Eden (42 page)

Before he could say
anything else, I stepped around him and walked down the
stairs.

I hurried out to join the
rest of the patrol group.  It was then that I noticed how they
kept a wide berth around an entire block.  As I looked through
the dark in that direction, I saw them, rows and rows of them,
surrounding the complexities of the power plant.

As we patrolled that
night, I thought of the dozens of ways I could die in twenty-four
hours.  I also thought of what the world would look and be
like after the Pulse was set off. 

I stood a good chance of
not making it out of there alive, but I would do it a million times
over without thinking twice about it.

We finally stood a
fighting chance.

As I walked back through
the doors just before dawn, I was immediately greeted by Dr.
Beeson.  My stomach leapt into my throat.

“
The test results just
came in,” he said quietly, fidgeting with an envelope in his
hands.  “I haven’t looked at them yet.  I wanted you to
see them first.”

I swallowed hard,
nodding.  We started for the elevator, working our way through
the crowded lobby.

“
Eve,” West called as he
crossed the room towards us.  “I need to talk to
you.”

“
Not now,” I said as I
held my hand up to him, shaking my head.

“
But I need to talk to
you,” he said, his step unfaltering.

“
I said not now!” I
bellowed as I stopped, my eyes fierce as I locked eyes with
him.

My vision flickered. 
I was about to lose myself.

West’s eyes were large as
he finally stopped in his tracks.  I felt a hand close around
my forearm and I was pulled toward the elevator.

Dozens of eyes watched me
as the doors slid closed.

“
It was happening, wasn’t
it?” Dr. Beeson said quietly as we rose.

“
Yes,” I replied
simply.

We walked silently down
the blue hall to his office and closed the door quietly behind
us.

“
West is a smart young
man,” Dr. Beeson said as he leaned against his desk.  “He has
been up here most of the night with me, asking questions about the
wireless system.  I showed him how it works and I believe he
understood everything I said.  He got his grandfather and
father’s brains.”

I nodded mindlessly as he
handed me the envelope.  I held it with shaking
hands.

My stomach rolled as I
tore the envelope.  The edges of my vision started to turn
black as I pulled the sheets of paper out.

The words seemed to move
and shift around as I skimmed through the information that didn’t
mean much to me.

But they froze near the
middle of the page.  At the only line that
mattered.

DNA TEST RESULTS: NEGATIVE
MATCH.

“
Negative,” I breathed, my
heart racing.

“
Dr. Evans was not your
father,” Dr. Beeson said quietly, though my brain barely processed
what he had said.

“
He isn’t my brother,” I
said as I pressed a fist to my lips.  “West isn’t my
brother.”

I was confused at the
sting behind my eyes at first.  It took me a moment to realize
that I was trying to cry.  My body just didn’t know
how.

Dr. Beeson eased me down
into a chair.  My eyes scanned the page again and again,
processing nothing but the line that mattered.

“
I assume this is good
news to you,” he said quietly as he sat.

It took me a moment to
nod.  “Yes,” I whispered, my eyes still glued to the
page.  “Yes it is.”

We were both quiet for a
moment, both processing the news.

“
I’ve been thinking about
something,” he said quietly as he leaned forward, resting his
forearms on his knees.  “The way your emotions were blocked,
it was just done wirelessly with the chip in your brain.  I
think I can remove the programming.”

“
I’d feel things everyone
else feels?” I asked, my eyes shooting to his face.

He nodded.  “I think
we would have to do it slowly.  I’m afraid if I just erased it
all at once it would overwhelm you.  Your body and your brain
couldn’t handle it.  But I think if we do it bit by bit, over
a length of time, you could be brought back to
normal. 

“
You wouldn’t have
blackouts anymore.”

My eyes dropped to the
floor, my breathing coming in shallow swallows.  I would
finally understand what everyone else felt.  I could allow
myself to feel.  There wouldn’t be any danger of me attacking
anyone any longer.

“
Would you like to give it
a try, Eve?”

My eyes stung all the more
as I nodded my head.

“
I can start it right
now,” he said as he glanced at his computer screens.  “It
won’t take very long.  I will however, have to kind of shut
you down for a while to do it.  It will take a reboot, if you
will, for everything to take effect.”

“
Do it,” I said as I let
the pages and envelope slip from my hand to the ground.

THIRTY-FIVE

I shifted the weapons that
were strapped to me, counting again how many grenades were attached
to my belt.
 
I pulled at the vest strapped around me, feeling
uncomfortable.  It might have been bulletproof but it was
torture to wear.

I glanced around at the
four men that sat nestled in the tank with me.  Their faces
were set hard, no emotions present.

The noise from the track
wheels died away and I knew we were there.  It hadn’t taken
long to get from the hospital to here.  It was only a few
blocks away.

One of the men opened the
top hatch and we all climbed out.  We were only one hundred
yards away.  I could see them even from here, rows and rows of
Fallen, standing on and around the plant.

“
We’ll take out as many of
them with this as we can,” one of the men said as he patted the
firing turret.  “We have to be careful not to damage the plant
though.  The rest of us will pick them off one by one, as
quickly as we can.”

I nodded, my eyes never
leaving the gleaming bodies ahead of me.

Two of the men unhooked
the mile long power supply line from the back of the tank. 
One end of it trailed behind us, going directly back to the
Pulse.  We unwound the rest of it, attaching the end of it to
a hook on the back of my vest that I could easily release once I
got inside.  I shrugged my shoulders, testing its
weight.  It would have been too heavy for me to carry if I had
been a normal girl.  It had taken two of them to carry the
entire line.

