“Tell Royce to figure something out,” I said. “And tell Addie to be ready with the wireless transmission system. I’ll keep them away for as long as I can. But in case I can’t keep them all out of the city, continue with the evacuation plan. Head into the water. You’ll be safe there. At least for a while.”
Bill held my eyes for a long while before he nodded. He placed a hand on the back of my neck and pressed a kiss to my forehead. “Good luck,” he said.
“Do me a favor,” I said, glancing briefly at West before meeting Bill’s eyes again. “Tell Avian that I love him. And that I’m sorry.”
“He knows that,” Bill said. “But I’ll tell him.”
I nodded and Bill saluted me.
“I’m sorry,” West muttered again as he backed away.
Gripping the handlebars tighter, I revved the engine and took off down the street.
TWENTY-SIX
Even though I could no longer feel that connection to the Bane, I pushed my thoughts out to them. I pictured the desert I had never actually seen. I commanded them to go there and to wait for me.
I was just over an hour outside of New Eden, and had just left a canyon when my ATV sputtered and died. I looked down to see the gas gauge dropping below the red line. Leaving it on the side of the road, I walked.
The land opened up before me, revealing dry desert. There were a few towns hugging the mountains, but after that, nothing but dry open desert.
I know you’re out there. Come and find me.
The towns fell behind me and soon my boots crunched over rough, cracked ground. The light breeze that brushed past me tasted stale and dry. When I could no longer see buildings and the landscape was nothing but sage brush, I stopped.
A wind picked up, cool and arid, empty and lonely. I turned my eyes to the horizon, blocking out the blinding afternoon sunlight with my hand.
A figure stepped into view and slowly approached. Another was behind him. Followed by another.
They gathered, one by one, ten by ten. They walked slowly and even, in no hurry and perfectly controlled.
Come.
I shifted uncomfortably as they closed in around me from all sides. Their metal parts gleamed in the sun, their eyes reflecting crazy colors in a prism of light.
The first dozen of them stopped just ten feet from where I was. They stood perfectly still and stared at me.
I was queen of the Bane and these were my subjects.
Night fell and the Bane continued to flock around me. They stretched as far as I could see, filling this desert. There were thousands of them. More than ten thousand. And they all just stood there, facing me.
I sat on the ground eventually when my legs started shaking from standing for endless hours. I commanded the Bane to sit as well, uncomfortable having them stand over me when the last five years I had been trained to fire or run whenever one of these things came in sight.
My eyes were heavy, but I didn’t dare fall asleep. What if I did and my connection to them was lost and they headed into New Eden? What about those who were still answering the call of the beacon and heading this way but had not arrived at our gathering place?
My eyelids tried to close, but I held them open until they burned, all through the night.
The sun seemed to rise all at once. It was brilliant and beautiful and so cold all at the same time.
I stood, stretching my stiff limbs and looked out over the crowd again.
There had to now be a few hundred thousand Bane surrounding me. All I could see around me was gleaming bodies that shone in the sun.
Something fell out of my pocket and I looked down to see the notebook.
Loose pages had fallen out of it and it lay open, facing the ground.
The truth is in there, West had said. You’re going to hate me for hiding it, but it’s there.
Bending, I carefully picked up the loose pages and the tattered notebook.
It was open to a page I’d read before.
An unexpected side effect of the chip implantation has occurred. I have been aware of the fact that everything project Eve is able to do should be impossible. The strength, speed, increased eyesight and hearing capacities. This has evolved beyond the capability of the military’s chip and TorBane.
The two technologies have intertwined with each other I believe. The chip has given the TorBane technology the ability to spread and evolve. After sedation and a full body scan, hints of cybernetic enhancements have been detected throughout Eve’s body. It is not just the brain, lungs, and heart that have been altered now. It is the entire body.
Test’s I and II yield duplicate results.
I and II.
It had really been there all along.
My eyes jumped to another entry.
As Eve’s brain has continued to develop and evolve, adjustments have been required in II.
Another:
They don’t want just one test subject. But how can I in good conscious give them more than that?
The Eve project…
She’d been there too, the entire time.
My sister.
My identical twin sister.
I looked at the loose pages I held in my hand. They were frayed and worn. Like they’d been ripped from the notebook in a hurry.
West had wanted to hide something from me.
I unfolded one, tucking the rest of the pages into the notebook.
It’s been a month since my last entry. Eve I has already shown improvements. She’s been learning a few more words every week. She is interacting a bit more. Just yesterday we introduced her to my 3 year old grandson, West. We took her to his playroom. He tried to engage her in activities, but she seemed hesitant. Though she did watch him for an hour. She observed the things he did, the way he talked to his toys.
I cannot wait to see Eve I’s progress. If she is able to fully recover, this opens up a whole new aspect to this technology. I had never even considered the mental side of TorBane before.
And on the back of the page…
Eve I plays with West three days a week now. She is taken to the playroom and she stays there with him as well as his nanny and her nurse for two hours. She is allowing him to talk to her, though she still will not respond with more than a word or two. But she does try to play with the toys.
It’s been eight months since Eve I was given the technology. I don’t know if it is because it was given for a neurological condition, but it still seems to work more slowly than I would have hoped. We may try to speed things up with the next generation of testing. We should have it ready in about a year’s time.
My hands shook as I read about my sister.
I pulled out another page, dated more than two years prior, and read.
While I has started to stabilize, II continues to languish. The department is fighting against it, saying that the technology is not ready to be tested on a human subject, I feel that I cannot simply let this infant die without trying. It could, and I believe will, save her.
We had been given TorBane for completely different reasons. Mine were physical. Hers were mental.
The truth had been so close to the surface for so long.
I thought about the past, how West had always worded things so carefully when we first met. And the brief look between West and Dr. Beeson when we had first gotten to the hospital. A secret had passed between them then. This secret.
Dr. Beeson.
He wasn’t innocent in this either. He knew about my sister as well. He had taken care of us for years! And he never said a word either.