by Keary Taylor
“There’s also a man named Royce,” I said, looking back in the direction of New Eden. “He was in weapons development for the government before we ended the world. He’ll be able to help you. He and Dr. Beeson were the ones that designed the Pulse.”
Dr. Evans’ eyes grew darker. “Not that I have any trust for any former employees of the government, but we have to work with what we’ve got these days. We need to get back home so we can get to work.”
I looked out over the Bane. “I don’t see how that is going to happen any time soon.”
“You just told me how you commanded hundreds of thousands of them to jump off a bridge into the ocean,” he said, placing his hands on my shoulders. “You really cannot think of a way to take care of them?”
I furrowed my brow at him before glancing out at the masses again. Water was their greatest weakness, the only one I had ever exploited. There was certainly none of that out here.
I thought of ways I’d killed them off before, aside from bullets and the Pulse.
You mustn’t be afraid to think a little bigger.
“You will leave this place,” I called over the masses. Very few of them would actually be able to hear me, if they even processed sound, but I knew they would understand my nonverbal commands. “You may head any direction but west. Seek out others like yourselves. And then kill them.”
Every one of the Bane around me stood a bit straighter and I heard feet shuffle as their legs snapped together. A deadly army who would heed my every command.
“You will never touch another human again,” I said, pushing my thoughts out to them. I imagined the signal that poured from my body, feeding into every one of them. “You may not even look at one. But if they share your technology, you will destroy them.”
I stared out over the masses. I noticed individuals as I observed them. A boy my age with shaggy blond hair. A naked older woman with wrinkly skin. There were hundreds of children that were no longer children. There were endless mechanical components mixed in with them, but still, the evidence that they’d once been human was there. At one point, that older woman had been someone like Gabriel’s wife, Leah. They’d been someone like Avian, or Tuck, or Lin.
Something pulled at the back of my heart. I could end the existence of over a million former human’s right this very moment. Had they been normal, flesh and blood, it would be genocide.
I hadn’t realized how long I’d stood there frozen until I felt a firm hand on my shoulder. I looked up to Dr. Evans brown eyes.
How do you live with yourself?
“I don’t plan to much longer.”
I hadn’t realized I’d verbalized the question until he responded.
I wanted to hate this man for ending billions of lives. But I couldn’t ignore the fact that if it wasn’t for him, I would have died nearly nineteen years ago.
“Go,” I breathed.
My army did not need any more command than that.
They broke into perfect formations. Rows of tens of thousands formed. Some marched north. Many marched south. Most headed east.
Their footsteps thundered with deafening volume as they walked in perfectly matched steps. Massive clouds of dust rose into the air.
It took me a few minutes to realize Dr. Evans was no longer standing at my side.
“Dr. Evans!” I shouted, searching the masses around me. It would take at least an hour for every one of the million Bane surrounding me to be able to move out, but they had all shifted, standing in formation.
Finally, I spotted his form ten yards from me. He stood on the edge of a squad, eyes forward, awaiting his turn to march forward.
“Dr. Evans, you cannot go with them,” I said, my tone impatient as I forced my way toward him. He started blinking as if to clear his head as I grabbed his mechanical arm and started dragging him back to my cleared circle in the middle of the army.
“I…” his voice broke off. “I…am not…immune.” His voice cut out and he attempted to step toward the army once again. I pulled him back. “Immune to your commands…it seems.”
“I suppose that is a good thing,” I said. I kept a strong hand on his shoulder as I looked back out over the masses. Another wave of Bane marched east. They didn’t get far before their forms disappeared into the clouds of dust. “But what if my command doesn’t last? Who’s to say they won’t forget what I told them to do when they get more than a mile away?”
“The Bane…” his voice cut out again and he took a stumbling step forward as he fought my command. “Think like a…computer. You give it a command and it doesn’t stop running it until you tell it to start running another.”
“You think they can be reprogrammed that easily?” I asked. “Then why haven’t we been doing this all along? Telling them to rip each other to pieces and leave us alone?”
“Yes,” he said, taking deep breaths even though he didn’t need to breathe anymore. He rested what would be his palms against what would be his knees to keep himself from walking away. “The Bane’s accidental program was to spread the infection. But that couldn’t be changed by anything other than something compatible with TorBane. Something that can transmit.”
“Like me,” I said, hints of a sigh in my voice. I watched as another wave of Bane moved out.
“Exactly. You are the only being capable of bringing about any sort of change,” Dr. Evans said as he stood finally. “You, Eve, are the last hope this planet has. You will be the savior of this world.”
I actually rolled my eyes.
Dr. Evans must have seen it, because he brought the conversation back to where it had started. “My point is that your command should last. They won’t be able to forget it. Until you tell them something different.”
Dr. Evans suddenly took two jerky steps forward again. I placed a firm hand around his upper arm and pulled him back once again. “Stay put.”
He instantly locked still.
“I could make you do anything, couldn’t I?” I said, giving him a sidelong glance.
“That’s a damn powerful influence you have,” he said. His eyes were set hard on me, but I saw the twitch of a smile in the corner of his lips.
