Eve of Man

by Giovanna Fletcher

  You don’t have to be the last women on earth. Visit your nearest EPO cryo-clinic today.

  The screens become translucent again, returning the room to its green glory.

  “You think Eve has any idea her mom’s lying in a freezer a few floors below her?” Jackson asks as he stands and heads to the now-full buffet.

  “Oh, yeah, of course, like she knows that one-third of her best friend Holly’s personality is a complete tool,” Kramer jokes.

  “Crazy to think she’s so oblivious to all this,” Locke adds.

  “I’m not sure she’s as oblivious as she lets everyone believe.” I can’t help but get involved in this conversation.

  The Cold Storage levels below us take up the majority of the Tower’s square footage. They are full of preserved women, frozen in time, saving their bodies for the future, in the hope that one day they’ll be thawed into a new world where science has solved this devastating puzzle.

  “You ever been down there?” Jackson asks.

  “Cold Storage? No, why?” I ask.

  “Just wondered.” He sniggers, shoving some bread into his mouth.

  Locke elbows him in the ribs as we line up to get food.

  “What have you been doing in Cold Storage?” Hartman asks. I’m not sure any of us really wants to know the answer.

  “I should report you for that,” Kramer warns.

  “Yeah, go ahead, and maybe I’ll tell Dr. Wells what you and Holly do after hours in the studio,” Jackson calmly replies.

  Kramer goes bright red, opens his mouth to say something, closes it again, and sits at the table, defeated.

  “I guess we’ve all got our guilty pleasures in here. We’re all men when it comes down to it. Same programming.” Jackson grabs his balls with one hand while carrying his plate of meat in the other. “Right, Bram?”

  Everyone falls silent and looks at me, waiting for my response. Obviously they know what happened with me and Eve.

  “So who is on duty today?” I ask, not taking Jackson’s bait. “How is she?”

  Silence.

  They take quick glances at each other and avoid making eye contact with me.

  “What?” I ask.

  “Look, man, I hate to be the bearer of bad news—” Watts says with an awkward smile.

  “We’ve been given direct orders not to discuss with you anything that happens in the Dome,” Jackson interrupts, delivering the punch line. I can’t help but notice the slightest twitch of a smile at the edge of his mouth. “It’s for Eve’s safety.”

  My blood boils. Hartman places his hand on my arm and I realize I’m clenching my fist.

  Jackson stares at me, begging me to do it.

  I breathe deeply. I’m in enough trouble as it is at the moment. Jackson knows it. I relax and smile. I take a bite of my bread.

  “You know, you gotta control that temper of yours, Bram,” Jackson says through his mouthful of food. “You’re a real loose cannon, one minute all smiles, the next you wanna throw that fist around. Unpredictable. You know who else was like that? Eve’s dad, and look what they did with him!”

  Hartman joins in the conversation. “Eve’s dad was a lunatic. He got what was coming.”

  “You believe all that?” Watts deals in.

  Silence falls on the group as the squad shoots him a look. Words can be dangerous in a world where the walls have ears.

  Jackson breaks the moment. “There’s more to all that than we’ll ever know. Only those at the top are in on it.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask, noticing the little look Jackson gave me when he said it.

  “Nothing,” he replies.

  “No, go on, those at the top. You mean my father?” I ask, defensive of him for the first time ever. It’s a strange sensation.

  “Yeah, I guess. Never really thought about it like that.” Jackson shrugs. “Maybe you know too.” He laughs.

  I take a moment to absorb what he’s suggesting. “Is that what you all think?” I ask the team. “That I’m part of some sort of grand conspiracy that ripped Eve away from her family?”

  My so-called friends look around at each other and unconvincingly shake their heads.

  “No, man, we know you’re one of us,” Locke says, but I detect a hint of uncertainty in them all. Like they’ve thought it, even if they don’t believe it.

  “I’m going to finish eating in the dorm,” I say to Hartman, leaving him to conspire with the others.

  30

  BRAM

  I walk for a while. My body moves through the seemingly infinite corridors of the Tower while my thoughts navigate the complex corridors of my mind. So many dead ends, so many unanswered questions. Eve’s mother and the conspiracies around her death, most of which were born from the interviews Eve’s father gave in the weeks that followed, when he was cut off from Eve, before he tried to kidnap her.

  They murdered her.

  My mind recalls his voice from one of the many interviews he gave. Distraught and desperate. A man who’d just witnessed the death of his wife. A man half responsible for creating the most famous person on the planet. Father to the most important human ever to live.

  Enough to drive him insane?

  Maybe.

  I pass two EPO employees, both technicians, judging by their navy-blue uniforms.

  “Sir.” They salute.

  I nod. I hate the rank system here. The graying men are probably three times my age, and yet, because of my job, they are made to salute me, take orders from me even, if that’s what I wish.

  I’ve always felt that life experience, age, miles on the clock, stand for some sort of rank, deserve some authority. Not in here, it seems.

