Eve of Man

by Giovanna Fletcher

  I turn as one of the men leaps across the air after me, his arms wide to grab me as he descends.

  I push up the incline and try to pick up speed, ignoring the burning sensation in my legs and lungs.

  The guard lands next to me with a screech. Just as I’m about to feel relieved, his large muscular hand clamps onto my ankle.

  “No!”

  “I’ve got her. I’ve done it,” he grunts, congratulating himself.

  I look past him to find the other versions of me preoccupied with confusing the other guards. They can’t help me.

  I’m so close to freedom that it would be cruel to fail.

  I look down at the man at my feet and mutter an apology, then stamp on his face with all my weight.

  He howls in agony, letting go of me so he can grab hold of his broken nose.

  Freed, I set off again, hoping I’ll know salvation when I see it and that I have enough fight left in me.

  The commotion behind me gets quieter the farther I run. I’ve managed to create a distance between us.

  Ahead of me, I notice a black hole in the sky. The sight causes lightness to wash over me.

  I sprint toward the one panel that’s not trying to deceive me.

  Without hesitation, my fist bashes against it. It swings open as though it were simply a door. This is definitely where I’m meant to be.

  I take one last look behind me at the place that’s been my home for as long as I can remember, then turn away.

  It was never my home, just a prison.

  I push myself into the hole and find a vertical ladder leading upward. I get on that first rung and don’t look down as I climb higher and higher. Instead my eyes stay firmly on where I’m going.

  “Up there!” I hear Vivian’s voice boom from down below.

  I don’t look back, only forward.

  When the steps end, I find myself at a circular handle, a wheel, begging me to turn it, to open the door it’s sealing. Feeling as though I’ve won the biggest prize of all, I grip the cold metal and pull with all my strength, feeling the resistance give slowly as the wheel unscrews. I twist faster and faster. I’m ready to claim my freedom.

  I open my mouth as instructed, instinctively knowing I’m in the right place, and push.

  Suddenly I’m greeted by a deafening hiss and a huge gust of cold, wet wind, not pushing me back but dragging my feet into this new hole in the side of my sky, as though the world they’ve kept me from is willing me forward.

  The heavy door slides open, pulling me with it into the brightest light of an unknown sky. I instinctively close my eyes tight, partly to shield them from the light, partly to prepare myself for what I think I’m about to see.

  My hair sweeps across my face. The air is thin and uncomfortable in my throat, making it difficult to breathe. I suck in a lungful, preparing myself for whatever is out here. I’m tempted to take one last glimpse of the world they made for me. But I don’t. I’ve seen enough of it. I’ve lived enough of that life.

  It is time to move on.

  I open my eyes.

  Before me there is no flawless sky on the cusp of a perfect sunset. Instead murky gray storm clouds linger at varying heights, engulfing the building behind me and threatening a downpour in every direction I look.

  From below comes a steady stream of bangs, sirens, and loud explosions, which cause the walkway I’m on to wobble and shake.

  It’s terrifying and overwhelming, yet I feel my chest soar at the sight. This uncontrolled vision is what they’ve been keeping from me, but it’s far more perfect than anything I’ve ever seen in the Dome.

  This is what real life looks like—not an idyllic, fake utopia, but a world busy with energy and bustling with life.

  As a gust of wind pushes against me, almost causing me to topple over, I have to suppress a hysterical giggle. It’s as though Mother Nature were practically bursting at the seams to welcome me into her real arms and show me what she can do.

  “Eve, I’m here,” someone calls.

  I turn and, through the clouds, I see him running toward me, his hand reaching out to grab mine.

  Bram.

  66

  BRAM

  I reach through the thick clouds blowing over the outer surface of the Dome for the unmistakable silhouette of the girl I’ve been waiting for, the girl we’ve all been waiting for.

  She reaches out, too, and we embrace. For the first time in our lives it’s real. Her body trembles in my arms as I wrap them around her. Her head rests on my shoulder as she looks out at the world.

  The real world.

  My head spins with dizziness, caused not only by the ecstatic energy of finally holding Eve in my arms, but from waiting at this altitude for so long and the oxygen in my Oxynate running low. My body aches, but the tingling of adrenaline gives a fresh energy to my muscles.

