible in a sliver between the cloudscrapers.
I unclip the ocular scope from my belt, stare down the single eyepiece and enlarge the image to see black smoke pouring out through the shattered clock face, which now bears a fresh wound. At the small dock a large EPO carrier ebbs on the rising floodwater as squads of First Response troops fall out into the world we thought was undetectable.
‘First Response are inside.’ I point out the ant-like figures piling into the Deep, many of them equipped with dive tanks and masks.
How did they know where we were?
‘Will they kill them?’ Eve asks.
‘If they think you’re inside, they won’t use lethal force. It’s too risky. They’ll arrest and detain anyone they find,’ I say, reassuring myself as much as Eve.
A few moments later the smoke starts to thin and three Interceptors appear in the air, circling like birds of prey over food they’re about to devour. One craft lowers to the dock and two Final Guard officers step out. The empty Interceptor automatically rises into the air to continue to monitor the area.
‘Final Guard are going in,’ I say, as the first armed men step through the clock and enter our world.
‘Final Guard?’ she repeats.
‘Your guards. You’ve never heard them called that? They were your personal security force in the Dome. The ones who escorted you anywhere and everywhere.’
‘Ketch?’ she says, with an air of obvious fondness.
I nod, and she takes my scope to see for herself. I realize she’s looking for him. ‘Ketch isn’t there now, Eve. Even if he survived the battle at the sanctuary when we rescued your father, I doubt he’d be returning to service.’
She doesn’t reply. I suddenly realize the connection she must have had with him as one of the few people, other than the Mothers, who had direct contact with her. Even I saw Eve only through Holly’s eyes, but Ketch and she really saw each other, face to face.
‘He was always kind to me,’ she says.
‘He was one of the good ones.’
‘I hope he’s still alive,’ she murmurs.
‘I do too. I don’t blame him for what went down at the sanctuary. We were both doing what we felt was right for you,’ I say, and she shoots me a look.
‘Well, that makes me feel much better,’ she fires, and looks back at the Deep through my ocular scope, giving her a magnified view of the explosion site.
‘How did they find us, Bram?’ she says, snapping me back to the moment.
‘I don’t know. After all this time the chances of them just stumbling upon us are so slim.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘That it’s more likely someone sold you out than the EPO just chanced upon our location,’ I say.
‘But who? I can’t imagine any of them –’
‘Eve, the EPO are persuasive, powerful,’ I interrupt. ‘Even those willing to die for you can have their heads turned if they’re offered enough. These men are sworn to lay their lives down for you, but when that moment becomes real, how many of them would see it through if another option was presented to them?’
‘I don’t want anyone to die for me. For anyone,’ Eve says, with a sadness that breaks my heart.
I point out of the window to where First Response officers are dragging resisting Freevers from the Deep.
Eve watches through the scope as her new army is escorted into the waiting ship, a detention vessel.
‘Oh, Chubs …’ She sighs.
I lean on the glass, blocking the reflections with my hand to get a clearer view. The figures on the dock scuffle and resist the officers.
‘Just go, Chubs. Just go with them …’ I mutter under my breath.
‘Where will they take them?’ Eve asks.
‘Detention Level. There’s essentially a whole prison in the Tower.’
‘A prison?’
‘Just questioning?’ she says.
‘Vivian isn’t going to kill anyone who might know where we are,’ I reassure her.
‘You’re sure?’
I nod.
She returns to the view of the Deep, of the people being captured instead of her. I try to imagine what it must be like for Eve: to have lived so unaware for so long and then be awakened to a new world, a complicated, cold, hard world. If the weight of knowing that the future of human life on Earth is dependent on you wasn’t heavy enough, the thought of people losing their lives for your freedom must be crushing.
‘Michael,’ she whispers.
I follow her line of sight and see a second Interceptor on the dock, and another Final Guard.
‘Let me see.’ I hold out my hand but she keeps staring down the sight. ‘Eve?’
