by Keary Taylor
West worked in the opposite corner, never looking up as he weeded in the potato patch. We had kept up a careful pattern of avoidance ever since I had discovered the notebook, barely uttering more than five words to each other.
I pulled a massive weed out of the patch of peas I was working on, and tossed it into a wheelbarrow. My eyes scanned the tree line for the fiftieth time since we had arrived. Even though all the scouting parties had found no signs of the Hunters, I felt uneasy. They had to still be out there somewhere. Hunters were persistent.
The afternoon shift arrived and I bolted out of the garden as soon as I handed my gloves off. I wasn’t ready to have to talk to West yet, I wasn’t sure what I should say or how I would even react. Apparently he wasn’t ready to talk to me either. That was just fine with me.
Upon arriving back at camp, I looked for Sarah. I’d had little chance to talk to her ever since she had gotten sick. I didn’t want her to feel like I was avoiding her.
Just as I was about step inside their tent, Avian came out, our bodies bumping into each other unexpectedly. His vivid blue eyes looked down at me, a small smile coming to his lips as he grabbed my shoulders to steady the both of us. A hint of a smile crept into the corner of my lips as well.
“Sorry,” I said. “I just came to see Sarah.”
“She’s inside resting,” he said as he withdrew his hands after a long hesitation. “She had another seizure a few minutes ago.”
“Is she going to be alright?” I asked, concern flooding through me.
“I think so,” he said as he smiled at me again, warmth spreading through his eyes.
“I’m not deaf, you know,” Sarah called from inside the tent. “And I’m still here.”
Avian chuckled, placing a hand on my arm again. “I’ve got to go. Victoria is having troubles with her foot again.”
“Bye,” I said as he walked away. As he did, I caught a glimpse of West before he ducked into his tent, causing my heart to jump into my throat for a moment. I wondered why my chest gave a strange squeeze.
The tent was dark as I entered, the air stuffy and warm.
“Tie it back, would you?” Sarah said through the darkness as I entered. “I think he’s trying to suffocate me. I feel like I’m living in a cave these days.”
I tied the flap of the tent back as she asked, light flooding the cramped space. Turning, I made my way to Avian’s bed and sat.
Sarah’s hair was tousled, her dark curls sticking out in every direction. Her eyes were reddened and tired looking.
“How are you feeling?” I asked, hoping she didn’t notice the way I scrutinized every inch of her.
“I’d be better if everyone would stop asking me that question,” she said with a tired tone.
“Everyone is concerned.”
“I know,” she sighed as she lay on her back. “I’m just tired of being the sick one. I’m as fine as I can be I guess. I’m handling it. Avian thinks this is something I’ll probably deal with the rest of my life.”
“There’s nothing he can do?” I asked, feeling suddenly sick.
“If he had access to an MRI machine, a pharmacy full of drugs, and a neurologist, maybe. But we just have to be careful now.”
“We can get drugs,” I said as I felt hope surge within. “I can go on another raid. I got the shots Avian needed before. If he tells me what you need I can get it.”
Sarah shook her head, a smile creeping onto her face. “He would never ask you to do that, to go into danger like that again.”
“He wouldn’t need to ask me. He didn’t need to ask me before,” I said as my brow furrowed, my blood boiling just a little.
“He wouldn’t tell you what to look for to prevent you from trying. You’re too important to him. It would destroy him if you were lost.”
An awkward silence hung in the after she stopped. Things were changing between Avian and I. I was confused. No one had ever behaved this way towards me before and I didn’t understand what I was even feeling.
“Don’t be angry with him for keeping the secret from you,” she said softly, her eyes hesitating to meet mine.
“You knew too?” I asked, my voice slightly accusing.
“No, but Avian told me after you came back. How are you handling that information?”
“The fact that I’m a robotic-human hybrid?” I said sarcastically. “Just great.”
“I’m serious, Eve.”
I didn’t say anything for a second as I looked down at my weathered hands. “I’m trying not to think about it too much. The fact that my shoulder has already healed up isn’t helping that much though.”
“He said you were hurt pretty badly.”
“You should see the scar,” I joked half-heartedly. “I didn’t feel anything. I didn’t even know it was there until West told me.”
I felt it before I even saw the sly grin that crept onto Sarah’s face. “Running off to the city with the new man in Eden, huh? Never would have pegged you for that type.”
“What?” I asked, suddenly feeling appalled. “What are you talking about? He just… came with me.”
“And you had no desire to get a little close and cozy along the way with a face and body like that?”
“I’m going to go now,” I said as I suddenly stood. “Take it easy.”
Sarah just chuckled as I stepped outside.
I shook my head as I started back for my tent. What was wrong with people? All anyone could seem to think about lately was holding hands, unexpected kisses, and getting ‘close and cozy’. We were in the middle of our struggle for survival. There wasn’t time for things like that.
Evening settled and the camp started to grow quiet. The stars seemed more intense than usual as they reflected off the surface of the lake. It looked like it could swallow everything up in the vastness of space.