  “We need to go!” I say. “Here, put this in.” I hand her a small plastic device and tilt my head back to show her my own. She quickly places it in her nose and takes a deep breath of fresh oxygen.

  “Try to breathe normally!” I call, but my words are lost in the rush of wind that suddenly attacks us. She loosens her grip and tilts her head to face me. The last of the tears that have formed in her eyes escape over the rims and fall down her cheeks. Those eyes I’ve spent my life looking at through a visor are now staring back at me, more real, more beautiful, than I could ever have imagined. She smiles, and this gray reality is more beautiful than anything ever projected into that Dome.

  A familiar sound cuts through the rush of air pounding on my eardrums. Drones.

  They know we’re out here.

  “We don’t have long!” I cry, but she can’t hear me as my voice is blown back into my throat. I grab her hand and we run.

  I lead her down the thin walkway around the edge of the Dome, hugging the curved outer surface like a rogue satellite orbiting a planet. I don’t look down, but that doesn’t make it easy to ignore the impossible height.

  Suddenly I feel a burst of heat and a wave of energy pulse through us. It’s followed by a deafening sound.

  Eve drops to her knees instinctively, dragging me down with her. I try to pull her up, but her fingers grip through the holes in the walkway as she stares down, straight down.

  Through a few gaps in the dark clouds, we catch glimpses of the ground below. The sight takes my breath away too.

  Hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of people have gathered at the base of the Tower, lapping at the perimeter wall like waves swelling at cliff formations on a coastline.

  Another explosion and a wave of heat washes over us.

  “They’re nonlethal weapons!” I shout, hoping that some of my words will make it through the roaring of the wind to Eve’s ears. “They won’t risk losing you, Eve! They won’t hurt you! We have to keep moving!”

  She breathes hard and stands defiantly, raising her eyes to the swarm of EPO drones that can just be seen through the haze as they point their camera lenses in our direction. I see power on her face. I feel it radiating from her as her eyes widen at every new sight they’re presented with. Like a newborn seeing for the first time.

  I yank her arm and she follows. This time she’s faster. She wants more, I can sense it. My heart is exploding with nerves, excitement, love…all terrifying.

  “Down here!” I cry out, leaping down a short flight of steps to a lower level. Eve follows without hesitation.

  As I look back at her I see the black shadows of soldiers following us through the clouds, weapons in hand, charging along the metal walkway behind us.

  I grab Eve’s arm again and pull her along.

  Not much farther.

  We can make it.

  My brain has switched off its fear of heights. That’s not important now. My feet have a new purpose, like they
were designed for this moment and this moment alone as they stomp the steel beneath them, creating distance between us and those who threaten Eve.

  “Eve, stop!” a sharp voice booms, slicing through the turbulent air like a blade, cutting right to our eardrums. Everyone pauses.

  Us.

  Soldiers.

  Even the wind seems to take a moment.

  I recognize the voice at once, and from the rigidity of Eve’s body, I can tell she does too. Vivian.

  “Eve,” she says again, her voice reverberating around the metallic outer walls of the Dome, like some sort of god calling down from the heavens. “You must not leave, Eve.”

  Eve looks out at the world. She sees the dark outlines of the drones hovering. She sees the gaps in the smog and the tips of the cloudscrapers of Central in the distance. A city she’s never seen before. A whole life she’s never lived.

  I squeeze her hand.

  Even though this is only the second time we have ever met face to face, we’ve spent our whole lives together. I know how she thinks.

  “That place, that world, it’s not safe for you, Eve,” Vivian says calmly. Confidently. As though she expects Eve to turn and run back in, like a scared child. “This is your home, Eve. Your world. It’s yours and only yours. Perfection.”

  Eve returns my squeeze.

  I look along the walkway and see the yellow box. We’re almost there. I begin to move again and Eve follows.

  We step slowly now.

  The floor vibrates with the thudding of soldiers following us, but we’re not scared anymore. It’s they who should be scared.

  “Eve, you cannot trust him,” Vivian says, a quiver of panic in her voice. “He’s leading you into a trap.”

