Eve of Man: Eve of Man Trilogy

by Giovanna Fletcher

  I think of Holly and I see him – Bram, full of passion, anger and fire.

  I wonder how long it’ll be before his image fades, or before my brain revises the arches of his nostrils or the wave of his hairline, makes him taller or gives him a more muscular physique. How long will it be before the image I have of him is turned into a work of fiction?

  I can’t believe I’ve actually met a Holly.

  They’ll be livid, of course. Even if they’re aware I can distinguish between her variations and know she’s just their puppet, she works. That’s why they keep sending her to me. I engage with her, confide in her … If they think I’ve seen completely through the lie, it’s possible they’ll stop sending me that version of Holly. My Holly.

  It dawns on me that that’s why Bram stopped me before I blurted out that I knew who he was. If I’d got those words out it would be over. Now I just have to wait and see if he returns. Pray that our little moment was lost within the spectacular devastation of the morning.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ says a low voice behind me.

  My heart constricts and shrivels.

  I turn to Vivian, who is as composed as ever at my bedroom door.

  Suddenly I’m overcome with anger and hate. I grip my bed sheets to stop myself lurching at her, because that’s what I want to do. I want to run at her and let this feeling go but I can’t do that.

  ‘I know how fond you were of Mother Nina,’ she continues.

  ‘I was,’ I respond, hating how quickly we’re able to talk about her in the past tense and wishing we didn’t have to.

  ‘She did the right thing,’ Vivian says, walking unashamedly into my room and looking me up and down, as though examining me for any physical injuries. She won’t find any.

  ‘Did she?’ I snap.

  ‘Of course,’ she says, her voice chillingly cold, considering she is talking about the loss of an innocent life and someone she has spent at least a decade working alongside.

  ‘And what makes you say that?’ I ask, the anger still bubbling inside.

  ‘She knew you were about to expose yourself.’

  I can’t deny it.

  ‘She saved you.’

  ‘So it’s my fault?’ I shout.

  ‘I didn’t say that,’ she says, her face like stone.

  ‘You implied it!’ I shriek.

  ‘Eve, control yourself,’ she warns, her voice remaining calm, unlike my own. ‘Mother Nina clearly sensed something that the rest of us had failed to spot. She’ll have died happy knowing she was saving you.’

  ‘Why didn’t you notice it?’ I ask, jumping up from the bed. ‘How was he chosen over every other man screened? How was he allowed in here?’ Blood rushes to my head as the words fire from my mouth.

  ‘The matter is being looked into.’ She blinks with a pursed mouth, not giving the slightest indication that my reaction is bothering her. ‘It won’t happen again.’

  ‘And that’s it?’ I ask, my voice cracking.

  ‘I think you’re forgetting the bigger picture here, Eve,’ she retorts, her eyebrow rising just enough to be condescending but not enough to be completely inhumane, given the circumstances. ‘You’re becoming too sentimental at a time when the focus should be on the cause and what we’re set to gain, or lose. Choose your battles. Focus on the path ahead. It’s tragic about Mother Nina, of course it is, but hers was just one life.’

  ‘Why should my life be deemed more important than hers?’ I ask, a lump forming in my throat.

  ‘You are called the Saviour for a reason. Do you pay any attention in your history lessons?’ she quips.

  ‘I thought I was just a cog,’ I say drily.

  ‘Eve …’ she sighs with impatience, tugging on the cuffs of her shirt ‘… Mother Nina served the greater good by sacrificing herself. We should be grateful to her, but let’s not dwell.’

  I remain silent, my gaze falling to the floor between us.

  ‘And what happened in the lift?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I tell her, my voice barely audible as sadness niggles away at me. ‘I was saved.’

  ‘The guard was found unconscious.’

  ‘It was a misunderstanding.’

  Her eyes are on me, trying to read whether or not I’m telling her the truth. I don’t know why she’s bothering to ask. There must be cameras everywhere – surely she’s seen the whole thing already.

  ‘So no further action is necessary, with any of the young men involved?’

  I shake my head, unable to lift my eyes from the floor. ‘You said they would hurt me. That temptation would be too much.’

