EVO Nation: EVO Nation Series: Book One (science fiction/ urban fantasy)

by K. J. Chapman

  Every sense and thought becomes alert and focussed. The memory of the cove suddenly rings in the forefront of my mind. Where am I? I attempt to lift my hands, but they won’t budge; cold, metal encases my wrists and ankles. A terror like nothing I’ve felt before claws at my chest.

  “Relax, Teddie. You’re not in any danger. You must calm down,” says a quiet, female voice.

  “What are you doing to me?” I ask. It is barely more than a whisper.

  The woman comes into focus. Her long, austere face is emphasised by a tight braid spiralled on top of her head. She looks older than she sounds, possibly early forties, and although she is smiling, she isn’t smiling with her eyes. A panic washes over me. The more the sedation wears off, the clearer my thoughts become.

  “You’re at Facility One, Teddie. I’m Dr Yvette Simmons and this is TORO 61. I work for Dr Roscoe. You must feel groggy. You’ve had a long journey from Cornwall.”

  Hearing Roscoe’s name puts the fear of god in me. Trying to sit up again with little result, I turn my head to survey the room, expecting to see Roscoe. Instead, one of the men in grey stands a few feet away. ‘TORO 61’ is stamped in bold, black lettering across his chest. He is over 6ft with an intimidating frame. A helmet covers the majority of his face, and his mouth and jaw are set in a hard grimace. Thoughts of Dad fill my head.

  “You killed my Dad!” I scream.

  Dr Simmons looks confused and glances to a mirror at the far end of the room. “Everything is fine, Teddie. No need to worry.”

  “You killed him!” I scream again, fighting harder against the restraints.

  “Rob Leason killed three men with a bazooka last night,” says a voice from a speaker in the ceiling above the bed. It is male and patronising. “We had to take the appropriate action.”

  “You shot him first. He was protecting me.”

  “If he wanted to protect you he would have turned you over to me. We’re not here to hurt you, Teddie. Are you aware that you bought down a chopper and killed two of my soldiers yesterday? You are a threat to national security, and we have acquired and detained you here by order of the Government.” The voice must belong to Roscoe.

  “Liar! You’re a liar!” I spit.

  Dr Simmons anxiously looks to the mirror again. Roscoe is out there watching me. The realisation forces bile into my mouth.

  Dr Simmons’ hand rests beside my own and I grab it tightly, “Keep him away from me! Please, get me out of here. He killed my Dad.” I beg.

  She struggles to free herself, and the man in grey steps forward, prizing my fingers apart and almost breaking them in the process. Up close his face is visible through the helmet. He is in his early twenties with light brown skin. He looks at me, but he doesn’t really look at me. He has an inhuman feel about him.

  A familiar, powerful surge bubbles up in my chest again, and all the hairs on my body stand on end. The bed starts to shake and for the first time I don’t try to hold it back. The woman, Dr Simmons, looks at me terrified as she steps behind TORO 61.

  “Teddie, try to control yourself,” says Roscoe’s voice again. “We don’t need any more fatalities.”

  I want to see his face, to look in his eyes as he speaks. I want to hurt him just like he hurt Dad. As I think it, the force in my chest tightens and the bed shakes violently. I can’t control it; it’s passed the point of no return.

  Dr Simmons stumbles away. “Please, we’re not going to harm you,” she pleads.

  “Leave,” I scream at her. “Get out of here.”

  The TORO places his hands on my chest, using his full weight to pin me to the bed. It is pointless; his touch only serves to fuel my fear. Everything and everyone rises six feet off the floor. The bed floats into a vertical position and I hang painfully against the restraints.

  Dr Simmons lets out a deafening scream. The shrill sound goes through me like nails on a blackboard, and as if reflecting my thoughts, the mirror shatters inwards, sending shards flying into the room. Roscoe is stood there with a hideous, hungry glint in his beady eyes, and I want to wipe the smug look off of his fat, mottled face.

  “Alan!” screams Dr Simmons, as she hangs suspended in a sea of glass. “Alan, please!”

