by Keary Taylor
I noticed something on the floor that didn’t belong and reached across the cramped space for it. It was a notebook, its edges tattered and frayed. As I opened to somewhere in the middle of it, evaluating its shape and size, I realized this was the thing West always carried on him.
I wasn’t one to invade another’s privacy and was about to close the notebook when some of the writing caught my eye.
Test subject Eve shows signs of extreme endurance. Block capabilities of chip X73I seems to be successful.
I read the line twice to be sure I had read it correctly.
Quickly, I glanced up at West to make sure he was still asleep. Suddenly I had to reevaluate everything I had ever known or thought about him.
Unable to keep from doing so, I turned my eyes back to the pages. I continued from the line I had started with.
Subject Eve was tested on treadmill for two hours straight with no indicators of tiredness. Vitals remained stable, peaking little during fastest speed. Tests have yielded same results for the past five days.
Eve continues to show lessened need for sleep. After close monitoring for the past four months, we have recorded subject sleeps for little more than five hours a night, at times less.
Tomorrow weight endurance testing will begin.
I stared at the scribbled words for a full two minutes when I came to the end of the page. My stomach knotted. I realized I had been holding my breath.
My eyes focused on the page again and I noted the date written in the top right corner. I would have been roughly five years old at the time.
I flipped through the pages, seeing words and equations and endless things I couldn’t comprehend, but taking nothing in really. All I saw was my name. Subject Eve, tests done on Eve, problems with Eve.
“What are you doing?!”
The notebook was suddenly ripped out of my hands and I looked up to see West glaring at me with burning eyes.
“What is that?” I asked as I stared with wide eyes at the notebook in his hand. “Where did you get it?”
He didn’t say anything for a second, just continued to look at me, his expression softening. I could see the internal debate going on in his head.
“Don’t you dare lie to me, West,” I said, my voice cold and sharp as ice. “I will hurt you if you lie to me.” I would have surprised myself, the seriousness of my threat, if I hadn’t meant it so gravely.
He continued to look at me for a minute. I didn’t expect to see all the emotions that played through his eyes: fear, agony, regret, among other things I wasn’t so sure about.
“I told you my grandfather was a scientist,” he said, his voice hoarse sounding. “Those are his notes. About a third of them are about you.”
I couldn’t make my throat form my loss of words. My chest felt oddly hard as West confirmed what I had already known.
“He experimented on me,” I finally managed. “For how long?”
“I remember you always being there. Maybe since you were a baby.” I had never seen West look so hesitant and so vulnerable as he did when he said those words.
“You remember me?” I said slowly, never breaking my eyes away from his.
“Like I told you, my grandfather was the scientist. My father was the doctor who monitored you. We lived at the testing facility. On rare occasions they would let us play together,” his voice trembled a little as he spoke.
“I don’t remember you,” I forced my voice out. “I don’t remember any of it.”
“Someone released you after the infection started. They probably wiped your memory.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked, my voice suddenly shaking with rage. “Why didn’t you tell me right away? I had no idea who I was, but you knew!”
“I wasn’t sure,” he said, the tone of his voice picking up with defense. “It’s been five years since I’ve seen you, Eve! I had thought you must have died a long time ago! It wasn’t easy for me to think you were dead. You were my best friend! My only friend!”
I glared at West. I wished he hadn’t said that. I wanted to be angry with him. I wanted to throw him out and to tell him to leave Eden and never come back. But a part of me wondered if what he was saying was the truth. Maybe West had been my friend at one time. But I couldn’t remember any of it.
“I trusted you,” I whispered as I glared at him. “You should have told me sooner. Were you ever going to tell me?”
He was quiet for a second as he looked back at me. “I don’t know.”
“Well at least you’re being honest about that,” I said coldly. “You should leave now. I have to get ready to move.”
“Eve, I’m…”
“Get out!” I shouted, cutting him off.
He stood and went to the flap of the tent. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly as he walked out.
Attempting to keep myself from doing something violent, I quickly set to packing my things. Everything I owned would fit into one bag.
I had just finished putting my clothes into the bag when the flap of the tent was pushed aside. Avian stood there, his expression open, waiting for me to attack him again. I wasn’t sure what to say so I just kept gathering all of my things.
“Sarah told me to come get her things. She’s strong enough now we can move her. Those allergy pills are what finally did it I think.”
I just gave a nod as I rolled the bear hide up, vowing to give it back to West later. I suddenly didn’t want it.
Avian set to gathering Sarah’s belongings and stuffing them in a bag the same way I did. Within a few minutes we had everything cleared out of the tent.
“I can get this myself,” I said as we stepped out and Avian started taking down the tent.
“I know,” he said simply as he untied a tether.
We worked quietly as the tent came down. We then packed the poles into their bag and set to rolling the canvas up.
“We wanted to thank you for what you did,” Avian said as he worked at my side. “I wanted to thank you. It was incredibly dangerous but you did it anyway.”
I just gave a nod as I held the bag open and Avian slid the bulk of the tent in. I tied the opening after the poles went in and set it on the ground.