  I stop at the box with my name, WELLS, written in black letters, and my father’s face explodes into my mind. I know he’s watching this.

  I open the lock and pull out the bullet-shaped chrome glove inside. I look at Eve, who is staring along the walkway ahead of us. I follow her gaze and see the raised weapons of another group of soldiers.

  “Weapons down!” Vivian cries. The men obey immediately.

  I don’t waste the moment. I unravel a long band of woven material from my pocket, loop it inside the Gauntlet, and pass it around the sturdy handlebar. I pull it over Eve’s head and under her shoulders as a harness, then slip my hand inside the metal glove.

  “Eve, that’s enough,” Vivian calls.

  Eve looks into my eyes, and before I can ask if she’s sure she wants to do this, she places her foot on the railing.

  “Bram!” A voice blasts through the sky like thunder. My father. “Do you have any idea what you’re doing? Think of everything we’ve done, how far we’ve come together.”

  Together. The word sits in my head as Eve kicks her legs over the metal safety barrier, and my stomach leaps with excited fear as she looks to me to join her. She is saving me as much as I’m saving her. I’ve spent my entire life following his orders, knowing they were wrong. Finally, I have a chance to do something right. To give the last girl on the planet, our only hope, a fighting chance at a life worth living. To show her that humankind is worth fighting for.

  I grip the rail with one hand and steady my feet, not waiting for the logical side of my brain to intervene and stop me jumping off the side of the tallest building in the world, strapped to the most important human in history.

  My heart is so loud it drowns every rational thought, numbing every doubt.

  This is what I want.

  This is what she wants.

  This is what the world needs.

  Eve wraps her arms around my neck, turning her back on the watching drones and the waiting world below. I feel her body press up against mine as she pulls herself into me. I tighten my grip on the cold metal railing with one hand as the other lifts the Gauntlet over our heads.

  “This is it,” I say into Eve’s ear. “Are you sure you want this?”

  She pulls her face around, her nose touching mine, her electric eyes full of wonder.

  She says nothing but presses her cold, trembling lips to mine.

  This moment, this kiss, is everything.

  I feel her hand slide down my arm, and as it finds my fist tightly clenched around the rail, she runs her fingers over my knuckles, melting my firm grip away. Through our kiss I feel her lips relax into a smile.

  67

  EVE

  So much can happen in the briefest of moments.

  We kiss.

  We smile.

  We fall.

  * * *

  —

  I am free.

  To be continued…

  Acknowledgments

  It’s been a long process from the first “what if” conversation to publication, and there have been so many people who have helped us along the way.

  We would like to thank our incredible teams at Michael Joseph and Penguin Random House Children’s, who came together like the Avengers of publishing to form a super-team for Eve of Man. There are a lot of you, so here we go…Tom Weldon, Francesca Dow, Louise Moore, Amanda Punter, Max Hitchcock, Holly Harris, Eve Hall, Yasmin Morrissey, Claire Bush, Emma Henderson, Ellie Hughes, Roz Hutchinson, Hannah Bourne, Lauren Hyett, Liz Smith, Michael Bedo, Camilla Borthwick, Susanne Evans, Maeve Banham, Zosia Knopp, Hazel Orme, Jacqui McDonough, Emily Smyth, Lee Motley, and every single person that had even the tiniest speckle of input into this book. We are so lucky to work with such brilliant people.

  Thanks to our incredible agents Stephanie Thwaites and Hannah Ferguson, our managers Fletch and Happy Entertainment, Rebecca Burton, Claire Dundas, and all at James Grant. Thanks to our lawyer, Kaz Gill. David Spearing, thanks for making another incredible trailer for the announcement of this book.

  Thanks to all our friends who have had to sit through our “what if” conversations over the last five years and who have been so amazingly encouraging; to Bob and Debbie Fletcher for all the babysitting hours so we could actually write this; and to our unbelievably supportive families, who we don’t see often enough, and when we do we’re exhausted—thanks for putting up with us.

  Thanks to our three boys, Buzz, Buddy, and Max, for being an endless source of inspiration and a much-needed distraction.

  Finally, to anyone that reads this book and comes on this journey—thank you.

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