The Eve Illusion

by Giovanna Fletcher

  I instantly feel petty at this heartache and try to shake it away.

  ‘I just had to sit back and not get in the way,’ Vivian continues, with an air of smugness that makes me feel sick with hatred.

  I notice Michael’s breathing rate has increased. His shoulders rise and fall as his own emotions battle inside him. He’s trying to figure out what all this means for him.

  ‘Don’t worry, Michael. It’s not your fault. Women have a knack for seeing these things, for subtly influencing situations. It’s why it’s called manipulation.’

  ‘Enough!’ I shout.

  ‘Enough? You’ve had enough? Very well, let’s move on then,’ Vivian says, her steely calm showing a thin crack. ‘Turner, now is your chance to redeem yourself, to show your true loyalty. Your chance to decide which side of the future you sit on. Their side …’ she waves the footage away from the glass to reveal the cell and the scattering of bodies just visible through the vapour, ‘… or hers.’ Vivian points at Eve.

  Michael’s chest vibrates and the glow from his tag illuminates his chin from beneath his collar. He places a hand on his ear to hear his order but I already know what it is.

  ‘Would you care to share your instructions with us?’ Vivian asks.

  Michael looks down at the weapon on his belt. His gun. ‘Miss Silva, please …’ He shakes.

  ‘Please? Please what? Did you really think there wouldn’t be repercussions for your actions? That there wouldn’t be some sort of consequence? Your failure – no, your crime – has in time brought Eve back to us. Now show us, once and for all, where your loyalty lies. Remove your weapon and carry out the sentence or it’ll be your name next on the execution list.’

  Michael can’t look me in the eye as his hand lingers over the sleek black gun at his side.

  I sense Vivian move close. Lingering behind me as though taunting Eve with every step she takes around us.

  ‘There’s no need to think, Turner. You’re out of options,’ she says quietly.

  Michael pulls out the gun and aims the barrel at my head, his mind made up.

  ‘Michael, no!’ Eve screams.

  ‘It won’t fire so close to Eve,’ Michael says, and I notice the red warning light displayed on the side of the weapon a few inches from my face.

  ‘Consider that restriction temporarily lifted,’ Vivian says. There’s a subtle click and a green light replaces the red. A command only Vivian can authorize.

  He’s free to fire. Free to do what should already have happened.

  ‘Michael … please …’ Eve begs, hardly any energy left in her voice, but his jaw clenches. His eyes focus. The muscles in his arm tighten. I can tell it’s too late and his mind is already set on pulling the trigger.

  ‘Bram. I’m sorry,’ he says, then swiftly lifts the gun over my head, aiming directly at Vivian and pulls the trigger.

  39

  Michael

  The gun fires.

  I’ve heard of people experiencing significant events in life as though they were in slow motion. I’d always thought that was just a saying, an exaggeration, until this moment.

  I can practically see the bullet leave the barrel in a flash of white and red and soar across the room towards its target, Vivian.

  In that fraction of a second, my brain seems to replay every decision I’ve made that has brought me here.

  Eve.

  The lift.

  My brother.

  Wells.

  The pilots.

  Hartman.

  Saunders.

  But mostly Eve.

  I had no choice. If I killed Bram to maintain my cover, Eve would never have trusted me and who knows what Vivian had next up her sleeve?

  She has to go.

  I’m not the best marksman in the world but even a baby could make this shot.

  Nothing stands between us.

  Vivian has no time to react, my actions were fast and unpredictable, and I’m already thinking ahead to the next step, our escape. We’ll have to be fast as hell and pull off some sort of miracle but we’re alone now. It’ll be a few minutes before anyone discovers that Vivian is …

  These racing thoughts vanish and I’m sucked back into the moment as the bullet reaches her chest, where the small piece of metal should pierce her skin and fatally enter her body.

  But it doesn’t.

  What the hell?

  Instead it simply glides through her image with no impact at all. As though she weren’t made of flesh and bone but beams of light.

