“You're my grandson.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“The truth is… I sympathise with your cause.”
He might as well have hit me in the face. “What?”
“Your Robin Hood thing. I understand it, in principle. This world we live in is not the fairest.”
“But… but… you’re like… King John!”
His eyes darken. “I’m not the enemy, Nicholas! I’m just not quite an ally, either.”
“But you just said–”
“This is the world we live in, Nick. It is what it is for a reason. I don’t think it’s going to change.”
“Then I’ll change it.”
He smiles sadly, still looking at the bureau. “Your mother said the exact same thing,” he replies. “And look where it got her.”
“I’d rather be dead than a hypocrite.”
He sighs, deep and controlled, and looks at me with an expression hard to describe, like he can see the ghost of something else inside me. “I’d rather have my daughter.”
Chapter 11
A few more days of little note pass. I see no more of the Director, and fall back into the pattern of training and learning. I manage to talk to Gabe briefly while we're in the gym.
“I don't understand what he wants from me,” I tell him. “I've been the model soldier for weeks now.”
“Maybe he wants you to be something more.”
“Something more than perfection?”
Gabe smirks. “I've missed your humour.”
There's someone else in the world missing it now. I've not yet had the chance to tell him about Nick. There doesn't seem to be much point. Besides which, Gabe and I shared precisely one romantic moment, over five years ago. We've fallen back into our older pattern... minus the crawling into bed with one another.
Gabe is called up to run the obstacle course. A young girl steps up to fill his space. I recognise her. Delta-4. Sia's sister, the one that she risked everything to save. I think their other one escaped, but for whatever reason, she did not. Not fast enough? Too scared? Too corrupted?
She looks at me with large, doe-like eyes, and opens her mouth. We have not yet had a single moment in the past months where it would have been easy to speak.
“I met your sister,” I tell her. “Sia. And your brothers, Tiny and Dor.”
Her mouth flounders a little, open and shutting. Her eyes glance about. “Char,” she rushes. “Is he–”
“I'm sorry. He died during the first escape.”
Her shoulders fall. Five years. Five years, and they never told her. Five years of mourning, hoping and worrying, all at the same time.
“I see,” she swallows, “but Sia and–”
“They were fine.”
She nods.
“Do you... do you think... they'll come back? For the rest of us?”
I freeze. This is a trap. She's been put up to it. I've said too much already. That... that or she genuinely wants to get out. But this is wishful thinking, unsafe thinking–
“If they come, I'm sure they'll be welcomed back into the fold,” I say quickly.
“It's all right. You can trust me.”
“We can trust the Institute. We must serve them–”
“Please no,” Delta-4 looks like she could cry. She should be tougher than this. She's been here longer. “You're Eve. The strongest of us all. They can't have broken you.”
I have no idea what sort of rumours sprung up in my absence, and I can't afford to fuel any of them.
“What's your name?” I ask her.
She smiles, as if this is all the evidence she needs of my allegiances. “Fee.”
I want to tell her that no one has broken me, that I'll be getting us all out somehow, but I can't. I have no plan that doesn't involve being very, very careful of who I trust.
The gym gives a sudden lurch.
The guards look at one another, nod, and leave the room. They give no indication of what we are supposed to do, and the room lurches again, harder... closer. Something is coming.
The younger ones glance at their leaders, who are all looking at each other, each searching for instruction. My gaze goes immediately to Gabe.
What's going on?
He shrugs, but backs away from the centre of the gym. Everyone else has the same idea. We can all feel it; something shuddering under the floor.
Gears grind, and the ground shifts apart, revealing a huge hole in the middle of the room. There's a long, drawn-out whir, and then four mechanical legs shoot out. A gigantic metal torso follows, and the room is dominated by a spidery robotic monstrosity.
Well, that's a new one.
Before anyone can react, a nozzle unfurls on the robot's head, and it shoots out a plume of flames. A crash mat erupts.
There is some screaming, mostly from the younger ones, when it starts to charge. Everyone scatters. I catch Fee's eyes and gesture towards a tarpaulin in the corner. She and one of the others race to grab it and haul it over the flames. I leap onto a climbing frame at the side of the gym and holler for Gabe. He appears beside me moments later. I point to the two smothering out the fires, and the other tarps used for protecting the equipment. He calls out to others nearby and barks instructions.
Putting out the fires is all well and good, but if someone doesn't take out the flame-thrower, we're toast. The whole place will go up in smoke. I doubt our captors will allow that to happen, but how far are they willing to go? There are already injuries; the smell of burning flesh invades my nostrils.
I run along the wall and leap onto the robot's back, straddling it as best I can and grabbing the base of the nozzle. I give it a hard pull. It is scorching hot and utterly immobile. Of course they factored in our super-strength. No one alone could move this.
But together...
I need something to wrap around it, to use as a lever. A rope– a rope would work. I roll off its back and spring onto one of the climbing walls, racing up to the ceiling. I yank one of the ropes, but it's not coming free either. There are no weapons out today, the only one of us armed is... the robot.