  Roscoe begrudgingly looks away from me to press something on the tablet in his hands, and a sharp pain pierces my neck. Everything in the room soars into the ceiling, smashing back down to the floor in an instant. The bed fully upturns, the weight of it pinning me to the ground. TORO 61 is unmoving, and Dr Simmons lies right beside me with her face smeared in blood. She’s sobbing, and I feel sick with guilt.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper as darkness beckons for a third time.

  ***

  Roscoe slaps me awake; his putrid breath feels hot against my cheek. TORO 61 stands beside him looking no worse for wear, but the woman, Dr Simmons, isn’t here. My second round of sedation has left me listless and heavy. I think it’s still the same day as Roscoe is wearing the same navy blue suit he was wearing when I woke the first time.

  “Now, let me tell you how it’s going to be in my house,” he says. “You are in my facility and you are going to comply with my rules. If I tell you to jump, you jump as damn high and as damn far as you can. If you don’t, I will make sure that every day you wake up will be a day you wish you hadn’t.”

  “You can’t do this,” I spit back at him. I tense my wrists against the restraints, hoping they’d come free and allow me to gouge at him.

  An evil grin stretches across his face making his eyes look like piss holes in the snow. “Oh, I can and you better get used to it. Do you think you can kill my men and get away with it? Not only are you a freak of nature, Telekin, you’re a murderer and at just eighteen, now that’s quite something. Do as you’re told, cause me no trouble, and we’ll get along fine,” he says, opening the door.

  If he thinks I will feel guilty for his men who were only at the cove to kill Dad and bring me in, then he can think again. Their blood is on his hands not mine.

  “I won’t do anything for you. You killed my Dad!” I scream. If I could get at him, I would spit on him.

  “Hmmm, I don’t recall killing anyone,” he says, smiling.

  “Getting others to do your dirty work doesn’t make you any less of a killer. It just makes you a coward with it.”

  He runs back into the room and grips my face in his hand. TORO 61 doesn’t look to move. Roscoe’s lips part as if he wants to say something, but he just throws my face aside and strides out of the door.

  I cry deep sobs of grief, anger, and self-pity. Why is this happening to me?

  TORO 61 slowly and methodically removes the restraints, and once he is finished he stands motionless, just staring at me. “You are free to move around now,” he says. He has a British accent, but there is nothing natural about the way he talks or moves.

  As he drags me to a sitting position, the colour red fills my vision. It drives my memories back to Dad’s blood soaked shirt. I have been dressed in red hospital scrubs. Did he dress me? My ribs and back ache and I stifle a moan. I lift my top to see bruising over the majority of my torso. The impact of the bed has done some damage.

  “Were you at the cove last night?” I ask him, but he says nothing. “Did you kill my Dad?” I ask again. Still he says nothing. “Answer me! Was it you who killed him?”

  He stares through dull eyes. Not dull in colour, but in life. The unusual light green hews that on anybody else would be vibrant and attractive, are all but dead. “No,” he states.

  I accept him at face value. He doesn’t look like he’d deny killing anyone if he was guilty. I doubt guilt affects him much.

  “What is this place?”

  “Facility One.” He doesn’t offer any more explanation. Picking up the restraints, he locks them in a small locker in the corner of the room.

  I regain composure somewhat and flex my wrists and ankles. My head will not clear fully from the sedation. “You forgot this,” I say, pointing to a metal device fastened aroun
d my neck.

  He looks over, but continues with what he was doing. “You will wear the collar at all times,” he says. “It will read your kinetic energy output and if it rises the collar will sedate you.”

  “Sedate me?”

  “Yes. It has been activated for the safety of the personnel at Facility One,” he says. “This room is your accommodation. You will sleep here and eat here except for breakfast, when you will accompany the other EVO at the canteen.”

  “What is an EVO?”

  “You are EVO,” he says. “Breakfast will be served in two hours.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  TORO 61 enters the room without knocking. I have not moved from the position he left me in on the bed. My head swims with questions and an unbelievable amount of fear.

  He hands me a toiletry set and a hairbrush. “Bring that with you to the canteen. I will escort you to the shower block after breakfast.”

