The Eden Project (Books One & Two)
Page 30
“Go, Max,” Gen commanded. “I will watch the door.”
“We won’t forget,” Max said as he walked past Adam and Gen.
“You too, big guy,” Gen said to Adam. “Your intended will give you many beautiful children.”
Adam glanced from her eyes to the ground and back again. He could not bear to say goodbye. The emotion overwhelmed him. A tear leaked out of his eye and fell onto Gen’s face shield.
When the door opened, Adam and Gen both swung their arms up to shoot a beast. Adam blew a hole in his face and Gen blew the rest of its head off.
“Remember the plan?” Gen asked. “Run! Remember? Do not stop.”
“I loved you every second you were away,” Adam said barely.
“I know you did,” she smiled. “I could feel it from across the universe.”
He tried to smile for her, when suddenly Maya screamed. Adam lifted Gen quickly to her feet. They watched as Zeke and two other beasts walked out from under the Terra Rover.
The two other beasts ran past Zeke who walked slowly carrying a small, silver shield. Max ran in front of Maya and Sylvia just in time to be shredded by the knives of the first beast.
“Max,” Maya yelled as she was being pulled away by Sylvia.
The second beast chased after them quickly and dove suddenly for Maya’s legs. The beast sunk his teeth into her Achilles which made her fall hard. She reached out her arms so Eli slid forward on the ground as Maya’s face shield cracked on the floor.
“Save Eli,” Maya screamed as the beast bit hungrily into the middle of her back.
Zeke spotted the pure little infant morsel spinning on the ground and wanted to eat him in one big bite, soft bones and all. He burned across the floor at an inhuman speed just as Sylvia reached down and grabbed Eli by the bundled up, excess material of his suit.
Sylvia spun half way around and tossed Eli into the air as Zeke smashed into her breaking her ribs. She tried to crawl on the floor but it was too painful.
The beasts burst through the door. Adam fired at them, but one kept coming and ran past Adam and Gen in a blur. The beast leapt into the air and snatched the baby before it came crashing down on the hard ground.
Gen fired at Zeke. He easily deflected her shot with the silver shield.
Sylvia spit out one mouthful of blood before an angry Zeke ripped open her suit and bit deep into her virginal neck tearing out her larynx.
The tortured beast who had once been their friend stood up from his kill and grunted so loud, it echoed throughout the transport dock.
Adam hurried away from Zeke and the other beasts who funneled in through the door. He turned his gun on the beast with the baby.
“Don’t you do it!” Adam screamed through his devastation. “Don’t you hurt that beautiful boy!”
Zeke laughed and wiped Sylvia’s blood from his chin. “What does it matter, meat stick?” Zeke walked toward them holding his silver shield.
Gen fired at the two beasts who were now eating Maya. She killed one with a head shot and the other one scurried away.
“Did you hear me?” Adam yelled at the beast with the baby. “Don’t hurt him.”
The beast with the baby turned around. It was Tuna.
When Tuna tried to smile through all his wounds and scars it was scary as hell, so Adam shot him. Tuna’s free arm was blown completely off his body. He crumbled in agony to his knees, but fought not to drop the baby.
Gen limped to Tuna and snatched away the baby. Tuna winced in pain but nodded gratefully.
“You’re hurt?” Tuna asked Gen. His own wound did not bleed. The blue energy had fried his shoulder, cauterizing the wound.
She limped quickly out of his reach.
Zeke circled around to stand at the head of his beasts.
“You’re beaten. Your girl is infected,” Zeke laughed. “There will never be another pure-blooded baby.”
“You’ve never beaten me,” Adam said. “Not even once.”
Zeke stopped smiling. “Having one pure-blooded baby will not continue your species. You have no woman.”
Tuna rose to his feet and fiddled around in his pockets while Gen kept her gun on him.
Adam took one step closer to Zeke and grinned. “Not even once have you beaten me, Firstborn.”
“Puny human,” Zeke said dismissively. “I will not only beat you, I will eat you.”
Adam raised his gun and shot at Zeke who easily deflected the pulse of energy. Zeke grinned and suddenly sprinted at Adam.
Adam aimed his gun at Zeke’s shield and kept steady. Just before Zeke crashed into him, Adam crossed his arms on his chest to brace himself against Zeke’s shield.
Adam was knocked hard onto his back as Zeke stood over him in grinning triumph.
When Adam grinned back, Zeke’s joy began to fade.
“As always,” Adam said. He squeezed his trigger and blasted straight up into Zeke’s torso from below splitting his old friend in two. His plan had worked perfectly. He found an angle Zeke could not shield.
“Get off this ship,” Tuna said as he walked past Gen and approached the final beasts who started gathering near the door. “I’ll hold them off.”
Gen limped to Adam with baby Eli.
“How do you plan to do that?” Adam asked climbing to his feet.
“I have it all figured out,” Tuna said. “Now go make a lot of babies and start a new world.”
“Tuna, the Eden Project has failed,” Adam said as he put his arm around Gen. “She’s infected like you.”
Tuna’s arm swung up faster than Adam could respond. Tyler Thirdborn, a.k.a Tuna, shot his tranq gun and a long, steel dart buried deep into Gen’s breast plate just missing the sleeping baby.
“No, she’s not,” Tuna said.
Adam aimed his gun at Tuna’s head. “What have you done?”
“I’ve defeated the virus,” Tuna said. “I never stopped working.”
Tuna fired a shot at the frenzied beasts inching ever closer.
Adam became confused as Tuna turned to stare fearlessly into his eyes. Adam reached over to help Gen pull the tranq dart out of her chest.
Tuna walked to Adam and stabbed a needle into his shoulder. “Now neither of you can ever be infected.”
