The Eve (The Eden Trilogy) (18 page)

The first framed picture showed a snowy black and white image.  I could make out a few shapes, an oval here, a circle there.

“It’s an ultrasound,” Avian said quietly.  “It’s a picture taken of the inside of a womb.”

“Me and my sister?” I breathed.  I ran a finger over the image as I started making sense of the shapes.  A tiny arm.  Three visible feet.  Two round heads.  The shape of a spine.

“I would guess your mother was about half way through her pregnancy when this was taken,” Avian said.

I nodded, simply staring at it.  It was eerie, all that was tied to this image.  A sister I hoped to find, knowing I was a different kind of creature when this was taken—fully human.  Knowing the woman whose stomach I resided in would die just a few short weeks later.  The fact that this image had been taken in this very building.

Blinking hard several times, I set the photograph aside and picked up the next.

The girl in the picture looked just like me.  I would have thought it was me, except for the pre-Evolution world around her, and the bronze colored glasses perched on her nose.

My mother held some kind of certificate in her hands with scrawling print on it.  On either side of her stood two people who both resembled her.  They all bore smiles.  Emma wore an odd set of robes and a square hat on her head.  Draped around her shoulders was a golden scarf.

“That must have been her graduation when she got her bachelor’s degree,” Avian explained.  When I didn’t understand, he continued.  “When she first finished college.  People have multiple milestones when they’re at university.  She must have been top of her class to get those,” he said, tapping the golden scarf.

“I wonder what happened to her parents,” I said, looking them over.  “Dr. Beeson has always said that she didn’t have any family.”

“They must have passed away sometime between when this picture was taken and when you were born.”

I observed their faces.  These were my grandmother and grandfather.  My family.  I thought about stories Sarah had told me, about her own grandparents.  How they went fishing and hunting with their grandpa.  How her grandma had tried to teach Sarah to sew.

My life could have turned out so differently if only a few things had changed.

I set that photo aside as well and opened the envelope.

Inside was a small stack of photographs.  Every one of them featured two people: my mother and a young man.

His hair was a light brown, bordering on dirty blond.  His eyes were gray.  His features were strong and pronounced.

In some pictures they were kissing, in some they were simply smiling at the camera.  In others they appeared to be in a school setting.

“Is that…?” Avian started to ask.

I nodded, my hands feeling stiff and half numb.  “I think so.”

I laid the pictures on the floor and pulled out the books.

They were journals.  Emma didn’t write often, but seemed to write when milestones happened, the first entry being when she graduated high school.

I scanned the pages, not reading them in detail.  She started college immediately after she graduated, had a heavy school load.  She worked a few shifts at a diner waiting tables for the first few years.  She graduated with her bachelor’s degree, as depicted in the picture.

Nine months before graduation though, a boy’s name started popping up.  Rider.

They had classes together.  Chemistry, molecular biology.  Other scientific studies.  They started dating.

Then they’d break up.

Then they’d get back together.

Eventually, they both got jobs in their fields while going through graduate school.  She started at NovaTor, he took a government job.  It was family tradition apparently.  All of his family had worked for the United States government for generations.

As they headed to their separate destinies, their relationship continued to decline.

But there was one weekend before they both had to return to their prestigious school.  One weekend when they thought they could make things work again.

“Oh wow,” I said, flushing as I read.  I turned the journal over in my lap and held it away from me.  “This is embarrassing to read.”

Avian chuckled.  “I guess most people don’t get to read about their conception.”

I cringed at Avian’s stark words as I hesitantly turned the journal back over.

As the weekend drew to a close, there was a fight.  Emma recorded that it started as something trivial, but escalated into something bigger.  The long distance was just too much.  Their highs and lows in the past were stacking too heavy.

They finally called it quits.  This time for real.

Emma returned to NovaTor and continued her work.  She threw herself into it, working harder and longer hours than ever.

At first she thought she wasn’t feeling well simply for how hard she was pushing herself in the lab.

But then she finally took a test.  And it came back positive.