I had tried to insist on taking the night guard but apparently Bill had already beaten me to it. A new watch tower had been erected and everything was nearly back to business as usual. With nothing else to do, I found myself around the fire with Avian and Sarah. Recalling Sarah’s comments earlier and my new resolve to not be distracted by anything or anyone, I had sat as far away from Avian as I could.
“Is Victoria alright?” Sarah asked as she pulled her blanket tighter around her shrinking frame.
“It’s just a small infection. It just needed a little cleaning out.”
I heard someone approach from behind me and turned to see West hesitantly approaching. “Do you mind if I join you?” he asked to no one in particular.
Avian just gave a nod.
With little elsewhere to sit, he sat just to the right of me. He was close enough I could smell the earthy scent of him.
“Have they seen any more signs of the Hunter?” Sarah asked. I was grateful for her insight and tactic to keep awkward silences away.
I shook my head. “Not since we left our last site.”
“Maybe they’re giving up,” she said as she stared into the flames.
“I doubt that,” Avian said as he stared at the fire.
“Will they ever?”
No one said anything for a moment. That was what we had all wondered for the last five years.
“It’s something in their engineering,” West suddenly spoke. “The infection craves more human flesh. It was designed to spread. It’s trying to reproduce more.”
“That’s why the Hunters keep looking,” Avian said, neither a statement nor a question exactly.
West nodded. “It’s looking to assimilate more.”
“What happens when there’s nothing left to assimilate?” I asked, feeling sick as I thought about what my question implied. That humanity would finally succumb.
“There would be no more Hunters,” Avian answered, his eyes staring into the fire as the wheels turned in his head.
“And then what?” I said, my brow furrowing. “What will happen then?”
“Whatever they’re standing and waiting around for,” West sa
id in a low voice. That statement hung in the air over our heads like a dark cloud. No one said it but we all wondered, what are they waiting for?
“There’s got to be a way to stop them,” Sarah said as she shook her head, again killing the silence. “Like making a large CDU. Why haven’t we done that, Avian?”
“We don’t have the resources,” he said as he too shook his head. I knew he’d thought about this idea before. We all had. “Everything we need is in the city. And we can’t just take it and bring it back here. We’d need massive amounts of electricity to make it work. And besides, none of us know how exactly the CDU even works, how it’s engineered. It’s some very complex technology.”
West shifted his position. His eyes flickered from Avian’s face, to mine, and back to Avian’s. I wondered what he was thinking. He remained quiet though.
“So basically, we’re all just waiting around to be infected,” Sarah said, her voice falling. “As long as there are still people out there, the Hunters will keep coming.”
“And we’ll keep fighting,” I said harshly, my tone coming out more sharply than I thought it would. “We’ll never give up.”
Sarah looked at me with cold eyes that surprised me. Without her even saying it, I knew what she was thinking. I didn’t have to worry about being infected. I was already immune by being part of them.
“Maybe we should all get some rest,” Avian said, feeling the tension that was building around the fire.
Without saying anything, Sarah stood and walked back inside the tent.
“Good-night,” Avian said as he gave me a small smile and then gave West a nod.
I stood, pushing my hands into my pockets as I stared into the fire. West stood too, and together we slowly walked away from Avian and Sarah’s tent.
The way West had shifted uncomfortably when the topic of creating a device to short out the Fallen stood out to me. He knew something he wasn’t sharing. I wasn’t going to pry it out of him just yet. Maybe he just needed a while to think about it before he would divulge what he knew. I wouldn’t wait too long though before I pressed.
“I want to look through the notebook,” I suddenly blurted out and stopped walking. West stopped walking too and I stood watching his back, my hands still pushed into my pockets against the cold.
He didn’t say anything for a while as he stood with his back to me. I could almost see the gears in his head turning as he considered my request and what it would mean.
Slowly he turned and took three steps toward me to close the gap. He stared into my eyes, intensity burning in his own. He reached his right hand into his jacket and pulled the tattered notebook out.
“Only read the parts that are in the middle,” he said, keeping his voice quiet. “Those are the pages about you. And don’t lose it. If you do…” he squeezed his eyes closed, his lips forming a thin line as he considered the horrifying possibility.
“I won’t,” I promised as I went to take it. West opened his eyes, holding on for another heavy moment before finally letting go.
“Good-night, West,” I said as I stared back into his eyes.
“Good-night, Eve,” he whispered. He brought a hand up to my cheek, softly brushing his thumb over it. It only lasted a moment, however, before he stepped away and ducked into his tent.
Armed with the answers to my past, with the keys to what made me what I was, I returned to my own.
ELEVEN
The ceiling seemed to flash images before my eyes as I lay awake in the dark. The notebook lay on my chest, my fingers clenching it tightly. I hadn’t been able to will myself to open it. All the things I couldn’t remember, all the dreams that haunted me, the answers were all inside and I couldn’t make myself look at them.
