The Eve (The Eden Trilogy) (11 page)

Bill slammed on the breaks and our tires rode on top of the water on the road for a moment before splashing to a stop.

Standing in the middle of the freeway were two women.  Both with very large assault rifles pointed at us.

Dr. Evans suddenly chuckled and shook his head.  “Oh, this is just precious.”

The two women kept their firearms leveled at us as they crept forward.

“Open the doors!” one of them yelled, tapping her firearm on the door just to the side of West.

He glanced over at the rest of us, unsure of what to do.  “Is she serious?” he said, his brows furrowed together in disbelief.

“Firearms ready,” I said, steadying my own gun in the direction of the door.  Everyone else pointed their own assorted weapons at the door.  I nodded to West.  “Open it.”

West placed his hand on the handle of the door and shoved it open.  As soon as the two women saw what was waiting for them, they dropped their weapons and held their hands up.

“Don’t shoot,” the same one who had spoken before said, shaking her head.  “We were just looking for some food and were surprised to see anyone else on the road.”

“What are you doing so close to the city?” I asked, still not relaxing my M16.  “There’s got to be hundreds of thousands of Bane just at your backs.”

The same woman, the one with the matted blonde hair that was pulled back in a messy bun at the top of her head, spoke.  “I don’t know about that.  I mean, I’m sure there are some.  But it looks like most of the city has burned down.”

“Burned down?” I said, my brows pulling together.  “Who’s left to bother?”

The woman shrugged, shaking her head.

“Might not have been anyone,” West said, his eyes turning toward the city as he lowered his weapon slightly.

“Could have been lightning,” Dr. Evans said.

And as soon as he spoke, the women took one look at him, screamed, and scrambled for their firearms.

“Wait!” all four of us shouted at the same time.  West leapt from the van, tugging their firearms from their hands.  The woman who had yet to speak swung at him and tried once again to recover her firearm.

She started shouting and screaming in a language I didn’t recognize.

“What are you doing driving around with one of them?!” the blond woman said, her eyes wild as she backed away from the vehicle.

“He’s safe,” West said, handing their firearms back to me.  He then held his hands up to show he wouldn’t hurt them and slowly started walking toward them.  “He’s not quite like the others.  He will infect you if he touches you, yes, but he still has his humanity.  He won’t hurt anyone.”

Both the women shook their heads, but they stopped their retreat.

“Not possible,” the blond one said.

Cracking his window just a tiny bit, because it was still raining, and he was mostly Bane after all, Dr. Evans looked out at them.  “I can assure you that it is indeed possible.”

“How does it talk?!” the woman shouted, nearly jumping out of her skin.  The other woman shouted words I didn’t understand.

It took a very long time to explain it all—how exactly Dr. Evans had kept his humanity, how he was different from the others.  Neither of them would come any closer to the vehicle and in the end, it was Avian and I who climbed out to talk to them.

“This seems crazy,” the blond one said.  “But I guess I can’t deny what I’m seeing with my own eyes.”

“What are your names?” Avian asked, wiping the rain out of his eyes.  We were all completely soaked by this point.

“Susan,” the blond woman said.  She was thin, the same body as the rest of us survivors had.  She looked to be in her mid-thirties.  She wore a thick winter coat covered by an enormous rain slicker.  She sported a large hiking pack.  “This here is Karmen, but she doesn’t really speak any English.  Just Spanish.”

Karmen looked younger than Susan, maybe twenty-eight.  Her hair was cut short, but in a way that still looked feminine.  She was also shorter than Susan and more petite.

“Where are you from?” Avian asked, folding his arms across his chest.  Avian had always seemed too quick to relax and trust.  He’d slung his rifle over his shoulder just after we climbed out of the van.

“Wyoming,” Susan said.  “My husband and I owned a ranch up there.  We were fine until about seven months ago.  My husband’s gone now.”  Her voice faltered for a moment, but her body showed determination and resolve.  This was a woman built to survive.  “I’d just returned to my house after burying him when I found Karmen in my barn.”

“What are you doing clear down here then?” I asked, my eyes scanning the roads behind her.  I had no way of knowing they were alone.  They very well could have more of them watching us, ready to commandeer our vehicle the moment we let our guard down.

