The Eve (The Eden Trilogy) (34 page)

The clock on the wall drew Avian’s attention.  “Well,” he said with a sigh.  “It’s time for us to go.”

I nodded and moved out of the way.  Avian started down the hall.  I placed a hand on his shoulder, stopping him.

“I’m never going to stop missing her and I’ll never forget her,” I said.  “I promise.”

Moisture rimmed Avian’s eyes when he met mine.  He pressed his lips together into a tight line and gave a small nod.  “Thanks,” he said.

And then I watched him retreat down the hall.

I could feel her slipping away then.  Eve.  Until that point, I hadn’t realized how much of her lingered around Avian at all times.  They really were two pieces of one weird, but puzzle-like person.

With Avian gone, the last traces of Eve would leave with him.

“Goodbye,” I whispered.

And I finally let that last grip I had on Eve, go.

THE BEGINNING AND END

PART TWELVE

--AVIAN--

I tried not to bump Creed as I lifted the bags containing her things into the back of the truck.  She wouldn’t let me put her down ever since Leah handed her back to me so I’d been packing her around everywhere on my chest in a baby carrier someone had scrounged up for me.

In the later morning, I’d gone on a major shopping—or rather looting—spree at a baby store.  Thankfully Victoria had come along and instructed me in all the things I was going to need.

A crib.  Clothes.  Blankets.  Diapers.  Bottles.  So many things.

I didn’t mind the chaotic nature of it all.  It was something that gave me focus.  That kept my hands and my mind busy.  I needed something to work towards, and everything that was before me would provide for an occupied mind.

I finished loading the last of our things into the truck.  Creed and I would be fully stocked for at least two weeks before we would have to return for more supplies.

“Are you about ready?” I asked.  I turned to where Lin and Tristan were loading up their own car.  Tristan managed to slam the trunk closed.  The back seat was fully loaded as well.

“I think so,” Lin said.  She pulled a list from her back pocket and ran over it one more time.

“Think carefully,” I said.  “We’re going to be lucky if we get all the way there before the vehicles die on us.  All fuel is pretty corroded by now.  We may even want to look for some horses until Dr. Beeson’s team gets more solar vehicles up and going.”

Tristan laughed and shook his head.  “Back to the day of the horse and buggy, huh?”

This managed to make me smile as well.

Bill stepped into the garage and tossed a bag in the back of his truck.  He looked over at us, his hands braced on the side of it.  “We ready to head out?”

“Let’s go.”

I led the way.  Creed slept in her car seat in the back, wrapped up in a soft, green blanket.  I rolled past towering buildings, past shops, and megastores.  Past abandoned homes and apartment buildings.

Then there was desert and open skies.  We pointed ourselves towards the mountains and the trees that weren’t quite as majestic as I would have liked them to be.

The canyon was comforting as we drove through it.  I could feel something still inside of me.  This felt like the fresh start, today.  The day that I felt like somehow, life was going to move on.  We would not be smothered out.  We would build a future.

And in that future, I would make sure that everyone knew Eve’s name and what she had done for the human race.

I turned off the narrow highway and onto the small winding road.  The trees grew a little thicker and a bit taller.  The sun flashed in and out of view from behind them.  I looked down at the dash, at the temperature reading.  Sixty-one degrees.  It was then that I realized it was the first day of March.

Things like temperature and months and days were going to start mattering again.

I wondered what day of the week this might be.

A Saturday, I decided.  Today seemed like it should be a Saturday.  We’d work hard at moving into our homes today, and tomorrow we would kick back and relax and try to enjoy each other’s company.

The sun gleamed blindingly on the lake up ahead of us.  I held my hand up to block out the light.  I felt the anticipation of coming home.

Home.

The light grew more intense the closer we came to the lake.  We drove past the gas station and the diner and by this point I could hardly see anything, the reflection off the water was so intense.

So I was only twenty feet away when the figure in the middle of the road came into view.  I slammed on my brakes.  Instantly, I could smell rubber burning the pavement.