As one of Royce’s soldiers
handed me my weapon, I couldn’t help but smile.  I had to
admit, the M4 assault rifle was beautiful.

“
You ready?” one of the
men asked, gripping the firing turret.

“
Fire away,” I said as I
trained my eyes ahead of me.

The blast from the tank
shook the ground and nearly knocked me off my feet.  Gleaming
metal eyes jumped to life as they turned in our direction.  I
took off running toward them as the second blast was
fired.

Gleaming parts exploded
and flew through the air as dozens of them leapt at me.  I
fired, flashes of light illuminating the streets.  Bodies
dropped, metal frames shattered, wires sparked.  Shots fired
from behind me dropped more bodies.  Still more and more of
them woke to life, leaping to attack their intruder.

The line attached to me
slowed my progress more than I would have expected.  I put all
of my weight into it, dragging it behind me as I fired.  The
plant suddenly seemed miles away, even though I was closing in on
only a few dozen yards.

I pulled the pin of one of
the grenades and tossed it at the chain-link fence that surrounded
the plant.  I almost couldn’t see it through all the Fallen
that surrounded it.  A few seconds later, metal flew through
the air, raining down on me with deadly force. 

A hand grabbed at my right
arm, closing in with nearly crushing force.  I jammed the butt
of my firearm in its face, knocking it away for just long enough to
blow its head off.  Another leapt at me, its eyes gleaming
through the dark.  It was blasted apart before it even hit the
ground.

I remembered the advice
Dr. Beeson had given me and focused all my thoughts on pushing the
Fallen away as my feet pounded the pavement.  A few Fallen
hesitated as they ran at me, their movements becoming jerky as they
fought my wireless commands.  I couldn’t transmit to them all
and keep a very strong connection.

The plant was a mere
twenty feet away.  While plenty of them had woken, most of
them stood there motionless, their eyes fixed on the source of
electricity ahead of them.  I had to push my way through
mechanical bodies, firing as I went to take out as many of them as
I could. 

I was plowed into from the
side, knocking me to my back.  I rolled as I went down, the
line wrapping around my midsection.  A body leapt on top of
me, its hands closing around my throat.  Before it could even
squeeze, its head burst open from a bullet coming from the
tank.  I jumped to my feet again, untangling myself as I
sprinted.

Just as the transformer
came in sight, I heard the additional gun shots.  They were
being fired in my direction.  I didn’t look back as I pushed
myself faster.

Bodies started dropping
ahead of me as both me and Royce’s men fired.  I mowed down
the last row of Fallen who stood at the edge of the plant, clearing
my way to the ladder that rose fifteen feet up to the
transformer.  The metal sang as I ascended, my boots striking
each rung.  The ladder vibrated as another body joined me in
the climb.

The Fallen had climbed
faster than I had and grabbed my ankle, threatening to pull me back
over the edge.  The sound of another shot filled my head and a
fraction of a second later blood sprayed from my left arm as my
flesh was torn open.  Another shot was fired and the Fallen
grabbing me dropped to the ground with the sound of electric
death.

The blood started to spill
from my arm as I heaved myself onto the platform and pulled the
line to give me some slack.  I hadn’t noticed the two Fallen
who were surrounding the transformer until they tackled me to the
cement.

One of them closed its
hands around my throat as it held me pinned to the ground. 
The other pulled a hand gun, releasing the safety.

I narrowed my eyes at the
armed one, focusing every thought I had towards it.  The next
second, the Fallen choking the life out of me dropped to the
ground, killed by its fellow kind.  It turned the gun on
itself the next second.

I scrambled to my feet
again, finally reaching the transformer.  I could feel the
currents of electricity emanating from it as I finally connected
the line.  It hummed to life instantly.

The sound of metal on
concrete sounded as I turned to make my escape.  Dozens of
Fallen climbed onto the platform, their dead eyes fixed on
me.  Light flashed through the sky as shots were fired from
both directions.

I sprinted forward without
thinking, barreling through the bodies in front of me before they
could react.  I leapt off the platform, flying through the
night sky for one freeing second before I slammed to the
ground.  Pain jumped through my legs as I landed but I kept
running through the bodies.  

Stay away, stay away, stay
away,
I thought as my boots slapped the
pavement back toward the tank.

Just as I was clear of the
ring of Fallen that surrounded the plant, I heard an
explosion.  The buildings and streets before me were
illuminated as the fire billowed, racing towards me with
unstoppable force.  I screamed as the flames ate away the
fabric of my pants, melted the rubber of my boots to my feet. 
I felt every cell of my skin as it singed and was burned up. 
I hit the ground just fifteen yards away from the tank as the
flames of the Fallen’s explosive died away.

I couldn’t distinguish one
scream from the next as I heard feet meeting the concrete and felt
hands close around my arms and start pulling me back toward the
tank.  Every movement felt like tortured death as they hauled
me up and into the tank.  It roared to life as we crawled back
to the hospital.

“
Are they following us?” I
heard a voice ask. 

A few moments later a
voice responded.  “No, they’re flocking around the plant
again.  That’s incredible!  They don’t even seem to
care.”

I clenched my teeth
together as I tried to force my vision to focus on the roof of the
tank.  My breathing game in labored gasps and I felt
lightheaded.  I’d made it out of the plant alive but would I
make it back to the hospital alive as well?

Black spots swam in my
vision as I was jostled again a few minutes later.  One of my
legs scraped against the lip of the hatch of the tank, sending a
blood curdling scream ripping from my chest as I wished to
die.  I’d never known pain like this.