“I seriously can’t stand her.”
“She’s a total psycho. You saw her on the mats yesterday, right?”
“Dumb luck. Beth was having an off day….”
Eve chooses not to listen to the rest as she limps to her bedroom, showers, and changes into her usual uniform. Ignoring literally everyone at breakfast except Rowan, she meets Riley back in the lobby at exactly nine.
The smile on his face falls when he notices the scabs her nails have inflicted on her arms, but Riley doesn’t ask any questions.
All business all the time, he gets right to the point.
“As you may or may not know, we’ve been doing our very best to cram what usually takes years into weeks. Thankfully, your martial arts backgrounds have given you and Maggie a solid foundation. I’ve been impressed by the progress and dedication from you both.”
Eve hadn’t heard Maggie approach, but now she’s standing beside her. Her wild, red curls are loose and in peak form. Bits of yellow-and-gold highlights are starting to show through, undoubtedly from her time sneaking around outside with a certain Quinn. Riley’s speech continues as Maggie eyes Eve’s arms, mouthing, “Ouch….”
“Later,” Eve mouths back as Riley stops speaking, realizing the girls are no longer listening.
When they’re both refocused on him, he continues.
“We can only teach you so much theory, but you will learn the most from experience. That being said, Beth and the other instructors think you’re both ready to fully shift your focus to weapons training. Maggie, you have had a bit of a head start with Rowan, but Eve, I have faith you will catch on quickly. We need to see what in our arsenal best suits your particular abilities—”
“Yes! We are getting tattooed!” Maggie interrupts. “You can put them anywhere, and I mean anywhere, and I won’t say a word….”
Smirking, Eve tries not to laugh at the appalled look on Riley’s face. Her time with Rowan has helped to lighten her mood.
“That is correct,” Riley answers, straight-faced. “If you will follow me, please.”
Eve and Maggie accompany Rowan back toward the dormitories, but instead of heading up, they walk across the flagstone and toward a large glass window, looking upon another beautiful grass field.
He stops a good ten feet from the window, and a grating sound reveals a thin white pole rising from the floor. A small camera, like the ones at the gate, scans Riley from head to toe before freezing and returning to where it was hidden beneath a stone tile.
The Abbott sisters aren’t surprised when the wall looking outwards starts to push forward, stops, then rotates on an axis until it is parallel to them—revealing a hidden tunnel.
“How many of those mystery doors do you have, boss?” Maggie inquires. Riley again, doesn’t respond.
The field is just footage playing on an intense high-tech screen—a live feed from a camera placed outside on the back of Evergreen mansion.
Eve can’t help but walk around and look out the “window” again, before proceeding down the tunnel with Maggie and the owner of this complex home. Even from up close, there was no pixelation or indication that it was anything but a window looking out onto a field.
“You people sure have a flair for the dramatic,” Maggie states sarcastically. Eve can tell that she’s impressed, but her sister always needs to play the “cool card.”
“There is a need for secrecy,” Riley retorts.
“And what might that be?”
“Only a billion dollars’ worth of technology, and the ability to weaponize anyone who gets their hands on it.”
“Well…when you put it that way, hidden tunnels it is!”
Once they step past the false window and into the chamber, the door rotates back until it shuts. They hear a loud click as mechanisms within it slide, locking them inside.
With Riley as their tunnel tour guide, they first pass a control room. The girls only spare a quick glance through the transparent walls and door. The glass is so thick, Eve guesses it has to be bulletproof. Several screens cover the walls in a semicircle, illustrating just how little privacy they’ve had all along.
A man with silver hair, who Eve has seen briefly before in the cave, is seated in a chair in the middle. His body is anything but relaxed as his eyes flick from one screen to the next, checking for anything that might be out of the ordinary.
Maggie notices one particular camera view angled on the hot springs out front and gives Eve a knowing look. Not that Maggie really cares, but she’ll be more discreet in her rendezvous from now on.
