As Evie slowly opened her eyes, she had the awful thought that whoever decided to design her sleep cycle for twelve-minute intervals should be shot. She was rested enough, she just hated waking up to the dank, grimy world around her. The windows of the gas station were either shattered or covered with so much crud she couldn’t see out of them, either way they were all cracked or broken. The floor was covered with grime. The beverage cases, dark and powerless and filled with long expired beverages, were covered with grime. Even the counter she had taken shelter under was dingy. The whole world, it seemed, was covered with grime.
Sitting under the counter, Evie partook in the ritual she did every time she awoke. Taking out a picture from her ratty black canvas jacket, she spoke to the man in it, saying, “Happy now, Dr. Crichton?”
Evie had been his protype. A literal superhuman, stronger, faster, held up under the elements better, stopped aging at the age of twenty-five, making her effectively immortal, baring accidents, and effectively removing the need for reproduction.
At least that was the plan. Unfortunately, it never occurred to Dr. Crichton that the whole playing God routine may have unintended consequences.
And he wasn’t even here to deal with those consequences.
Admittedly, she hadn’t seen him die. He had dragged her out of the laboratory, threw her out the emergency exit just before five of them jumped him, dragging him back into the laboratory. They always traveled in packs. That hadn’t changed much since the collapse of western civilization.
And it had all started with screams. Terrified, desperate screams. Screams of anguish. Even screams of aggression. Screams that haunted her dreams. Screams that if she closed her eyes, she could still hear.
Gathering her belongings in a faded, ratty gray and blue backpack, Evie walked out of the store, pulling the gray hood of her sweatshirt over her head with its roughly cropped golden blonde hair. She was designed to be beautiful, but endless exposure had left her skin chapped and rough. A saw-offed shotgun in her hands, started down the broken and cracked asphalt road.
#
The boredom was the worst.
It wasn’t the cold, it wasn’t the heat, it wasn’t the hunger, she had been designed to be less susceptible to those anyway. It wasn’t being on high alert, waiting to be attacked at a moment’s notice. It wasn’t the terror that came with an attack. It wasn’t even loneliness, thought that was a close second. No, it was the endless stretches of black asphalt road, of endless trees or plain with nothing but her own thoughts.
Because that was when the darkness creeped in.
The numbness, the inability to even think straight. The inability to think about anything other than being the last sane human in North America. Of the events that lead up to that. That screaming, the blood, clumps of blue-black hair stained with red, the blood-shot eyes of dead lab techs, their insides spilled over the floor, being too scared to move until Dr. Crichton pulled her away, the smoke coming up from the only home she had ever knew, just—running from the chaos all around her.
Then there were the hazy, half-remembered memories in the recesses of her mind. Doing stupid human tricks for a room of smartly dressed men and women. Of Dr. Crichton fighting with the other doctors when they thought she couldn’t hear. Of a little pink face wrapped in white cloth.
He’s like you, Evie. He’s special. Maybe he’ll even be your Adam…
He had said it as a joke, but even now, the thought of doing anything like that with one of those things made her feel like she was going to vomit, right there on the road.
Today, however, she was interrupted by the blur that came from the trees of the surrounding forest out of nowhere. Evie fired the gun, hitting it in the chest. The blur fell to the ground revealing a feral-looking man with messy black hair.
Evie whirled around, pointing her gun in every direction. She had to be alert; where there was one, there were usually more. Sure enough, four more of them, two on either side came straight at her. A deafening blast went off, paired with the smell of gunpowder as she fired again, killing one and injuring another, but she found herself falling the short distance to the ground, hitting it with a blast of dull pain and two got the jump on her, pinning her to the ground, causing her to feel a sharp pain in her ribcage. She managed to kick the male in the groin. Surprised, and no doubt in pain, he fell over, then she hit the female attacking her with the butt of her gun. Quickly getting to her feet, and a for a moment just stared at the oval-shaped face on the man. Had he been the one meant to be her Adam? There was no time to wonder about that now. And besides, since they had all stopped aging long by this point, there was no way to be sure how old he even was. Turning around, she ran for it.
Those were the consequences. Evie might have just been the protype, but she was the only one that was functioning. The rest were fast like her, strong like her, resilient like her, but their amygdala, those little almond-sized self-control buttons in the brain was much too small, in fact, most of their prefrontal cortex and hippocampus, the parts responsible for decision making were too small, if present at all. That was what the fight with the others had been about, she thought. That even with what the scans were showing, Dr. Crichton kept commissioning more. Finding more surrogates, more donors, sabotaging attempts by the others to go over his head. He had got it right with Evie, he could do it again. His genetically modified humans would be superior to any natural human being.
Yeah, Dr. Crichton talked like that. A lot. Evie couldn’t say with a straight face that she had been completely unaffected by it, but with the others, the damage was worst. With them, it was a recipe for a race of superhuman low-functioning psychopaths. Humanity never stood a chance.
