The chip itself has been evolving. After sedation and a full body scan, hints of cybernetic enhancements have been detected throughout subject’s body. It is not just Eve’s brain that has been altered now. It is her entire body.
I stared at my hand, willing my eyes to see the metallic fingers I had seen on the Hunters, searching for any signs of alloys bonded to my bones. My skin didn’t look any different than Sarah’s would have, no different than Gabriel’s or Morgan’s. It was all inside. That was the reason I was so much faster, so much stronger. That was how the Fallen where. That was why the infection had spread so quickly. They were better than us. We had been overpowered so quickly.
An entry from when I was eleven:
As subject’s brain has continued to develop and evolve, adjustments have been required. Her emotions have been changing. Fear and anger started to surface this last week, indicating our previous programming has been outdone. As she continues to grow we will need to make more adjustments.
I did the adjustments myself. It is a complex procedure; the programming must be done precisely. Emotion is something not easily blocked. Modification must be dealt with carefully to not harm the brain and therefore, the body. After I had the programming correctly written, the adjustments were interfaced with the chip. The change was instantaneous. Amazing, the control that is exacted through remote programming.
Subject is again devoid of emotion.
I stared at the last line for a long time, my insides feeling hollow and empty. It was as if this man had reached through the pages and yanked all my insides out.
Subject is again devoid of emotion.
It explained a lot. How I didn’t panic when others did. How I didn’t understand what was happening to everyone after Tye had died, how I didn’t recognize their grief. I didn’t feel things.
I forced myself to read the last page that referenced directly to me.
All data needed has been collected from experiments done to subject Eve. Project is being handed off to Dr. Beeson. The next phase of experimentation and testing is now ready.
And that was the end of the entries about me. The rest reverted to the language I didn’t understand with diagrams of robotic parts and human bodies.
The sun started to sink into the western horizon and I still had not left my tent. Another plate of food had been pushed under the flap of my tent as evening set but it remained untouched on the ground.
I imagined myself sinking through the ground, of burying myself into the earth and disappearing. I had helped cause the end of the world. Whether it was by my choice or not, I was a means to the end. It would have been better if I didn’t exist. I felt meaningless, an experiment forgotten about, no longer needed. I was a hollow vessel with no reason for still being. They had gotten what they needed out of me and moved on.
Eden fell quiet, slumber sweeping over its inhabitants. And still I lay there, my eyes staring up at the ceiling, yet seeing nothing. My mind was blank, my insides hollow. It felt better that way. Should I fill back in, everything would collapse in on me.
I barely even heard the sound of feet outside before a dark figure entered my tent. I knew who it was, even if my eyes couldn’t see his face until he raised the lantern and closed the flap behind him.
My bottom lip trembled as I looked away from him and drew my eyes back to the ceiling. I felt my insides shake in a way I didn’t understand.
West stepped closer to me, set the lantern on the ground by the wall and sat on the floor facing me.
“Here,” I managed to make my throat work as I handed the notebook to him. “Please take it.”
He accepted it and set it on the ground next to him. “I’m sorry,” he whispered as his eyes dropped to the ground.
I should have told him that none of it was his fault. He had been a child after all. It was his father and grandfather, not him. But I couldn’t do it. It was his blood that had done what they had. I didn’t think I could make my voice work anyway.
“You still don’t remember any of it?” he asked quietly.
I barely managed to shake my head.
“I’ve thought about it. Dr. Beeson, the one who took over your care and research, he was a kind man. He didn’t approve of everything that was done to you. When things started getting out of control, when the infection started taking everyone, I think he let you go. He made you forget somehow. Probably with the chip. And then he let you go. He knew you would survive, that you could take care of yourself.”
I gave the smallest of nods. What had happened didn’t matter. I was what I was. What had happened wasn’t going to change, no matter the paths that had created it.
“Please say something,” he whispered as he raised his eyes to my face.
I turned my head slightly to look at him. Tears traced patterns in the dirt on his face as they rolled down his cheeks. “I don’t think I can even do that,” I said quietly as I watched one of the tears drop into the dirt beneath him.
West wiped his thumb across his cheek, before slowly extending his hand to my face. His eyes burned and clouded at the same time as he wiped his damp thumb across my own cheek. Borrowed tears.
“I can’t feel anything,” I spoke quietly through the dim light. “I can’t feel emotion. I’m hollow.”
West shook his head. “You’re not hollow. You feel things.”
I shook my head. “You’re wrong. He blocked it all. He made sure I didn’t feel anything. It became a problem.”
West scooted closer, shifting himself forward. He reached a hand toward me, placing his palm on my cheek, his thumb traveling from my cheek to my lips. I closed my eyes as heat tingled on the surface of my skin.
“You feel things,” he whispered again. His hand trailed down the side of my neck, down my arm until his fingers intertwined with mine.
A quivering filled my stomach as I kept my eyes closed. My entire body felt like it hummed as I smelled West’s presence, so close to me. It felt as if I could sense every surface of his body, so acutely aware of him it was if he was an extension of my own being.
West shifted again, the one hand still intertwined with mine, his other one coming up to the side of my neck. And then his lips were on mine.
It wasn’t crushing like the first unexpected one had been. This one saturated me slowly, hesitant in a way that consumed me. It smoldered at first, heat rising with every passing moment, eating me up from my stomach outward.
A gasp escaped from my lips as they parted and I didn’t even realize it as my free hand knotted in West’s shaggy hair. He shifted again, most of his body lying on top of mine.
I didn’t understand what was happing as I burned from the inside out. My heart raced in a way it never did, even when I had been running for hours. I wanted more but felt totally consumed by West, getting everything I needed yet feeling that it was not even close to enough.
He pulled away just a bit, resting his forehead against mine. His eyes were closed as he tried to slow his breathing. “You feel things.” He said raggedly. “I know you felt that.”
West had fallen asleep, his arms wrapped tightly around me. His face looked so peaceful. He looked younger. In sleep he didn’t have to worry about survival, feel guilt for the actions of his family.