“Is this where you and West saw Luca and I…?” Eve whispers, referring to the night that West and Maggie had observed Luca almost kissing her in the recharge room.
“Oh, no! There is another hidey-hole in the dormitories with monitors. Can honestly say, I haven’t been in here before,” Maggie explains, also whispering. Not that it does any good, their words inadvertently echoing in the tunnel.
Coming to stop, there is a thick, gunmetal gray door. Another camera, another quick scan of Riley before it slides to the right, exposing the white laboratory before them.
Martin is tinkering with some screens on the wall, and Eve can tell instantly that this is his happy place. He loads some sort of program and a solid form of a woman appears. Swiping, he sends the image to a screen in the center. Other numbers, graphs, and dials are present on multiple surfaces everywhere she looks.
Eve’s palms are sweating. Her ears aren’t even pierced. She can feel her adrenaline starting to surge.
Squatting on the ground, a certain someone has a soft gray cloth and is cleaning multiple cameras arranged in the shape of a circle on the floor. He looks up, and Eve flusters.
Avoiding Luca isn’t going to be as easy as she thought.
Her delicate enthusiasm crumbles.
Looking to the ceiling in frustration, Eve tries not to cause a scene…even though she wants to whine and stomp her feet until he finally leaves.
Just his presence is going to ruin what she thinks is a special rite of passage.
The Abbotts have worked hard to earn these purpose-driven tattoos. Burying her feeling, Eve will scream later, but she isn’t going to let her frustration spoil this moment for Maggie.
Spotting the sisters, Luca heads towards them, slapping the towel he is holding over his shoulder. He, too, notices Eve’s scratched arms as she crosses them in front of her chest.
Thankfully, he says nothing.
Riley breaks the tension, clapping his hands together and exclaiming, “Who wants to go first?”
The words barely leave his lips before Maggie’s hand shoots into the air.
“I am ready to be desecrated,” she positively purrs.
With a small bow, Riley steps back, and leaves them alone with the Quinns in the laboratory. Eve has never felt claustrophobic before now. Sweat starts to bead on her forehead as she tries not to think of her nightmares. The things she dreamed had been done to her in a lab—similar to this one. For some reason, Rowan and the lake pop into her thoughts. The dark blue water. The birds. She starts to replay the good parts of her morning like a ticker reel in her mind, and it works. Her tension starts to ease.
Martin runs Maggie through a series of standard questions.
“Do you want privacy during the procedure?”
“Nope.”
“Do you have any sensitives to pain medications that we should be aware of?”
“Thankfully not! Drug me up!” Maggie claps her hands together in excitement.
Satisfied, Martin instructs Maggie to remove everything but her bra and underwear.
You don’t have to ask Maggie to get semi-naked twice.
Unselfconsciously stripping down, she waits for further instructions, leaving Maggie in just the standard-issue sports bra and underwear. Martin can’t help but take in her killer curves as he coughs, his neck reddening. Eve finds it comical, as Maggie raises her arms and stretches, knowing exactly the effect she is having on h
im.
Poor guy.
Turning quickly away, Martin asks her to step into the center of the cameras but to make sure not to come in contact. Any dust or smudges would interfere in the process.
“We need to back up,” Luca commands, putting his arm in front of Eve and herding her toward the wall.
Spotting a few metal chairs, Eve takes one, moving it over so she can still watch Maggie but not have to be next to Luca.
Grabbing the other chair, Luca brings it next to hers and sits down, pretending he doesn’t notice what she’s attempting.
The lighting in the room dims as Martin instructs the youngest Abbott to stand with her legs spread, arms out wide. The cameras in the center start to lift out of the concrete. Thousands of tiny red lasers begin at her toes and rise until they pass her head, completing a full body scan.
“Can we talk?” Luca inquires carefully.
“Now? About what?” Eve snaps.
Another machine from the ceiling is giving Maggie a sort of spray tan…but instead of delivering a summer glow, she’s being sterilized and administered a topical numbing agent.
“You know what.”