“There’s no one else with us,” Susan said, suddenly tensing.  I realized then that I’d raised my rifle again and was pointing it at her lower belly.  “It’s just us.”

Scanning the road and the broken down vehicles again, I lowered it just slightly.  Susan eyed me warily for a few more moments before answering my question.

“About two months ago, we had the radio on,” she said.  “I’ve been checking it every few weeks, just to see if anything comes up.  Imagine my surprise when I heard a message saying Los Angeles had been cleared and that they were offering shelter and protection.”

The smile on Avian’s face was immediate.  “That’s where we’re from,” he said, nodding in my direction.  “It was Royce, our sort of military leader, who recorded the message.”

Susan’s face was suddenly filled with a mix of emotion.  First unbelief, then hope, then uncertainty.  “So it’s true?  There really are more people out there?  In the middle of such a huge city?”

Avian nodded as the comforting smile spread on his face.  “It’s true.  There are just over one hundred and sixty of us there.”

A laugh suddenly bubbled out of Susan’s throat and she threw her arms around Avian.  Her sudden movement caught me off guard, and I reflexively raised my rifle back to her.  Karmen started yelling at me in Spanish and I lowered it again.  Susan immediately released Avian.

“I’m sorry,” she said, still laughing and smiling.  “It’s just…wow.  I couldn’t really believe it was real, but I knew I had to try.”

“If we’re staying for a while, should we set up tents so you all don’t drown?” West called from the van.

“Doesn’t look like the sun is going to break any time soon,” I called back to him.  “May as well pull two of them out!”

West nodded and he and Bill set to setting two of them up.

By the time they were erected, the six of us were completely soaked.  Dr. Evans couldn’t step outside of the van without getting shorted out, so he stayed in the van with Morgan.  It was better that way.  Susan and Karmen were still terrified of him.

I couldn’t blame them.

“So if you all are from this New Eden,” Susan said once we were settled inside and drying off.  “Why are you out here?  Why are you leaving the safe zone?”

We each looked at one another, all of us unsure of what to disclose.  Finally, they turned to me, as if to say it was my call on how much to reveal.

“We’re on a mission, if you will,” I said, feeling uncomfortable.  I had always been a leader, but being
the
leader was going to take some getting used to.  “We think we might have a chance to fix things.  We’re investigating that.”

“Fix things?” Susan said, her brow furrowing.  “What do you mean by that?”

I shook my head, already wishing I hadn’t said anything.  “We can’t say too much, but we’re hoping we can make things better.”

“Hmm,” Susan said, her eyes still disbelieving, but leaving it alone.

“We’ll be leaving as soon as the sun comes back out,” Avian said.  “Our vehicle is solar powered.”

“Smart,” Susan said, nodding her head.

Karmen, sitting there so quiet and not saying anything, was strange and uncomfortable.  I had no idea how much of our conversation she could understand.  I didn’t want to ignore her, but it did seem somewhat pointless to include her in the conversation if she didn’t understand.

“You should be fairly safe getting the rest of the way there,” I said, turning back to Susan.  “That doesn’t mean let your guard down, but we haven’t seen any Bane since we left New Eden.”

“Any?” she questioned.

I shook my head.  “We kind of had a clearing of the city.  And then…well, let’s just say they were sent away.”  And I left it at that.

By now night had fallen and we all brought out the blankets and sleeping bags.  Karmen and Susan would camp and eat with us until morning and then we would go our separate ways.

I had just ducked back into the van for more food, the night fully descending upon us, when I heard a moan from the back seat.

“Morga?,” I said, leaning over her seat from the back of the van.

“Eve?” she said, her voice weak.  She raised a shaky hand to the tube blowing air into her nose, but it fell limp to her chest on its way.  “What…where are we?”

I looked out the back of the van, back in the direction of the tents.  I debated going after Avian.  But this would very likely be my one and only chance to talk to her before she slipped away.  I glanced up at Dr. Evans just once.  He sat still and silent in his glass box in the passenger seat, staring straight forward.

It was unnerving.  He looked remarkably like a Sleeper.  I hoped he was just giving me privacy.

