Eden Box Set

by G. C. Julien

  I think that’s who Mama wanted me to be. She wanted me to be like my papa.

  “Gabriel?”

  Freyda’s still staring at me. I part my lips to lie to her again, to tell her I’m fine when the plane’s propellers kick into full gear and the vibration gets so hard my entire seat shakes and my head bounces against my headrest.

  * * * * * *

  “Commencing takeoff,” comes the pilot’s voice over the plane speakers.

  James nudges me in the ribs, the freckled skin of his face pulled back with so much excitement it looks like he’s about to pop. I don’t even bother trying to smile at him. James isn’t the person I thought he was, and even looking at him makes me sick to my stomach. All I see now is a man capable of shooting a child in the face if it means protecting his country.

  He’s done it. Well, in our training. There was no hesitation, no guilt, no remorse. I have no doubt he’d be able to do it in real life without so much as blinking. They’ve turned him into a killing machine. They’ve turned all these men into killing machines. If it weren’t for the sound of everyone’s breaths around me, I’d think I were surrounded by nothing more than robots.

  When the plane takes off, my stomach doesn’t sink. It used to when I first joined the forces, but not anymore. I’ve flown so much over the last few years that flying feels no different than driving. The difference is we get to where we’re going a hell of a lot faster.

  I know why James is so excited. Project GENESIS. Something about a new beginning. There’s one problem though: it feels like an ending to me. Killing a bunch of our own people isn’t a way to start fresh. Doesn’t he see that? Doesn’t he realize that defending our country by fighting back against rioting women isn’t the way to solve this? There’s a reason those women are rioting. Why the fuck isn’t the government trying to make peace instead of trying to shut them up?

  I try not to focus on it too much because the veins on my temples will start to throb. Mama always told me she could tell when I was angry. She’d point a finger at my face and tell me to calm down. I never understood how she knew, but one day, she finally admitted that my veins were what gave me away. That they’d get huge, bulge out, and sometimes even pulsate.

  I’ve been around James long enough for him to know me a bit. He might know about it, he might not. But if he does, I can’t risk him knowing I’m not as excited as he is. I need to play the part if I plan to ever make it back to my mama alive.

  “Holy shit,” someone says.

  Now that we’re airborne, most soldiers have unclipped their seat belts. Two of them are standing by the large, rectangular-shaped window on the west side of the plane. There’s barely any windows on this thing. In fact, I think that one and the one across from it are the only ones for us to look out of. So when someone gets worked up, it isn’t hard to know where the voice came from. It’s clear they’re seeing something that’s worth talking about.

  Two other guys get up from their seats, their heavy boots slapping the plane’s metal floor as they rush to the quickly forming crowd.

  “Are those the Breeding Grounds?” someone asks.

  Someone slaps the guy. I’m assuming it’s his friend. The one who opened his mouth retreats, his head sinking into his shoulders. I know why he looks embarrassed, and I know why his friend slapped him.

  The Breeding Grounds, a top-secret project, is something we learned about in Area 82 only once. We weren’t even supposed to know about it, but one of the Black Marine commanders snapped when he lost his promotion to a younger man and let it spill. Word about the Breeding Grounds spread around faster than herpes at a frat party. After that, the commander disappeared.

  Hours after the outburst, we were met with individually and sworn to secrecy.

  So the fact that this guy opened his big mouth about it means he has a death wish.

  The project is disgusting. Apparently, over the last year, the military has been collecting Jane Does from across America. Women on the street, drug addicts, survivors of abuse. Basically, any woman without a family who will go looking for her, or at the very least, with a family who wouldn’t be surprised that she went missing.

  And the name of the project is pretty self-explanatory. They’re forcing women to reproduce. They’re using them like cattle. And when the product develops into a female fetus, they abort them. So in other words, women are being used as sex slaves to produce more males. I didn’t get all of the details, but that’s what I heard being whispered around Area 82 before we were all forced to keep our mouths shut.