“Over here!” I yell.
The robot stays focused on a corner of cowering chimeras. I hiss for attention.
Adam is the one that notices me first.
“I need it to fire at me!”
He looks at me as though I'm mad, but does not question it. He slides under the robot's belly, looking, no doubt, for some kind of sensor. He punches something at its front and then rolls back to my location, scooting up the rope. The robot sees the two of us there and fires. The top lights up.
Adam darts off the bottom, distracting it while I swing, trying to encourage the fibres to break faster. It takes far longer than I'd like it, but eventually I feel it giving way. I slide to the bottom, stamping out the flames, and race onto its back to loop it around the base of the nozzle. It is almost an impossible task, its movements becoming more erratic, and several times I am nearly thrown loose.
I call out for Gabe. He is there in an instant. Together, we manage to tie it and slide off in different directions. We give it all we have. Nothing. The robot is still too strong. We lose our footing almost immediately and are dragged along the floor.
A weight appears behind me, holding the end of the rope tightly enough for me to climb to my feet. Adam. He motions to the rest of his unit, and they appear behind him. Two stay with us, four go to Gabe.
The robot stops moving.
“Twist!” I hiss. “Pull!”
There is the grinding of gears as the robot presses against us, inadvertently aiding us in our mission to rid it of its nozzle. There is a clean snap, and it crashes to the floor.
We let go, and it shoots forwards, barrelling into the wall. The whole gym shakes. It is still trying to spit out fire, but only oil drizzles out of the hole in its head. I do not think we have long before it tries another tactic.
“Delta team!” I call. “Round up any injured and take them to the equipment r
oom.”
The equipment room is just an alcove off the gym used for storage. It's not really defensible, but it's less out in the open.
“Medics, go with them. Delta– guard them. Everyone else, gather up the rope again. We're going to try and take off its legs.”
Even taking off just one, looking at the weight of it, should disable it enough. We'll see.
The robot gives up trying to spit fire, and barrages itself towards the deltas, who are still shifting the wounded. I spring in front of its path instinctively and hit the sensor Adam must have used earlier, sprinting under it. I look for a control panel. There's something welded at its centre, but nothing I can remove with my bare hands. Legs it is.
“Eve!” Adam tosses the rope in my direction and we criss-cross under the belly, looping around as many legs as we can. Wordlessly, a dozen other soldiers join us, all putting their strength into pulling open the joints. It strains but does not get far. While it's incapacitated, I rush back to the control panel. I wonder if I might be able to open it after all. There's a corner not welded. If I could just get something to lever it open with...
I glance towards Gabe, heaving the rope.
Any ideas?
He shrugs, but before I can ask someone else, Beta-6 appears. She shoves me aside and slams her palms against the metal panel.
“What are you–”
Her hands start to glow, and the metal with it, turning to hot, fiery liquid. Her fingers are roped in blue flame.
She wrenches the metal panel from the underbelly and plunges her hands into the wires. The mechanical guts spit and hiss. The robot starts to sag.
Everyone stops pulling. They stand back, wary of the quivering hulk.
Beta-6 is still standing with her hands inside the robot, her face stark white. Metal shudders above me.
As it comes crashing down, I make a desperate lunge for her, catching her around the middle and knocking us both clear as the robot comes crashing down.
Chapter 12
Adam comes racing towards us, pulling Beta-6 to her feet and checking her for injuries. He grabs her hands. They're blistered, but much better than my skin in the heat. She must have built some kind of immunity.
“You could have been killed!” says Adam, dropping her hands.
Beta-6 just grins. “It worked, though.”
“It wouldn't have if you'd been electrocuted. Flame plus wiring is not a good mix. Remember that.”
The doors open shortly afterwards, and the wounded are escorted to the infirmary, including Beta-6. She glances back at us as she goes, looking more and more sickenly familiar.
“That girl,” I turn to Adam, “what is she?”
“Eva? She's a prodigy.”
“Eva... they called her Eva?”
Adam actually looks unsettled by this, as if I've caught him doing something wrong.
“No,” I realise, “you called her that. But you...”
Adam didn't give his subordinates names, any of them. They had always been numbers to him. What was different about this girl... and why name her after me?
“A momentary weakness,” he replies. “She asked for one. Wanted to be like me.”
“Then why call her Eva?”
“She looks like you.”
“Is she... is she my clone?”
“Something like that. More like... a new and improved version.”
It explains why her fire powers manifested much earlier, why she had full control of them, and why, despite our resemblance, she lacked my eyes... my one physical imperfection.
“How old is she? You said that she looked older than she was.”
“Five.”
“What?”
“They added something to her genes, don't ask me what. Sped up her ageing significantly. It seems to have slowed down now, thankfully.”
He cares about her. In his eyes, there is a flicker of fear, an old memory resurfacing. A lot hung on his final word. He was worried, when she was little, that she was going to age too rapidly. Either she'd be considered a failure, or she'd die of old age. He'd watch her die.
I know that fear. It's the same way I feel about Ben.