‘Sorry,’ she says, as though I’ve woken her from a daydream, and hands it over.
I recognize him instantly, and not only is he there, he’s giving commands, calling to the First Response officers on the dock, sending the drones to set a perimeter. So, he’s commander now. Someone must have friends in high places …
Friends in high places. The thought stirs a memory. My dad was always that for me. No matter what I did and how hard I denied it, being the son of the infamous Dr Wells gave me special privileges – never from the man himself, of course, but those around me.
Michael has to have some influence in there or he’d be gone, not calling the shots.
‘So what do we do now?’ Eve asks.
‘We wait. There’s nowhere else to go yet. Until we have a better option, this is your safest bet.’
Eve looks around the empty room, the summit of an abandoned glass mountain. A few moments ago this was a haven. I’d offered her a breath of air from the Deep and now all she wants is to be back down there fighting for it.
‘We can’t stay here long. Once they know I’m not there they’ll come searching and if someone gave us up before …’
‘No one knows we’re here. It’s why we snuck out this morning.’
‘You’re sure?’ she asks.
I place a comforting hand on her back.
She sighs and closes her eyes, then opens them, takes the scope from my hand and places it back on her eye.
‘Bram, it’s Saunders,’ she says, staring intently at the Deep. She passes the sight to me.
‘First Response have him.’ I note the uniforms of the two soldiers struggling to keep Saunders still.
‘He’s resisting them. Just go!’ she says. They pause on the dock with Saunders on his knees. ‘Aren’t they taking him with the other Freevers? Why have they stopped?’ Eve asks.
‘I’m not sure.’
31
Michael
Thick, damp air sticks in my throat as the brassy sphere depressurizes and we step into this sunken hideaway.
Guard Franklin and the Murphys take the lead and head along the corridor that stretches in front of us.
‘First Response have cleared the halls. We have no visual on Eve. Repeat, no visual.’ Reynolds’s voice crackles in my earpiece.
It stinks down here but that’s not surprising, considering how old the place must be. I pull down my visor to get some clean air, and its display artificially illuminates the dark corridor, allowing me to see more than the naked eye would.
I step through thick watertight seals between rooms and catch sight of some of the original wooden walls. Impressive.
Gunshots ring out ahead.
‘Non-lethals only!’ I order.
‘It’s them, not us,’ Reynolds says in my earpiece.
There’s a sudden boom. The ripples of a pulse of energy.
That’s us, I think. The blast would have been enough to floor anyone in the surrounding vicinity.
I pick up the pace, glancing into every room we pass.
Shit, this place is big.
‘They said these rooms were clear. There’s a small group barricaded into one of the larger chambers,’ Hernandez says, looking back to see why I’m not hot on their heels.
‘I’m not leaving any stone unturned. If Eve is here, we’ll find her,’ I say, my heart beating hard beneath the blast-proof body armour.
Each room is different. Messy. Old.
Another round of bullets: the sound of resistance up ahead.
Hernandez and Murphy E. pause where this hallway ends and a water-seal separates it from the next.
‘What are you waiting for? Let’s move!’ I say, trying to get past.
‘First Response haven’t cleared it, sir,’ Murphy says.
‘Reynolds will give us the okay,’ Hernandez adds.
‘I don’t give a shit if the whole damn Freever army is still down here. We’re here for Eve. We don’t know if they have another exit, but time is on our side. Let’s go,’ I say. It’s bad enough having to wait for another unit to sweep the place before us. If she’s here, I have to get to her first.
‘But, sir, the informant said that was the only way in or out,’ Hernandez says, pointing back to the sphere.
‘I don’t trust that ex-EPO traitor any more than I trust any of the men firing at us. Now, move on. That’s an order.’ I push through.
Location mapping on my display pulls information from our bio-tags, showing me the Final Guards’ position. Hernandez and Murphy follow me.
I don’t trust anyone else around her now. Freever, EPO, it’s all the same. My loyalty is with Eve.
