The Awakening, page 31
part #1 of Eve Series
unfazed. Eriksen cleared his throat and continued.
“We’ve got some of the top psychoanalysts in the country studying the
Interlopers’ behaviors, and if there’s one thing they agree on, it’s that these freaks are smarter than we ever gave them credit for. Their technology is
staggering. Their methods are complex. And yet despite their advanced
intelligence, their emotional capabilities are stunted—primitive, even.
Remorse, compassion, empathy: all nonexistent within the Interloper culture.
Something’s missing in them. It’s almost like they—”
“Only have half a brain?” Jason muttered.
Eriksen sneered. “I take it that’s more than a figure of speech.” He glanced
over at the technicians and lowered his voice. “Look, these things will not stop
—not until they get what they want. There’s a madness—a desperation—in
their endeavors. We want to know why. We want to know what motivates them
to such an acute degree.”
With a quick flick of his wrist, he minimized the projection and continued through the Shelter; Jason and Eve hurried to keep up. They weaved between the sectors, passing groups of armored patrolmen practicing drills and
buzzing technicians with scratchpads in hand, all of whom stopped to stare at the two chimeras that had invaded their space.
Eve staggered to a halt, nearly colliding with the colonel’s back. He had led
his guests to a vast array of small, framed monitors, each one displaying a very recognizable Billington location: the Rutherford Hall lobby, the back
corner of the Billington Library, the barred campus gates. Several uniformed
workers sat in front of the live video feeds, watching them intensely.
“This is the surveillance sector,” Eriksen stated. “When the attacks first
began, we had only twenty cameras. Now we have over one hundred
checkpoints stationed across campus.”
“And have you seen anything?” Jason said. “Anything suspicious? Anything
at all?”
The colonel hesitated, visibly embarrassed. “I know how it sounds, but I’ve
played the footage myself again and again, searching for clues.” He shook his
head. “We’ve never caught an Interloper on our feed. Not once.”
Eve thought of the creature she had battled the night before and remembered
when he’d looked like a simple college student. “Not a single alien,” she mumbled, glancing at Jason. “I wonder how that could be.”
They approached the next sector: a large space filled with swarming bodies
and strange noises. Sizable computers displayed zigzagged images of sound
waves, each one projecting the most unusual symphony of sounds Eve had ever
heard. Technicians scrutinized the waves, pinpointing specific clicks and
twangs in the rhythms. The colonel stopped and cocked his head at the odd display.
“Here we have our communication sector, the heart of the Shelter. Our team
works day and night tracking and translating the Interlopers’ transmissions.”
“You’ve hacked their communications?” Eve asked.
The colonel nodded and pulled up a hologram of a circular device, palm-
sized and metallic, with a glowing blue button in its center. He expanded the image, making it large enough to see the intricacies of the design.
“Each Interloper has a device,” he explained, rotating the image. “We call it
the beacon. They’re surgically attached to the backs of their heads, just beneath
their skulls. This mechanism allows them to transmit orders, data, and even images to one another in the most quick and efficient manner possible. It’s a level of innovation we’ve never seen before.” He minimized the hologram.
“Fortunately, we’ve managed to decrypt their language, but that’s only half the
problem.”
“What’s the other half?”
“There’s a delay,” he grumbled. “The signals are only traceable by our
systems hours after they’ve been transmitted. We never know about an attack until well after it’s occurred.”
“How do we fix that?” Jason asked.
“We won’t be fixing anything,” the colonel snapped. “It’s up to us at the Shelter.
This does not involve you two.”
Eve stared at the hologram, studying the image. “I think I’ve seen this
before,” she said. “Our Interloper—he had one of these.”
Eriksen’s eyes lit up with intrigue. “Do you still have it?”
“It was destroyed in the fight. It’s in pieces now.”
The colonel growled. “The only way to eliminate our handicap—to receive
the signals in real time—is to gain access to a working beacon. The problem
is, in order to get one, we need a body.” He turned off the projection and scowled at Eve. “Looks like your specimen won’t be all that useful after all.”
“Sorry to disappoint,” Eve mumbled.
They wandered toward the last sector, which was easily the most cluttered of
them all. Countless patrolmen, all of seemingly high rank, hovered around
rows of intricate maps—Eve recognized a map of Billington and a couple
others of various cities in Southern California. The soldiers conferred with one another while analyzing the various locales.
“We’ve reached the locator, our final sector,” Eriksen explained. “Here, we
track and log all of their dissection sites. They never use the same spot more
than once, so they’re piling up fast. But more importantly, we’re trying to identify a meeting place—a hub. In almost all of their transmissions, the
Interlopers mention a central location. We call it their lair.” He crossed his arms and glowered. “Trouble is, we can’t find it.”
