The Perfect Human

Chapter 14

Parker glared at me as we went through training today, luckily Mathew didn't make me do anything terrible. Just more survival skills. I was glad because I'm still not sure what I am going to do when we get to the point were we do something terrible. I looked over my shoulder after firing an arrow from the new weapon Mathew was teaching me to use, a crossbow when I saw Parker not watching me like he had been all day. He was staring at Adam like he was crap on the bottom of his shoe. I focused again on my target, a deer I found myself, luckily close to where we were standing. This was also a good opportunity for Tucker. Cole and Mathew have been telling me about different techniques on how to train him. If I could use the fur of the deer as a toy for him, he'll have their scent memorized and hopefully someday will help me track them. Though Mathew seemed upset on my dog choice saying Coondogs were only good for hunting squirrels and raccoons. I begged to differ, I saw a sparkle in Tucker's eyes whenever I caught my first deer. It was a baby, I never saw the mother so maybe this one in front of me is her. I couldn't see antlers so it most likely was the mom. Tucker layed next to me chewing on the hoof of the baby deer that I gave him after gutting and skinning it. I still had some blood on my hands. I grimaced at the memory and started looking for a different target. Cole told me not to shoot does or babies ever again, saying that we shouldn't or it would deplete the population. Mathew on the other hand just told me venison is the best kind of meat and started roasting a piece of the meat. I spotted movement at the edge of a line of trees and looked through the binocular built into the crossbow and spotted the tips of antlers. How were there so many deer out here today? I never saw them here before.

"Eve, get over here, that's enough deer hunting today. I have something else for you to do in mind." I slung the crossbow over my shoulder, Mathew said this was the only weapon he would be permitting me to keep. Why this one I had no idea.

"What exactly do you have in mind?" I said not even bothering to hide my suspicion.

"Let's go chop wood." Mathew smiled and handed me a long piece of wood with a triangle shaped piece of sharp metal on one end, "Parker go get the pre chopped wood." He ordered and Parker zipped off taking a second to glare at me again. I really didn't like that, it was as if he was trying to figure me out, like he thought I had some hidden motive or something. I huffed and ran my finger against the flat side of the sharp end of the metal. I could feel its sharpness and knew this was a very dangerous tool. Parker set down one thick cylindrical piece of wood on a larger one placing the others on the ground next to it.

"Use the axe to chop that piece of wood in half." Mathew said demonstrating in the air, he swung an imaginary axe over his head onto nothing. I gulped, this will be fun. I walked over to the piece of wood and looked at Parker.

"Don't mess up." He said, I bet if you didn't read into what he said you would think he meant the wood. But he meant our secret meetings.

"Oh I won't." I whispered "I'm just wondering if you will." I brought the axe over my head, its weight making me lean forward. I concentrated on the wood for a second and when I thought I had my bearings I swung full force locking the axe in the wood. My arms shook and I panted. I barely got the axe in three inches. I cursed and tried pulling the axe out only to have pulled the wood up with it.

"Try smashing it again with it like that." Mathew said, I swung again trying to put in even more force. The impact made me stumble falling forward onto the axe, only two more inches into the wood and the added bonus of it being splintered. I leaned on the axe for a moment, breathing and waiting for my heart to slow back down.

"Again." Mathew ordered. I stood and brought the wood and ax above my head again, my arms shaking so much they could barely hold it. I smashed it down again and heard a deafening crack. I opened my eye and saw I got a little more than halfway through. "Again." I was exhausted, but if I showed resistance now, Mathew would think I'm weak. Who knows what he would do when he thought the machine meant to kill the human race was weak. I raised the ax, my hands only reaching my chin. That will have to do. I thought as I smashed it down again, the edge of the wood hit first making the ax and wood topple over bringing me with it. I hit the ground in a sweaty heap. I heard footsteps and Mathew leaned down close to my face. "Again." He commanded without feeling. I was a machine to him and nothing more. I'm not supposed to feel pain or exhaustion.

I looked up at Parker for just a second to see his face pale, like it was right after I shot that woman. I grunted and stood up, now not just my arms shaking but my whole body screaming with pain. I straightened the wood which had slipped off the ax when I fell and pulled the ax above my head, it was slightly easier now that the huge piece of wood wasn't stuck to it. I swung and missed my target hitting the base wood instead.

"Enough." Cole called and stood between me and Mathew.

Mathew ignored him looking only at me. "Again Eve." I began to raise the axe. Mathew had the authority here and Cole wasn't helping. He needed to back off before he was hurt. Cole grabbed the ax from my shaking, blistered hands.

"I said enough. There is only so much she and Adam can take. You can't expect them to exceed their limits until they are ready." Cole grabbed me up by the arm and pulled me away from the axe, not even waiting for an answer from Mathew or to tell Adam we were leaving. I felt someone's eyes on me and the scary part was I didn't know if it was Mathew or Parker. Tucker barked and trailed after me alerting Adam to our sudden retreat. He pulled up next me and mind spoke.

"Had a little talk with you're friend." 

"I gathered that."

"I don't think you have anything to worry about with him bringing someone to you're meeting tonight. I fixed the time for midnight so you can get some rest. What happened?" 

"Too much work while chopping up wood, Cole didn't like it."

"Surprising that he got away with pulling you out of training." 

"My thoughts exactly. Mathew is one of the superiors so why would he just let Cole drag me off?"

"I have no idea, let's just stay quiet about it and find out as we go along." 

"I'm curious by nature that would just make me look suspicious Cole will be expecting me to ask questions. I thought you were smarter than me."

"I haven't exactly had the clearest of minds lately." 

"Is something wrong?" 

"Other than the fact that your meeting with a boy from the rebellion, yeah I'm fine. You just drive me crazy sometimes." 

"Well thanks for the concern." I answered sarcastically, I made him crazy, seriously?

Cole walked into my bedroom and sat on the end of my bed, waking me up from the conversation with Adam. We were back in Cole's house and I was laying on my bed trying to get some rest

"Go on Eve ask. I know you've been wanting to for a while now." This was about what happened at the training session, I was right being quiet would look suspicious.

"Why did Mathew let you take me away from training?"

He sighed, even though he knew what I was going to ask. "I have jurisdiction over you... you are a child and I am you're guardian, so by the law that they stand by I am in charge of you and you're well being. I could take you away from here and leave all this behind if I wanted to. But even if I wanted to they have a bit of a hand over me." He paused taking in another deep breath. "If I were to take you away from this mission they would take away something very dear to me. I can't lose it no matter what. I know how you feel about killing so don't ask me to take you away from here.... You know there are a lot of people that do deserve to be dead." I looked away from him, at anything else other than him.

"What about the people that don't?" I said icily. "Like you or Amanda? What about them? This isn't fair and you know it, why are you making me do this?"

He stood, and without giving me an answer to any of my questions he left. Leaving me with the knowledge that the person the rebels really wanted to fight, was Cole. I knew how to fix things now. How to go about doing it without bloodshed will be the hard part.