The Human (The Eden Trilogy) (13 page)

With all the adrenaline pumping through my system, I hadn’t realized my head had stopped pounding and the wound was no longer bleeding.  TorBane was healing my body.

Tristan turned down another block.  As soon as we rounded the corner, he turned, grabbed two of the grenades from his belt, pulled the pins, and tossed them at the hoard that chased after us.

Body parts littered the street.  And there was a horrible grinding, crunching sound as the side of the building broke apart and crashed to the street, crushing the bodies, and narrowly missing us.

“Good aim,” I said, my pace slowing slightly, now that the danger level had dropped a bit.  My head was no longer pounding, but my legs were wobbly still and I felt slightly woozy.

“You okay?” he asked, turning concerned eyes on me.

“I can understand why that woman hates me, but damn her for making me less than what I should be and throwing me out to the Bane,” I growled, my step faltering slightly.

“I don’t know what they’re doing to you,” he said as we slowed to a walk.  He pulled me behind a car and eased me down to the ground.  “But I’m pretty sure there has to be a better method.”

I wasn’t sure what to say to him.  I didn’t know how much he knew about me or what they were trying to get from me.

“Desperate times make people act desperate,” he said as his eyes met mine for a moment.  “Desperation has a way of bringing out the worst in people.”

“Yeah,” was all I could say.  Because I’d seen it too often.  I’d seen it in myself on more than one occasion.

“You ready to go again?” he asked.

“Where are we actually headed anyway?” I asked.  My head was slowly evening out.

“Our group was getting supplies at a hardware store when something went wrong.  We’re not entirely sure what happened,” he said.  “But they knew something was coming and they barricaded themselves in the bank across the street.  There’s a vault they’re hiding in.”

“Alistar is more than some soldier to Margaret, isn’t he?” I asked, climbing to my feet.  We started down the road again.

“He’s her lover,” Tristan said, shaking his head.  “I don’t get it.  Margaret is… Margaret.  How can he stand her?”

“Maybe he enjoys power-hungry women,” I said, disgust rising in my stomach.

To my surprise, Tristan laughed.  It was a deep, belly laugh.  It was so unexpected, I couldn’t help but smile too.

“That’s it right there,” he said, once again serious.  Tristan pointed to a building sandwiched between a dozen others.  Its front was stark marble white with gold trim.  On the ground level, the entire front was nearly all glass.

“I know you’re supposed to be able to communicate with them or something, but I think our best bet is to just fire as many rounds as we can,” Tristan said.

“Sounds good to me,” I said.  “I can do my best to keep them away from us.”

Tristan looked at me, his brows knitting together.  “It doesn’t really matter to me what you are,” he said, his eyes trailing over me.  “But so far I think you’re pretty impressive.”

“I’m also involved,” I blurted. 

A coy grin cracked on his lips.  “That wasn’t what I meant, but good to know.  I’m just saying you’re one impressive soldier.”

My face turned warm with embarrassment.  “Thanks,” I muttered.  “Let’s go.” 

We jogged toward the building.  I slowed as we approached the bank, stopping just out of sight.

There were seven of them inside.  Advanced looking.  Most of them had no flesh at all anymore. 

Five of them stood in a line facing what must have been the vault.  They were perfectly still, frozen like they were statues.  One of them stood next to the combination, its hand pressed flat against the steel wall.  And another had its hand on the dial, slowly rotating it to the right.

“What are they doing?” Tristan barely whispered.

The realization hit me just as the one turning the dial stopped turning it and I barely registered the faint click.

I started firing the same time the Bane yanked the vault open.  Screams filled the air and metal scraped against marble as the Bane rushed into the vault.

“NO!” Tristan bellowed as he fired into the bank.

I didn’t stop shooting.  But I knew it was too late.  The Bane were all over the five people inside.

“We’ve got to get out of here!” I screamed, grabbing the back of Tristan’s soaked jacket and pulling him quickly back toward the doors.

The Bane then registered we were there.

Knowing they had completed their only reason for being—infecting humans—they turned and sprinted after us.

Tristan and I crashed to the road as we backed out of the bank, landing in a puddle.  I kept firing, hitting two of the mechanical creatures that sprinted across the bank after us.  They dropped in a heap.