  As my thoughts settle I realize I’ve walked past the entrance to the wing that holds our dorm. I’ve reached the nearest elevator to our living quarters. The metallic ball swishes elegantly upward past our floor behind vacuum-sealed glass doors, its light reflecting on the polished black floor.

  Without thinking, I wave my hand over the sensor to call one to stop. It arrives within five seconds, which still amazes me: there are one thousand floors in this place.

  The doors slide open silently and I step inside the round pod. As I enter, a small beam of light fires into my eyes, scanning my retinas.

  “Good evening, Mr. Wells,” the automated voice greets me. I can’t stand being called that.

  “Mr. Wells is my father’s name. I’m Bram. Just Bram,” I instruct, and the system understands. I have to instruct it like this every day, as the EPO refuses to reprogram it to recognize me by my first name, like everyone else does. Damn regulations.

  “Very well, Just Bram. Where do you require me to take you?” the voice asks, which I think is its attempt at a joke. I found it funny when I was ten. Eight years later? The joke’s worn off.

  “CS, twenty-four,” I say. Cold Storage.

  The beam of light fires again: the system is double-checking my security clearance.

  I wait. The elevator has not moved since I stepped inside.

  “Of course, Just Bram. On our way. Would you like to listen to some music on the journey?” the voice asks.

  “No thanks,” I say, declining the optional entertainment we’re offered when riding alone in an elevator.

  We descend. My eardrums throb with the rapid change in altitude. Through the transparent walls of my carriage I see floor after floor of the Tower shoot by, each level occupied by enough personnel to fill a town. All male, of course.

  Men working in kitchens.

  Men working in engineering.

  Men working in the research laboratories.

  There is a female sanctuary in the Tower, the upper level. The Dome. The Mothers are safe there, protected. It’s an honor for them to live there. I’m headed to the only other p
lace women are permitted within these walls—Cold Storage.

  They’re either confined to the Dome, passively keeping up appearances for Eve, or frozen in the basement. If Mother Nature is observing us, it’s no wonder she won’t provide us with any more women.

  “CS, twenty-four, Just Bram,” the elevator announces as we slow to a stop and the doors hiss open. Cold air floods the elevator. It’s refreshing. I breathe in its artifice, savoring the taste of whatever chemicals they pump around here to keep it sterile.

  I step into the dimly lit lobby.

  “Hello, young man.” A familiar face smiles at me through the dark.

  “Good evening, Stephanie,” I say, stepping toward the reception desk for Cold Storage.

  “It’s been a while,” she says, flashing me those perfect teeth smudged with the tiniest speck of red lipstick.

  “Busy times. Lots happening these days,” I reply.

  “There’s always time for your mother, young man,” she teases, speaking to me as if I’m still the same boy who walked through the doors to the EPO all those years ago. A lot has changed. Not just for me but for her too.

  “Actually, don’t log me in yet.” I reach out to stop her fingers typing and she instantly snatches her hands away before we touch.

  “Sorry, I…”

  “No, it’s okay.” She smiles. “It’s just, no one touches us.”

  I nod and she places her hands back.

  “I’ll give you five minutes before I log you in, but only because you’re a good boy who doesn’t forget his mama, okay?”

  “Thanks, Stephanie.” I smile, and she nods for me to carry on.

  It must be tough for her down here. Hidden away where no one remembers her. No one questions her existence. I stare down the empty halls ahead of me and wonder what a Projectant would do down here all day. This place doesn’t get many visitors.

  It suddenly occurs to me that she must be down here too. Stephanie. The real Stephanie. Her frozen body suspended in eternal sleep while her mind lives a hundred feet away, sitting behind a cold desk. Some afterlife!

  I pass a man walking in the opposite direction. He hides his teary eyes from me as I catch a glimpse at his security uniform beneath his long coat. He doesn’t even glance in my direction, not that it would matter if he saw me. I’m cleared to be down here. Pilots have free run of the Tower for the most part. There are exceptions, of course. We can’t just waltz into the Dome, for obvious reasons, and Miss Silva’s quarters are by invitation only.

  I turn right into the blue hallway and run my fingers along the insulated walls. A thin layer of ice collects under my nail, leaving tracks behind, like scooping up ice cream from a tub.

  My feet feel the chill more with each step. The temperature penetrates even my heavy boots. I zip my jumpsuit to the top. I’m not appropriately dressed for this spontaneous visit, but I’m here now.

  As I pass the first doors on my left, marked by semitransparent strips of plastic hanging from the ceiling, I take a glance into the deserted hall. They used to laugh at cryonics pioneers, dismissing it as nothing more than science fiction. That was until it became a necessity. All these millions of women reaching the end of their lives without creating a new generation of females to replace them. Cremating them, burying them: such wasteful practices. Something had to be done.

  I push my head inside the first chamber. A graveyard of the future. I try to estimate how many women lie silently inside the seemingly infinite rows of vertical silver tubes in front of me. It’s impossible to tell.

  This floor is reserved for deceased women. Women who were frozen after being declared physically dead, in the hope that their cells can be revived at some point in the future and, more importantly, used.