  She doesn’t flinch, doesn’t fall, doesn’t bleed. She remains exactly as she was, perfectly unharmed, despite a bullet having passed through her torso before ricocheting around the room and, by the sound of it, embedding itself in the concrete.

  She’s not real.

  Vivian’s eyes flicker as they stare deep into my own with a hatred I’ve never experienced before.

  Then, suddenly, her whole body flickers, like a bulb nearing the end of its life.

  Bram flinches in shock.

  The particles of light that make up Vivian’s image freeze and fail as she blinks in and out of existence right before our eyes.

  She’s there.

  Then she’s gone.

  A flash of static appears in her place before disappearing altogether, leaving just me, Bram and …

  ‘Eve! Shit! Are you okay?’ I gasp across the now empty void between us, suddenly realizing she was directly behind Vivian when I pulled the trigger, suspended by her restraints.

  ‘Yes … yes … I’m fine. It missed me,’ she pants, out of breath from the shock of what just happened.

  ‘Thank fuck for that,’ Bram breathes.

  ‘I could have killed you!’

  ‘You didn’t. I’m fine.’

  ‘Bram, what the hell is going on?’ I ask. ‘Vivian was a … she’s a –’

  ‘Projectant. I know! I saw.’ The creases on his forehead suggest he’s trying to piece this together.

  ‘Did you know?’ I ask him.

  ‘Of course I didn’t!’ Bram snaps.

  ‘Okay! I just thought that Projectants were kind of your thing, you know.’

  We both look up at Eve.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she replies, without us needing to ask.

  A sudden burst of chaotic noise explodes into the corridor as at least thirty armed men barrel around the corner. They take aim at myself and Bram.

  The game is up. In all the confusion of Vivian not being real we’ve missed the window to escape.

  ‘Don’t move!’ a soldier screams. ‘Drop your weapon, now!’

  I feel the gun weigh heavy in my hand. I could turn and fire, take some of them out. Surely they wouldn’t open fire with Eve so close …

  Bram looks at me and shakes his head, then glances at his cuffed hands and Eve’s restrained body.

  ‘It’s over.’ He sighs.

  I look at the small army that has been deployed to disarm me and realize that Bram is right. There’s no fighting our way out of this now.

  I throw my weapon to the ground.

  ‘All of them,’ the soldier demands.

  I remove my belt, dropping the Pacify Glove and my knife on to the floor out of reach.

  ‘Room clear,’ the soldier shouts, satisfied that I’m no longer armed. Not that any weapon could help us now.

  ‘Thank you for your cooperation,’ replies a deep, collected voice. One that I recognize instantly. It’s Dr Wells.

  ‘You bastard.’ Bram gets to his feet but his restraints hold him back from the grey-haired man who has stepped forward from his human shield of soldiers.

  ‘Nice to see you too, son,’ Wells says sarcastically, as he walks towards us, stepping over my discarded weapons, and drops a set of restraints at my feet, identical to the ones Eve is being held in.

  ‘I trust you know how to put these on,’ he says.

  I nod and pick them up, placing the two chunky metal rings around my ankles first, followed by each wrist
.

  They automatically tighten to the perfect pressure so that blood can still reach my limbs but I’ve no hope in hell of ever sliding out of them.

  ‘Very good. It’s a shame you didn’t learn to cooperate like this a few minutes earlier and we wouldn’t be in this little mess, would we?’ Wells smiles.

  ‘Where’s Vivian?’ Eve demands.

  ‘It was you, wasn’t it? You were piloting her. I should have known. I should have spotted it in her eyes,’ Bram says, standing and pulling against the cuffs that keep him rooted to the centre of the hallway.

  ‘Yes, you should, but you were too distracted by her, blinded by lust, so you failed to see what was right beneath your nose, just like the rest of the world. All they see is Eve, leaving me able to lead from the shadows.’

  ‘No, not you. Not Wells. Vivian Silva. That’s who they allowed to lead, because we trust her,’ I blurt out.

  ‘You trust her? My poor, confused boy, you’ve barely met her.’ He almost laughs to himself.

  ‘Where is she? The real Vivian?’ Eve asks.