He hugged them both while Gen and Adam shot their pulse guns at the small horde of infected.
Tuna dropped his one arm to explain, “I derived the serum from the blood of the boy, Trumpet.”
Gen nodded sadly. “How do you plan to slow them, Tuna?”
Tuna stabbed the needle suddenly into the butt of the sleeping baby. Eli woke up and started to cry.
“Tuna!” Gen said.
“I’m not taking any chances,” Tuna said. “I’ll tell you my plan if you get your asses over to the Rover. Go!”
They hurried away from him. Gen blew him a kiss.
“Thank you, Tuna!” Adam said.
Tuna walked over to the beasts who closed in on him.
“Show us your plan, Tuna!” Adam yelled as he helped Gen and the baby up the ramp.
“It’s not much of a plan,” Tuna yelled and then started to run away from the beasts who chased after him.
“That was my plan,” Adam whispered. He smiled through welling tears as he watched Tuna weaving back and forth and firing wildly back at the pursuing beasts.
Two of the infected broke off and raced to the Rover instead.
Adam pushed Gen inside and punched the button to close the doors. A chill exploded through his veins. He could see a beast running up the ramp and diving for them. Adam shot a quick blast through the opening just before the doors closed.
-27-
When the huge gates of the Rover Transport opened, all the bodies were sucked immediately from the floor of the hangar and jettisoned out into space. Adam saw a few of them spinning out past the Rover which rose up and crawled through the open mouth of the dock.
Gen wore a simple white gown and rocked the baby to sleep. She laid little Eli between a
pillow and the cushioned wall on one of the beds in a sleeping unit.
She limped through the Rover using the walls for support.
Adam sat back and watched the ES3 slipping away on his console. At the very moment he thought about Artie, his console beeped. Artie’s face showed up on the screen.
“Dude,” Artie said, “you made it.”
“Yeah,” Adam said. “You did, too.”
“No one knows this ship like I do,” Artie said. “How many are you?”
“Just two,” Adam said.
Artie hung his head.
“And baby Eli,” Adam added.
This cheered Artie and he pulled Hanna onto the screen.
“Who made it with you?” Hanna asked.
Adam smiled at Hanna. “The tomato girl.”
“Oh my god,” Hanna said. “She was really there.”
“She was,” Adam said.
“Alright, Commander,” Artie said pushing his way back onto the screen. “Keep your eyes on the sky behind you. I’m going to give you three a proper sendoff.”
Adam knew what that meant and nodded solemnly.
“Honor serving by your side, Commander Thirdborn,” Artie said as Hanna hugged him tight.
“You will forever be by my side,” Adam said before Artie turned off the feed.
Adam kept watching the skies behind him. Soon the ES3 was out of sight. Six minutes had passed when he finally spotted Artie’s sendoff.
The darkness of space lit up with pulsing blues and whites as if a new kind of fireworks had been discovered, a celebration put on by his friend Artie baptizing the new world.
He preferred to think of it that way rather than what was really happening back there. The ES3 had been rigged and was being blown to pieces by the one kid who knew the ship best, Arthur Sixtyborn, who was being purged of his impure blood by fire. He and Hanna would be just embers now, glowing in the furnace of the universe.
“Goodbye, Hanna,” Adam whispered. “Goodbye, Artie.”
He stood up and walked to the door. He glanced back at the screen where he could still see a few pieces of the ES3 burning in the night.
“Goodbye, Tuna.”
Adam wandered through the quiet ship. He could smell his own body odor and he could smell the soap from Gen’s shower.
Eli slept peacefully. Adam watched from the doorway and felt he understood the true beauty of the Eden Project for the first time.
He found her asleep under the hot onslaught of clear, blue water. In her dreams she might have been dreaming of blue crystal waterfalls. Adam undressed to his shorts and entered the shower. He sat down on the floor and lifted the naked girl onto his knees.
She did not wake. He gently scrubbed the grime and filth and blood from a year of unmentionable horrors off her skinny body. He took the showerhead and sprayed clean the long, fresh gash on her calf muscle.
Gen woke to find Adam drying her hair with a towel. She noticed her leg had been bandaged and that she had a fresh gown on her body.
“I have some lemon tea brewing,” he said.
She touched his bare chest to feel his warmth. She moved closer to him to take in his eyes without any helmets between them.
“Lemon tea is nice,” she said, “but this is nicer.” She pulled herself up and hesitated just before kissing him.
He couldn’t wait. Adam attacked her lips with every last bit of passion still left in the species.
* * *
THE TERRA ROVER LANDED in a small clearing as dawn broke. The ship was surrounded on all sides by wild, tree-like plants. The doors of the ship stayed closed for 38 minutes before the ramp slid out and dug into the dark surface of the planet.
They descended without suits, without breathing apparatus. The temperature was hot. The boy wore no shirt. The girl wore only a simple white gown. The baby wore a light-blue diaper.
They stepped down onto the rich soil. The boy crouched to the ground and grabbed a handful of dirt. He smelled it and closed his eyes. The girl put her hand on his shoulder. He rose and they walked that way with the girl’s small hand lovingly on his back. The baby’s eyes were wide and his chubby face bright with discovery.
The three clean, fresh souls walked into the exotic forest listening to the unseen creatures singing songs to the morning Sun.
The girl smiled and took a deep breath. The boy glanced back. Maybe they had gone too far, he thought. They could barely see the ship and who knows what beasts gathered in the shadows.
The girl looked back, too, surprised how far they had come. They decided to take one more risk and walk deeper into the woods.
Eventually, all that could be seen behind them, through a small opening in the trees, was a single word painted on the side of their ship.
Eden.
FROM THE AUTHOR
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TRUMPET’S SONG
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