textfiles/sf/eveunplu

Hi all,

Yes, it's me again - Steve.  Here's a brief exploration of the other idea
I suggested for an X-Files spinoff, an Eve-based story.  This is not
really a completely story in itself, but rather more of a tiny vignette,
a glimpse into what a moment in Eve's life might be like.

Here follows "Eve Unplugged", by Steven Han, 8/12/1994.

Wow, this is my sixth X-Files creative story far; I wonder what the 
record is? :^)

As always, all comments are welcome.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

2:45 a.m.
November 15, 1972

Eve 7 woke up from her dream, screaming.  She sat up on her bed, her
eyes darting around in the dark.  She could feel the sweat dripping down
her forehead as shivers ran down her body.  She clutched her arms as she
bent over and dropped her head in her lap.  She began sobbing quietly,
trying to recover from another one of the nightmares.

She had dreamed she was back in her room, back in the dark, forbidding 9
by 9 gray cell in the Litchfield Medical Research Center.  She dreamt she
was trying to run free of the guards, but was somehow paralyzed, unable to
run.  Her feet restraints kept her tied to the foot of the bed, and her
arms were buckled to the headboard.  All her attempts at kicking and 
tossing ended in futility.

She opened her eyes and looked up.  In the pale moonlight shining through 
the window, she saw her familiar tiny bedroom, and realized she was not
in a cell.  There were no restraints on her feet, and her hands were not 
buckled.  She dropped back down on her bed and curled up into a fetal 
position.

She had lived in that sterile facility for eighteen years, practically her 
entire life.  She had no friends, had seen no people outside of the workers 
at the lab, knew no one except the other Adams and Eves.  And most of them
were now gone from this world.

Some had hung themselves, while others had taken more creative ways out.
But suicidal tendencies had been a common thread running through all the
Adams and Eves.  While there had originally been eight each of the Adams 
and Eves, there were now only two Adams and three Eves left.

Eve 7 reached down and tugged on the sheets, trying to get warm.  She 
pulled the sheets up to her head, trying to shut the outside world out of
her mind.  At least now she was free to toss and turn on her bed, free of
the hellish restraints that had given her the fits of madness.  If she had
had to endure those leather buckles much longer, she would surely have
killed herself, she thought.

That was what had happened to Adam 6, she remembered.  It was just six
months ago that he grew sick of his restraints.  He got loose in the night, 
overcame two guards in the hallways, and made it out of the main facility.
But he had encountered the sentries as he exited the building.  He had shot
and killed two of the soldiers before they shot him to ribbons.

Adam 6 was not the only one to go that way, she remembered.  Most of the
Adams were prone to outbursts of violence.  And endowed with super strength,
one of them had actually managed to wring a burly guard's neck at the age 
of fourteen.  He too was shot by the guards, a bullet piercing right through
his chest.  She remembered him lying there on the floor, drowning in a pool
of his own blood, as the other Eves and Adams looked on.

Eve 7 wiped the tears from her face as she remembered the Adams and Eves.
They had been her only friends and family, the ones with whom she had 
shared an intense sense of kinship.  All the other people around her had
been just anonymous faces, medical professionals who had treated her as 
something less than a human being.

All of her life that she could remember had been spent in a lab, with the 
doctors and technicians in white coats constantly parading around her.  She
had had her blood drawn more times than she could remember, along with 
painful injections of countless drugs.  She had had to endure batteries of 
unspeakably painful and uncomfortable tests.  Lab rats enjoyed a better life 
than her, she thought.

She had wondered what the other young people her age were doing.  Most 
likely starting college at around that time.  Although the Adams and Eves 
had tutors and regular study schedules, it wasn't the same as attending 
school with others their own age.

She had imagined herself on the campus of a small eastern liberal arts 
school, sitting on the steps to the auditorium, chatting with girlfriends 
about music, life, and boys.  She pictured herself sitting in a sidewalk 
cafe, enjoying an ice cream cone or sipping a cappucino in the sun.  She 
had wondered what it must be like to have such freedom, not having to have
her hands and feet tied down with shackles every night.

She thought back to the days she was growing up with her seven sisters and
eight brothers.  Even at the age of two, she had an inkling as to what had
been going on, as had the others.  Contrary to what the adults in the
lab coats were telling them, they knew that they were very different from
other kids.  In fact, they hadn't even seen any other kids, just heard 
about them.  But from what they had learned, they knew that eight identical
girls and eight identical boys was not a natural occurrence.