She briefly considered telling Rider.  But she had her career and he had his.  As bad as it made her feel, she knew what this pregnancy was going to do to hers.  It could possibly end it.  If she told Rider, it would affect his career too.  He had worked so hard for it, had so much pressure on him from his family to succeed.  She couldn’t imagine how he could be happy about this.

So she kept it a secret.  And a few months later, she found she carried not one child, but two.

In a moment of weakness and emotion, she tried calling the number she had for Rider.  Someone else answered the phone—Rider’s brother.

“Holy…” I breathed.  “Avian, look.”

I pointed to the end of one page.  It only said the name once, and talked about him for only one sentence to say he answered the phone.  But it was there, blazing from the page.

Royce.

“Avian, Royce is my uncle,” I breathed.  The air in my chest caught, and the back of my eyes stung.  Two moments later, my vision swam as moisture pooled in them.  “It has to be him.  My mom said Rider’s entire family worked for the government.  Royce worked for the government as a weapons specialist for years!”

“Eve, you know what this means?” Avian said, looking over at me.  He took one of my hands in his.  “You have family.  You’ve had family for the past five months.  I mean…” a breathy laugh bubbled up from his chest.  “No wonder you and him have had this bond.  You’re blood family, Eve.  You’re his niece.”

I covered my mouth with a hand and realized I was trembling.  With my other hand, I grabbed one of the pictures from the floor.  Rider was looking right at the camera.  He had the same grey eyes as Royce.  The same strong jaw.  The same piercing look.

Royce and I had always gotten along.  Sure, we’d had a few ups and downs, but I’d always known he supported me.  And even though I didn’t throw the word around often, I loved Royce and did think of him as a father figure.

He was pretty damn close.

TWENTY

I didn’t say anything about my new discovery the next day.  As Avian would have so nicely put it, I was still processing that information.  Instead, Bill, West, and I kept watch again, not saying much of anything all day.  No intruders came.

Dr. Evans helped Avian take care of Creed from afar, making sure the ingredients that went down her feeding tube were right, that they’d give her the best chance of surviving.  They started gathering the supplies they would need to get her back to New Eden.  And they gave her the last dosage of TorBane.

On our fifth day at NovaTor we were all stir crazy to get moving.  This was our final day.  We were giving TorBane twenty-four hours to settle into Creed’s system.  Her vitals were good.  She was still fragile and underdeveloped, but Dr. Evans said she was comparable to what a one month premature baby would be like instead of one that was over three months.

While Bill continued to watch for unwanted visitors, West and I started packing the solar van. 

“These are the supplies we’ll need to finish off the transmitter,” Dr. Evans said, handing a box off to me.  “Careful with them.”

I imagined if he had more flesh and hair on him, he might have raised an eyebrow at me and given me a “look.”  Just like West often did.

I nodded and turned toward the stairs.  West followed, oxygen tanks under his arms.

“We’re supposed to leave in the morning,” I said, my voice echoing off the walls.

“Yeah,” West said.  His voice sounded dead.

“I’ll understand if you stay,” I said as I stepped out into the main floor.  “If you have to go look for her.”

“Where am I supposed to even start?” West said, his voice harsh, even though I knew it wasn’t me he was mad at, for once.  “I don’t know what I expected.  I didn’t really think she’d be waiting here, but I…”

“I know,” I said as we walked into the garage.  I pulled the back door to the solar tank open.  “I think I kind of thought the same thing.”

West set the oxygen tanks in the fourth row of seats, the one Morgan had occupied on the way out.  “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” he said, leaning against the vehicle and crossing his arms over his chest.  “I don’t think I can decide that until we’re heading out tomorrow morning.”

I nodded, closing the back doors again.  I leaned against the van and stuffed my hands into my pockets.  “Your grandfather says this transmitter won’t kill off the first generation of TorBane.  That the coding works different, or something.  If this really works, you’ll be able to spend as much time as you like looking for her after it goes off.  There won’t be any danger of getting attacked by the Bane.  You can take this,” I said, knocking my knuckles against the side of the solar tank.  “And drive for as long as you’ve got sun to power it.”