  ‘Has she ever been real?’ Bram asks, his voice sounding as though he’s almost too scared to hear the answer.

  ‘Oh, yes, she’s quite real and every bit the genius you all believe her to be. Or, at least, she was once. She and I just had different visions of what the future should be …’ Wells replies.

  ‘So, you killed her?’ Bram interrupts.

  ‘Please, who do you think I am? I’m no monster. She’s alive – or, at least, she will be again, one day. Just like the thousands of other women sleeping peacefully in their cryo-tanks below,’ Wells says, his words bouncing around my head as I try to make sense of them.

  Vivian. Cryo-tank. So, she’s alive, just frozen.

  ‘She’s quite all right. Let’s not forget that one of the main purposes of the Tower is CS – Cold Storage. I designed the facility myself when we were looking at the Projectant Program as a viable way to sustain our existence.’

  ‘So, what happened? Vivian told you to shut the programme down and you couldn’t handle the thought that maybe, just once, you might be wrong? That perhaps your insane little science project was a waste of time once Eve was born?’ Bram practically screams at Wells.

  It’s hard to imagine that these two are father and son.

  ‘I never needed Vivian, just her resources, her influence. People respected her because she was the one who controlled you, Eve. My ideas were just more deserving of that respect than her morals ever were.’

  ‘How long?’ Eve stutters. ‘When did you steal Vivian’s life?’

  Wells smiles.

  ‘Did I ever know the real Vivian?’ Eve shouts.

  ‘Oh, you knew her, of course. The connection the two of you already had made the transition more seamless. You had no reason to question the person you trusted more than anyone else in your world.’

  Eve falls limp in her restraints, sobbing silently.

  I feel it too. Have I never known the true Vivian? Have we all been fooled?

  ‘No … it can’t be true,’ Eve whispers.

  ‘Whether you believe it or not is of no concern to me now. Things have changed,’ Wells says, as he steps towards Eve, putting his face uncomfortably close to hers.

  ‘Living in the shadow of a woman you sentenced to a life in a metal tank. You think that’s power? That’s cowardice,’ Bram shouts.

  ‘Power? I never needed power, just the illusion of it,’ Wells bites back, and swipes across the air with his hand. In an instant the entire squad of soldiers aiming their weapons at us vanishes.

  ‘You bastard,’ I whisper, feeling the restraints weigh down on my arms and legs. He made me cuff myself under the threat of that firing squad when, in fact, he waltzed in here alone.

  ‘It’s amazing what you can do when people don’t question the reality of their surroundings. Reality is merely acceptance of the world around us. Isn’t that right, Eve?’

  40

  Eve

  I look back at him blankly. I’ve spent the past few weeks wondering how much of my life was a lie, yet I’m shocked I didn’t see through this one.

  I knew about the Hollys instantly – they were children. Girls my age. If there were others like me, I wouldn’t have been locked away in the first place. But why would I have questioned Vivian? Why would I have suspected an adult to be another of their creations? I had no reason to doubt what I was presented with.

  I can’t help but review my conversations and run-ins with Vivian. All the time I was talking to this man. Bram’s father.

  ‘You’ll never get away with this!’ Bram shouts.

  Dr Wells steps towards the glass and peers inside, his eyes squinting as though trying to see the fallen Freevers clearly. When he looks back at Bram his face is maniacally gleeful. ‘Look around you, son. I think you’ll find I already have.’

  I look at the floor and see the crushed shell of the bullet. It hit my cuff with such speed it almost yanked my arm out of its socket. As I turn my attention back on myself, away from the horror of Dr Wells, I realize the cuffs aren’t holding me with as much force as they were previously. My movements aren’t matched with as much resistance. Looking up at my left hand, I notice the damage caused by the bullet is clearly visible. A crack has appeared from one side of the cuff to the other.

  A weak link.

  My heart races as I focus again on Dr Wells. There’s a possibility this isn’t going to be as straightforward as he hopes, but first I need answers and this might be my only chance to get them.

