The Human (The Eden Trilogy) (14 page)

“We’re almost out,” someone said.

“Then we’d better hurry up.”

I walked down the hall, headed back for my room.  I’d just finished four hours on the treadmill and Dr. Evans and the people who always watched what we did seemed pleased.

Voices floated through a window as I paused.

West was there, reading a book aloud.

I sat next to him, my face totally blank but looking at the pages.

West turned to me and asked me a question.  My eyes met his and I muttered a response and looked back at the book.

West draped his arm around my shoulders and kept reading.

Something bubbled up inside of me, hot and toxic.  West was kind and caring with that me.  But the real me he pestered and annoyed and tortured and pushed until I exploded.

My fingers curled into fists and tiny black lines flickered across my vision.

I turned and continued down the hall.

“Is it true?” the woman asked.

I’d been in her care for years, but she had never given me her name.

Not that I had ever asked for it.

Dr. Evans nodded, a smile pulling at the corner of his lips as he looked at me.  It was the first real looking one I’d seen on his face in years.

“They ran out of funding,” he said, turning back to the woman.  “They’re going to pay for us to keep the Eve project maintained, but we don’t have to do any more testing.”

“What will you do with them?” she asked, glancing over at me.  “They’ll never be normal again.  Not after this long.”

“We’ll keep them here,” he said, his tone falling once again into seriousness.  “This is their home anyway, it’s all they’ve ever known.  I’ve already talked to Dr. Beeson.  He’s going to maintain them.  I assume you are on board to continue in two’s care?”

“Of course,” she said, looking back at me.

I sat on a chair, my hands resting on my thighs, just observing them.  Every time Dr. Beeson did an adjustments, I could sit like this, quiet and still, for hours.

“And what will you do?” she asked, looking at Dr. Evans.

He looked from the woman, back to me.  “TorBane needs to be completed.  The world deserves to have it finished.  I need to make it a priority.”

“You’re a good man, Dr. Evans,” the woman said, touching his arm gently.  “You’ve been placed in some impossible situations, but you’re still a good man.”

His head sagged just a bit and he blinked at the floor a few times.  “I don’t know about that anymore.”

Dr. Beeson was at his computer again, reading numbers that flashed across his screens.  One of his team members looked over his shoulder and they conversed quietly.

I sat in front of me, locked with my eyes.  Grey-blue and empty.  I blinked at the same time I did.

I scratched my chin, my fingernails causing small skin cells to float down to the ground.  I reached up and scratched my chin too, but my skin didn’t itch.

“Do you think West will still be allowed to visit?” I asked me.

“I hope not,” I said, that thing that was red and prickly rising up inside of me again.

“Why don’t you tolerate him?” I asked.

“The woman said some people just naturally don’t get along,” I responded.  “She said that’s just how me and him are.”

“I like him,” I said, blinking.

“Good for you.”

Faces I knew taking me outside the building I had never been outside of.

Sunlight that was too bright and too foreign.

A device I was led into and that moved.

Tape over my mouth and around my wrists and ankles.

Darkness.

And then NovaTor’s front doors.

My skin hummed.

People screamed.

Bodies were still.

Myself attacking everyone in sight.

Blood all over the floor.

West on the floor.

Dr. Evans Jr. with his hands around my neck.

Dr. Evans saying he would dispose of me.

Lies and secrets.

Dr. Beeson.

And then nothing.

FIFTEEN

It was so cold and so dark.

I could almost feel the mist forming in the air as I exhaled.  Moisture covered my skin, dew collecting on me like I was a leaf in the mountains of Eden.

My head lolled to the right, my eyes searching the dark.

There was a faint glow around the door, barely revealing an empty room.

I rolled to my side, the world instantly spinning as I did so.  I started heaving, but there was nothing in my stomach to expel.

Bracing a hand on the table, I pushed myself into a lopsided sitting position. 

Adrenaline flooded my system when the door slowly creaked open, a sliver of light fell on the floor and wall.  But my body was too weak to do anything with it.

“Eve?” someone whispered in the dark.

“Stay away from me.”  I tried to sound threatening, but my voice was just a hoarse croak.

“It’s Tristan,” the figure said, stepping inside and closing the door behind him.  He set something on the table and then a lantern started to glow softly.  He placed a bag next to it and met my eyes.  His features were pronounced in the dim light.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

“I could use some water,” I managed to get out.

