Eden Box Set

by G. C. Julien

  “Hold still,” she says, and she rubs the dry plant along my forehead. It stings, so I’m assuming she’s cleaning a wound.

  “What’s your name?” she asks me. Her breath is so rancid it makes me want to throw up.

  “G-Gabriel,” I say, and I wince when the pain in my ribs sets in.

  “Gabriel,” she repeats and rubs her herbs over my cut again. “I’m Perula.”

  Perula, I think. What a weird name. What the hell have I gotten myself into? I glance down at the beige candle. Did I wind up in some sort of devil-worshipping cult?

  “The women say you saved them,” she says. Her voice is so soft it almost puts me to sleep. I nod but only enough for her to see because it hurts too much to move.

  “That was very noble of you,” she says.

  I want to say, “It’s what anyone would’ve done in my shoes,” but that would be a lie. It’s not what anyone would’ve done. It’s what anyone with half a heart and a fraction of a soul would’ve done. It’s what Castor would’ve done.

  I bite the inside of my cheek and try to think of anything but Castor’s big, furry face. He could be so dumb sometimes, but he was such a softy. He was the kind of guy this world needs.

  Perula sticks her fingers into a glass jar and pulls out a glob of cream. She rubs it on my forehead and then over my ribs.

  I throw my head back.

  “I know it hurts,” she says, “but this will help with the inflammation.”

  “Who are you?” I ask through clenched teeth.

  For a second, it almost looks like she’s smirking. “I already told you.”

  “I mean…” I inhale a sharp breath through my teeth. “Where am I? And why are you helping me?”

  “You’re in Eden,” she says, “and because that’s what I do… I heal.”

  “But why?” I ask. “I’m a man.”

  She eyes me from head to toe, looking almost impressed. “That, you are.”

  “What is this place?” I ask. “Are you all women?”

  She brushes the back of her hand against the scruff of my beard. It looks like she’s enjoying it. She then sticks her fingers in my mouth, and all I taste is a sour powder. I try to pull away, but I’m too weak.

  “Get some rest, Gabriel.”

  And with that, she gets up, drags a fur blanket over my body, and blows out the candle. I listen to her footsteps as she walks away. I want to call out to her, but I can’t. What did she do? Drug me? I close my eyes, let out a long breath, then everything disappears.

  * * *

  I wake up to the same familiar smell of sulfur, only this time, Perula isn’t kneeling beside me. Instead, I see a pair of red leathery boots inches away from my face. I stare at the heels for a second, then slowly make my way up the white legged pants, past a white blazer, and up to the woman’s face.

  It’s too dark in here and I can’t see her features, but I can tell she has short hair. I’m about to ask her who she is, but she kneels down and rests her elbows on her knee, all while holding the match beside her face.

  “Good morning, Gabriel.”

  If I’d been standing, I’d have fallen flat on my ass. Not because of her angelic beauty (silky blond hair, fierce blue eyes, and a smile that could melt any man’s heart) but because I know this woman.

  Gabriel – Flashback

  The only person I can think about right now is my mom.

  I should have called her, even though I wasn’t allowed to. I should have visited. Checked up on her. Is she even okay? Is she a part of this rebellion?

  I’m hiding in a cabinet, my eyes burning like I’ve had acid poured on them, and my heart’s beating so hard I’m scared someone on the outside will hear it and find me. If anyone were to see me, I’d be ridiculed for the rest of my life… Me, a Black Marine, hiding like a goddamn kid in a storage cabinet.

  But what alternative is there? Hundreds of women are patrolling the area, holding guns I’ve never even seen before. I can’t tell if they’re homemade or black market. And how the fuck did women manage to infiltrate the White House? I know there’s more of them than us, but this just doesn’t make any sense. We have men stationed everywhere. Extremely highly trained men.

  I breathe in and out, feeling like I’m running out of oxygen. I don’t even know how I got here. It all happened so fast. First, I received an order to get back into the White House, and then… Grenades went off, tear gas went off, and gunshots echoed all around me.

  “…I repeat… Enforc… com… g in…” I hear in my earpiece, and I tear the device out of my ear. With my thumbnails, I snap the wire in two. The last thing I need is for the speaker to malfunction and give away my location.

  “Call off your men!” I hear a woman shout.

  “It’s not that simple.”

  Jesus Christ, I know that voice.

  “Call off your fucking army!” the woman snaps, and I hear someone cocking a gun.

  Someone clears their throat, and there’s a faint static sound.

  “This is President Price—I repeat, President Price. Stop the attack. Hello? Stop the attack!”

  He lets out a pathetic whimper, and I can only assume the gun’s cold metal is pressed against his temple. Where the hell am I? The Oval Office? The president of the United States wouldn’t be stupid enough to sit in his Oval Office during war… Would he? Is he that prideful? And why the hell would his protective staff have allowed it? They should have dragged his ass out of the White House a long time ago.

  I slowly straighten my posture but only enough to reach my eye up to the keyhole. It’s tiny, so I can’t see much at all, but I can make out people moving around. Bits and pieces of military uniforms and fancy black coats litter the floor. There’s no doubt in my mind that these are bodies. Probably his Protective Services Unit. Bunch of fucking idiots.

