The Eve Illusion

by Giovanna Fletcher

  ‘Michael?’ Even I can hear the relief in my voice. I know he isn’t here to hurt me.

  ‘What the –’ Bram leaps to his feet as Michael walks into the room with both of his hands high in the air, showing us he isn’t holding a weapon. He isn’t a threat.

  Bram charges towards him.

  ‘Bram!’ I shout, but it falls on deaf ears. He rams into Michael, causing them both to crash into the wall behind him with a thud. They pull apart yet come back together within seconds, adrenalin pumping through them as they fight.

  Bram jabs Michael in the jaw with his fist, causing him to utter a guttural sound before he falls backwards and stumbles to the ground. Michael responds by taking out Bram’s legs with one sweep from his own. Another thump of a body finding the floor. They roll across it, grunting as they grab hold of each other’s clothing.

  I hear a hoarse voice yelling at them to stop. It takes me a few seconds to realize that it’s mine. They’re completely oblivious. They’ve zoned out, or rather zoned in, their attention only on each other.

  ‘I said stop it!’ I scream, leaping forward, deciding the only way to stop them before they do serious damage is to step in. They aren’t the only ones trained to fight, I remind myself.

  Michael is clearly on his own. We need to hear him out and use what he knows, not bludgeon him to death or waste precious time and energy attempting to do so.

  I grab Bram’s arm to stop him delivering another punch to Michael’s shoulder. The second my hands are on him I realize I should’ve spoken, should’ve warned him that I was entering their space, should’ve let him know that I wasn’t another member of the EPO here to give Michael backup. I should’ve let him know that it was me.

  I’ve judged it wrongly.

  Bram drops his grip on Michael and spins on the spot, throwing his arm out into the air with the weight of his whole body behind it.

  I let go of his arm and feel myself fly a few feet off the floor.

  Bram goes to grab me, but he doesn’t manage to get me before my back slams into the glass window. The pain is instant, but I manage to land on my feet. I stand upright, defiant, glaring at both Bram and Michael, who look at me in horror.

  ‘Eve, I’m so sorry!’ says Bram, starting towards me.

  ‘Are you okay?’ asks Michael.

  ‘Enough!’ I hiss, pointing between the two of them as I try to ignore my aching bones. I do not want either of them fussing over me right now.

  ‘What’s he doing here?’ Bram’s breathing is laboured as he scowls across at Michael. ‘He’s one of them.’

  ‘I’m not!’ Michael protests.

  ‘Your actions say otherwise. We saw what you did down there. This is a pretty good viewing spot,’ snarls Bram.

  ‘It’s not what it looked like,’ urges Michael, glancing from Bram to me, pleading, ‘Eve, you know I’m not here to hurt you. Either of you.’

  ‘Like you could,’ mutters Bram.

  Michael doesn’t take the bait.

  ‘Why are you here, then?’ I ask.

  ‘To warn you.’ He stands a little straighter. ‘You aren’t safe here. They know where you are.’

  ‘How?’ asks Bram.

  ‘Saunders.’

  Oh.

  ‘The bastard!’ shouts Bram, the back of his fist pounding on the wall. Then he’s pacing the floor. ‘I should’ve known he couldn’t be trusted. Where is he now? That backstabbing traitor. Sitting alongside Vivian and my dad, I bet. Their new little pet. I’ll kill him. What a piece of shit –’

  ‘He’s dead,’ cuts in Michael.

  There’s an eerie silence.

  I think of Saunders, of his Holly, and feel guilty that he was ever brought into this life with me. He would’ve been so young. Can he really be blamed for his behaviour when his version of reality was as warped as my own?

  ‘He promised them you,’ Michael explains. ‘He failed to deliver.’

  ‘And you haven’t done the same?’ I ask, needing to check.

  ‘I never would.’

  I nod, knowing he’s speaking the truth. I’ve not doubted his actions from the moment he embraced me in that lift as my world fell apart. It was wrong and against every protocol and rule, but he treated me like a human who’d had her heart broken. He held me together and showed me compassion.

  I look at Bram, aware of the guilt that stirs.