“You’re essentially one of them,” I said as we went back to watching the army disband. “If your plan really works, if we can send my signal worldwide, what’s to save you?”
“Nothing,” Dr. Evans answered with a gritty voice. He was quiet for a moment as he observed the masses. Over half of them had marched out by now. His shoulders were set hard. For a moment, he almost looked human. Except for the lack of flesh. “I nearly ended the world; I will go with them when the time comes.”
I pressed my lips together and didn’t say anything. Instead, I just watched as the Bane continued to march out.
In the end, it took over two hours for the Bane to leave the desert. I was too afraid to turn my back and leave until I could see that every one of them had moved away from the city.
But finally the dust settled down and the horizon was once again empty.
We turned and headed back west. After a while we passed the all-terrain vehicle that had run out of gas on me and died.
Finally, when we were about half a mile from the entrance of the canyon that led into the city, I spotted two vehicles waiting for me.
Royce, Bill, and Tristan were all there. And West.
There was Avian.
My face broke into a huge grin as I started jogging forward, at the same time Avian and Royce did.
But then guns were raised. Tristan fired off a shot that thankfully missed Dr. Evans by an inch.
I waved my arms, clambering in front of him, blocking their shots with my body.
“Wait!” I yelled as the group raced toward me, guns drawn. “Wait, he’s not going to hurt anyone!”
Avian, Tristan, and Royce slowed not twenty yards from us. But my eyes locked with West’s as he jogged the slowest, still recovering from his surgery and Avian’s beating.
As he joined the others, his
face washed stark white.
“Grandpa?” he breathed.
“Hello, West.”
“Holy shi…” Royce said, actually stumbling back in fear. His eyes grew wide and disbelieving.
“It talks?!” Bill bellowed, keeping his rifle leveled in our direction.
“He’s safe!” I said again, holding my hands up in front of him. “Don’t shoot!”
“You’d better explain real fast,” Royce growled, recovering from his shock. “It’s taking everything I’ve got not to shoot this thing down.”
“This here kept TorBane out of my head,” Dr. Evans shouted for himself, indicating his helmet. “I’ve kept my humanity even though the rest of me Evolved.”
“You’re supposed to be dead,” West said, his voice shaky. There was no color in his bruised face. “You Evolved in the beginning. The guys who took me away, they said you were gone!”
“I told them what I had to,” Dr. Evans said regretfully. “I needed to make sure you were taken to safety. I had to take care of things at NovaTor.”
“I’ve believed you were gone for the last six years,” West said, his voice hardening even though it cracked on the word gone. “And you were doing what this entire time?”
“Who is this?” Royce demanded as he looked between West and I.
“And where did you send all those Bane off to?” Avian questioned.
“I’m Dr. Reiss Evans,” he said as he stepped from behind me. “The creator of TorBane.”
I had expected at least Royce to shoot him dead then, but instead, everyone simply froze. All eyes remained fixed on his Evolved body and no one said a word.
“He has some designs,” I said, my voice coming out quieter than I meant it to. “And a plan. We all really need to talk.”
TWO
There was a different feel in the air when we rolled back to the hospital. The buildings that surrounded it were riddled with bullet holes. Windows were broken everywhere. Empty shell casings littered the ground and the roads were stained with dark patches that could be nothing but blood.
How many lives had been lost in the battle after I left to head off the Bane?
We all stepped outside our vehicles as they rolled to a stop. Dr. Evans climbed down from the roof of one. Of course he hadn’t been allowed in it.
The streets were eerily quiet. “Where is everyone?” I asked.
“We can talk about that later,” Royce said, looking Dr. Evans over warily once more. His finger hovered over the trigger of his customized assault rifle.
As soon as we’d gotten three blocks from the hospital, Dr. Evans made a sound like he was dying, a choked off cry mixed with a grinding mechanical sound. Royce reluctantly radioed in and told Addie to shut the wireless transmission system off. That didn’t mean he wasn’t ready to mow Dr. Evans down at the slightest wrong move.
Royce understandably made us all wait outside the hospital while Bill ran inside to retrieve Dr. Beeson and a CDU.
“Dr. Beeson, he knew the truth about me and my sister too, didn’t he?” I asked West as we waited for the two of them to return.
West shifted from one foot to the other, his eyes dropping from mine. “Yeah.”
I shook my head and turned my gaze back to the hospital doors. Avian reached for my hand and gave a reassuring squeeze. I gave one back to him mostly in an attempt to keep my fists from meeting West’s face.
We all stood across the street while we waited. None of us said a word, maybe because there were too many words to be said, maybe because everyone was just afraid.
We were in plain sight of the doors to the hospital, so the moment Dr. Beeson stepped outside of them, we saw him freeze. The color drained from his face. And then his knees gave out. He was looking at not just one ghost, but two. Not that he knew I was one yet.
“Come on,” Bill said, hauling him back up. “No time for that.”
“We’ve got some things to talk about,” Royce said as the two of them stumbled across the street.
“No,” Dr. Beeson said, shaking his pale head, his eyes locked on Dr. Evans. “No. You’re dead. You were infected. You are not supposed to be here. My days at NovaTor are over!” he suddenly bellowed, his eyes growing wild.