  “President Price, come in,” says a choppy voice through a speaker.

  The president whimpers again, and instead of his voice breaking through the somber air, a woman’s voice comes on.

  “We have President Price,” she says. She’s almost too calm about it. “Stop the attack, or he dies.”

  I blink hard a few times, trying to go over my options. But I don’t have any options because they all lead to the same thing: my death or the death of women. Realistically, though, both of these things would happen. I’d kill one or two, and then I’d get shot.

  What’s the point?

  I thought I could make a difference. If I chose the right path, women would come to see that we’re not all monsters. But where did that get me? In some cabinet, hiding from a bunch of Rebels who I know would kill me without even blinking the second I step out.

  An unusual sound suddenly comes from above—it’s the sound of jet engines fading and gunfire slowing down. Did they actually listen? Are they backing off for the president’s life?

  “President Price, come in—”

  But I flinch when I hear something loud snap, almost like a twig, and the voice in the speaker cuts out. I peer through the hole, and it looks like one of the women dressed in full military gear smashed the communication device.

  “Is this your big plan?” asks one of the women. She’s young, has brown hair, and seems a bit out of place. It looks like she was dragged along in this whole mess. She’s pacing back and forth, nervously brushing strands of hair out of her face, then lets out a loud laugh. “This is great. Just great. What’re you gonna do? Kill the president of the United States?”

  “That’s been the plan all along,” says the other woman. She’s wearing a black military vest, but underneath, it looks like she has a pair of jeans and a blue shirt, unlike the rest of the women in the room, who are fully armed. Her blond hair is messily pulled back into a ponytail, and she looks nervous—like she’s trying to be tough, but doesn’t know what she’s doing. She looks even younger than the brunette, and it’s obvious she’s never been trained for this.

  It doesn’t make sense to me. How did they get in? The o
nly plausible explanation would be that they got in through the underground tunnel. The one that’s used to pull the president out of the White House in emergency situations. But that door would have been sealed shut. Nothing would have blown past that. Not even a dozen grenades. Unless…

  I slap a hand on my mouth and over the scruff of my beard. Jesus Christ. Were some of the soldiers trying to leave? Did they open the bunker tunnel up knowing this was a suicide mission? Hoping to get back to their wives, their lovers, their families?

  There’s no other explanation. If I don’t believe in everything that President Price is doing to this country, I can’t be the only one.

  “Look at everything he’s done,” the blonde says. She’s pointing a gun right at the president’s temple, and he’s making such an ugly face, his rolls of skin are more visible than usual.

  She cocks her pistol and pushes it harder against his temple, and he raises two hands as if he’s trying to convince them he’s innocent.

  “P-p-p-please,” he begs.

  I don’t agree with killing him, but the man isn’t innocent.

  “Why should he live when so many women have died?” the blond woman says, staring at the brunette with such wildness, I’m scared she might fire the gun by accident.

  “We’re not them,” the brunette says. “You don’t need to do this.”

  One of the women dressed in full military clothing comes forward, her heavy boots stepping over a dead body. “Whatever you do, you’d better do it fast.” She presses a hand over her ear and nods. “It’s only a matter of time before the president’s order is disobeyed. Male soldiers have already set up camps outside our perimeter.” She nods again, obviously listening to a voice in her earpiece. “Navy, air force, reserves, police officers—anyone who can shoot a gun is lining up.”

  “What’re you trying to say?” says the blonde. Her voice sounds like an unstable roller coaster. “Having the president as a hostage isn’t going to do a fucking thing?”

  The armed woman shakes her head. “Not for long, no.”

  “Hear that?” the blonde says, almost hitting the president with the barrel of her gun this time. “No one cares about you, you misogynistic piece of shit.”

  “Let’s take him back with us,” the brunette says, but the blonde laughs out loud.

  “What’s that going to do? You heard Vrin! We’re surrounded.”

  “There are millions of women out there,” the brunette says. “How much military staff can there possibly be?”

  The armed woman steps in, placing two hands on her hips. “Reserves included? Close to three million. But that was before they started letting go of the women, who accounted for about five hundred thousand.”

  “We still outnumber them!” the blonde shouts, showing everyone her teeth.

  “We don’t all have guns,” the brunette says. “These men have missiles and bombs and equipment we’ve never even heard of!”

  The blonde is about to go off again when something extraordinary happens. Everything turns so quiet that for a moment, I think my gun went off in the cabinet and I’ve gone deaf. It’s almost like all sound’s been removed from the Earth. I press my face harder against the keyhole and realize the lights have gone out and the room has filled with natural gray light.

  “What just happened?” someone in the room says.

  The blond woman laughs. “I can’t fucking believe it. She pulled through.”

  Suddenly, a sickening rumble shakes the building, followed by screams so loud, for a second I think one of the windows is wide open.

  “Oh my God,” someone says.

  I can’t see anything outside. There are too many women blocking the windows. What the hell is going on? The sound gets louder, and it’s turning into a high-pitched noise that almost sounds like something heavy falling from the sky.

  “Get down!”

