Keary Taylor: The Eve

I pressed my lips together and didn’t say anything. Instead, I just watched as the Bane continued to march out.

In the end, it took over two hours for the Bane to leave the desert. I was too afraid to turn my back and leave until I could see that every one of them had moved away from the city.

But finally the dust settled down and the horizon was once again empty.

We turned and headed back west. After a while we passed the all-terrain vehicle that had run out of gas on me and died.

Finally, when we were about half a mile from the entrance of the canyon that led into the city, I spotted two vehicles waiting for me.

Royce, Bill, and Tristan were all there. And West.

There was Avian.

My face broke into a huge grin as I started jogging forward, at the same time Avian and Royce did.

But then guns were raised. Tristan fired off a shot that thankfully missed Dr. Evans by an inch.

I waved my arms, clambering in front of him, blocking their shots with my body.

“Wait!” I yelled as the group raced toward me, guns drawn. “Wait, he’s not going to hurt anyone!”

Avian, Tristan, and Royce slowed not twenty yards from us. But my eyes locked with West’s as he jogged the slowest, still recovering from his surgery and Avian’s beating.

As he joined the others, his face washed stark white.

“Grandpa?” he breathed.

“Hello, West.”

“Holy shi…” Royce said, actually stumbling back in fear. His eyes grew wide and disbelieving.

“It talks?!” Bill bellowed, keeping his rifle leveled in our direction.

“He’s safe!” I said again, holding my hands up in front of him. “Don’t shoot!”

“You’d better explain real fast,” Royce growled, recovering from his shock. “It’s taking everything I’ve got not to shoot this thing down.”

“This here kept TorBane out of my head,” Dr. Evans shouted for himself, indicating his helmet. “I’ve kept my humanity even though the rest of me Evolved.”

“You’re supposed to be dead,” West said, his voice shaky. There was no color in his bruised face. “You Evolved in the beginning. The guys who took me away, they said you were gone!”

“I told them what I had to,” Dr. Evans said regretfully. “I needed to make sure you were taken to safety. I had to take care of things at NovaTor.”

“I’ve believed you were gone for the last six years,” West said, his voice hardening even though it cracked on the word gone. “And you were doing what this entire time?”

“Who is this?” Royce demanded as he looked between West and I.

“And where did you send all those Bane off to?” Avian questioned.

“I’m Dr. Reiss Evans,” he said as he stepped from behind me. “The creator of TorBane.”

I had expected at least Royce to shoot him dead then, but instead, everyone simply froze. All eyes remained fixed on his Evolved body and no one said a word.

“He has some designs,” I said, my voice coming out quieter than I meant it to. “And a plan. We all really need to talk.”

There was a different feel in the air when we rolled back to the hospital. The buildings that surrounded it were riddled with bullet holes. Windows were broken everywhere. Empty shell casings littered the ground and the roads were stained with dark patches that could be nothing but blood.

How many lives had been lost in the battle after I left to head off the Bane?

We all stepped outside our vehicles as they rolled to a stop. Dr. Evans climbed down from the roof of one. Of course he hadn’t been allowed in it.

The streets were eerily quiet. “Where is everyone?” I asked.

“We can talk about that later,” Royce said, looking Dr. Evans over warily once more. His finger hovered over the trigger of his customized assault rifle.

As soon as we’d gotten three blocks from the hospital, Dr. Evans made a sound like he was dying, a choked off cry mixed with a grinding mechanical sound. Royce reluctantly radioed in and told Addie to shut the wireless transmission system off. That didn’t mean he wasn’t ready to mow Dr. Evans down at the slightest wrong move.

Royce understandably made us all wait outside the hospital while Bill ran inside to retrieve Dr. Beeson and a CDU.

“Dr. Beeson, he knew the truth about me and my sister too, didn’t he?” I asked West as we waited for the two of them to return.

West shifted from one foot to the other, his eyes dropping from mine. “Yeah.”

I shook my head and turned my gaze back to the hospital doors. Avian reached for my hand and gave a reassuring squeeze. I gave one back to him mostly in an attempt to keep my fists from meeting West’s face.

We all stood across the street while we waited. None of us said a word, maybe because there were too many words to be said, maybe because everyone was just afraid.

We were in plain sight of the doors to the hospital, so the moment Dr. Beeson stepped outside of them, we saw him freeze. The color drained from his face. And then his knees gave out. He was looking at not just one ghost, but two. Not that he knew I was one yet.

“Come on,” Bill said, hauling him back up. “No time for that.”

“We’ve got some things to talk about,” Royce said as the two of them stumbled across the street.

“No,” Dr. Beeson said, shaking his pale head, his eyes locked on Dr. Evans. “No. You’re dead. You were infected. You are not supposed to be here. My days at NovaTor are over!” he suddenly bellowed, his eyes growing wild.

“I’m afraid not, Erik,” Dr. Evans said, folding his mechanical hands in front of him. “You and I, we need to fix what we created.”

“We?” Dr. Beeson spit. “I had nothing to do with TorBane! You used my research to amplify all of this.”

“I. We need to fix what I created,” Dr. Evans said solemnly.

“Okay!” Royce shouted, raising his gun into the air to get attention. “You need to do some quick talking so I can decide if I need to shoot you or not. Can we please go inside and move things along?” Frustration made his voice rise in volume.

He waved his arms for us to step inside the coffee shop that was directly across from the main entrance to the hospital. There had once been bodies lying on the floor after the Pulse went off, but Tuck’s Bane Removal Crew had cleared it in the first week after it went off.

Avian and I stood at the back of the building, hands on weapons. Royce stood next to the cash register, his firearms still gripped securely. Dr. Beeson collapsed into one table with shaky legs. West and Bill stood across the room. Dr. Evans sat at the table as far from everyone as he could manage. His actions were perfectly calm and relaxed, as if he didn’t need to worry about someone’s nerves getting too set on edge and blasting a crater through his half-human face.

“You can talk,” Royce started us out. “But you’ll still spread the infection.”

Dr. Evans nodded. “I would never allow any of you to touch me. I designed this helmet to repel the technology, so it stays out of my head. I’ve kept my humanity. But yes, I still carry TorBane, the same as any of the other Evolved out there.”

“The Bane you mean,” Royce growled. “Did you ever realize how appropriate your little name was?”

“The name of TorBane was fitting,” Dr. Evans sighed impatiently. “That was precisely what it was: a biological and nanorobotic enhancement.”

“And the literal meaning of Bane is something that causes death and destruction. Ruin. You’re telling me that is just a coincidence?”

“Are you here to interrogate me about the past or would you like to talk about how to save our future?” Dr. Evans asked with hard eyes.