“I’m afraid not, Erik,” Dr. Evans said, folding his mechanical hands in front of him. “You and I, we need to fix what we created.”
“We?” Dr. Beeson spit. “I had nothing to do with TorBane! You used my research to amplify all of this.”
“I. We need to fix what I created,” Dr. Evans said solemnly.
“Okay!” Royce shouted, raising his gun into the air to get attention. “You need to do some quick talking so I can decide if I need to shoot you or not. Can we please go inside and move things along?” Frustration made his voice rise in volume.
He waved his arms for us to step inside the coffee shop that was directly across from the main entrance to the hospital. There had once been bodies lying on the floor after the Pulse went off, but Tuck’s Bane Removal Crew had cleared it in the first week after it went off.
Avian and I stood at the back of the building, hands on weapons. Royce stood next to the cash register, his firearms still gripped securely. Dr. Beeson collapsed into one table with shaky legs. West and Bill stood across the room. Dr. Evans sat at the table as far from everyone as he could manage. His actions were perfectly calm and relaxed, as if he didn’t need to worry about someone’s nerves getting too set on edge and blasting a crater through his half-human face.
“You can talk,” Royce started us out. “But you’ll still spread the infection.”
Dr. Evans nodded. “I would never allow any of you to touch me. I designed this helmet to repel the technology, so it stays out of my head. I’ve kept my humanity. But yes, I still carry TorBane, the same as any of the other Evolved out there.”
“The Bane you mean,” Royce growled. “Did you ever realize how appropriate your little name was?”
“The name of TorBane was fitting,” Dr. Evans sighed impatiently. “That was precisely what it was: a biological and nanorobotic enhancement.”
“And the literal meaning of Bane is something that causes death and destruction. Ruin. You’re telling me that is just a coincidence?”
“Are you here to interrogate me about the past or would you like to talk about how to save our future?” Dr. Evans asked with hard eyes.
Royce scoffed and shook his head. “You have some grand master plan to save us all?”
“Royce,” I cut in. “You should listen to him.”
He looked over at me and held my eyes for a long moment, as if reevaluating if he could trust me. I didn’t blame him for doubting me. I’d made a nuclear mess of things the last few days. I’d nearly gotten one of his original crew killed. Avian had joked and said Royce was protective enough of me to be called my father. Was that still true? I wasn’t so sure I deserved that anymore.
“What do you have in mind, world-ender?” Royce finally said, turning back to Dr. Evans.
He held his hand out toward me and I hesitated for a moment. He was asking for the notebook. Suddenly I felt protective of it. The information within its pages could be our last chance.
But what could I do with it on my own?
I handed it over.
“First you all need to know the truth about Eve here,” Dr. Evans said as he set the notebook down on the table he sat at.
“What does Eve have anything to do with this?” Avian asked, his brow furrowing.
“Everything,” Dr. Evans said ominously. He turned to Dr. Beeson. “I’m afraid I pulled the wool over your eyes all those years ago, Erik.”
Dr. Beeson’s expression grew serious and he shook his head. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“Eve,” Dr. Evans said. “Show him.”
My stomach dropped into my knees. I was so sick of the lies and the secrets and the revelations and the hard feelings and apologies.
But it had to be done.
“What’s going
on?” Avian whispered.
Without answering, I turned my back to everyone in the room, revealing the tattooed II on the back of my skull.
“Two,” Dr. Beeson whispered. I turned back around. “No,” he said, shaking his head. “No, Eve Two is dead. You killed her after what she did to him!” Dr. Beeson shouted, pointing at West.
“No, my good man,” Dr. Evans said. “I’m afraid I didn’t dispose of her as my son demanded. And she remembered, Eve Two. It wasn’t she that attacked my grandson. It was her sister.”
“What?” West questioned. He looked at me, our eyes locking. A million nerve endings of hurt and betrayal were as fresh as ever between us. “You…you remember?”
I shook my head. “Not a lot of details. But I remember being brought back to NovaTor after whoever it was took me. I remember her melting down. The kill code made her go crazy. It was she that attacked you West. You’d tried to comfort me, thinking I was her. I don’t know if she was jealous or what, but it was her West, not me.”
His eyes glazed over, as if replaying the scene in his head.
“Okay,” Avian said, shaking his head and pressing his thumb and forefinger into his eyelids. “I’m totally lost. Eve has a sister?” He looked back up at me, his eyes wide and confused.
“An identical twin sister,” I said, my voice quiet. Suddenly all the exhaustion I’d been staving off for the last four days hit me and my entire body sagged.
“And you knew?” Avian said, turning cold eyes on West and taking a step forward.
“Cool it,” Royce growled, pointing the barrel of his shotgun at Avian’s chest. “Let’s not have a replay of the other day. I can’t afford to have any other soldiers laid up.”
“Nick?” I suddenly asked.
“He’ll live,” Royce growled. Avian had accidentally shot Nick when he’d tried to break up a deadly fight between Avian and West.
“The point is,” Dr. Evans interrupted as tensions grew thick. “That because we have Eve Two, and not Eve One, we may be able to end this catastrophe I created.”