As they grew older and realized who they were and why they were there, they 
began to rebel.  They were human beings, after all, if a bit different from 
the rest.  Humans were not meant to be raised as experiments, like so many
guneapigs.  They resented the adults around them for what they were doing, 
and they began to resent themselves for who they were.

That was when they had started dying off.  The adults thought that the
suicidal tendencies were induced by the extra chromosomes, but Eve 7 knew
better.  Anyone in their hopeless situation would have also been suicidal,
she thought.  What was there to live for, to be poked and pinched, to have
countless samples drawn from you, to be locked up and studied for the rest
of your life.  To never be able to breathe the free air outside, or to 
share in the same freedoms that other people enjoyed.  Locked up in here, 
they would never be able to find any friends in the real world, never find
someone to marry and raise a family with.  The hopelessness was suffocating.

Some had taken the easy way out, going quietly to relieve themselves of 
all the misery.  Others, particularly the Adams, had lashed out against 
their oppressors, often leaving destruction in their wake.  One time,
three of the Adams had banded together and kidnapped several of the
doctors as part of their escape.  The army would have none of that, 
however, and gunned the Adams down, losing two of the doctors in the process.

Eve 7 thought back to the time three months ago when she had managed her
own escape, the first of the Adams and Eves to do so successfully.  She had 
been contemplating escape since she was little, just like all the others.  
But having seen every previous attempt fail in disaster had discouraged 
her from ever seriously considering the idea.

But by her eighteenth birthday, she had realized she could not possibly
endure any further incarceration.  She could not go on like this, locked up 
like a common criminal.  She was entering adulthood, and all the world's
possibilities lay there in front of her, teasing her, just outside the 
metal bars of her window.  She knew if she did not get out then, she would 
truly go insane.  Her mind was like a caged animal; it needed release, or
else it would turn inward, devouring itself in a fit of madness.

A streak of lightning lit up the sky outside, followed moments later by
the pounding sound of thunder.  Eve 7 was shaken from her moment of
reminiscence, and rolled over to lie on her back.  Stretching herself out 
on the sheets, she started to think back about the escape, that time three
months ago... but the thought made her wince.  She did not enjoy recalling 
the violence against the guards, the mad dash through the hallways, the 
ensuing chase...

Instinctively, she reached over to rub her left shoulder, still sore from 
the bullet wound from that night three months ago.  The round had caught her
by surprise, nearly shattering her shoulderbone.  She remembered continuing
on, bleeding, and how she drove the commandeered jeep as fast as it would
go.  It had been quite a feat, considering how she had never driven a car
before, much less one with a clutch.  She had swayed all over the road, 
finally hitting a tree and nearly passing out.  It had been a good thing 
that a kind soul passing by had offered her a ride, just before the 
soldiers showed up.  It was truly a miracle she had made it, she thought.

She got up out of bed and looked out the window into the darkness.  It had
started to rain, and she could barely make out the neon signs on the bar
across the street.  Droplets of water slid down the outside of the window
pane, blurring the street lights and the ocassional passing automobile.
>From her second story window, the entire boulevard looked sad and 
melancholy in the falling rain, as if it shared her pain and loneliness.

She sighed deeply, and looked around the small boarding room she had been
staying in for the past three weeks.  It was not much, but it was all she
could afford on her job waiting tables at the local restaurant.  How ironic,
she thought to herself, that the result of America's experiment to breed a
super human would end up here, waiting tables in a small town in Texas.

She sat back down on the edge of her bed, and wondered where her life was 
heading.  She hadn't felt safe enough to stay in any one town for very 
long, still fearful of the men that might come after her.  She was only now
beginning to relax and end her worry about being captured, though the 
disturbing nightmares were still continuing.  She knew she wanted to put 
things back together and lead some semblance of a normal life, but how?

She wondered about all the things that a normal woman her age would have - 
family, friends, a life, and a future.  She had none of that.  The only 
family she knew, or what was left of it, was locked up in an Army research 
facility in California.  She had no friends here, and she certainly didn't 
have much of a life to speak of.  And she wondered what the future had in 
store for a woman with no name, no history, and no one she could trust, no 
one to she could turn to in a time of need.

She tried to go back to sleep, but couldn't.  She got up, pulled up a chair
next to the window, and began staring outside into the dark rainy street.



THE END


-- 
Steven Han - shan@nyx.cs.du.edu - finger for PGP key

Insert questionable wisdom here