  Too much has happened.

  ‘Saunders, man …’ Bram groans, his head in his hands.

  We’re silent for a few minutes as we process the loss. He did a hideous thing, but he was still someone we cared for.

  ‘Is my father still alive?’ I ask quietly, gripping hold of the scar on my wrist, the only real connection I have with him, terrified of the answer.

  Michael nods but breaks eye contact.

  I’m relieved and fearful all at once.

  ‘If Saunders gave us up, how come you’re the only one here?’ Bram asks suspiciously.

  ‘Bram, I trust –’

  ‘Come with me,’ Michael interrupts, leading us around the viewing platform to the other side of the building. Before we can turn a corner he holds out an arm to stop us. He peers around the end of the wall, then turns back to us. ‘Take a look for yourselves. I gave them false information, told them the wrong location. Figured Saunders isn’t around to correct them.’ He flinches, realizing what he’s said. ‘This might just buy you enough time to get away, now that they’re busy looking elsewhere. That’s why I’m here. To tell you to leave. Go west to the closest peak. Not north,’ he adds to Bram sternly.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It’s overcrowded and unsafe up there. But west should be fine. Gentler folk wanting an easier life … They’ll be kind and fair. They’ll keep you safe.’

  I slide my face out from behind the wall. The building opposite is alive with commotion as a group of guards scale the tower. Their weapons are poised and ready as they enter rooms, upturning tables and furniture as they go, looking everywhere in the hope of finding me.

  ‘I don’t need more time to run or to be hidden by more strangers,’ I say decisively, turning back to both Bram and Michael. ‘Look at them. There is no way I will ever be allowed to leave Central. Or find a way of leaving that doesn’t mean I’ll spend a lifetime constantly looking over my shoulder.’

  Michael stares at me, perplexed.

  ‘That’s not freedom,’ I explain. ‘Going back into that Tower and fighting has always been the only way of truly being free. Otherwise nothing changes. They’ll never stop looking for me.’

  ‘Eve, there is no fight,’ says Michael softly. ‘They have all of your army. You only have the people standing here.’

  ‘You?’ Bram frowns. ‘As if we’d ever –’

  ‘Really? You still don’t trust me?’

  ‘Why would I?’

  ‘It’s safer if you leave,’ Michael says to me.

  ‘I’ve tried telling her but she won’t listen,’ Bram explains, as though I’m not there. ‘Why do you think she’s still in Central?’

  ‘Her father?’

  ‘Bingo.’

  ‘The longer she avoids that place, the longer he stays alive. They know he’s the one person who is no use to them dead. She has to go. Eve, you have to go.’ It’s almost as though he’s begging. He doesn’t want this personal mission of his to have been for nothing.

  ‘She won’t.’

  ‘I can’t,’ I explain, feeling crushed as I say it.

  ‘Not even for him? For Bram?’ Michael frowns, turning to look at me, his eyes wide and full of fire. ‘Eve, they’ll take you back, you know that. But they’ll also kill him.’

  ‘She knows that too …’ I hear Bram say, his voice indifferent, even though it’s his life on the line.

  ‘But she doesn’t know how. She hasn’t seen the torture that goes on in there, the things they’ve ordered, the hideous crimes they’ve committed. Made me commit.’ His eyes, filled with pain, are back on me. ‘They’ll do all tha
t and more to him, Eve. They won’t just pick up a gun and shoot him, and they’ll leave you wishing they had. They’ll take over his mind, make him experience the most hideous, unspeakable things – the horror they’ll do to him, Eve. You will not be able to live with that.’

  ‘Looks like she’ll have to,’ says Bram gravely, as a blinding light burns through the side of the building, putting us in clear view of the vehicle that’s hovering outside.

  We’ve been found.

  It’s too late.

  I’ve led Bram to his death.

  34

  Bram

  The Interceptor’s headlights illuminate the room with dazzling white shards of light that pierce the windows and slice through the tense air until they find our faces.

  There is no hiding.

  Michael instinctively grabs his weapon and aims it at my chest before the occupants of the Interceptor, looming dangerously close on the other side of the glass, can properly analyse the situation.