“Just outside of Las Vegas,” I said, resting my forearms on the back of the seat she lay on.

“What?” she asked, my eyes looking up at me in confusion.  “Did you just say Vegas?”

I nodded.  “We’re headed for NovaTor Biotics.  We might reach it tomorrow.  Maybe the next day.”

“Why?” she asked.  She rubbed an absentminded hand over her growing stomach.

“There have been some recent developments,” I said, keeping my voice low.  “Morgan, there’s a chance we can fix all this.”

“Fix what?”

“The world,” I said, barely more than a breath.  The words still felt too unspeakable.  It seemed cruel to say them if they couldn’t possibly be true.  “There may be a way for us to kill them off.  All of the Bane.”

She took a small, gasping breath, the air sounding as if it were trying to choke her as it went down.  She swallowed, her eyes fluttering closed for a moment.  “And you’re somehow the key to making it work,” she said, her eyes rising up to me.  “Aren’t you?”

I didn’t reply for a moment.  Everyone kept looking at me like some kind of savior.  Like I had somehow been born into this destiny.  Yet it was all just luck that it happened to work out that I could do anything.  That I had anything to give.

“We’re going to give it a try,” I said, my throat feeling dry.

“Eve,” she said, her eyes fluttering closed once more.  It was a long while before they opened again and she found the breath to continue.  “Why am I here?”

Now it was my turn to hesitate in answering.  “You know that I’m different from everyone else, but that I would do anything to protect those around me despite what I am, right?”

Her breath rattled again as she breathed in.  “Of course.”

“I’m not good at dancing around things and articulating words gently,” I said as I laced my fingers together.  Finally, I looked back at her.  “You aren’t going to make it much longer.”

Morgan nodded.  “I know.”

“And the chances of the baby surviving are very slim.”

Morgan nodded again.

“What if there was a chance that we could save the baby?” I said.  The air around us seemed to grow still as my words caught in the space around us.  For just a moment, it felt as if everything around us was weightless and anything was impossibly possible. 

“What if by becoming like me, she could live?”

Morgan’s eyes grew steady as they locked on my face.  For the first time in weeks, she seemed incredibly alive.  Fierce.  “I would ask you to do everything in your power to make sure it happens.”

Several times I had tried to imagine how this conversation might go, if I ever got the chance to have it. 

I hadn’t expected the emotion that ripped through my body.

It felt like a shudder worked its way from my toes up, like cascading rain and electric lightning.  It pushed its way up to my throat, closing it in, and up to my eyes.  Pushing three single teardrops out.

“I’ll do everything I can,” I said, my voice quivering.

Morgan reached up a shaking hand and grasped mine.  Together, our hands shook, but they were strong and determined.

TWELVE

Morgan slipped into unconsciousness soon after we talked.  Avian spent the night in the van with her, monitoring her health.  Bill, West, Karmen, and Susan slept in the tents while I kept watch.  But every hour or so, I would see the flap of the tent open and Bill would look out at me.

Bill always had my back.

Not long after midnight, the rain let up and the air grew colder when the clouds moved on to the south.  Dawn filled the air with unreal quiet.

I’d expected to have something happen in the night.  I really had.  We were so close to a city.  The world had continued to Evolve.  The Bane had grown more aggressive, not quieter.  Given it had been night and some of them did still go into inactivity during the dark hours of the twenty-four cycle—still.

I was unnerved that we had yet to see a single Bane.

“What’s wrong?” Avian asked when he stepped outside the van in the morning.  He looked both ways down the freeway, his hands going to the handgun in the holster at his hip.

“Nothing,” I said, my eyes scanning the silhouette of the city in the distance.  “That’s what’s wrong.  Doesn’t it seem strange that there aren’t any Bane around this close to the city?  It’s too quiet.”

Avian nodded as he continued to look over our surroundings.  “Yeah, this is too easy.”

“We’d be seeing bodies if my army had taken care of them all here.  But there’s nothing so far.  I don’t know that a fire would be enough to drive the Bane out unless it just completely leveled the city.  But look at it,” I said, pointing ahead.  “It looks like there are still plenty of buildings for them to sleep in.  So where are they?”