Eve sighed. “Well, that’s not very encouraging.”
“We looked at their dissection sites for common themes. At first we noticed they chose locations near pipelines, sewer systems—places with access to
water. We weren’t quite sure why—”
“They can only digest fluids,” Jason interrupted. “I’m giving you that one
for free.”
The colonel continued. “Pretty soon, the trend disappeared. Their locations
became random and varied, without a water source nearby.”
“That’s because they’ll drink any fluid,” Eve added. “Doesn’t have to be water.
We found chimera blood in their digestive tract.”
“Good God—”
“So you really have no idea where their lair is?” Eve asked.
“The signals are rejecting all of our tracking methods. We’ll keep trying.”
Eve glanced toward Jason, only to discover that he was gone. Her eyes
darted frantically across the sector until she finally spotted him standing before a holographic map, roughly ten feet tall and just as wide, covered in bright blue lights. He was still, almost hypnotized by the projection.
“That’s a map of all the dissection sites,” Eriksen explained, making his way
to Jason’s side. “Each blue light marks—”
“A chimera,” Jason interjected. “Someone you’ve saved.”
He nodded. “You’ll find your light among the rest.”
Jason’s eyes scanned the map, stopping for a moment in front of an anomaly
—a small, red glow.
“The red light,” he added. “That’s Marshall Woodgate, isn’t it?”
Eriksen hesitated. “The red light represents—”
“Death.”
They stood in silence: Jason staring at the lights, and Eve and Eriksen
staring at Jason. Finally, Eve noticed her surroundings; they had come full circle, and the offices where they had started were only a few short yards away.
The colonel impatiently cleared his throat.
“Look, you’ve seen the Shelter. We accommodated your demands. I think
we’re done here—”
“Who’s Fairon?” Eve interrupted.
The colonel took a step back, startled by her random firing. “Excuse me?”
“I want to know who Fairon is.”
“That wasn’t part of the trade—”
“The trade was for everything. Everything you know in return for the body.”
Eriksen’s back straightened, his frame visibly tense. He grabbed both Jason
and Eve by their shoulders and forced them forward.
“My office. Now.”
Jason and Eve charged ahead, goaded by Eriksen’s heavy hand and assertive demand. He shoved them into the room and locked the door behind him.
Furst turned in his chair and offered the threesome the slightest, most
unnatural smile he could have possibly mustered. “Back from your tour already?” he asked. “Well, I hope you found everything you were looking for.”
“We’re not finished yet,” Eve snapped, shooting a scathing glare at Eriksen.
The colonel’s pale white face had turned a deep shade of red. “They want to
know about Fairon.”
Furst exhaled softly, and his body sank into his chair. He offered the colonel
a slight nod.
“Well, then, by all means, Colonel. Tell them.”
Eriksen faltered, his entire demeanor in a perceptible state of conflict. He bit
at his lip, but reluctantly submitted to the dean’s orders.
“Fairon is their leader.”
“Christ,” Jason sighed. “Of course there’s a leader.”
“We have yet to find an Interloper of higher command,” he continued. “He’s
unique in strength, esteem, and appearance, though we’re not sure how. But we
know he has power over the others—immense power. He’s the one to beat.”
“Beat how?” Jason grumbled. “If you can’t take down one Interloper, how do you expect to defeat their kingpin?”
“You of all people should know what we’re up against,” Eriksen fired back.
“The Interlopers aren’t beneath us. They’re an intelligent and capable species
—a species led by a cruel, calculating leader. The sooner you realize that, the
better.”
Eve and Jason were quiet. Eriksen glanced back at Furst before continuing.
“Look, he’s leading their entire mission at Billington. He’s ordering all of the
dissections, and now, apparently, the deaths.” His voice had suddenly
become firm and commanding again. “He’s smarter than the rest and twice as
evil. The head of the beast, like a sick, twisted God for the rest of ’em to blindly obey. And they will obey him, without a second thought. We’ve been searching for that piece of shit for months now. If we get him, we’ve got them all by the balls.”
And if they didn’t get him, Fairon would have Eve, Jason, and the rest of the
chimeras killed. Butchered. Torn apart. Unless, of course, the patrolmen found
a way to grab him by the proverbial balls.
Do Interlopers even have balls?
“How did they find me?”
Jason broke the silence, interrupting Eve’s thoughts. He was staring out the
window, his eyes fixed on something off in the distance: the glowing map.
The colonel furrowed his brow. “’Scuse me?”
“I didn’t even know I was a chimera until they abducted me.” He turned
toward Eriksen and Furst, his jaw rigid with anger. “How did they know if I didn’t?”
Eriksen looked away, and for a moment, Eve noticed something different
about him—something weak.
“I said, how did they know that?”