  He widens his eyes subtly at me before directing them out of the window at the Interceptor.

  ‘I’ve found them! Sending location now,’ he says, pressing transmit on the radio connected to his earpiece, informing his team in the building opposite. ‘Repeat, I have found the fugitives.’

  The noise traffic that follows in his earpiece is audible even from a couple of metres away. Across the river, through the windows of the adjacent building, a frantic lightshow of torches illuminates the glass as his fellow officers turn towards our position, trying to catch a glimpse of us.

  ‘Hit me,’ Michael hisses at me, through clenched teeth.

  ‘What?’ I ask.

  ‘Just do it. We gotta make it look like I’m trying to bring you in or they’ll think I’m helping you. I can’t help you in the Tower if I’m arrested.’

  He’s right. I know he’s right. We’re going back to the EPO one way or another, and without him free we’re two soldiers against an army. We need someone on the inside.

  We need him.

  I clench my fist but before I even think about taking a swing there is a dull thud and Michael hits the floor hard. Eve is standing over him, rubbing her reddened knuckles.

  She shoots me a look. ‘What are you waiting for?’ she asks.

  I’m suddenly swept off my feet as Michael swings his foot around from his position on the floor. I smack into the cold surface and before I can get up he’s on top of me, using his weight to pin me down.

  ‘When they arrive, don’t resist. Our orders are to bring you in dead or alive,’ he warns me.

  This information stokes the fire inside me and I use it to roll him off me. We both throw convincing punches but clear enough to allow the other to block.

  I take a step backwards and my back finds a solid support beam of the building. Michael pins me against it and gives two light jabs to my ribs, hard enough to hurt like hell but not enough to cause any damage.

  Eve leaps on to his back, getting him into a hold that counters his weight and brings us both to the floor again, but before either of us can find our feet the large window explodes inwards, with a blast of energy from the Interceptor, and a guard jumps into the building.

  ‘Reynolds! It’s Eve,’ Michael shouts, his voice deep and rough from the adrenalin.

  Reynolds, the other guard, spreads his fingers. Static electricity sparks between them as he steps towards me, coming to Michael’s aid.

  ‘No, I have him under control. Restrain her,’ Michael orders, but before Reynolds can make a move Eve is upon him, planting a firm elbow directly into his solar plexus that brings him lurching forward, followed by a quick upwards jab to his arm so the Pacify Glove grazes his face, just enough for the electric charge to remove consciousness.

  He collapses in a heap.

  ‘Jesus, Eve,’ Michael says, as she crouches to check that he’s breathing.

  ‘Don’t move!’ a new voice commands, as the erratic stomping of heavy boots fills the tip of this building.

  ‘Stay down,’ Michael says, twisting my arm into a hold.

  From my position on the floor I quickly count two dozen soldiers as they burst into view but come to an abrupt halt at the sight before them.

  Eve rises slowly, standing over the guard’s unconscious body, illuminated by the spotlights of the hovering vehicle through the broken window, causing a silence to fall over the room. We are surrounded by armed men sent to capture us, with no escape, no chance to fight, yet an almost divine stillness has fallen upon our hunters, the entire squad utterly entranced by her presence. Too scared to restrain her, too stunned even to approach.

  This is not the first time these men have seen Eve in the flesh – many of the Final Guard will have been present when escorting her within the Dome – but something about her is different. As though she has gained a new strength now that we are away from the EPO Tower, and for all of us here, standing in the shadow of Eve, it’s clear where the power truly lies.

  ‘Sir … what shall we do?’ one of the soldiers asks.

  ‘Restrain the fugitive,’ Michael says, lifting me off the floor and shoving me over to his men to cuff my wrists.

  ‘… And the saviour?’ the soldier asks.

  ‘It’s just Eve,’ Eve says.

  The soldier averts his eyes when they meet hers. ‘Sorry, Eve.’ He cowers.

  ‘Keep your cuffs. I’ll walk,’ she says defiantly, as she takes the first few steps towards the troops.

  The crowd parts, allowing Eve to walk through it, like a drop of oil falling through water.