  ‘Temptation can either strike instantly or grow over time, Eve. Don’t be tricked into sloppy behaviour or you may not be so lucky next time,’ she warns, her eyes sharp. ‘Understand?’

  I nod.

  ‘Very well,’ she says, making for the door.

  ‘A funeral!’ I call after her. ‘Will there be one?’

  Vivian sighs at the inconvenience. ‘I’ll make sure it’s marked in some way,’ she says. ‘I’ll get the other Mothers to … address it.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I say, almost to myself. ‘She really was the most remarkable woman.’

  In that moment all I want is a pair of arms around me. Michael’s, Bram’s – Mother Nina’s … Even Vivian’s would bring a certain level of comfort. Yet she gives me nothing. Vivian takes a breath, lifts her chin and silently walks out of the room. Leaving me to cry a swamp of tears on my own.

  14

  Bram

  I close the door to the dorm and hit the lock with my trembling fist. I can’t stop the shakes. I managed to contain them a few moments ago outside the lift, but now I’m alone my body is free to react as it wants.

  I stumble backwards. A greyish blur is forming a frame around the edge of my vision, like the vignette of an old photograph. The dorm spins. Bunk, window, door. Bunk, window, door. My balance fails as my legs give in to the weight of my thoughts, which are dedicated to one thing.

  Eve.

  I’m dragging my case through the corridor of my home in the cloudscraper. We’re high, somewhere on the upper floors. Clouds press on the glass wall, turning it grey.

  As I stare out at the hazy world the clouds start to glow. A pair of huge luminous eyes suddenly appears outside the window, staring back at me.

  Your Saviour. A kind voice echoes through the air outside, muffled by the glass. Our future. The mist dissipates, revealing the pretty face projected across the side of the cloudscraper opposite.

  ‘Do you know who that is?’ my father asks.

  Of course I do.

  ‘Eve,’ I say, but my eyes are drawn back down the hallway towards the sound of my mother’s sobs behind the door.

  ‘Eve is going to be your new friend,’ my father says, then notices where my attention has drifted.

  ‘Don’t look back,’ he drones. He stands at the lift door, waiting for it to arrive. ‘This is your one chance at a better life. You’ll thank me for it one day. For getting you out of this place.’

  ‘I want Mumma.’ The sound of my voice makes me realize I’m crying. Sobbing. ‘I want Mumma!’

  ‘You will not see that woman again and you’ll certainly not be needing that, not where we’re going.’ He tugs the small silver cross and the chain breaks, falling from my neck. ‘Foolish beliefs for a foolish woman. You will not speak of her.’

  Eve!

  I sit up suddenly. It’s cold. My cheek is stinging as if I’ve been slapped repeatedly. My vision is blurry and has no colour but I can make out Hartman standing over me, hand raised. His mouth is moving but I can’t hear him over the high-pitched ringing that’s vibrating inside my skull.

  He pulls his hand back and slaps me. The stinging in my cheek becomes a burn.

  ‘Bram!’ he whispers, in a hushed panic. ‘Bram, if you don’t come out of this soon I’m calling the medic.’

  ‘N-no …’ I mumble, as I pull my cold, clammy body off the floor. ‘I don’t need it. I’m
okay.’

  ‘Are you?’ he asks.

  Am I?

  What the hell just happened to me? The colour slowly returns to my sight, and with every deafening beat of the pulse in my ears I feel normality returning.

  ‘Just take some deep breaths and drink this.’ Hartman hands me his flask. Without hesitation I take a gulp and the boiling liquid hits the back of my throat. I spit it out instantly.

  ‘What’s that?’ I say, handing the flask back to him.

  ‘Tea.’ He shrugs.

  ‘You could have told me it was hot!’

  ‘Sorry. I just thought it might help calm you down.’

  ‘Did I black out?’ I ask, although I already know the answer.

  ‘I dunno. All I know is that you bolted the second they escorted Eve away. When I got here the door was locked, so I had to hack in again, and when I finally got it open you were sprawled out on the floor, eyes in the back of your head, mumbling all sorts of weird stuff.’ He swigs his tea. ‘Shit, that is hot!’