Eve looks at Luca. His knee is brushing hers. Between the anticipation for what is about to happen to Maggie and herself, and any sort of physical contact, she is having a hard time thinking straight.
“Say what you need to say, and then get the hell away from me.”
Eve doesn’t know if she wants to hit him or kiss him.
“Nothing happened between Sophia and I,” he states. Luca is actually nervous. “We were literally sparring, that’s it. She was saying she was ready to ‘go again,’ as in she was recharged enough for another round.”
He bites his lower lip, and the intensity of his gaze causes Eve’s breath to catch.
“Oh.”
Turning her head away in an attempt to hide her mortification, she checks in on Maggie. Martin has mapped out the placement and locations of her battery strips, utilizing the 3D render from the cameras. For now, she would just be getting them on her arms, from the wrist line to the top of her shoulders.
Luca’s hand moves to rest on her knee. The heat it emanates is almost unbearable.
“But in the dome. I thought you were going to…” Eve swallows. “But you backed away. I received the message, loud and clear. Not interested. You don’t owe me any explanations.”
Luca leans in further.
“It’s complicated,” he whispers.
The lights in the room start to brighten once more, and that’s Luca’s cue to remove his hand and slide away, turning to face toward Maggie.
He was an absolutely horrible human being to her during training, then almost kisses her, and now puts his hand on her knee and tells her that “it’s complicated”? Luca and Eve aren’t even in a relationship, and it’s already toxic.
“The dome will lower. Hold completely still. First, the skin grafts will be applied, then the solar cells. Followed by another graft. The whole process takes less than two minutes.”
Nodding that she understands to Martin, Maggie searches until she finds Eve’s face and winks. A solid silver chamber descends until it makes contact with the concrete, hiding Eve’s beautiful sister from view. For Eve, the two minutes feel like two hours before the dome starts to rise.
Her baby sister’s form starts to come into view. Maggie’s toned calves. Strong thighs. As it reaches her waist, Eve can start to make out her arms. Lines, upon lines, upon lines. The surrounding skin is pink and affronted. But Maggie is positively glowing as her new appearance is revealed.
“Martin, you’re the man!” Maggie exclaims, inspecting her new barcoded epidermis. Satisfied, she yells at her sister, “Eve, get over here! You’re up.”
The eldest Abbott’s knees start to buckle as she stands, anxiety rearing its ugly head.
Maggie is getting dressed—like what has just occurred is the most natural thing in the world—and giving Martin a final show in the process.
Only then does Eve realize that she too will be asked to strip down…that is, if she agrees to proceed.
“Eve, do you want privacy during the procedure?”
She swallows before answering Martin, “No…”
He asks the same medical and consensual questions he had just rattled off to Maggie, with an additional one.
“Do you desire your vision to be restored to twenty-twenty while undergoing the solar cell implementation?”
“What?” Eve gasps.
“She does! Martin, she does! Yeah, bitch!” yells Maggie, now occupying Eve’s chair next to Luca.
Her declining vision, among other things, has been causing frequent headaches from the eyestrain alone. If Martin could fix it, she would gladly accept.
“You can do that?”
“I can do more than that,” he retorts.
Indicating Martin’s face—with the lenses firmly in place—she can’t help but ask, “Then…why haven’t you fixed your vision?”
Martin takes off his glasses, offering them to Eve for her to inspect. “My eyesight has been perfect for some time. They’re now merely a tool.”
Holding them up to her own, she can make out numbers, statistics, and screens interacting with the gadgets being used within the laboratory. Fearing that this particular pair of spectacles cost more than she will make in her lifetime, Eve gingerly hands them back.
“If you will please remove everything but your undergarments and head to the center, we can proceed.”
Eve hesitates and turns her back to everyone. Her hands shake as she slowly peels off her tank top, placing it on a stool. She does the same with her shoes, socks and lastly, pants.
“It only feels like your skin is being burned off for the first minute!” Maggie yells, messing with her.