  The thought of it makes me sick to my stomach, and I’ve done everything I can to forget about the project. But, it isn’t something you forget. In fact, it’s something I’ve been thinking about taking to the news the second I get out of here. I’ll be killed, I’m sure of it. Or, worse, the news would shut me up. But people need to know, somehow. I can’t even imagine what those women are going through, and when I think about it, I want to sink into a hole and die. This world isn’t a place I want to live in.

  The man who opened his trap cowers away and returns to his seat. Maybe he’s hoping none of the other lieutenants or commanders on board heard him. Then, after a moment of suspenseful silence, a bunch of soldiers jump to their feet and rush to the window.

  Although I don’t want to see it, I have to. I need to be able to describe the place and describe its approximate whereabouts. So I get up and shove my way through until I’m able to catch a glimpse of it before it’s too far out of sight.

  The facility is huge. Not as big as Area 82, but big enough to house thousands of women. Around it is a massive forest, and around that, more fencing, planes, and military vehicles. It reminds me of a prison with its thick concrete walls and its oversized yards. There are two of them. Yards, I mean. One of them looks to be full of women walking around in a sand pit, some of them being handled by men and others fighting like in prison.

  The other yard, though, faces north of the facility. It looks much greener and peaceful. Although I can’t see from this height, if I were to guess, I’d say that the women in this yard are the pregnant ones. Everything’s nicer, which is no doubt done to get maximum results.

  “I’d do anything to work there,” breathes one of the men beside me.

  I should shut my mouth, but I can’t. Without thinking, I grab him by the collar of his shirt and pin him against the plane’s interior wall, hitting a few other guys with my elbows in the process. His face puffs up like a Cheeto, and he stares at me with bulging eyes.

  “What’re you?” I say. “A fucking rapist?”

  “R-r-relax,” he tries, but he swallows hard and slobbers on my arm.

  I’m probably crushing his trachea.

  Good.

  Fucking piece of shit pig.

  “Hands off!” someone shouts.

  The voice is authoritative, which means it’s one of the commanders. I let the guy go, but I want to tear his face off with my bare hands.

  “What’s going on, here?” growls the commander. He’s standing tall, his shaved head looking wet under the plane’s fluorescent lighting.

  I stiffen. “Nothing, sir.”

  The man I held seconds ago clears his throat. “N-nothing, sir. Having a little fun is all.”

  The commander looks at me and then at the other guy, his jaw muscles popping out. It’s obvious he doesn’t have the time, nor the patience, to deal with our little fight.

  “You’re soldiers,” he says. “You don’t get to have fun. Now act like adults and sit the fuck back down. There’s nothing to see here.”

  When no one moves, he barks, “Now!” and everyone rushes back to their seats.

  * * * * * *

  At first, it feels like an annoying tap. The kind of tap you feel on your lap when a kid wants something, and they keep hitting you over, and over again. But then it turns into a hard hit. Hard enough to leave a bruise.

  “The heck is wrong with you?” Freyda snaps.

  Vrin is standi
ng right in front of me with military-sleeved arms crossed over her chest and combat boots spread at shoulder’s width. She looks fierce, but at the same time, worried. Is she worried about me?

  “Where’d you serve?” she asks.

  I glance sideways at Freyda. How long have I been lost in my thoughts again? Should I be opening my mouth, or is this some sort of trap?

  Vrin doesn’t look like she’s setting me up, though. It seems like she genuinely wants to know about my past. She bows her head forward, shadows forming under her brows, and waits for me to speak up.

  “D-different areas,” I say, avoiding the topic. I’m not supposed to talk about my missions. It’s a breach.

  She scoffs, which tells me she knows why I’m evading the subject.

  “This is a new world, Gabriel. Forget what you were told to say or not to say in the old world. No one’s here to get you in trouble. I only want to know what your background is.”

  I clear my throat. “I was a Black Marine before all of this, and before that, well… Japan, during the trade crisis. Ukraine—” But I cut myself short, remembering that Ukraine doesn’t exist anymore, and I correct myself. “Russia. North Korea—”

  “North Korea?” she says. “2051?”

  I nod.