But three others barreled right out of the building into the rain.

Hissing filled the air as two of them instantly shorted out and dropped to the ground as Tristan and I scrambled backwards.  But the last one with more flesh than the others kept rushing forward.

Slipping in the rain, I lost my footing and was taken down just a moment too long.

The Bane was on top of me, its hands around my throat.  My head was forced into a puddle.  Water lapped just over my eyes, making my vision wave under the water.

It jerked over and over again as Tristan fired at it, but it didn’t go down.

That familiar red rage flooded my system again and I wanted with everything in my system for this creature trying to kill me to meet a horrible end.

I watched as its hands left my throat and went to its own head.  In one movement, it twisted its head violently to the left and up.

The head was ripped clean from its body.

It collapsed to the left of me with a splash that sent currents of electricity through the water to shock me endlessly.

A screamed leapt from my lips and then there were strong hands dragging me out of the puddle.  Tristan swore, stumbling under my weight and stopping in the middle of the road.

“You’ve got to do it now,” I faintly heard a voice.  My system recovering from the electrocution, I stood and my vision cleared.  The two Bane who were left stood just under the cover of the bank’s opening, staring at Tristan and I.  They wouldn’t come out after us into the rain.

But next to them stood four people, and I saw Alistar’s body lying on the floor behind them.  He’d been mauled to death.

It was strange, seeing the Bane stand next to the four humans.  But their only task in life was completed.  They had no reason to pay them anymore attention.

“We’re as good as dead,” a woman said.  “End us now before we end anyone else.”

There was terror in the other three’s eyes, but they each slowly nodded.

“I can’t,” Tristan said.  His voice cracked.

“You have to,” I said quietly, thinking of Tye.

Tristan’s eyes fell to the ground and he wiped the back of his hand across his nose.  He shook his head, swearing under his breath again.

“Will you help me?” he said, his eyes rising to meet mine. 

It took me a moment to nod.

Tristan took four steps closer to the bank, his shotgun held loosely in his hand.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, his voice rough and scratchy.  “You’ve made it this long.”

“No need for speeches,” the woman said, tears streaming down her face.  “Just get it over with, please.”

Tristan nodded and waved me forward.  I held my shotgun ready.

“You take the two on the right,” he said to me.  “I’ll take the two on the left.”

A lump formed in my throat as I raised my shotgun, leveling it on a very terrified looking man who had to be in his sixties.  I was glad Tristan hadn’t told me their names.

“Fire!” Tristan shouted.

And for the first time, I shot at a man who was still mostly human.

He dropped to the ground at the same time another woman did.  The others screamed.

I couldn’t wait for Tristan’s command.  I shot the woman who had spoken for them.

Apparently Tristan couldn’t give the command again, because he fired at the same time I did.

We both stood frozen for a moment, Tristan with his shotgun still leveled.  I was fairly sure he wasn’t breathing.

“Let’s go,” I said, swallowing the lump in my throat.

The rain continued to fall harder and harder as we made our way back.  Plenty of Bane had woken and watched us from the cover of the buildings.  But as long as we stayed in the middle of the road, far from their reach, they left us alone.

I froze outside the hatch, unable to make myself go back down into that hole.

“Is she going to kill me?” I asked.  “Since we failed?”

“I don’t think so,” Tristan said, clearing his throat.  He had been trying hard the entire journey home to control his emotions.  “You seem to be pretty valuable.”

“Margaret has a short temper,” I said hollowly.

His green eyes met mine.  “I won’t let her do anything to you.”

“Somehow I don’t think you can stop her from getting whatever it is she wants from me.”

“That doesn’t mean I can’t try,” he said, his grip tightening on his shotgun.

“Why are you here, Tristan?” I asked, my eyes narrowing at him.  “You don’t seem to fit in with this crowd.”

He shrugged.  “What else am I supposed to do?  It’s safer to stay in groups.  I’d never last out there on my own.  We’ve got to stick together.”

I looked at him for a long time.  Maybe it was all about uncontrollable fate.  You had to live with the people you could find these days.  West had first been with a harsh military group, and then a group that was only a step above marauders. 