Finally, gingerly stepping over the cameras, she comes to the center and wrenches herself to face forward—in plain view of Maggie and Luca. She can tell that her baby sister is proud of her, as she gives her two cheesy thumbs up. But her stomach twists when she locks eyes with Luca.
Like the cameras, he slowly scans her exposed flesh up and down. And the expression on his face causes her to pull her shoulders back.
He might as well take a good look, because this is never happening again.
Chapter 27
Removing her glasses last and handing them to Martin, Eve’s world goes slightly out of focus. Arms out, sterilized and numbed, the chamber lowers. She is left standing alone inside the metal tube.
Martin has assured her that even with her “injuries” she can still take part in her first session. If anything, the grafts will help to speed up the healing process, kicking her body into overdrive.
Closing her eyes, she tries to remain calm. The intense feeling of déjà vu further complicating matters. She hears Martin’s voice coming through some sort of speaker in the ceiling.
“Okay, Eve, hold perfectly still. This shouldn’t hurt, but if it does, any movement will cause the program to immediately stop. Do I have your permission to proceed?”
Her voice cracks as she whispers, “Yes.”
Eve’s arms warm as the whirring of machines move within the space. Her heart pounds, adrenaline kicking in.
Heat.
She refuses to look, squeezing her eyes closed. A minute has to have already passed—she just has to make it one more.
A cold, tingling sensation comes next. Probably due to the solar cells being inserted, but that means she is almost there. Heat again, indicating the second skin graft, securing the battery packs in place.
“Eve, I’m ready for your eyes. Can you look straight ahead, please, focusing on the blue dot in the center? Don’t move.”
Forced to open, she spares a quick glance at both of her arms, before Martin repeats, “Blue dot, please….”
Following his orders, she looks to the metal wall. A small blue light has appeared. She doesn’t see, but hears a contraption emerging from the side of the wall. It looks like
a set of goggles as it comes into view, lining up directly in front of her face. Pausing, it moves forward until it rest against Eve’s cheekbones.
“Nice and wide, and three, two….”
One.
She feels her eyeballs getting zapped. Only way to explain it. There’s a slight sting as she’s forced to blink, tears running down her cheeks in response to the trauma.
The cylinder starts to raise as everything slowly comes into focus. Sharp and crisp, Eve feels like she’s been living her entire life in black and white. The small cracks in the concrete floor jump out at her, unable to see them prior to this magic.
And her new tattoos are unnerving. Placed with such precision, the overall result is intimidating. She feels stronger because of them. They’re one more tool that she is going to need if she is ever going to be allowed to do any real good.
Old Eve would have never gotten a tattoo. New Eve now has too many to count.
Maggie starts whistling and cat calling. Sheepish, Eve hurriedly throws her clothes back on, her arms stinging from the contact with fabric. The topical numbing cream, while extremely effective, is wearing off fast. Thanking Martin, she heads over to Maggie and Luca, unsure of what happens next.
“No glasses, some ink. Miss Abbott, you might actually be cool!” the youngest Abbott exclaims.
Maggie holds out her arms, comparing the designs on hers to Eve’s. Luca approaches as well, and takes Eve’s left wrist, carefully turning it from side to side.
“Martin, I think you screwed up on this section,” Luca informs. “Everything is off center.”
Eve sucks in air, her features horrified as she snaps her head toward Martin.
“Ignore him. No errors were made.” Engrossed in his tablet, Martin’s response is bored as he types away. Luca smirks.
“Well, what Eve said! What now?” Maggie inquires, looking to Luca for answers.
“Now, go and rest. Beth will come by this afternoon with further instructions.” Martin politely dismisses them, his work done.
The thick airlock opens, letting them exit the laboratory. Maggie flashes Eve a knowing grin and strolls out first, leaving her older sister alone with the oldest Quinn. Side by side, Eve and Luca stroll, but neither of them speaks. It isn’t uncomfortable; if anything, it’s oddly peaceful.
Saintsville Page 13