  She nods along with me, looking defeated. We share a moment of silence that only we seem to understand. Freyda shifts in her seat and leans in toward me. “What? What’s going on?”

  “We have someone in Elysium who can help you,” Vrin says.

  Why’s she being so nice to me? Not long ago, I was guilty until proven innocent. It’s not like I’ve done anything to warrant being treated fairly. At least not yet. And what’s she talking about? Help me with what?

  “Your thoughts,” she says. “Your flashbacks. Your blackouts.”

  “You have PTSD?” Freyda says, her features softening at once.

  I grind my teeth. I’m not an idiot. What I’m going through is because of everything I’ve seen. But if I tell myself I have PTSD, I’m giving it power. Okay, so maybe I am an idiot. I know it doesn’t work that way. But I don’t want to need help.

  I scratch Justice between the eyes and rub my finger over her soft ear. It feels like warm cotton pulled out of a dryer.

  “You don’t have to talk about it,” Vrin says. “I don’t. But I can assure you it won’t get any better. You might think you’re fine, and then something triggers you.”

  I don’t say anything. To be honest, I don’t know what to say. I feel weak and vulnerable, which doesn’t sit well with me. Why is it getting worse, anyway? Is she right? Am I being triggered? Is it because I made my way back to Area 82? That’s when it seemed to get really bad.

  “Anyways, we can talk about this later. Get up.”

  I glance up at her. What’s going on?

  “Pilot needs you at the front. You’re the one guiding us.”

  CHAPTER 9 – LUCY

  “What’s goin’ on out there?” Mavis says, her nose pressed up against the window. The oil of her skin leaves a round smudge in the dust, which is likely the closest thing to cleaning she’s ever done.

  “It’s Loretta’s daughter,” I say. “Ireela.”

  It’s like everyone knows Ireela. Well, knew. I wonder where she is. Her body, I mean. And how did this happen? I saw her two days ago. She had a cough and dark bags under her eyes, but Emily looked a lot sicker than her. I feel nauseated. I should be used to death by now, but I’m not. All I keep thinking about is how one day, Ireela was breathing and enjoying life, and now, she’s nowhere to be seen.

  Her body, maybe. But not her. The best I can do is hope that there is an afterlife. I need to believe; if I don’t, I don’t know what I’ll do with myself. I have to believe that when my turn comes around, my mom will be waiting for me.

  Mavis squints and with her thick, potion-stained hand, wipes a bigger smudge on the window. “D’she croak?”

  “Mavis!” Perula exclaims.

  I’m tempted to tell her off, too, but Mavis doesn’t think before she talks. She isn’t saying it to be rude or thoughtless—words sometimes come out of her mouth without going through a filtration process.

  “Yeah, she passed,” I say.

  Mavis pulls away from the window solemnly and shakes her head. “Another one bites the dust.”

  I don’t even bother rolling my eyes at her insensitivity. Slowly, I’m getting accustomed to it.

  “Ireela was a sweet young woman,” Perula says.

  Are we already reminiscing? Are we going to hold hands and talk about what a great girl she was? I can’t do that. Not now. Not while I can’t stop thinking about Mom. If we start talking about dead people, I’m scared I’ll start crying, and the last thing I want to do is cry in front of Mavis.

  Perula, I think, would be sweet about it. Mavis would no doubt tell me that I’m dehydrating myself and to suck it up—literally. Or, she’d tell me to collect my tears and use them to salt my food.

  “Do you know what happened?” Perula asks. “Was it the flu?”

  I shrug. How am I supposed to know? What doesn’t make sense to me is that Emily looked like she was on the verge of dying, and she made it out. Was it the antibiotics? Is that what Loretta was referring to? Since Ireela turned eighteen last week, Dr. Lewis refused to give her anything. While I find it harsh that she would do something like that, I can understand. Dr. Lewis has rules to stick to, and if she starts bending the rules, they’ll eventually break.

  Perula’s still staring at me like I have the answer she’s looking for.