“Of course,” he said, reaching into the bag and producing a plastic bottle.  He unscrewed the lid and handed it to me.  I drank half of it before taking a breath.

“Gunner was supposed to have night watch over you tonight,” Tristan said as he pulled some sort of survival food bar from the bag as well.  He unwrapped it and handed it to me.  I started in on it greedily.  “I convinced him to let me switch.”

“You don’t normally stand guard over me though, do you?” I questioned.

“No,” he said, meeting my eyes.  “He seemed pretty suspicious, but he was also dozing off.”

“Night time then?” I asked, feeling my strength start to return.  I flexed my arms and legs and pulled myself into an upright sitting position.

“Yeah,” he said, pulling something out of the bag.  “About three in the morning.”

“How long has it been?” I asked.  I realized then it was clothing he’d pulled out of the bag and I was wearing a grimy hospital gown.  “How long have I been under?”

“Fourteen days,” he said, his voice grave.

“What?!” I shouted without thinking.  Tristan instantly hissed for me to keep it down, a finger pressed to his lips.

“I’ve been out for two weeks?” I said.  My head spun again at my spike in hostility.

Tristan nodded, looking back toward the door.  It remained closed and the hall quiet.

“What about West?” I asked, my stomach turning cold and hard.

“They did the surgery,” Tristan said, turning his attention back to me.  “It was pretty rough from what I hear.  We only had so much anesthesia since you were under for so long, so they couldn’t give him a strong dosage.  It wasn’t easy for him.”

“But they got it out?” I asked.  It felt like a snake had wrapped around my heart and lungs, tightening until I heard what I needed confirmed.  “The scrap?”

He slowly nodded.  “Yeah, they got it.”

A relieved sigh escaped my chest and my entire body sagged with it.

“He’s in recovery, but it’s going to take a while.  Like I said, it was pretty rough.  He’s been drinking a lot of alcohol just to try and dull the pain.”

As sorry as I might feel for West that he was in pain, I knew he would survive it.  If he could survive TorBane, he could survive the pain.

“Thank you,” I said, placing a hand on Tristan’s arm.

He nodded again.

“Come on,” he said.  “We’ve got to get you dressed before I get you out of here.”

“You’re going to help me escape?” I questioned, my eyes narrowing at him.

“They’ve helped your friend,” he said, pulling a pair of boots from his bag.  “They can’t hang that over your head anymore.  And…well, they’ve sewn you up so they must be finished with you.”

Suddenly I had to confront what I had been ignoring until that point.

My head was freezing cold.

I raised a tentative hand, my fingers hovering for a long moment.  The back of my eyes stung and there was a large lump in my throat.

“Gentle,” Tristan said, his expression regretful.

My fingers very first met sticky stitches.  And bare skin.

I slowly ran a hand over my head.

They’d shaven every last trace of my hair away.

“What did they do to me?” I whispered, my eyes blurring. 

Tristan cleared his throat and his voice was rough when he spoke.  “I didn’t see any of it,” his eyes dropped from mine.  “But the stitches run all the way around your head.  It looks like they did some serious digging.”

And then everything I’d seen while I was under hit me like an anvil to the chest.

Dr. Evans.  Both of them.  West as a kid.  A kid that I hated.

Seeing myself.  Talking to myself.  Hating myself.

What did that even mean?  How far had they broken me that I would be seeing and talking to myself?

“You okay?” Tristan whispered.

“No,” I answered, shaking my head as my eyes stared at nothing distinguishable on the floor.  “I am not okay.”

“Understandable,” he said.  “But we’d better get moving or we’re not going to get you out of here in time.”

I nodded, taking a second to try to collect myself.

I stood, only to collapse to the floor.

Tristan swore and helped to pull me to my feet.  “I swear I’m not just trying to catch a peek, but it looks like I’m going to have to help you get dressed.”

Holding Avian firmly in my mind the entire time, I let Tristan help me stand while I awkwardly pulled the hospital gown off and slid into clothes that weren’t mine.  I was immensely grateful when I realized the necklace Avian had made me was still around my neck.

“Drink some of this,” Tristan said when I was clothed.  He handed me another plastic bottle of red liquid.  “It tastes like crap, but it will help bring your strength back quicker.”

He was right, it was awful.  Like liquid sugar.  But it instantly flooded my system with energy.