  There are other levels for the brave women who volunteer themselves for the process pre-death. The odds of their bodies being more useful in the future are dramatically increased. The downside is obvious, though.

  I continue along the hallway. As I turn the corner to my right, another figure is walking toward me, a young man wiping his eyes. I’ve seen him down here before. Slim build, around my age, blond hair poking out of the baseball cap he’s wearing backward.

  We don’t say anything as we pass each other. His eyes are puffy and his cheeks blotched from crying. This place might look like a science lab, but there is something spiritual about the atmosphere. Peaceful, even. Like a cemetery—except here the visitors pray that this is not their friend’s or family member’s final resting place.

  As I reach the entrance I’m heading for, I turn back. The young man has gone. I’m alone.

  I step through the plastic and shiver as the temperature drops even lower, making the hallway seem warm in comparison. It takes my breath away as my lungs fill with the frozen air. I can feel goose bumps appearing down my arms underneath my uniform.

  The lights are kept low to prevent them emitting heat. If science does discover the key to ending the drought of females, this place holds the future, and it has to be well maintained.

  My feet do the work without my head having to instruct them. I might not have admitted it to Jackson, but I’ve wandered this path so many times since I was a boy. More often then than now, back when I needed answers, when I required comforting.

  Three blocks down I take a right, and count fourteen tanks in. I stop as I reach the fifteenth chrome cylinder. I take a breath and place my hand on the smooth metal. I look left and right to make sure I’m alone before crouching and running my fingers along the bottom of the tank. Suddenly my fingers find the small piece of tape, exactly where I left it. I peel it back, allowing the thing it’s concealing to fall into my hand.

  I stand up and hold my palm to the light so I can see the tarnished silver chain and the small cross attached to it. I sigh and rest my head on the tank.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  * * *

  —

  I swipe my hand over the sensor and call for the elevator. I’ve been down here for thirty minutes and the cold is starting to make my bones ache. My mind is busy. A few moments with my mother is usually enough to calm me, but there’s so much happening right now that even she couldn’t help. The knowledge that Eve is unaware of all of this, yet it all revolves around her, weighs heavily on my shoulders. She deserves to know the truth.

  The truth.

  What is the truth? Who knows what really happened to her parents? Vivian and the EPO aren’t murderers, but if something more did happen, then my team is right about one thing: my father would know about it.

  The elevator swishes into place and the doors slide open, but from farther down the hall a loud clang echoes around the corner, passes the elevator, then disappears behind me.

  I’ve never heard such commotion in these peaceful levels before.

  I ditch the elevator and head in the direction the noise came from, my boots clomping on the surface hidden below the layer of dry ice.

  “For God’s sake, man, you can’t do anything right!” a deep, gruff voice barks in a whisper from inside the hall ahead of me as I approach the plastic screening.

  I peer through and, ahead, see two men with headlamps operating some sort of machine. On it sits a large cryo-tank with a small dent in its outer surface, distorting the reflection.

  “Who’s there?” the other man calls, noticing my head popping through the sheets.

  I step inside. The men drop their tools and salute me the moment they see the badge on my uniform.

  “Sorry, sir. We didn’t realize we weren’t alone down here,” the gruff one says, obviously nervous at my presence.

  As one of only six pilots who have direct contact with Eve, I have a certain amount of fame within this place. My badge proudly displays the emblem of the Dome, and the large letter H informs any observers that I am one of the elite. It never fails to cause a reaction among the l
ower levels.

  “It’s okay. At ease,” I say. “What are you doing?”

  “Got a fresh one,” Gruff chirps, nodding at the cryo-tank on their machine. “Just installing her.”

  With all the high-tech science that surrounds me, I’m amazed that the installation of preserved humans is left to the likes of these two. “I see. And are you concerned about the damage?” I ask, pointing to the fist-sized dent.

  “Nah, these things are practically bombproof. That little thing isn’t doing her no harm.” His skinny colleague chortles. “She had worse bumps out there at any rate. She’ll be happy to be in here.”

  “How do you mean?” I ask, intrigued by his comment.

  “The old birds, they haven’t got nothing out there. These tubs are the only ticket inside this Tower. It’s why they all sign up so willingly,” he explains. “There aren’t no jobs for them upstairs,” he says, flicking his finger at the Dome on my uniform. “So, unless they come in one of these, them gates outside remain closed.”

  “I see.” I nod. “Well, continue with a little more care, if you don’t mind. It’s the future inside these tanks.”

  “Yes, sir,” Skinny says, and they start hoisting the tank onto the red lifting machine once again. I walk away, occasionally glancing back as they slot the silver tube into position, connecting the hoses that regulate its internal temperature.

  I return to the elevator and step inside the next that arrives.

  “Where to, Mr. Wells?” it asks me again.

  I roll my eyes at hearing my father’s name, but it triggers an idea. I place a hand on my chest, feeling my mother’s cross hanging beneath my jumpsuit. Something stopped me placing it back below her tank this time. I needed her with me.

  “Dr. Wells’s office,” I say.

  Retina scan.

  “Would you require any music for—”

  “No.”

  The doors close and the elevator ascends.