The figure took a few steps toward the truck.  I could see dirt falling to the ground, but the light behind them was still too bright to make out a face. 

I opened the door and stepped out.

My heart expanded to the size of my body and my emotions exploded.

“Think you could have buried me any deeper?”

EPILOGE

SIX MONTHS LATER

A shot rings out and I look up from the row of potatoes I’m tending.  I wait sixty seconds and see Avian walk out of the trees with a fox in hand.  He holds it up and smiles.

I smile back before returning to the potatoes.

“No, no, no,” I chide Creed.  I lunge forward and pull the clump of weeds and dirt she is trying to put into her mouth from her hands.  I grab one of the many baby toys in the basket beside her and give her that instead.  “Better keep that stuff out of your mouth or it’s back into the cage for you.”

It’s not really a cage, but that’s what the play pen looks like to me.

I’d much rather have her down here, experiencing things with me.

Just not eating the dirt.

“Are we trying to get extra minerals again?” Avian asks playfully.  He drops the fox and his rifle in the grass a safe distance away and bends down to scoop Creed into his arms.  He holds her high above his head, and for a moment it looks like she’s trying to fly as she flaps her arms happily.

I watch it almost as if in slow motion.   A drop of drool escapes her mouth and hits Avian square in the forehead.  Avian makes a noise of playful disgust and wipes it away.

“I think that means ‘I love daddy’ in baby-non-talk,” I tease him as I pull up another weed.

“I’ll take what I can get.”  He sets Creed down on her blanket again.  He crosses to me and presses a kiss to my forehead.  “It’s better than her trying to gnaw my finger off again.”

“I wish that tooth would just pop through,” I say, looking back over at her.  “She’s been miserable.”

“At least she has the crawling to distract her,” he laughs.  She’s pulled herself forward onto her stomach and is trying to army crawl back to the clods of dirt and weeds.

“Have either of you seen Tristan?” Lin calls from the porch of her home.  She runs a hand over her slightly rounded belly.  I turn to look at her just as her three students dart outside and run toward their homes.

“He’s still out hunting,” Avian responds, blocking the sun from his eyes with his hand.  “Bill’s out there too.”

Lin nods and walks back inside. 

“I’m going to go take care of this.  Come inside soon?”  Avian places a hand on my cheek and stares at me intently.

“Of course,” I say, smiling at him.

He returns it, and pulls himself away.  He picks up the fox and his rifle, and makes his way to the back of our house.

It is still so hard for him to walk away each time.

Understandable, when he had to bury me once before.

I recall the absolute confusion I felt when I woke in the dark.  I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe.  Panic had started to set in.  It had probably taken me over an hour to dig my way out of that grave.

My cybernetic lungs had never been tested to that extreme.

I owed my life to my identical twin sister.  If we didn’t have the same DNA, I would have stayed dead.

At a time when Avian was out of the room, Vee had cut my hand as well as her own.  She’d shared blood with me, attempting to put her TorBane into my system.  Because every bit of the TorBane in my body had been destroyed when the Nova went off.  If she’d done this to any other human being, she probably would have slowly turned them into a Bane.  But because we shared the same DNA, because TorBane didn’t know the difference between her body and mine, it stayed under control and acted as it did in her body.  It sought out injury and went to work.

But because it had to start with such a large amount of injury, it took days.

Vee had watched me for seven days, and had to assume that it wasn’t going to work.

So for five days, I had lain in the ground.

Until my eyes shot open, only to meet darkness.

It had taken me a few days to recover.  I was weak for a while.  I was disoriented and confused.  Avian had immediately taken me back to the hospital to undergo scans.

Everything was exactly as it had been before.

If I hadn’t found my sister at NovaTor, I would have stayed dead.  Dr. Evans once said that he did not think TorBane could bring someone back from the dead, but he was wrong.

As soon as Avian was convinced that I was, indeed, still alive, and as soon as he saw I was just fine, he brought me home.

Home.

This place fits the word.

I look up from the garden and scan the area.