Why couldn’t they just be dreams? They were chilling but the fact that they were more than just dreams was terrifying. I squeezed my eyes closed as I remembered smelling the steel beneath me, of hearing the drill. Feeling my head and realizing all my hair had been shaved off. I remembered dreaming of running endlessly. Dreaming of a pair of earthy eyes watching me through an observation window. It was West, I knew that now. He had seen everything they had done to me. The only person I had actually known my whole life, and I couldn’t remember him.
I didn’t sleep that night. I just stared up at the ceiling, trying to dredge up memories I couldn’t recall, memories that were recorded by someone else’s hand on the pages I held.
Morning came, casting a grey hue to the space around me. I didn’t leave my tent, couldn’t make myself even get out of my bed. But it was one of those very rare days I didn’t have any duties.
As I heard Eden begin to stir, a plate of food was pushed under the flap of my tent and then I heard footsteps retreating. I reached for it, eating what was there without realizing what it even was.
The food in my system seemed to boost my commitment to unlock the past and I finally opened the pages.
West was right, the pages about me were located in the middle. The notes in the beginning of the notebook may as well have been written in another language. It was scientific and talked about a lot of different alloys, programming, words I didn’t understand. I could only guess that they were about the design for making me what I was.
The first entry was dated from when I would have been roughly four-years-old.
Test subject Eve has been observed for 1,128 days. She has shown optimal health, vitality, and intelligence. Procedure is scheduled for this coming Friday.
So there was my answer. They had been watching me since before I was even a year old. Had I been with my family before that? Had I even had one, ever? Maybe they had picked me out of an orphanage. They could have found me in a dumpster for all I knew.
The next entry was dated for two days after my surgery was supposed to take place.
Operation was a success as far as we can tell. Subject was sedated and Dr. Rothenberg assisted my son in the procedure. Chip was implanted and subject transferred to recovery room and is being closely observed. She is being sedated for the first three days and then we shall see what happens. Under normal circumstances, recovery could take up to a month, maybe longer. Vitals are showing signs of recovery already. Brain activity is steadily increasing.
What he didn’t know was that the sedation had taken longer than they had expected. I had relived that horrifying moment of paralyzation in my dreams. I had heard the sound of the drill, the feeling of being unable to move my limbs. Thankfully, I must have been finally pulled under before they drilled into the back of my skull. Or if I hadn’t, I didn’t remember that part.
Seven days later:
Subject began to awaken five days after surgery. Eve was sluggish at first, appearing confused and unsteady. Coordination was obviously thrown off. Things changed rapidly by the next day.
An assistant went to check on Eve and to give her the morning rations. Subject was startled awake and attacked the assistant. We heard the racket and opened the door to find Eve on top of the assistant, fingers gripped tightly around her neck. The assistant wasn’t breathing and her lips were turning blue. Upon seeing us enter the room, subject leapt at us, attacking with force far beyond what a four-year-old should be capable of. It took three of us to wrestle her onto the bed and secure her down.
Aggression was extreme for the next few days. We waited for things to even out. The fusion of the chip and the human brain is bound to be fought. The implant is placed in an area of the brain where emotion stems from. The brain is trying to attack itself, manifesting as aggression. Programming will be adjusted to fix the problem.
Problem. That was what my reaction to being altered was. It was a problem that I hadn’t liked what they had done to me, that I had tried to fight back.
“Eve? Are you alright?”
I jumped violently when I heard the voice from outside my tent.
“Yes, Gabriel,” I said, trying to steady my shaking voice. “I just needed some time to myself today.” Was I lying? What counted more as tim
e to yourself when you’re learning what happened to you in the past that you can’t remember?
He hesitated, catching my out-of-character response. “Okay,” he said, drawing out the word. “Let me know if you need anything.”
“Thank you,” I said, shrinking into my bed. I listened hard until I heard his footsteps fade away.
My hands were shaking as I looked back at the notebook. I suddenly felt like I had to keep this a secret, as much as West had felt he had to. I didn’t want anyone to know what was in here. The past it contained exposed what I was, what I was capable of. It exposed the fact that I wasn’t completely human.
But West had read it all. He knew everything that was written here. And he hadn’t been afraid of me. He hadn’t run away.
I shook my head. West was a distraction I couldn’t afford. I didn’t like to admit it, but that’s what he was. A distraction.
An entry from several months after the chip had been implanted:
Thus far the chip has been successful in overriding limitations as designed. Endurance has been increased. Exhaustion has been overruled. Tied to this is increased strength.
There has been talk about approaching military officials. This technology is something they have sought after for decades. We have created the potential for the perfect soldier in Eve. With an army that never tires, doesn’t feel pain, and is stronger and faster than everyone else, they would be unstoppable.
While I may have decreased morals I am unwilling to allow this to get out. Eve’s experimentation is a means to another end. Once the data needed has been collected, I shall move onto the next phase of the experiment. I will not allow the world to be destroyed with an army of beings like Eve. Surely it would be the end of humanity.