  I peer through the window where Mavis left a big smudge. “Yeah, probably the flu.” It still doesn’t make sense to me that someone would die within a matter of days when others—some with even weaker immune systems—are fighting the bug off. “Maybe she had a heart condition,” I add, trying to wrap my head around it.

  Mavis pulls her spatula out of her cauldron and licks it. She winces as if she took a lick of pure lemon, shakes her head, and throws the spatula back into the mixture. “Ain’t no telling here in Eden, eh? One day you’re fine, the next day you’re gone. ’Member Mrs. Pepper?” She throws her pointed chin out at Perula.

  Perula, who seems to know what Mavis is talking about, blows out an irritated breath. “Her name wasn’t Mrs. Pepper.”

  “She liked peppers!” Mavis says, smacking something hard on the wooden table.

  My shoulders jerk forward and I glare through the window, even though all I want to do is turn around and give Mavis a look that says, I hate you.

  “Her name was Mrs. Peabody,” Perula says, clearly offended by Mavis’s lack of empathy.

  “Pee? Or pea?” Mavis asks, and this time, she throws her head back and laughs so hard I can see a large dark hole in the back of her mouth where molars used to sit.

  It doesn’t make sense to me how a grown woman such as Mavis can be so immature and insensitive at a time like this. A woman lost her daughter and she’s grieving right outside the Herb Shack. We can hear her through the walls, which means she can probably hear Mavis laughing, too.

  Has Mavis not lost anyone she cares about? It’s not like her or Perula tell me anything about their pasts, other than what they used to do for a living. Did they have children? Grandchildren? Parents? Aunts and uncles?

  The only rational explanation for Mavis’s thoughtless outbursts and cruel-sounding words would be that she has, in fact, suffered a great deal. Maybe she wears a protective shell to avoid feeling any more pain.

  Is that what Eve’s doing? I shake these thoughts away. I love Eve, I truly do, but I can’t downplay what happened—I can’t pretend like she isn’t mentally unwell and unfit to lead Eden. Even if my Aunt Eve still lives somewhere deep inside of Eve, I can’t become emotional about it. The lives of hundreds of women are at risk.

  I need to do something about it. Then, the thought of Nola creeps into my mind. Where is she? She almost always visits me at least one time per day, but I haven’t seen her today. She must
be offering her nurse expertise and working alongside Dr. Lewis to treat women and children. She’s been doing that for the last three days. Although I admire her willingness to help, I hate that she’s surrounded by germs all day long.

  I pensively tap my fingers against the wooden counter under the window ledge. What if I go to her? How mad will she be? She already told me to stay away from the Medical Unit. She wasn’t nice about it, either, but that’s because she cares about me.

  She scolded me when I came to see Emily the day Dr. Lewis released her. She’d slapped two hands around the middle area of her blue scrubs—clothing that must have once belonged to a thinner version of her. It wrapped her up like a piece of saran wrap around an apple fritter donut, making every roll and every bump visible.

  “You listen here, and you listen good,” she’d said with a finger in my face, reminding me of Mom. I went cross-eyed looking at the tip of her nail, and she kept jabbing it back and forth with every word. “This place isn’t safe. It’s crawling with bacteria. Now, I’m going to get your friend Emily, and you can take her back to her cell. Dr. Lewis says she’s past the stage of being contagious. Keep an eye on her in her cell, but I don’t want to see you around here again. Are we clear?”

  I finally looked away from the tip of her index finger and found myself staring into her small, beady eyes squinting harder than I’d ever seen before. Distracted by the surgical mask hanging around her neck, I wanted to ask, “So why are you here?” but the longer I stared at the mask, the more I knew she’d use that to argue her case. She’d say something along the lines of “I used to do this for a living, Lucy. Dr. Lewis and I are taking every precaution not to contract the virus.”

  Nola’s stubborn, too, so it’s not like I could have argued any further. When she realized I wasn’t moving, she told me she’d come to visit me at least once per day. That’s when I threw my arms around her and hugged her tight, knowing all too well that there was a chance I’d lose her.

  I swallow hard thinking of that hug. I can’t lose Nola. Although she’ll never replace my mom, she’s become somewhat of a mother figure.