“Come on,” he said, slipping one of my arms around his neck and half hauling me out the door.

He dimmed the lamp when we got into the hallway.  He turned left down a passageway and we walked silently for about fifty yards.  We took a sharp left, and then another immediate right.  Tristan opened a door with a set of keys and then locked it again behind us.

The space we were in was large and dark.  An old bed was pushed into one corner and a guitar leaned against the wall.

“This is my room,” Tristan said, leading me to the bed and easing me onto it.  “It’s right under an old coffee shop.  I opened up the floor to it a few weeks after I joined the Underground.  Like you said, there’s something not moral about a few people here and I wanted a way out if I needed it, whenever I wanted.  No one else knows about it.”

I nodded.  “Just give me a second.”

I placed my hands over my eyes.  My fingers were shaking violently. 

I was always the one who saved people.  I wasn’t the one that needed saving.  This wasn’t who I was.

I took five deep breaths, then sat halfway up.

“You could come with me,” I said, meeting his eyes.  “You’d fit in in New Eden.  The people there aren’t perfect, but they’re good people.”

“You have no idea how tempting that offer is,” Tristan said, shaking his head as he looked up at the ceiling.  “But there is something else you need to know.”

The air grew colder somehow with his heavy words and I knew whatever he said next would be bad.

“I overheard Margaret talking to some of her crew,” he started explaining.  “That beacon they tried setting off down where you live?  They left another one there and they’re planning to set it off remotely.”

“What?” I growled.  “When?”

“New Year’s day,” he said, his expression darkening.  “Margaret is pretty pissed off.  Her entire mission seems to have failed, first with getting your colony to cooperate, and second with you.  Sounds like they didn’t get what they wanted from you.”

“New Year’s,” I breathed.  “How far away is that?”

“Thirteen days,” Tristan replied. 

“What about West?” I asked.  “I’ve got to get him away from these people.  West hasn’t exactly been pleasant to be around lately, but he shouldn’t be here.”

Tristan shook his head, pacing the room.  “He won’t be ready to leave for at least a few more days.  You can’t wait that long.  You’ve got to warn your people.”

“How am I supposed to just leave him here though?” I said, my chest tightening.  I was pissed with West for what he’d done, but I wouldn’t let them keep swaying him into being a bad human being.

“I’ll stay, keep an eye on him.  I can’t guarantee what Margaret will do when she discovers you’re gone.  I’ll protect him until he’s strong enough to travel.  Then I’ll tell him what happened, the truth.  We’ll follow you as soon as he’s ready.”

“And you’re sure you’ll be able to get the both of you out?” I questioned.  Tristan really was a good man if he was willing to protect West, not even knowing him.

“I’m going to try my best.”  He walked to the far corner of his room and pulled an armoire away from the wall.  I saw the dim cut out square in the ceiling.

“I’m sorry, I know you’re not at your peak, but we’ve got to get moving,” he said, crossing the space back to his bed.  He reached underneath it and pulled out a shotgun and a box of ammunition.  “There’s only twenty shells left,” he explained as he emptied the box into one of my cargo pockets.  He also slipped a knife in.  “Hopefully it’s enough to keep you alive until you can get home.”

“I’ll make it enough,” I said, accepting the shotgun.  It was old, but it was going to have to do.

“Come on.”

With his help, I climbed on top of the armoire and lifted the board to the floor above.

Dust clouded my lungs from the rug that covered the hidden door.  I coughed as quietly as I could manage.  Tristan lifted me into the space above.

It seemed to be one of the few buildings in Seattle the Bane didn’t occupy.  How Tristan had managed that, I didn’t know and I wasn’t going to risk speaking and calling them to us.  Tristan popped up after me, and taking one of my hands in his, led us out of the building.

It was raining lightly and I felt my clothes slowly dampening.  Once again, we walked in the middle of the road, up the street, rising away from the water.

We moved slowly and I was getting tired of feeling weak and human.  But I kept pace as best I could.

Thankfully, we didn’t go far before slowing at the side of a road.

“These are the keys,” Tristan said, placing something cold and hard in my hand.  He stopped beside a very aggressive looking motorcycle.  “This is a bullet bike.  It’s built for speed but it isn’t necessarily built for stability.  The roads aren’t exactly in good shape these days so you’re going to have to be careful.  You know how to drive one of these?”