“The wagon should be back in just a few minutes,” Avian said as he looked out to the east. “Sarah went this morning with Bill. West set out on his own a little bit ago. It’s just the two of us now and our things.”
I gave a nod and allowed Avian to help me carry the three bags that had once been Sarah and I’s tent toward the pile that was his belongings and the medical supplies and tent.
“I don’t want you to be angry at me forever,” Avian said as we stood there, side by side. “You have no idea how many times I wanted to tell you, how many times I knew I should have told you. I’m sorry, Eve. It was wrong.
I gave another nod, as close as I could make myself get to accepting his apology at the moment. We then heard the sound of the wagon rumbling through the trees towards us.
There had been two horses kept in Eden, until about eight months ago. The older of the two had broken its leg and, unable to take care of the animal, Gabriel had to put him down. We managed with the smaller wagon with just one horse.
A woman by the name of Morgan and her husband Eli, drove the wagon and helped us to load our things into the small space. With everything that had to be hauled there was no room for anything else. Avian and I would be walking.
That was fine with me. I would have walked anyway.
Little was said as we finished loading. The couple told us that no signs of the hunters had been seen and that the new location for Eden was wonderful, located right next to a lake. Everyone was getting settled in just fine.
The wagon made good pace as we let them go ahead of us, and it didn’t take long before it was out of sight, leaving Avian and I alone.
“He knew who I was,” I suddenly said as we walked through the trees. “West, he knew me before I came here. His grandfather experimented on me. He’s the
reason I can do the things I can do.”
“He told you this?” Avian asked, his brow furrowed.
I shook my head. “No, I found a notebook filled with the things he did to me. West said I had been at this facility for as long as he could remember. Possibly since I was a baby. He told me we used to play together as children sometimes.”
“I have a hard time imagining you playing anything,” Avian said. I noticed a smile was tugging on his lips.
“I can’t imagine I was very good at it.”
A chuckle suddenly broke from Avian’s chest. I couldn’t help smiling too.
We walked quietly for a while. I sensed how relaxed Avian was. I wondered how it felt. I never felt relaxed. My ears listened to the sounds of the woods around us, searching for any sign of alert. My eyes scanned the trees. I even smelled at the air, being alert for any scent of exhaust from an ATV or a helicopter.
I kept the handgun West had given back to me tucked into the back of my pants. I was ready to pull it out at any moment and unload it, grab Avian, and run for our lives.
Despite Avian’s relaxed stance, I had little doubt the bulky bag he had on his back contained the CDU. He wasn’t coming out into these woods unprepared either.
“Why did you ask Graye to get the necklace for me?” I asked, glancing over at his face.
Avian hesitated for a few moments. “I wanted you to have something special for your birthday,” he said as he looked at me briefly. I noted the way he stiffened slightly. “I thought you should have something a woman would normally have. I hoped you would like it.”
I looked away from him, fixing my eyes on the trail. I couldn’t think of anything that seemed less fit for me as a gift. I’d never owned any other piece of jewelry nor had I ever had the desire to own any.
“You shouldn’t have asked him to,” I said quietly. “It wasn’t worth it.”
“I know,” he answered me even more quietly.
Regret for my words seeped into me. Tye’s death had been hardest on Avian and I kept bringing it up. Now I was pointing it out that in a way it had been his fault he was dead.
Not really even knowing what I was doing, I reached over and took Avian’s hand in mine. He squeezed my fingers, his shoulder brushing mine.
“There are getting to be fewer of them you know,” Avian said after a few moments. “The Hunters. Right after the infection started and people stopped being people, there were thousands of them. It was all too easy for them to turn others. We didn’t understand what was happening at first. The base where I was stationed in what used to be Texas was flooded with them. I don’t know how I escaped. But as more and more people became infected, Fallen who used to be Hunters stopped hunting. There aren’t that many more of them left now.”
“They just stand there, you know,” I said as I recalled the haunting scene. “Like they’re waiting for something. Just standing there inside, watching the world crumble outside.”
“I didn’t know that,” he said, his brow furrowing. I then realized he wouldn’t have known. After rescuing Sarah, Avian had come here and he never left. We couldn’t afford for him to leave. He was too needed in Eden.
I was glad it wasn’t me. That would have felt too much like being a prisoner. I wasn’t the only one that felt like I had the weight of Eden resting on my shoulders. We wouldn’t have survived without Avian, just as they wouldn’t have survived without me.
“I was out of my mind,” Avian said, his voice tight as he looked down at his feet. “When you left. I didn’t know what happened to you, what was going to happen to you. You’re tough, but you’re not indestructible. If it hadn’t have been for Sarah I would have come after you.”
“You can’t do that,” I said as I furrowed my brows, looking back up at him. “They need you here.” And there I was, making him a prisoner of Eden again.
Avian slowed, pulling me to a stop with him, our hands still clasped together. “Don’t do that again, Eve. Don’t run off on me.”