What had once been a cemetery with a single, now empty, grave, is now an overflowing garden.  It had been a lot of work in the beginning.  It had taken every spare hand to coax the plants out of the ground toward the sunlight.  But it would feed our little colony with no trouble.

Others followed us out to our new home, called Resilience.  Wix and Victoria—who is pregnant again, nearly due with her second child.  Tuck joined our ranks.  And so did half a dozen others.  We are fifteen members strong.

But most everyone has stayed in the city, ready to have life return to the way it was before the Evolution.  Royce works with Dr. Beeson’s team to rebuild our technology, with a strong lesson learned to not try to play God.  They have been building a fleet of solar vehicles, and are currently working on getting electricity restored to our little community.

Royce and I finally got to talk about my father.  I felt like I knew him now.  I know how he did love my mother.  I know how much he loved his work.  I know that he had a passion for running and archery.  I know that he was stubborn and proud.  He’s long gone but I have a better understanding of who I was and who I am. 

I know who Rider is, but Royce will always feel like my father.

People have been given jobs in New Eden.  They run a fully operating store.  Gabriel continues to develop a system of order in New Eden.  He has taken on the role formerly known as mayor.  The thought is funny to me.

West and Vee remain in the city as well.  For now.  Dr. Beeson had slowly been deprogramming her emotional blockers.  Very slowly.  Baby steps, smaller than I’d taken.  Every adjustment has been a challenge, but West is there for her every step of the way.  He finally has what I’d never been able to give him.  Trust.  Need.  It was obvious that it had been them that were supposed to be together all along.  I wouldn’t call them a couple just yet, but they’re slowly moving towards that.

And five days after I returned from the land of death, Avian and I were married.  While I understood the commitment, the ceremony hadn’t held the same meaning for me that it did for Avian.  I’d already made the choice to be with him forever, saying the words in front of everyone didn’t make it any different for me.  But I could tell it meant a lot to Avian.  He was glowing with love and pride as he held my hands before everyone.  Well, I had probably glowed too.  I’d never been so happy.

Now we have a family.  Me, Avian, and our daughter Creed.  I never imagined that for my future.

But this is indeed the future.  One that is going to stretch on before us for a long time.

It will take us generations to get back on our feet.  I won’t see humanity restored to its former glory.  But who is to say that the way things were run before was the full glory?  Maybe there is a brighter, better future ahead of us.  There has to be value in learning from the biggest mistake in human history.

“We’d better get inside for some lunch,” I say, dusting my hands off and standing.  I am about to pick Creed up when something from the trees draws my eye.

I pull the handgun from my belt on instinct and level it before me.  A figure steps from the trees.

“Hold it right there!” I bellow.

The person holds their hands up to show they are unarmed, but takes a step forward so I can have a clear view of his face.

“Tom?”

He chuckles, hints of a smile barely showing through his wild beard.  He walks forward, savage and dirty looking.

“Imagine my surprise when I was observing a Bane sweep in Charlotte and they all suddenly collapsed to the ground.  Not a wink of life left in them.”

A smile crosses my lips and I lower my firearm.

“And then I find this sweep isn’t the only one.  Every one of the Bane I come across is dead.”  He stops fifteen feet in front of me.  He is still dressed in camouflage clothing.  He is carrying a massive hiking pack on his back.  He looks exactly like he did when he first found me after I escaped the Underground.  When he told me about the sweeps.

“I figured now I really was alone,” he says, his eyes growing dark for a moment.  “No more humans, no more Bane even.  And then I remember this girl with a shaved head saying there is a colony of humans in Los Angeles.  So I came looking for you.”

“Took you long enough to get here,” I taunt him.

“It’s a long walk,” he chuckles.  “I went looking for you in the city, they sent me out this way.”

I bend down and pick Creed up, holding her on my hip.  She grips the front of my shirt in her hand.  It immediately goes into her mouth.

“Welcome to Resilience,” I say.  “Come on in.”

Creed coos and tries to talk to Tom over my shoulder as we walk back home.  No one would ever guess she isn’t just like any other baby.  No one would know that her heart is thirty-five percent cybernetic, or that her lungs are forty-one.