  Gripping me by the arm, he leads me out of the room and down a starkly lit corridor. The walls have a grim look of bare concrete, and my feet ache from the cold flooring. The air is bitter and feels a little damp.

  Quiet murmurs drift out of the open canteen door. The room is small with three picnic benches of stainless steel. TORO 61 drags me forward as five sets of eyes turn in our direction. A woman and a middle aged man sit on one table that is separated from the other tables by metal caging. Two younger men and a woman sit at the other table. All of them wear the same red scrubs that I wear.

  TORO 61 takes me to a food trolley that holds nothing more on it than a vat of porridge and a pan of scrambled eggs. The dishes are all plastic, even the cutlery. Although I’m not hungry, I scoop some porridge into a dish and pour out a beaker of water. Then, TORO 61 leads me to the vacant table by the door.

  “Hey, TORO, the new girl can sit with us,” says a loud, male voice.

  TORO 61 shoves me down beside a skinny guy with wavy, blonde hair, and steps into line with three other TORO along the far side of the room. His eyes stare straight ahead, looking at nothing. What is going on behind those eyes?

  The blonde guy wipes my side of the table clean with a napkin. His hands are in weird chainmail gloves held in place by thick metal cuffs. “I’m Golding Kersey, and you are?” he says, grinning.

  “Teddie Leason.”

  “Teddie, really?” he sniggers. “Your name is Teddie?”

  “Yes,” I say with annoyance. “Yes, Golding, my name is Teddie.”

  “Okay, okay fair play. This is Yana Adamenko and Haydn Smith.”

  The pair sitting across from us mutters their hellos. They both wear the same metal collars as me and the same dire expressions on their faces. I don’t want conversation. Yes, I have questions, but I’m not entirely sure that I can cope with the answers at this moment. Although everyone else is subdued, Golding isn’t going to let me eat in peace.

  “Those two miseries in there are Trina and Leon.” Golding continues.

  Trina and Leon don’t speak, but Trina forces a smile.

  Golding scoffs at them. “As you can see they’re the life and soul. So, what are you in for?”

  “Sorry?” I ask him, confused.

  “Well, you’re EVO ain’t you? What ability have you got that has given Roscoe a boner this time? It looks like he had a hard time ‘acquiring’ you.” He says it just like Roscoe, and taps a bruise on my forehead.

  Yana and Haydn look over eagerly. Trina and Leon pretend not to be listening, although, both have stopped chewing. I hate being the centre of attention and my palms become instantly sweaty.

  “He called me a Telekin,” I say.

  Golding raises his eyebrows. “Nice one. I’m an Influencer- the power of persuasion and all that. Haydn is a –”

  “Technokin. I can manipulate technology.” Haydn butts in. He is a giant of a man and towers over Yana even in a sitting position. His mousy hair is cut short, and there is a look of Prince Charming about him- Prince Charming with big ears. “You better eat that; we only get fifteen minutes for breakfast.”

  I take a spoonful of tasteless porridge. Haydn gives me a satisfied nod much like a father would, much like my Dad would have done. My heart is breaking.

  “And I’m a Hydrokin,” says Yana. “I can control water- only water though, it’s not as good as a Telekin. How old are you?”

  She has a small but friendly smile, and her girly face, alongside her short blonde hair, has an imp like look about it. Her accent is Swedish.

  “Eighteen.”

  “I’m nineteen,” she says. “These two are twenty. It’ll be nice to have a girl to talk to.”

  I glance in Trina’s direction and it doesn’t go unnoticed. Trina has to be mid-twenties at the most, and her long brown hair is tied in two neat braids.

  “The grade ones stick to their own. We’re grade two,” Yana whispers, even though the other table is just feet away and can still hear every word.

  “What are their abilities?” I ask. I’m not one to whisper about anyone, so I don’t mask my words. I look to Trina and Leon, inviting them to answer me, but they both look back to their bowls.

  Yana shrugs. “Something non- threatening I suppose. You know, super-human hearing or something silly. That’s why they’re only grade ones.”