Eve recalled the moment she first saw the colonel. She glanced at Eriksen.
“‘ Fairon has everything.’ You said that in the medical ward.”
“Miss Kingston, are you still fretting over that conversation?”
“What do they have, Furst?” Eve hissed, glaring at the dean. “This time, you have to tell me. You know you do.”
The friction in the room was palpable and heated. Furst looked up at the
colonel, his eyes brimming with defeat, and took in a long, deep breath.
“Billington University didn’t earn its unprecedented reputation without
reason,” he began. “We only accept the best of the best. Thus, it was determined
early on that we needed to acquire as much relevant information about our
candidates as possible. So we did just that: we gathered information. Every detail we could find about our students is here in our academic databases. We
have very important records. Records that cannot be tampered with without…
significant damages.”
Eve’s stomach twisted into a knot. She had the most awful feeling that he was
about to say something terrible, and she prayed that somehow she was
mistaken.
“As you both know, students are required to report some basic medical
history to Billington upon admission. Vaccinations, family history, any
relevant health scares. It’s standard procedure.” He fiddled with his cufflinks as if to avoid her cutting glare. “But what our students do not realize is that we dig much deeper than that. Past illnesses. Blood tests. Abnormalities. We have our
medical ward study these records vigorously, and thus we were able to determine which of our students were, well…” He stopped for a moment,
finally meeting Eve’s gaze. “Unique. Exceptionally healthy—too healthy for
the average human being, whether they knew this or not.”
“Jesus Christ,” she said, finally realizing what he was implying. “You
didn’t.”
“We generated a list,” he declared, his words razor-sharp. “A list of all of our
chimera students. Every last one of them.” He looked back at the colonel,
who was standing, petrified, by his side. “This list is the most valuable asset this institution had in its possession. Now… it seems as though the Interlopers
have stolen it.”
“ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR DAMN MINDS? ” Jason roared. “DO YOU HAVE
ANY IDEA WHAT YOU’VE DONE? ”
“How is that possible?” Eve asked. “How could they just take it from you?”
“It was heavily guarded and highly secure—”
“They stole it!” Jason barked. “How secure could it have been?”
“We have no idea how they were able to locate it—”
“You’re responsible, do you know that?” Jason glared at the dean, his veins
bulging from his neck. “You have blood on your hands.”
“Have they”—Eve stuttered, almost too stunned to speak—“have they had it
the whole time? Is that why they targeted Billington in the first place?”
Furst hesitated. “It appears so.”
“A list,” Jason snarled. “You compiled a goddamn list. How could you be so stupid?”
“We’re handling the matter as aggressively as possible. All we need to do is
find the list, destroy it, and move past the charade. It’s all very manageable—”
“They’re disguised as people, Furst,” Jason spat. “That’s why your cameras aren’t catching them, that’s why the victims don’t notice their attackers
beforehand. It’s because they look just like us. They can be anyone. They are everywhere.”
Furst’s eyes widened. “Are you telling me they’re masquerading as
humans?”
“I’m telling you that you’ve screwed up more than you can possibly
imagine.”
Eve was speechless, her body stiff and unmoving aside from her shallow
breathing. It wasn’t true, it couldn’t be—and yet no matter how many times she
told herself as much, she knew it was a lie. Furst and Eriksen looked at each other, their faces drained of all color. With what little composure he had left,
Furst cleared his throat and turned toward Eve.
“If what you’re telling us is true, then it’s best that you know one last thing
—”
“Dr. Furst—”
“It’s all right, Colonel,” the dean insisted. “She deserves to know.”
“What do I deserve to know?” Eve grumbled.
Silence. Both Furst and Eriksen opened their mouths to speak, and yet they said
nothing. Eve thought back to her fight with the Interloper—his sinister sneer, his exceptional strength, and the words he uttered tauntingly in her ear.
“The Interloper that attacked us,” she began. “He said I was a great prize.
That he was going to offer me to Fairon.” She paused. “What was he talking
about?”
Still the room was silent.
“Answer me, Furst.”
Furst fiddled with his glasses, pushing them up the bridge of his nose. “I didn’t
think it necessary to tell you. I had nothing but faith in our patrolmen.
But, after this… unforeseen complication, I feel it needs to be said.”
“Oh, God,” Jason growled. “How could this possibly get any worse?”
Furst dipped his chin. “There was one additional note on the list. One key element that stood out from the rest.”
Eve closed her eyes. She knew exactly what he would say next—it was
almost as if she had known all along.
“It was you, Miss Kingston. Your name was the pinnacle. It was the most
important name on that list, because it specifies you as what you already know
you are: the strongest chimera in the world.”
“You sonofabitch—” Jason hissed.
“They know, Miss Kingston. And I can guarantee they’ve been watching