  I don’t bother asking what I was mumbling. Not because I’m afraid of what it might have been, but because I already know what it was. The last thing I was thinking of before I blacked out and the first thing I thought of when I came around.

  Eve.

  My stomach convulses and, within a split second, my throat is full of its contents. I projectile vomit on to our dorm floor. Hartman jumps out of the way just in time.

  ‘What the actual f–’ He doesn’t get a chance to finish before a second round erupts from my mouth.

  ‘Yuck!’ He hands me a towel.

  I rip off my kinetic suit and fall back on to my lower bunk with a heavy sigh. What’s happening to me? I close my eyes. Eve.

  I’ve seen her face thousands of times but never like that. Never with my own eyes. I’ve never breathed the same air as her, or caught the flowery scent of her hair.

  I take a breath and fill my lungs, trying to remember what breathing next to her felt like. Her smell. She smelled real.

  I suddenly remember her gazing into my eyes. No one has ever looked at me like that before. It’s like she was staring through me, into my mind, trying to see the person inside – the way she looks at Holly, except she found no one but me there this time.

  She saw me.

  She recognized me.

  She knows.

  ‘We have an emergency meeting in thirty minutes but you’re staying here,’ Hartman says, as he mops up my mess with a towel.

  ‘No, I’m fine, I need to hear what’s happening,’ I argue.

  ‘You’re in shock, Bram, you need to rest.’

  ‘Shock?’ I almost laugh.

  ‘You witnessed something horrific earlier, man. This is your body reacting to it.’

  Something horrific? What’s he talking about?

  Then it hits me. The memories flash in my brain, cutting like glass. Mother Nina’s body, motionless on the floor. The cold stare of Diego and the blood on his hands, filling the creases of his knuckles and congealing in his fingernails.

  Horrific.

  ‘Yeah. I guess you’re right,’ I lie.

  ‘You’re not a soldier, Bram. Things like that don’t happen every day. At least, not up here. I mean, shit, is this what they’re all like out there? Are they that messed up?’

  ‘Don’t you remember it?’ I ask.

  ‘My life before this place? Barely. Thank God.’

  ‘I do,’ I admit. ‘Bits of it. Just flashes really. It wasn’t that bad.’

  ‘Not that bad?’ Hartman gawps. ‘You must be ill, mate. It was a bloody war zone for about thirty years.’

  ‘Yeah, that was all BE, before we were born. Things got better after she came along, more stable.’

  ‘Damn right it got better, better for us! If it weren’t for her we’d be out in Central, in the storm with the rest of them, counting down the days to extinction.’

  ‘We could have been frozen, our bodies preserved for the future,’ I joke.

  ‘Ha, yeah. Or upload our brains into one of your dad’s Projectants,’ Hartman replies. ‘No. Thank. You!’

  ‘I thought you might like that. Your mind living for ever as a projection,’ I say. ‘You love computers!’

  ‘Er, I’d rather not be turned into one.’ Hartman blows on his tea and takes a sip. ‘Right, you. Stay. Rest.’

  I keep silent. It’s best he thinks I’m struggling with the death of Mother Nina rather than knowing the truth. He was right about one thing, though. My body is in shock. My mind is in shock. But mostly my heart. I’ve never felt it beat as hard as it did today. Beating for a purpose. Beating for someone.

  Eve.

  ‘I’m going to find out what’s going on. If you start pranging out again, you call the medics,’ Hartman says, throwing the filthy towel into the laundry chute, then going to wash his hands in the basin.

  ‘I will,’ I say, knowing I won’t.

  ‘I’m serious,’ he replies, also knowing I won’t. He shoots me a look as he opens our door and disappears.

  I lay my head on the pillow and stare up at the bunk above. With every blink of my eyes I see a flash of blue. Deep blue. Eve’s eyes. They’re in my head, staring back at me as if they are permanently burnt on to my retinas.

  I hear the soft swish of our door sliding open.

  ‘I’m fine, you don’t have to worry about me,’ I say.

  ‘That’s good to know,’ replies a deep voice.

