“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.”
“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.”