If she's only five, her birth correlates with my escape. Did they attempt to re-make me in my absence? Had they sped up her ageing to try and get back to where they started with me, as quickly as possible?
If that's the case, then why isn't she a leader? Why is she Adam's subordinate? That's not replicating their original experiment.
What are they up to?
There is clapping coming from the doors. I glance across and see the Director coming towards me. I am too stunned to remember to salute at first, although Adam hops to it.
“At ease, soldiers. Adam, you're dismissed. Please report to the mess hall with the rest of your unit.”
“Yes sir.”
He hurries out of the gym without a glance behind him. One by one, the rest of the soldiers follow him. Guards and scientists flood the room to fix the mess and examine the robot. I am the only chimera left.
The Director turns to me. “Very well done, Eve. Excellent leadership skills.”
“I was just following my training, sir.”
“No one else took charge, you'll notice.”
“I am sure they would have done in time, sir. I was just the first to react.”
“Indeed,” he says, not looking convinced. “How humble of you.”
I am not sure how to respond to this, so I pick silence.
“I tell you what. You must be curious as to our operation here, and I feel you've earned a little trust today. You may ask me a question, Eve. Any question. I will answer it honestly, or not at all. What would you like to know?”
I have a list, a long one. Who is he? What is he doing here? What is my 'true purpose'? How much does Adam know? What is 'the glorious dream' the Director has? How has he convinced some of my comrades he's worth dying for? Why does Eva look so much like me?
Will I ever see my family again?
But I can't ask any of these questions. This is doubtless yet another test, and I'm not sure which one I have to ask to pass... or if I want to pass. I will rally against any plan he has for me.
I choose my next words carefully.
“Why do all the units have one younger member, sir?” I say. “One who may be considered... burdensome?”
His face falls. This is not the question he hoped I would ask. It's small, it's not meaningful. It may not even really matter.
“It's practical, partly,” he responds nevertheless. “The older ones, training the rookies. But we were curious to see if the units would, as you put it, see the tykes as 'burdensome'. You, I recall, were rather attached to yours.”
“I was, sir,” I steel myself. “I cannot explain why.”
“A natural protective instinct, to be sure. Not everyone has it. It is nothing to be ashamed of.”
“If you say so.”
“I wonder why you asked that question in the first place, Eve. Are you not more curious to know what our larger plans are?”
“I'm sure you'll share those plans if necessary, sir.”
He cocks his head to the side. “It's nice to hear you have such faith in us now,” he replies. His voice is tight– is he angry? “Very good to hear.”
He does not sound pleased, and I am escorted back to the mess hall shortly afterwards.
What does he want from me? I wonder late into the night. He does not seem happy with my apparent compliance, though he forced it on me to begin with. Does he, like Adam, not believe my change of heart? It doesn't feel like it. It feels like he wants me to be... a bit more Ashe.
Maybe he just wants me to be more of a leader, a thinker, like I was today. He certainly seemed pleased with my performance there.
What do you want with me?
It takes me a long while to convince myself that it doesn't matter whatever his plans are. It doesn't matter, because I am getting out. I am not your weapon. I am not Eve.
&
nbsp; Ashe, Ashe, my name swirls around my head, reminding me of who I am. I trace the letters against my pillow, remembering the shape of it. The exercise starts to feel flat, the name is losing its meaning. Soon, I will have rubbed every molecule of it. Soon, it will start to fade.
Chapter 13
Later in the week, as a reward of some kind, I am let into the school room for thirty minutes of free time, and told I have free choice of the library there. The selection is limited, composed entirely of history, philosophy and military texts. Invariably, this is still some kind of test. There are cameras somewhere, if I bother to check. Somewhere, someone is scribbling down notes. What will Eve pick? What does this say about her?
I'm in no mood for mind games. I pluck something at random and take a chair by the back. Let them make of that what they will.
I open the first page and pretend to read. I don’t. Instead, I fixate on the sound of the rain on the skylight and the quiet howl of the wind. I have always loved the sound of the rain. I remember standing on the roof garden not long after we arrived in Luca, during a summer storm. The water sang against my skin, like liquid gold.
But I loved more being tucked inside as the rain pattered against the glass, watching it slip down the panes. As I listen now, I think of one morning two years ago, when I awoke before everyone else, and lay listening to it with Ben curled up beside me. I counted every droplet.
I cannot count the droplets now. I cannot see them.
The sound takes me to other places, and I let it. A moment unfolds that never really happened, composed of other snippets of the brief time we had together. I am lying in my room with Nick on a rainy day, my head pressed against his heart, so keenly I can almost feel the beat against my cheek. He rolls me over onto my back and kisses my neck. His face rises like a sunbeam above me.
“I love you,” he breathes.
This part is completely made up; Nick never told me he loved me. Not in so few words. I only told him so plainly once, before I cut off our comms and tried to blow myself up. He never had the chance to reply, or was too shocked over what I was about to do to find the words. He would have said them long before, if I'd let him.
Resurrection Page 4
