Keary Taylor
THE HUMAN
ONE
Nearly everywhere I looked, there were bodies.
They lay limp in the streets. They were piled on top of each other inside buildings. They sat still and slumped over inside vehicles.
We were surrounded by over three million decomposing, cybernetic-infused corpses.
I closed my eyes as a sense of overwhelming vertigo seized me. Rubble fell from the roof, down into the street below, as I took one step back from the ledge.
There were so many bodies. They surrounded us on all sides. Silent and immobile. They were dead. They couldn’t infect us anymore.
But I had lived my whole life running from them.
Every instinct in me wanted to flee the city.
I opened my eyes, turning them east. I missed the mountains. I missed the trees. I missed the heat and the snow and the changing leaves.
I missed protecting my family. I missed staying up all night to make sure we were safe.
I missed having a purpose.
We were safe now. The Bane in the city were destroyed.
What purpose did I serve now?
I took two more steps back, bumping into the Pulse. Its sharp edges dug into my ribs, but I stayed pressed into it, hoping to feel something other than guilt and loss.
I’d had a purpose then. I’d helped to clear this city. So had many others.
But not all of us had made it out.
And my actions ate at me every day.
“Eve?”
Avian stepped out onto the roof of the hospital. A rifle was slung over his shoulder, a utility belt hanging low on his narrow hips. His eyes were serious and searching as he met mine.
I looked back out over the city to the east. His footsteps approached, slow but knowing.
He stepped in front of me, locking his eyes on mine. He placed a hand on either side of my face and pressed his forehead to mine.
“We can leave,” he breathed as my eyes slid closed. “You don’t have to stay here and torture yourself.”
I shook my head slightly and the air around me seemed to tighten and constrict around my chest and throat.
“I can’t abandon them,” I whispered, placing my hand on Avian’s chest. The only sure thing in my world, Avian’s heart beat back the echo of everything I had ever fought for. “I have to deal with the messes I’ve made.”
“You’ve saved them, Eve,” he said. His rough cheek brushed mine as his lips whispered next to my ear. “Maybe it’s time to save yourself.”
I didn’t respond because I would never be able to make him understand the weight and turmoil that burned through my veins. I simply pressed my face into Avian’s neck and crushed him into my chest.
“Come on,” Avian said after a long while, taking my hand. He pulled me toward the stairs that led back into the hospital. “Dinner will be ready soon.”
We made our way to the armory, finding it empty.
We didn’t really need weapons anymore, but not a single one of our scouts was going to walk around the city without a firearm.
Instincts don’t die quickly.
A rack of firearms lined one wall. There were labels below each shotgun or rifle. I had six firearms myself. Avian had five. And those were just the ones we kept in the armory.
My eyes hesitated on one name.
West.
His rifle and shotgun had sat untouched for weeks.
Static crackled over my radio, making me jump.
“It’s happening again! I need you up here, Eve! Now!”
Royce. There was unmistakable frustration and fear in his voice.
My teeth threatened to break as my jaw clenched. I placed my M4 assault rifle back on the rack and looked over at Avian. He hesitated for a moment, the pain of the past surfacing once more like a heavy, dark cloud. He finally gave an assuring nod.
“I’m on my way,” I said into the radio. I squeezed Avian’s shoulder, hoping it was reassuring. “I'll be back as soon as I can.”
“Yeah,” was all he said. The muscles in his neck tightened and his eyes darted away from mine. He went back to cleaning his weapon.
My footsteps echoed off the walls. The hospital felt so quiet and yet so busy these days. In the two months since the Pulse went off, everyone had slowly started moving out. But the hospital remained the base of operations here in Los Angeles, now renamed New Eden. It was still the most secure location and all of our military supplies, food, and medical equipment remained stored within its walls.
I jogged up six flights of stairs and exited onto the blue floor.
“Eve!” I heard Royce bellow from down the hall. “Take your time. It's not like he isn't trying his best to kill us!”
I picked up my pace, sprinting toward the door I was becoming all too familiar with.
“For a robotic freak you sure can be slow,” Royce growled as he helped Graye hold the door shut. Something slammed against it from the other side. They groaned as their feet slid back and the door jerked open a few inches.
“How long ago did he wake up?” I asked, pressing my palm flat against the door, pushing it back shut. I avoided looking thorough the tiny window made of reinforced glass.
“It’s been about twenty minutes,” Graye answered. “He was pretty out of it for a bit, then he freaked out.”
I nodded, feeling everything in me tire. This whole process exhausted me mentally and physically, and it just kept repeating.
“I've got it,” I said. “You two can leave now.”
“You sure you can handle him?” Royce asked. “He’s raging today.”
I wasn’t ready, at all. But I wouldn’t tell Royce that. “Yeah.”
Finally he nodded.
“Count of three?” I asked. “One, two, three!”
They jumped away as I yanked the door open, stepped inside, and slammed the door closed behind me. I broke the door handle off, locking the both of us inside until I could get him to cooperate and help me force it open.
I heard him freeze behind me.
It took a long time to turn away from the door. The last seven weeks had been painful. I'd been preparing myself for a bad situation, because there was no easy way for this all to end. But I hadn't expected this to end like it did.
“Eve,” he breathed behind me. I heard him take a step closer and everything in me wanted to retreat, to not have to go through all of this, again and again. “What’s going on?”
Collecting myself, I turned, and looked at West.
He wasn't as bad as Elijah. He'd at least kept both his eyes. But the skin was bubbled on the right side of his face, the left had a few scattered scars. His face was in bad shape, there was no question about it. His entire body was covered in marks and scar tissue. I could barely distinguish the claw marks on his neck—which had once been so prominent—from the new scars.
He was broken, but he was still West.
Even if he wasn't my West.
Even if he couldn't remember that.
“What happened to me?” he asked for the third time. “What is this?”
My eyes dropped to his bare chest. A device was implanted there, just above his heart, and small barbs disappeared into his skin. Components swirled, ticked, and spun, casting a pale green glow, keeping it charged at all times.
Keeping me away at all times.
“It's keeping you human,” I said with a hard swallow. I didn't know how many times I could keep doing this.
West stared at me for a long time, like he couldn't quite make sense of my words. He looked back down at the device, his fingers touching where it went into his bare chest.
“I…” he stuttered. “I remember… I remember going to the plant, all the Bane. I was helping Royce repair the line. A gun fired… I don't remember how I got back here.”
I recalled the night I had been at the power plant myself. My mission had been to connect the power line for the Pulse to the power source. There had been hundreds of Bane gathered around it. There were flashes of light, gunfire, explosions. I’d nearly lost my legs that night. But it had been for nothing.