But I’d found Eden.  A place where people were good, where people did their best to help one another.

Tristan had crazy Margaret.

My fate was better than his.

And even though I had only known him for an hour, I wanted to save him from his fate.  But I was powerless to do so.

“Are they really going to help my friend?” I asked.

Tristan broke eye contact and gave a sniff before wiping the rain water from his nose with the back of his hand.  “Margaret will keep her word.  She’s insane, but she’ll do what she says.”

“Will you make sure?” I asked.  “That she helps him?  If I can’t do it myself?”

He met my eyes again for a long time and finally nodded.

“Thank you.”

“Ready?”

“No,” I answered honestly.

There was sympathy in his eyes, but what was he supposed to do?

He bent and unlocked the hatch and held it open for me.

FOURTEEN

I didn’t even see Margaret.

As soon as Tristan and I entered the tunnel we were greeted by four guards.  Tristan explained what happened and I was instantly bound.

Tristan held my eyes as they started dragging me away.

“I’ll make sure,” he had said.  “I promise.”

And so I went willingly with the guards back to my room.

The doctors were waiting for me.

Sometimes there was darkness.  Heavy and warm and light and cold.

Sometimes there was a fuzzy gray ceiling and voices in the haze that I couldn’t see.

But most of the time there was a kaleidoscope of broken memories and nightmares.

“Would you like a balloon?” the man asked as he crouched in front of me.  He had a lot of hair above his lip, but the rest of his face was smooth.

“Do you have a red one?” I asked.  I sat on my bed, my legs tucked into my chest.

“I think I do,” he said, his voice excited and kind.  He dug into the pocket of his white jacket, and produced a floppy red balloon.  He pulled something black out of his other pocket and blew up the balloon with it.  It filled, long and skinny.

He then twisted it in different sections, the rubber squeaking high pitched as he did.

“It’s a dog!” I said excitedly as I recognized the form.

“That’s right,” he said with a laugh and a smile.  “Here you go.”

He handed it to me and I took it, absolutely delighted.

“Are you ready for your test?” he asked.

“I don’t like the tests,” I said, my eyes growing dark and shaking my head.

“I know,” he said, his tone understanding.  “But we need to make sure your heart is working like it should.  I’ll make you a deal.  If you’re really good and do the test, I’ll make you a horse when we’re done.”

“Promise?” I asked.

“Promise.”

“How about this one instead?” he asked, holding up the green marker.

“No,” I said, gritting my teeth.  “I want the blue one.”

“But I need the blue one,” he said, his tone rising.

“I had it first!” I yelled.

“No you didn’t!”

“Yes, I did!” I screamed, reaching for the blue marker.  He gripped it tightly and I tugged, only to fall backward when the cap came off and I lost my balance.

He laughed at me.

“I hate you, West!” I screamed, throwing the cap at him.  To my satisfaction, it hit him right in the eye and he immediately started crying.

“Dad!” he wailed.

Dr. Evans Jr. was instantly in the room, the crying West wrapped around his legs.

“Really, Eve?” he chided me.  “We don’t throw things.  And hate isn’t a kind word.”

“But I hate him,” I growled, scowling at West who glowered right back at me.  “He doesn’t share!”

“West?” Dr. Evans questioned, looking down at West.

“She started it!” he shouted, glaring back at me.

“Okay,” Dr. Evans said.  “I think that’s enough for one day.”

West stuck his tongue out at me as his father led him out of the room.

I stuck mine right back out at him.

They all stared at me.

There were four of them with Dr. Evans, and they all looked at me.

“She’s perfectly healthy now?” one of them asked.  “No complications?”

Dr. Evans shook his head.  “Her heart was only developed to eighty percent of what it should have been, her lungs only to sixty.  But they both function perfectly now.”

“And the other one?” another man asked.

“Her development is slower,” Dr. Evans said.  His voice sounded tired and heavy.  “We weren’t sure how TorBane would react with a psychological disorder so this is totally uncharted territory.  But she’s coming along.  She’s talking, she’s well behaved the majority of the time.  She’s slowly learning how to interact.”

“Tell us about the regenerative abilities.”

Dr. Evans eyes met mine and something in them lightened.