I looked up into Avian’s face, surprised at the intensity that burned in his eyes. His face was closer than I had expected it to be. I took a sharp breath in as I recalled the feeling of West crushing his lips to mine. This was different though. This was Avian. He wouldn’t do it that way.
“I’ll do what I have to,” I finally managed to say. My heart was pounding in my chest in a way that was foreign to me. “I’ll protect them all till the day I don’t have any more fight in me.”
He continued to look at me for a long, intense moment. He brought his other hand and softly brushed a thumb across my cheek. My skin tingled as his hand went back to his side. He started walking back down the path, my hand still in his.
“Tell me what it was like, what it would have been like, if the world hadn’t fallen apart,” I said, moving on when I wasn’t sure how to handle Avian’s intensity or the intensity that was building up inside of me. “What would my life have been like right now, if I wasn’t a cybernetic human hybrid?”
That brought a sad little smile to his face. “Let’s see, it’s early May. You would have been a senior in high school. You’d be dying to get out of school. The last few months of your senior year are agony. All you want is for it to be over.
“Prom would probably be around this time. You would have had a dozen different guys ask you to go with them. You would have had your pick.”
“What’s prom?” I asked.
Avian chuckled. “It’s a dance. It’s probably the biggest event of the school year. Girls buy fancy dresses and guys wear tuxedos. People rent fancy cars and pick up their dates. Then they go to the dance and just have fun.”
The things Avian told me about seemed so foreign. It was like he was reading to me out of a fairy tale book and I barely even understood the terminology he used. I would never go to a prom.
“You might have had a boyfriend. The two of you would go out on special outings, just the two of you or with friends. You might try and sneak out of your parent’s house to try and see him. Boys always get girls into trouble.”
“I can’t imagine you getting me into trouble,” I said as I glanced over at him. “Is that how you were?”
Avian gave a little chuckle and looked at the ground. “I was the guy that couldn’t get up the nerve to ask the girl I wanted out. I would have stayed home by myself, burying my head in my latest health or medical book.
“I would have wanted to ask you but you would have said no.”
I looked over at Avian and really looked at him. He was tall, at least six feet. He wasn’t built as big as Bill was, but he wasn’t small. He had the lean frame of a man who worked hard and had lived on a rations diet for the last six years. His dark short hair accented the tanned color of his skin, his surprisingly blue eyes piercing. “I highly doubt that.”
He smiled at me and squeezed my hand.
“Problem would have been that while you would still be in high school, I would have still been in the Army, hopefully going through real medical school. People wouldn’t have liked the age difference. You would have barely even been legal.”
I gave a little chuckle.
I considered what I might have been like if I hadn’t grown up the way I did. I was as mature as any of the other women in Eden. They didn’t look down on me and I didn’t consider any of the others superior to myself. But maybe if I hadn’t been experimented on and grown up in a world of running and raids I wouldn’t have been that way. Maybe all I would have cared about would have been jewelry and what boy was asking me to the prom or what dress I was going to wear.
The world we lived in made me grow up. I didn’t know what it was like to be a real teenager.
We walked at a swift pace for another two hours before signs of life were detected. I glanced at Avian who gave me a weak smile, the smile of knowing the tiring endless work that was before the both of us. I returned his smile, let go of his hand, and went to help reassemble Eden.
TEN
With as little as we possessed
these days it didn’t take long to put everything back together. Everyone helped everyone, no one was left in distress about what needed to be done. We were a family, a unit that worked as one.
Things were different though. With Sarah’s newfound medical condition, she had moved into Avian’s tent permanently. The seizures were infrequent but happened enough that Avian insisted. I was on my own now.
Avian and Gabriel’s tents were always placed close together since, in a way, they were the leaders of Eden. I would have set up my tent next to theirs, but when I realized West had set up not far from their tents, I assembled mine on the farthest edge of the clearing. Forgiveness wasn’t one of my stronger traits.
Our new location was as beautiful as Morgan had said. The lake was crystal clear, the sunlight dazzling as it danced upon its surface. A clearing to the side of it provided the perfect place to set up camp. It was also a perfect defense location. Should any of the Hunters find us here, we could all head into the water where they couldn’t follow. As long as they didn’t start shooting.
It was, however, much further from the gardens. As I walked to the gardens for my shift the first morning, I figured it took me at least forty-five minutes. But by a week later we were all used to it and made the trek without complaint. The fact that the garden was starting to yield early crops helped that.
The sun shone down on us as we worked on the rows of vegetables, the temperature rising slowly. It was always hard, having to move locations but it was difficult to complain considering how the weather was warming and the perfectness of the new location.
Graye worked silently two rows behind me. We had talked little since I realized what he had done for Avian. In a strange way, I felt like I should apologize to him but at the same time, it wasn’t me that had asked him to grab the necklace.
Terrif directed people soundlessly as to the areas they should work on. I could tell he was getting flustered with Wix who had pulled up a section of carrots, thinking they were weeds. It was hard to stay mad at him though when he started eating the green stems as a way of apology.