  I slap two hands over my ears and squint my eyes shut, bracing myself for an explosion. The entire White House shakes violently, but nothing collapses. The horrific screams still fill the air around us, and everyone rushes around the president’s desk to press their faces against the windows.

  “Is that a—”

  “F-16 fighter jet.”

  “The EMP worked.”

  EMP? Are they out of their goddamn minds? I rub my eyes and eyebrows with my clammy hands. I’m going to throw up. If they’ve truly pulled this off, they’ve now sent us back to the Dark Ages. And how the hell did they build an EMP powerful enough to take out an aircraft? How big is this thing?

  I look up into the darkness of the cabinet when I hear chopper blades overhead. Within seconds, there’s another shake in the building, followed by a huge explosion.

  It sounds like everything’s falling out of the goddamn sky. I press my face over the keyhole again.

  “Let’s get out of here,” the brunette says.

  “No, not yet,” says the blonde. She walks across the Oval Office, behind the president’s fancy leather sofa, and glass suddenly shatters.

  Although I can’t see her where she is, I’m almost certain I know what she broke—a glass box protecting the president’s famous WW3 semiautomatic HK-02 rifle. I saw it hanging on the wall before I snuck inside this cabinet. It was given to him by a war veteran in 2049 and the first thing he did was to take a picture of himself holding the gun, and he blasted it all over social media. I remember that picture—the smug look on his face and the way he jokingly poked his finger against the bayonet’s sharp tip with a cheesy grin.

  “What’re you doing?” the president asks. “Don’t touch that!”

  The blond woman comes back into view holding the HK-02 rifle. It’s matte black with a chrome trigger and sight, and the bayonet is located right underneath the barrel. It’s about three inches long, and its silver blade reflects the light coming through the windows.

  “Put that down!” the president yells. He’s fuming like a kid whose parents confiscated his favorite toy.

  “You’re not a murderer. Let this go,” says the brunette.

  The blonde doesn’t listen. Instead, she raises the butt of the rifle and swings the entire gun across President Price’s face.

  Crack.

  He lets out a whimper and blood drips from the corner of his lips.

  “What’re you going to do?” he sneers. “Beat me to death?”

  “Stop it!” the brunette says. “You don’t need to do this!” She reaches for the gun, but the blonde shoves her away and swings the rifle around. Its metallic frame scrapes against her rings, and she points its barrel at the president’s chest.

  President Price lets out a scoff. “It’s not loaded, you dumb bl—”

  The next thing I know, the blonde is holding the butt of the rifle with both hands over President Price’s chest. I don’t realize what she’s done at first, but then she smirks down at the president and yanks the gun back. The silver bayonet is now dark red and the president’s blue undershirt is soaked in blood over his heart.

  “You don’t deserve a bullet, you motherfucking—” She smashes the butt of her gun against his face again, and there’s a loud crack, like the sound of cartilage being crushed, but he doesn’t move.

  He’s already dead.

  She just killed the president of the United States.

  How is this happening?

  “Oh, God, what did you do?” The brunette slaps two hands over her mouth.

  “This is for all the women”—the blonde smashes the gun over his left ear and his head rolls to the side on the leather of his chair—“whose lives you’ve ruined.” This time, she swings a backhanded fist at his lifeless face and it rolls the other way.

  It’s as if she’s possessed. Her figure is hunched, her hair messy, her eyes so wild she doesn’t look like the same person anymore.

  The brunette reaches for her shoulder, and in one swift motion, the blonde angrily swings the gun sideways, the bayonet’s tip slicing through the brunette’s throat, and everything goes completely
quiet.

  They stare at each other, their eyes widening at the same time. The brunette slaps a hand over her throat as blood starts spurting out.

  The blonde stands still, obviously in a state of shock, silent, momentarily frozen. She catches the brunette as she collapses and slowly lowers her to the ground.

  “O… Jesus Christ, Ophelia. Please, no. No, no, no.” She sobs, rocking who I now realize is her friend back and forth.

  The sound of pain fills the room, and I stare at President Price’s chalk-white face, his partially opened mouth, and his hollow eyes, which are aimed at the ceiling. I fall back into the cabinet and press a hand over my heart; it thuds against my fingertips. If I press hard, I may be able to slow it down enough to catch my breath.

  Because I need to catch my breath.

  I can’t believe what’s happened.

  This woman—this beauty with silky blond hair and eyes so fierce they could melt any man’s heart—has murdered the president of the United States of America.

  CHAPTER 36 – LUCY

  Lucy – Present Day

  Mavis and Perula look a little off today. They keep bickering under their breaths so I can’t hear what they’re talking about. I wonder if it has to do with that Gretchin lady. I saw her talking to them outside the greenhouse, going on about how they were attacked outside of Eden’s walls.

  I can’t tell if they’re bothered by the attack, or if they’re upset because they didn’t get the plant they wanted. My eyes make their way back to the corner of the room, where the plant with the weird black balls looks sicker than ever.

  I don’t get it. I asked to be a Healer, and they’re supposed to be teaching me everything they know, but they’re keeping secrets from me. Why? What are they trying to protect?