“Bane sweep!” I bellowed. “Five or less miles out! We’ve got to get out of here, NOW!”
Turning back to the front doors, I stepped outside, my rifle trained ahead.
A figure sprinted towards us, less than half a mile away. Long tendrils of hair bounced around narrow shoulders. Leather and military clothes covered a lean body.
There was a bird circling above the figure, following it precisely.
And the Bane sweep behind the figure steadily marched forward, darkening the sky behind them.
My blood ran cold as the figure came into focus. I recognized the face that belonged to it.
She recognized me at the same moment I did her and she skidded to a stop just fifty yards from me. Her eyes were wide, disbelieving. She took two uncertain steps toward me and then stopped again.
Eve One, my identical twin sister had just run out of the desert like a ghost from an urban legend.
The sound of the millions of bodies behind her grew in intensity. She threw a look over her shoulder and sprinted toward the building once again, leaping over the bodies of the Bane I’d killed off.
“You’re alive,” I was about to say when she plowed right into me. We rolled across the floor as her hands wrapped around my throat.
“What are you doing?” I tried to choke out. My hands clawed at hers but she held tight. She sat straddled over my body.
“My home,” she growled. “Trespassing. What you doing here?”
She spoke in broken, savage words.
I couldn’t answer because her hands were still wrapped around my throat.
I swung my legs up and hooked one around her neck and threw her back. Her eyes were wild with rage. A howling growl ripped from her throat as she scrambled to her feet.
“Stop!” I bellowed as I sprang up. “What are you doing?!”
She instantly froze, her hands outstretched toward me. Confusion filled her face and she tried to take another step toward me. She fell to her hands and knees in the process.
“I am not your enemy,” I said. A hand rose to my throat, even though I didn’t feel the pain I knew I should be experiencing. “I am your sister.”
Her harsh expression faltered and her focus seemed to draw inward for a moment. And then her eyes narrowed on my face.
It was as if she didn’t recognize me. We looked exactly the same, but she didn’t know my face.
How long had it been since she had looked in the mirror?
“It’s me,” I said, taking a slow step toward her. “It’s Eve Two.”
Her eyes darkened for a moment, as if she didn’t want to remember the past where there were references to us as numbers more than people.
“I thought…” she stumbled over her words. “You’re supposed to be dead.”
“I know,” I said. My eyes darted back out the door. The sky was growing darker. The sweep was getting closer by the second. “Look, there isn’t much time. We have to get out of here. How long until they reach the building?”
Her eyes darted to the door as well.
“I saw them…” She struggled to form sentences once again. I wondered how long it had been since she’d talked to another human being. “About hour ago. Ten miles out?”
She stood erect once again. Her eyes had calmed by this point, leaving only confusion.
“Thirty minutes,” she continued. “Probably less till they are here.”
I nodded, shuffling from one foot to the other. I needed to give so much more time to this moment, to this reunion, but we didn’t have it.
“They’re going to destroy this building the moment they get here,” I said, fixing my eyes hard on hers. “We have to leave. Now. You need to gather your things and we have to leave.”
“That was your vehicle,” she said. “No?”
“Yeah,” I nodded, inching toward the stairs that led to below. “It was me, and I have a few others with me.”
She tensed at this, and I saw the animal instinct inside of her preparing to run.
“Go get your things,” I said, my muscles prepping for a fight. “We have to leave.”
We were not much different than the Bane. I hadn’t meant it as a command, but she couldn’t fight my bidding. She turned for the stairs and went up.
It had been her living in West’s old apartment.
Not wasting another second, I dropped down into the stairway. I nearly crashed into Bill on my way down. His arms were loaded with supplies.
“Everyone ready to go?” I asked, still darting down the stairs as he went up.
“Almost,” he said, popping out onto the main floor.
Dr. Evans came running out onto the landing from the first floor, a box of things in his hands. “They’re really outside?”
I nodded. “About three miles away by now,” I said. “And she found us.”
“Who?”
“You know who,” I said over my shoulder as I dropped down toward the second floor.
I found Avian and West hectically gathering things up from Creed’s room. West had a backpack over his shoulders, stuffed to the point of exploding. He held the portable oxygen unit under one arm, and a monitor and bag of food in the other. Avian was just picking up Creed when I burst into the room.
“We’ve got to go,” I said. Adrenaline was burning through my veins, giving urgency to every beat of my cybernetic heart.
“’K,” Avian said, nodding and looking around the room. “I think I’ve got everything. You grab the sleeping bags.”
I nodded and scooped them up. All three of us started filing out of the room. “West,” I said, my words catching in my throat like cotton. “She’s here.”
“She—?” he dropped off when it clicked in his head. “Upstairs?”
“Yep,” I said as we began ascending.
West swore, and then apologized as he looked back at Creed in Avian’s arms.
When we exited out on the main floor, Eve One was standing at the front doors, rifle aimed at the approaching dark cloud. There was an overstuffed bag at her feet and that bird circled above outside.
“Eve?” West breathed as we stopped in the lobby.
She froze. She didn’t look back immediately, almost as if she were afraid. But slowly, she turned, and her eyes locked on his.
A smile cracked on one side of West’s face, and his eyes reddened.
“There will be time for explanation and reunions later!” I shouted, pulling on the back of West’s jacket. “We’ve got to get out of here or most of us are going to be dead!”
But Eve One stood rooted by the front door.
“Go!” I shouted to everyone else. “Get things loaded up. We will be there in a second!”
They knew they didn’t have time to sit and argue with me. They dashed down the hall.
“I know how scary this might seem to you right now,” I said, taking a hesitant step toward her. “Or maybe not. I know what your emotions must feel like. But none of us are going to hurt you. We need to get back to our home. To safety. I want you to come with us.”
“And if I say no?” she struggled with her words again. Her face was determined, hard. “Will you force me?”
“Yeah,” I said, nodding my head as I took a step closer. “I will. And I’m not ashamed to admit it. You’re my sister and I won’t walk away from you again.”
She hesitated. My eyes flickered out the door again. I could see the army now, on the horizon, moving toward NovaTor.
“We’ve got to get out of here!” West suddenly popped into view.
Eve One’s eyes flickered to him and I saw her resolve weaken.
“If not for me, do it for him.”
There was only a moment’s hesitation. And then she lowered her weapon, picked up her bag, and we both sprinted toward West.
Everyone was loaded in the solar tank just to the side of the building. The three of us dove inside and the doors weren’t even closed before Bill slammed on the gas. He fishtailed around the front of the building.