“Eve,” he said kindly.  “Would you come over here for a moment?”

I got to my feet, my eyes meeting the strangers warily.  I crossed the room and gripped Dr. Evans’ jacket tightly in one fist.

“Can you show me that cut you got the other day?” he asked me.

I held up my left hand, exposing my palm.

“The nurse dropped a glass two days ago and it shattered on the floor in Eve two’s bedroom.  Eve here tried to help clean it up and cut herself.  But as you can see, it’s completely healed.”

This brought a smile to the strangers’ faces.  “Perfect,” one woman said.

“I think TorBane and chip X731 are going to be a perfect match, Dr. Evans.”

“No!” I screamed as I leapt across my bed.  I grabbed my hair brush and threw it at the man.  “Don’t touch me!”

“Come back here, you little…”  He chased after me.

I wrapped my tiny hand around the neck of my lamp and hurled it at him next.  It caught him in the shoulder and shattered.

A growl ripped from his throat and he tackled me to the ground.

A sharp pain pricked in my neck as he jabbed a needle into my skin.

Everything seemed to slow instantly.

I jabbed my finger into his eye and he reeled backwards into a wall.

“Don’t…” I tried to yell but my throat felt thick.  “Don’t touch me.”

“Eve,” a familiar voice said.  Dr. Evans.  The younger one.  “Everything is going to be alright.”

“No”, I shook my head.  I tried to press my back further into the corner.  My vision blurred and the dark shadows before me blended together.

“She’s never been this aggressive before,” a voice said.  It felt like someone was screaming into my ear.  Everything was too loud.  I pressed my hands over the sides of my head, trying to block it all out.

“She’s afraid,” a lighter voice said.

I couldn’t make out any details anymore as I opened and closed my eyes, trying to clear my vision.  My head felt fuzzy and clouded.

There was a pair of warm arms underneath me and I could feel them moving.

My vision was totally black by now and at some point, someone slid my eyelids closed when I couldn’t do it myself.

They changed my clothes and there was a strange buzzing sound.

Soon my head felt lighter and cold.

The next second all I could make out was the scent of steel under me.  There were voices in the dark, talking excitedly behind me. 

Then there was the sound of a drill.

“What’s wrong with her?”

West sat in front of me, building a tower with foam blocks.  But he kept looking up at me.

“She had her surgery,” a woman said.  I looked over at her and blinked.  She looked at me.  There was something about her face that looked off.  Her brows were pulled together slightly.  A sheen of sweat beaded on her forehead.  There was a bit of moisture under her arms.

“Are you scared of her?” West asked, looking at the woman too.

She looked at West, but then her eyes fell quickly to the floor.  “Build your tower,” she said.

West stacked another block, then looked up at me again.

“She normally tries to take my stuff,” he said, still looking at me.  “Why is she just sitting there?”

“Build your tower,” the woman said again.  “Don’t worry about it.”

“The other one is the same way,” West said, turning back to his blocks.  He made a fence around his tower.  “She didn’t used to fight, but she just sits there now too.”

“Build your tower, West.”

Tests.

Running.

Weight lifting.

Observation.

Always.

“You see that there?”

I could faintly hear them through the glass wall and over the noise the machine around me made.

“Wow,” someone else said.  “Is that…?”

“Yeah,” the other person breathed.  “Her bones.  They’re completely fused with cybernetics.”

“That’s…” a voice said.  “Incredible.”

“And look here.  Her heart.  It looks like it’s about seventy-five percent cybernetic as well.”

“It would take a lot to stop a heart like that.  These girls, they might damn near live forever.”

“No one lives forever.”

“Are you not seeing what is on this scan?”

“God would not permit anyone to live forever.”

“It looks like man has caught up to God if you ask me.”

“…kidding me,” a voice said through the haze.

“It picked the lock on the southeast entrance.”

“That’s the second breach in the last week.”  Margaret.  “We’ll have to increase the guard.”

“We’ve already got a guard at each entrance at all hours,” the man said.  “We only have so many bodies.”

“Please,” I moaned.  My vision blurred and swirled.  “Stop.”

“She’s waking up,” Margaret said, her voice rising in alarm.  “Increase the dosage.”