West nodded, a small smile curling in one corner of his mouth.  “I guess that’s true.  I mean, I can hardly picture having that ability, to just go out in the country and look.  Without the fear of getting infected.  Without the possibility of it.”

“It’s a pretty amazing looking possibility, right?” I said, returning his smile.

“I’d ask you to come with me, ‘cause I know you want to find her too,” West said, catching my eyes.  “But I’m pretty sure you’ll be too busy helping with Creed and restoring society.”

A full smile spread on my face.  I shook my head.  “I don’t really know how this is going to work.  We’ll try to find a family to adopt her.  I know nothing about caring for a baby, a kid.  But I think it’s my responsibility.  And I think I kind of want to help her find the right family, have some small part in helping her find a normal life, if that makes any bizarre sense.”

West nodded.  “It does.  She’ll be like you.  You’ll understand each other”

I gave him a small smile, and we walked back into the belly of NovaTor.

The last night at NovaTor Biotics, West had night watch.  I needed to be fresh for our journey back home tomorrow, to keep any Bane we might happen upon away from us.  But I couldn’t sleep for more than ten minutes at a time

I stared up at the ceiling of Creed’s room, running through all the things we needed to bring back with us in my head.  The code, other files, supplies, medical things.  I pictured the journey back, wondering if we would run into any Bane along the way or if we had somehow stumbled upon a rare part of the country that was clear.  It wouldn’t stay that way, since the Bane were gaining more and more sweeps, but for this small window, were we, and any other humans survivors safe?  I hoped Susan and Karmen made it to New Eden safely.

A small cry rang out through the room and I startled in my sleeping bag.  I looked over to see Avian asleep on the floor, his head buried under his pillow.  Smiling, I climbed up and walked over to Creed’s tiny dome bed.

She had kicked her blankets off and was swinging her tiny arms and legs wildly in the air.  She continued her soft cries.  Trying to remember how Avian had so skillfully wrapped her tightly, I tried to mimic his technique.

But she continued to cry and I started to feel panicky.

“She probably needs her diaper changed,” Avian said in a groggy voice as he stood from the floor.  He straightened his back, favoring it like it was stiff from sleeping on the hard floor.

“Oh,” I said lamely.  “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“It’s okay,” Avian said with a small smile as he grabbed a diaper from the shelf next to the bed.  He silently showed me how to do it and discarded the soiled one in the trash in the corner.

She had needed a change, but Creed continued to cry.

“Is she hungry?” I asked, my brow furrowing in concern.

Avian checked the bag that slowly fed the mixture into the feeding tube.  “No, she’s getting a constant supply.  That shouldn’t be the problem.”

He wrapped her snuggly once again and adjusted the tiny cap on her head, but her cries grew louder and more intense.

“I’m…” Avian fumbled, letting out a big breath through his nostrils.  He wasn’t sure what to do.

Creed had once again kicked her blankets off, exposing her mostly naked body.  Even the premature diapers we had brought with us looked enormous on her.  She gave another wail and a tiny tear fell from one eye and slipped down her face.

Touching her for the first time, other than when she held my finger, I wrapped my hands carefully around her body and lifted her.  Careful not to disturb all the chords and tubes attached to her, I nestled her against my chest.  As soon as her skin connected with mine, she was calm.

I looked up at Avian, a triumphant smile crossing my lips.  Avian returned it, admiration and love shining in his eyes.  He grabbed her blanket from the bed and covered her back with it.  With his help with the chords, I eased down into the chair.

“She just needed some love,” Avian said quietly as Creed drifted off to sleep once again.

“She’ll have plenty of that,” I whispered, pressing a light kiss to the top of her soft head.

TWENTY-ONE

I handed Creed off to Avian sometime around five in the morning.  I’d slept with her on my chest for about two hours, but my internal clock must have sensed it was nearly morning and there was much to be done.