  ‘Well? Are you taking us back or not?’ she says from the door.

  The men quickly fall in at her side, escorting her into the dark stairwell and down through the spine of this dilapidated building.

  Michael follows closely behind her, his watchful eyes acting as her protector rather than captor, though it appears no one else knows that.

  Good.

  Two Final Guards jab me in the back.

  ‘Walk, traitor,’ they snap, the barrels of a gun pointing at me.

  Dead or alive. The words repeat in my head.

  Is that what Miss Silva and my father think of me now? My time inside the Tower will be limited. Whatever we have to do to save Eve’s father and get the hell out, we have to do it fast.

  I feel my spirit drop as though the task ahead is physically weighing me down. Suddenly it seems impossible.

  It is impossible.

  ‘Psst!’ a voice hisses from behind to get my attention. ‘Me and my bro have a little bet going. How did you do it? Huh? How did you manage to break back in, you crazy bastard?’ asks the guard with his gun aimed at my back as we walk.

  I remain silent.

  ‘Oh, come on. You got nothing to lose by telling us. I mean, not like you’ll ever pull off that shit again,’ he says, gesturing arrogantly to the dozens of armed men escorting us to the EPO.

  ‘I don’t need to break in again. This time you’re taking us,’ I say, shutting him up.

  I’m shoved onwards as we descend towards the EPO vessel waiting on the water. I take a breath and prepare myself to return to the Tower.

  The fight isn’t over yet.

  35

  Eve

  Peripheral vision is interesting. I seem to have spent a lifetime looking at the men before me out of the corner of my eye, piecing images together to make them one whole being. I’ve always thought them to be rigid, stiff and devoid of personality – but looking around the boat, taking in their excited, nervous, relieved expressions, their sweaty bodies and reddened cheeks, I see how wrong I was. This security team, Vivian’s soldiers, they’re just people. People with emotions. People who have been used.

  Like me.

  Even though we are no longer in the Dome, even though the EPO aren’t here to ensure we follow protocols, I’m aware that many of them still think it’s forbidden to look in my direction. Hardly surprising when they’ve had that order drilled into them for years. But they’re curious. I spot th
e occasional glance. Reynolds, the poor guy I took down, looks sheepish in the corner – shifting in his seat when my eyes meet his.

  A powerful energy surrounds us. I’m on high alert – although it’s difficult to say whether it’s because I’m now a prisoner returning to my cage, because there’s hope of being reunited with my dad, or because flooring Michael and Reynolds has given me a surge of adrenalin.

  Fight or flight? There was no choice. No matter Bram’s preference or Michael’s grave warning. In no lifetime would I have run. This was always going to be the outcome.

  Michael is glued to my side while giving orders, telling the other men to stay vigilant for subsequent attacks – not likely when they have our people – to prepare the Tower for our arrival, and to ensure everyone is ready for the awaiting crowds, apparently unpredictable in their behaviour.

  All the while I notice Michael’s little finger gently tapping against his thigh. It’s a telling movement. He’s nervous. I wonder fleetingly if my presence has set him on edge, but quickly quash the thought. This isn’t about the lift, or any other encounter we’ve had before. This is about survival.

  I wonder what he’s seen that’s swayed his allegiance. Perhaps the sight of the lab in the Tower and all the horrors they perform in there was enough … I want to ask him. There’s so much I don’t know about Michael, like what took him to the Tower in the first place, how old he is or anything of even the slightest significance – yet despite all that I feel reassured by him. It’s comforting to know that he’s standing with us.

  He twitches, listening to his earpiece. He sighs, making an effort to stand tall and wide.

  ‘Come,’ he says, his voice gruff as he gestures for me to get up and walk.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Get up, Eve,’ he says, his voice devoid of all the emotion he showed before.

  I do as he says and walk through the boat.

  ‘You. Behind me,’ he orders, as we pass Bram, his wrists still in cuffs as I see him start to shuffle into formation.

  Michael directs me outside on to the metallic armoured decking of the boat. My heart races as I spot our destination. The Tower is gargantuan, imposing and threatening – more so than I remember it – now that we’re so close.