  “Yeah, I think we intimidate them. Must be hard feeling so inadequate,” sneers Golding.

  Leon tuts and carries on with his porridge.

  “Golding!” Haydn scolds.

  “What? They treat this place like it is a bloody holiday park. They don’t have TORO following them around like we do. They don’t even need collars.”

  “Neither do you,” says Haydn.

  “No, I have to wear these bloody things.” Golding waves his hands in the air.

  I have to admit that the collars do seem the lesser of two evils. I could ask why he wears them, but I could not care less right now. Pushing my half eaten porridge aside, I prepare myself for the question I really want to ask. “What do they do to you here?”

  “What, you mean other than imprison us and force us to eat slop?” says Golding.

  His sarcasm grates on me. I’m already edgy enough.

  “They research us,” says Haydn, his face holding a dark, serious expression. “It’s brain scans and blood tests mainly.”

  “And they test our abilities,” Yana adds. “Don’t worry. As long as you keep your head down and do what they want, then you’ll be fine. Once they get what they want from us they’ll have to let us go, right?” She looks to Golding and Haydn with wide, imploring eyes, but neither of them looks up from their food.

  “They took me against my will, imprisoned me here by ‘order of the government’, and murdered my Dad in front of my eyes. They won’t be letting us go,” I say.

  The words don’t sound like mine, but they are true. Yana’s eyes glisten with tears at my outburst, and a small bell rings in the canteen to announce the end of breakfast. Each of us is escorted out of the canteen by our TORO.

  ***

  The shower room is communal with an unkempt locker room feel. Each shower head has a curtain on runners that pulls around it in a circle. Just like in the canteen, two are separated by metal caging, and Trina and Leon enter through a different door on the grade one side.

  The toiletry bag holds nothing more than a flannel, a bottle of two in one body and hair wash, toothpaste, and a toothbrush. TORO 61 offers me the use of a razor on the condition that he watches me use it. I refuse; glad to be a red head and not particularly hairy. I can easily last another week before that indignity.

  I undress and stand under the stream. It is hot and hot is good. I find it difficult to wash my hair with the one hand, but it hurts like hell to lift the other above shoulder level. I attempt to rinse the soap out of my hair as Golding’s head pops around the curtain.

  “Jesus Christ!” I shout, pulling the curtain around my body to cover my nakedness.

  “No need to be modest. It’s nothing I ain’t seen before,” he
says, smirking. “Shit the bed, you really did have a going over.” His eyes glance over my bruises.

  “Get lost you perve!” I pull the curtain in front of his face.

  He swats it back again. “Chill out. You’re barking up the wrong tree there,” he says, smiling. “I’ve just one question. What you said before- did they really kill your Dad?” For a moment sincerity flickers in his eyes.

  “He was trying to protect me and they shot him... twice.” A sob catches in my throat, and a deflated look replaces his sincere one.

  “And your Mum?” he asks.

  My Dad’s voice pierces my mind. ‘Your mother has betrayed you, and now you’re in danger’.

  “I think she was the one who called Roscoe.”

  “Ouch,” he says. “I hope my family is alright.” His head disappears back into his own cubical.

  I grab a towel from the rail. “I wouldn’t count on it,” I whisper to myself.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  TORO 61 stands right outside the cubicle and I bump into him on the way out, dropping my toiletry bag, but keeping a grip on my towel. He stares at me much like a sleepwalker would- it’s unnerving.

  “You will find a new set of scrubs and under garments on the rail every day. Just look for your ID, EVO 6, and put your dirty laundry in the white basket.”

  I pick up some scrubs from the EVO 6 hanger with the towel tucked tightly around me. Yana is already getting dressed. She goes topless, but neither Haydn nor Golding bothers to look. The collar looks clumsy and big against her sparrow like neck. I twist my neck in my own collar and feel it stick against my damp skin.

  “Do you need some?” she asks, offering a bottle of talc. She doesn’t make eye contact fully. It is the first time she has spoken since we left the canteen. “They don’t include it in the toiletry kits, but Dr Simmons gave me some to stop the chaffing.”