  ‘Dad?’ I sit up instantly, banging my head on the top bunk. Great.

  ‘Lie down before you do yourself some damage,’ he says, obviously unimpressed. ‘Shall we discuss today’s events?’ He was never one for small talk.

  ‘Yeah. Shall we start with what the fuck happened and how a complete psychopath was allowed into a room with Eve?’ I snap. Maybe I am in shock. My father certainly looks as though he is.

  ‘Mistakes have been made,’ he replies calmly, not rising to my anger. ‘We’re addressing and researching how and why Diego slipped through our net.’

  ‘Slipped through your net? I’d say it must have a pretty big hole in it. She could be dead now. Gone.’

  ‘We’re all aware of the severity of the situation –’

  ‘Really? Because I’m not sure you are.’ I interrupt, anger and frustration bubbling inside my chest. ‘The future of our species was almost erased in that room today and it must have been more than an accident. Someone has to be held responsible.’ My passion has brought me to my feet and I’m standing face to face with my father.

  ‘And who do you suggest takes that responsibility, Bram?’ he barks. ‘Me?’

  ‘Yes, you. You and Vivian.’

  His palm connects with my throat faster than I can react and he slams my head against the steel frame of the upper bunk.

  I don’t fight it. He’s too strong. Physically and mentally. We’ve had fights before. I have the scars, physical and mental.

  ‘That’s enough from you. Did you really think I came here to discuss the flaws in our system? To hear your opinion? Do you think I care to know what goes on inside your insignificant mind?’

  I feel his hand relax and my throat is free of his grip.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I mutter. ‘It’s just that …’

  I hesitate and he shoots me a look.

  ‘That what?’

  ‘It’s just Vivian. Dad, she’s –’

  ‘Enough. I would be very careful of the path your mind is wandering down. Vivian is not a tolerant woman and questioning her motives is not something you have the authority or the intelligence to do.’

  I’m a child again in his presence.

  He moves to the window and touches his palm against the glass. The monitor scans his hand and grants him access to any file or program he wishes. He begins flicking through security footage from the afternoon.

  He fast-forwards through the meeting. I watch it all unfold again at twice the speed. I see myself in the room disguised as Holly, Eve disguised among the Mothers.
Both there and not there at the same time.

  ‘I came here to discuss Eve,’ my father says, turning his hand in the air as though winding an invisible cog while the footage plays out on the realiTV screen.

  ‘What do you want to know?’ I ask, watching Mother Nina die for the second time that day. My father’s face doesn’t change. It’s hard. Emotionless.

  The screen flicks to a different camera. Eve is being dragged towards the lift. Holly chases after them, her nearly perfect projection only faltering slightly in the flashes of gunshots in the room behind.

  ‘Here we are,’ my father says, nodding at the screen.

  It’s me. Not as Holly. The real me. We both stare at the screen as I burst into the lift and land a perfect punch on the security guard’s jaw. The footage pauses.

  ‘And so you meet.’

  There it is. A historic moment, at least for me. On permanent record. I’m standing over the unconscious body of her kidnapper, she’s kneeling next to him and, for the first time, we look into each other’s eyes.

  ‘Did she recognize you?’ my father asks.

  ‘No,’ I say, without hesitation.

  My father says nothing.

  ‘No,’ I repeat. ‘At least, I don’t think so.’

  He turns his wrist, flicks his finger and the footage plays. Our recorded voices cut through the air of my room.

  ‘You are Hol–’

  ‘He just needs some ice.’

  My father flicks and it repeats.

  ‘You are Hol–’

  ‘He just needs some ice.’

  ‘You – are – Hol–’

  He doesn’t look at me, just stares straight ahead and adjusts the thin glasses on his nose, the way he does when he’s pretending to think about what to say next.

  ‘I think we both know what she was going to say before you cleverly interrupted her.’

  I stay silent.

  ‘This footage will not be kept on file for obvious reasons,’ he says, as he makes a cross with his fingers and erases the best moment in my life so far.

  ‘Be very careful, Bram,’ he warns. Or maybe threatens. It’s hard to tell as he makes his way towards the door.