Evie had been sixteen when it happened. She didn’t know exactly how her would-be kin had got out of containment. She was working on the modules they were given every day when she suddenly heard screaming. It was Dr. Shelley, the project’s intern, Dr. Crichton’s assistant, who had come for her, telling her there had been a breach, that she needed to get Evie out of there. They hadn’t even made down the hall before a pack were upon them. Evie was old enough, strong enough to fight them off, run away.
Dr. Shelly hadn’t been so lucky.
They had called them the Feral. These wild, unstoppable beings that killed indiscriminately, and, since anyone who tried to stop them ended up dead, with no consequences. The random violence hadn’t been enough to topple society, but when the protest broke out, demanding answers, for something to be done, then those protest became riots, combined with the politicians who had allowed the experiments turning on each other, a pack of Feral getting far enough East to take out several members of congress, everything fell apart within four years.
And throughout all of it, Evie just ran. Ran from the Feral, from the mobs, from the cops trying to keep order. Ran from the blood, from the death all around her, from memories of that awful day it all started. Running from a world that was falling apart around her.
And she had been running ever since.
Managing to outrun them, Evie ran until her legs started to burn and her breath gave out, which for her was several miles. Exhausted, she sat down on the side of the road, wrapping her arms around her legs. Now was no time to sleep, or even rest. Pulling herself up and picking up the shotgun, she stepped off into the woods.
#
The shack was small, broken down and weathered a brownish gray with time, a steady rock foundation the only thing holding it in place. Eve stood in front of it for a moment, trying to decide how suicidal going inside was, before stepping through the hole where the door had once been.
She knew she wasn’t going to get an answer, but she called out anyway. “Hello? Anyone here?”
The only evidence anyone had ever lived in the one-room shack was a square wooden table and chairs, a battered, black iron woodburning stove in one corner, the set up for a ham radio in the other, with a dark brown smear on the floor that gave some clue as to what happened to the original owners.
Evie ran for the ham radio and began franticly turning knobs, picking up the receiver. “Is anyone there?!” She called out desperately, “Is anyone there, please?!”
She had caught the first signal two months ago, when she was messing with a radio, she had found to fight the boredom that came in between the boughs of terror. It was too staticky to make out anything coherent, but she heard it. At first, she thought she was hearing things, finally gone mad from the isolation, but no, after two decades of silence, human voices. Regular human voices.
After two days she finally had something to run to .
Evie had been following it ever since, first with the radio, then when she was forced to ditch that in an attack, anything she could get her hands on that got a signal. Every time it got a little clearer, it got her a little bit closer.
After minutes of frantic turning, she heard it. “Who is this? This is supposed to be a secure line. “
“My name is Evie Crichton!” She pratically shouted, “Please tell me you’re real! Please be real, please be real…”
The voice on the other end of the lines was starting to get it. “I was under the impression that New Jericho were the last humans on the contentment. Except for the Feral.”
Evie chuckled. “And I was under the impression everyone left got out before the UN banned all travel.”
“Well, some of us weren’t that lucky.” The voice said, “Alright, Evie, can you tell me where you are?”
#
Back on the road, Evie trudged ahead, looking at nothing but the road in front of her. According to the man she was only two day’s journeys from New Jericho. It was too dangerous to send people after her, but they would have patrols looking out for her.
The hours went by uneventfully, going between her fastest speed and her slowest, her eyes always on the lookout, not just for the Feral, but a car, a truck, something that if she could find some gasoline, could get her there a little faster.
As she walked through the main street of a small town, she wasn’t wanting for options. Abandoned vehicles littered the streets, some parked as if waiting for owners to come back from errands, another stopped in the middle of the streets, some turned over. One would be forgiven for thinking the Rapture had occurred, but what had happened wasn’t anywhere near as holy.
Picking a sedan that was reasonably free of rust, Evie pried the door open, climbing inside and ripping open the panel, revealing a tangled mess of red and blue plastic covered wires. “Come on, come on,” She pleaded, beginning to press the wires against each other until she heard the wonderful sound of the engine reeving up. “Ha!” She cried joyfully, “Now we’re cooking with gas!” After a beat she whispered, “Hopefully a full tank of it.”
#
She drove for most of the day, only stopping for twelve minutes to sleep. She was starting to think things were finally starting to go right when suddenly the car started to sputter. “No, no, no…” Evie pleaded, but it was no use. The car stopped in the middle of the road, completely out of gas. Grabbing her backpack, she got out. On foot from there, she guessed. At least it happened at a relatively clear spot where she could see anything coming.
#
At least that’s what she thought. She hadn’t made it more than a few miles when suddenly she heard growling. “No…”
They came on the horizon, more Feral than she had even seen in one place. There were maybe ten of them, coming at her from all sides. She fired but missed. They were coming closer and fast. Suddenly she felt herself being knocked to the ground and then found herself staring into a cold pair of gray eyes. She punched him in the face, sending him flying, only for the world around her to turn and burl as two more of Feral jumped her.
That was when she heard the most beautiful sound in the world: The sound of screeching tires.
The camo truck came out of nowhere, hitting two Feral as it barreled forward. Suddenly two men in makeshift military uniforms jumped out of the truck and started firing. As they delt with the Feral, another solider, a woman with dark hair pulled back in a bun, rushed out and pulled Eve up off the ground. “Are you hurt?!” She asked in and English accent, dragging Eve towards the truck.