We pass room after room: no people inside, just weapons, stolen EPO tech, holo-maps, books, living quarters, kitchens … It’s a maze.
My visor displays every room tracked by any soldier in this place they call the Deep, creating an ever-expanding visual map in the periphery of my display.
My earpiece suddenly crackles.
‘Turner, I think you’d better see this,’ Hernandez says. His location pings as a red dot on the map. ‘I think she was here,’ he adds.
My heart leaps.
Adrenalin explodes into my leg muscles and I sprint as fast as I can through the sunken labyrinth until I practically fall into a grand room and find Hernandez at the foot of a large, unmade bed.
‘What have you found?’ I pant, out of breath from the sprint.
He picks up a pile of clothes and throws it to me. Among the wet material in my hands I find a black hoody.
‘It’s hers,’ I say instantly, recognizing the item of EPO-issue clothing.
‘I thought so,’ he replies. We were both there that night, giving chase through the Dome, watching her jump from our world into this one. It’s impossible to forget what she was wearing – all black, running trainers, trousers, hoody, not her usual attire.
She was prepared to leave.
‘That’s not all,’ he says, picking up a pair of male boxer shorts with the barrel of his weapon. ‘I see only one bed …’
My blood boils. I know it’s totally irrational but the idea of Eve sharing a bed with him, with Bram … Dr Wells’s own flesh and blood …
I try to shake away the mental image. Who the hell am I to judge them, to be jealous of him? After everything I did.
I want to hit myself.
Focus, Turner!
‘Keep searching. They were here and they might still be close.’ I kick over the bedside table, its contents spilling over the damp floor.
‘Sir, we have all remaining Freevers in custody, no sign of –’
‘Eve or Bram.’ I finish the sentence, interrupting Reynolds’s voice in my earpiece.
‘Correct, sir. We have a complete floor plan of this building now, and no signs of life that aren’t already accounted for.’
I sigh.
This was it. This was going to be my
chance to redeem myself for what I did. To bring her back to safety at least.
Safety.
Who am I kidding? Wells and Vivian aren’t safe. Everyone wants Eve for their own gain. Saving the human race is starting to seem so far down the to-do list that I’m not even sure it’s on the agenda any more.
So, where the hell does that leave us? What do I do if we find her? We were ordered to come out here so fast I’ve not had time to formulate any sort of plan. If I take her back, am I betraying her? If I leave her out here, is she safe with Bram? Alone?
Maybe –
‘Turner!’ Reynolds shouts, snapping me back to the moment, his voice in the room now, rather than in my earpiece.
‘Sorry, I was thinking. What is it?’ I ask.
‘It’s the informant, sir. He says he has some new details he’s willing to share,’ Reynolds says.
‘Where is that lying bastard?’ I snap, walking towards Reynolds. ‘Take me to him.’
‘You treacherous little shit,’ I bark at the pathetic-looking man, as I step outside, through the clock face and on to their makeshift dock.
‘I swear they should have been here!’ he replies, grovelling on his knees with his cuffed hands in the air, using his arms to wipe away tears as they run down his big nose.
‘It’s not me you need to explain that to, it’s Miss Silva,’ I say, nodding to the Final Guards to take him.
The Murphy twins hoist him by his arms and march him towards our ship as it bobs on the rough river.
‘No, please, don’t take me back yet! My deal only guarantees my safety if Eve is brought back alive!’ he wails, as they drag him away from me. ‘If you take me back without her, Miss Silva will kill me!’
‘You should have considered that before giving up your friends, Saunders. But I guess you’ve always put yourself first. It’s how you ended up down here in the first place.’ I wave my hand for him to be taken but he fights it.
A panicked man with no other options is powerful. He slips an arm free and breaks Murphy E.’s nose. He swipes his leg under Murphy F., bringing him to the ground hard, and goes to leap into the water – but I’m there too fast.
The Eve Illusion Page 19