  ‘I’m not the only one you’ve lied to,’ I say, the thought comforting and horrifying at once: I’m not the only gullible person here, but it’s difficult to figure out how far the web of lies has been spun. ‘Have we all simply played our part?’

  ‘Been played, more like … Dad.’ Bram’s voice is thick with sarcasm.

  Dr Wells doesn’t wince at his son’s words. He doesn’t even look at Bram. It’s as though he doesn’t exist. For years I’ve dreamt of having a living relative at my side, to be able to go through life knowing I have a deep connection with someone and feel like I belong. But blood isn’t enough.

  I can remember the day Bram told me about his relationship with his dad. The pain and resentment were apparent – I could see them even when he was talking through his Holly. He called Dr Wells controlling, which I batted away with some romantic notion of a parent’s love. It’s shocking to see that he was right to feel as he did. The man standing before us has not been swept away with love for his child. Instead he has treated him as a pawn. Just one more piece to use in his game.

  I glance at my own dad and see he’s moved from his slumped position. He’s picked himself up and has moved towards the glass. It occurs to me that Bram simply got unlucky with his father. I know mine would do anything for me.

  ‘What happens now?’ I ask. ‘Killing seems to come easily to you. You have no conscience. I imagine you’ll have no qualms about killing Michael and your own son to prevent them from interfering further. Then what’s it to be for me? How am I going to be used next?’ I manage to calm my breathing and get my words out clearly. ‘Will we be keeping up your façade? Am I going to be meeting your third Potential? Or are you going to pump me full of drugs and make me a part of your Frankenstein experiments upstairs?’ The anger in my voice doesn’t match the queasiness I’m feeling inside at the memory of that lab.

  His laughter cuts through my thoughts, allowing me to see a glimpse of Vivian.

  ‘Oh, Eve. Even now you don’t quite get it, do you?’ He chuckles. ‘I’ve never cared for any of that. You and your spawn heroically attempting to save us from extinction is merely the stuff of fantasists. It was never going to work, but I’ve had to play along, of course I have. You’re their saviour,’ he mocks.

  ‘But I’m a small cog,’ I say, remembering how Vivian once worded it to me.

  ‘Clever girl,’ he says, with a grin, as though my understanding has made him giddy
. ‘Although, the way I see the future panning out, you’re barely even a cog.’

  ‘Big statement for a little man disguising himself as a powerful woman,’ mutters Bram.

  Dr Wells turns to Bram, his chest steadily rising and falling as he takes him in. ‘Bram was right earlier. I had been looking at alternatives for our future that didn’t depend on the arrival of a girl,’ he says, the word causing his lips to curl. ‘For decades we’ve been plagued with fertility issues – even before females were wiped out people were struggling to conceive. There have been flaws in natural science, so it was time to move things on with the help of modern science. To make a way of living that didn’t depend on something as precarious and fragile as the human body. There is no need to prolong the existence of life for future generations, but rather maintain the existence of those already living.’

  ‘So after us there is no more?’ I ask, trying to understand.

  ‘There’s plenty more.’ He beams, throwing his arms wide. ‘You’ve seen the world beyond these walls now, Eve. You’ve seen what humans have done to it. How they’ve destroyed it with their greed and wars. Life on this planet is not sustainable. It’s crumbling away and has become inhospitable. No one should be born into that world,’ he says, with a passion that is almost alluring. ‘I can offer everyone an alternative. Their own Utopia.’

  ‘By sticking them in a Dome and planting a few trees?’ I say.

  ‘By taking them away from their bodies and giving them a world they can’t destroy? No waste, no destruction. No limitations. Without our bodies, our minds and our thoughts can live for ever.’

  ‘If it’s so wonderful, why didn’t Vivian go for it?’ I ask.

  ‘She couldn’t see what I could,’ he says.

  ‘She rejected it,’ Bram states.

  ‘So I rejected her!’ he replies without a trace of remorse for what he has done to her and whoever else has stood in his way. ‘She was a coward, afraid to be bold and discover a better option. But you – you, I kept,’ he says, pointing his finger at me.