“Don’t think so.” Evie said urgently, allowing herself to be pushed up into the car.
“Pull back!” One of the soldiers ordered, quickly backing off before climbing into the truck themselves.
“We got her.” The other spoke into a walkie-talkie, “Repeat, we got her.”
Still processing, the panic still flowing through her but starting to wane, Evie looked every which-way. “I thought they couldn’t send anyone out, what happened?”
Everyone just exchanged glances, as if they were silently discussing something.
Evie didn’t like the way they looked at each other. The way they wouldn’t look at her. “Ah, listen, not to sound ungrateful, but…what’s going on?”
Once again, she got no response.
“Well, this is gonna be a fun ride.” Evie snarked, leaning back in her seat, trying to relax and failing.
#
Evie could see why they called it New Jericho.
The whole city was surrounded with a wall of thick gray brick, topped with coils upon coils of barb wire. Century towers topped the wall, each equipped with snipers. There was one way in, one way out, and that was the giant doors at the front of the wall, which were locked shut.
It was nothing if not well fortified.
As they approached the wall, the leader of the soldiers began to speak until the radio. “This Charlie One, I repeat this Charlie One, over.” He began, “Does homebased copy?”
A voice came through the radio. “Loud and clear and Charlie One, over. Do you have the package, over?”
Package? The word rang out in Evie’s head as she sat upright. Something wasn’t right here.
“Tell the Doc we have her package, over.” Charlie One replied.
“Who’s the Doc?” Evie asked, looking around. “What’s going on?”
That was when it happened. She never saw the soldier in the back with the rag. Not even when that rag was over her mouth and noise, forcing something sickeningly sweet and burning up her nonsterols. She failed and kicked, but the others held her down, until everything faded into black.
#
The first thing Evie was aware of when she woke up was a pounding ache in her head and body and a weight around her wrists, her ankles, even her neck, something tight and chocking her, not enough to cut off her air off completely, but making it difficult to breath, chafing her the skin of her neck.
Evie slowly opened her eyes, looking down to find, her wrists wrapped in sliver-gray shackles, so were her ankles. Instinctively, she went to her neck and felt something cold and metal. Looking up she found herself in gray concrete cell, the fourth wall steel gray bars. Standing in front of those bars was fragile-looking woman, her skin wrinkled and spotted with age, her hair turned gray with bits of white. She donned a white lab coat and there was a thick, jagged scar that ran across her neck.
The woman looked familiar, but for a minute Evie couldn’t understand how. Then she pictured her with smoother skin and blue-black hair. But it couldn’t be. She was dead! Evie saw the Feral attack her, saw them pile on her, ripping into her. She couldn’t be the woman in front of her.
“Dr. Shelly?” Eve gasped in a raspy voice, tumbling to her feet, “I thought—I thought—”
“I was dead?’ Dr. Shelly cut her off, sounding like it pained her to speak, “For a moment I thought I was, too.” She put a hand over the scar on her neck. “I woke up in a hospital covered in bandages with a tube down my throat. They told me it was miracle I was alive.”
If Dr. Shelly had somehow made it out of the lab the day it all went wrong then maybe she wasn’t the only one. “Dr. Crichton?” Evie asked softly.
“He didn’t make it.” Dr. Shelly said ruefully, “Killed by his own monsters. It’s almost cliché.” After a beat she added, “I thought I was the only survivor of Moreau Laboratories Massacre. At least that what I thought until you announced your name over the radio.”
Even though she hated the man, it shocked Evie for a moment, and she could feel her chest tightening. Pulling herself together, she demanded. “Why am I here? Why did you—why did you lock me up like this?”
“I’m sorry, Evie,” Dr. Shelly said sincerely, “I think you know why.”
She did. Of course, the last humans in America were trying to find a way to defeat the Feral. Of course, other countries were helping, on or off the books. They didn’t want what happened to the North America to happen to them if the Feral got off the continent. Of course, if the protype fell into their hands, they weren’t going to miss the chance to study her.
She should be afraid. She should be terrified, pleading for mercy. Instead, what she said numbly was, “You know, all you had to do was ask.”
Dr. Shelly blinked, surprised. “You’re serious?”
“I’ve been out there, alone for twenty years.” Evie said intently, gazing at the woman with steel in her eyes, “I saw the world burn. And I was the match. I’d do anything to make that right.”
For a minute no one spoke, just as staring at each other. At last Dr. Shelly sighed. “You may have been the match, but I helped light you. I saw what was happening, how warped the others were. Everyone did. But they all just kept giving us funding, kept moving right along as if there wasn’t a problem.” After another long pause, she warned, “You know, our test may very well kill you.”
Evie smiled ruefully. “Who wants to live forever anyway?” The smile dropped. “I’ve been running for too long. I’m done.”
For a moment, no one said anything. “Well,” Dr. Shelly said finally, “Since you’re being much more cooperative than anyone expected, let me see what I can do about housing you somewhere more comfortable.”