smoke & mirrors
◤four◥
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Evan had a hard time keeping up with the conversation.
Even though she worked for WICKED, she had never been told much. She was only told which official or council member to escort from where to where, to keep them safe. She wasn't told their names, their specific branch or anything of the sorts.
The information was kept light and to the point. Only what they looked like. Only where to take them. Only what to watch out for.
Janson said it was because an excessive amount of information about a person could be a distraction, perhaps even cause confusion. So Evan was told about their 'target' as much as anyone below her station and she wasn't sure how to feel about it.
Garek said it was for their own protection, but for some reason, Evanna had a hard time believing that.
Their job was dangerous enough as it was. Knowing a little more about the person they were supposed to protect wasn't going to make it any more dangerous. But Janson refused to give in. Even after she complained about it.
He simply continued to give a less detail as possible without making her job impossible. He said that if she wanted to know more about them, she should just ask them herself. But Evan knew that Janson knew that most, if not all, officials and council members kept to themselves, as they were suspicious of almost everyone.
So it was no surprise that Evan was having a hard time understanding what Chancellor Paige and the other council members were talking about. It was infuriating to say the least, but Evan knew better than to open her mouth and start asking questions.
She would keep those to herself until after everyone left. Or perhaps she would just ask Teresa about it all. She seemed friendly enough and Chancellor Paige probably didn't want a guard in employment who barely knew anything of their work.
Evan would be out of a job. Where would she go? Would they kick her out of the safe zone?
She stopped herself.
None of that would happen. She was rambling. In her own head, no less. She wouldn't be out of a job and they wouldn't leave her and dump her on the other side of the wall. She wasn't infected after all.
Shaking her head slightly, she focused back on the conversation. Talking to herself and freaking herself out with improbable events had only made her more confused about what was happening in this meeting.
She recognized one of the three council members to be the official she and Garek had protected in the underground. He had been so nervous then, but in this room, in front of Chancellor Ava Paige no less, he was radiating confidence and authority.
He hadn't said a word yet this entire meeting.
"People are beginning to lose faith, Doctor," a councilman spoke, throwing a file back on the small table in front of him. Evanna strained to read what it said. The man took a deep breath. "When you sealed off the wall you assured us that it would only be a ... temporary precaution. Why have you now denied all entry?"
The three council members sat in black leather chairs, facing the big window in the room. A screen hung behind the Chancellor telling the time and how many session had passed since they started having these meetings. The girl who had introduced herself as Teresa was still standing in the opposite corner, watching the meeting unfold with curious eyes.
She seemed to be following the Chancellor's movements closely. Sometimes her eyes would flicker to the other members, as if taking in their reactions and trying to figure out what they were thinking.
"Because things are changing," Doctor Paige replied, standing before them. "and not for the better. Infection rates are up 300%," she paused. "Fortunately, we may be on the verge of a breakthrough."
The screen behind Chancellor Paige changed. It showed a picture of an Asian looking boy, as well as his DNA, blood type and a depiction of his brain.
Evan narrowed her eyes at the picture. There was something awfully familiar about that face; the slanted eyes and short dark hair. It wasn't the same as in her dreams – or memories – though.
They weren't the same brown inquisitive eyes or the brown messy hair. No, this was someone completely different, yet so familiar. Evanna racked her brain for more detail, but nothing came. As far as she knew, she could have seen him walking in the building once.
"This is subject A7," For the first time during the meeting, Teresa's gaze fell to the floor. Evan frowned. "He spent over three years in the Maze Trials."
The Maze Trials.
It was yet another thing Janson promised to tell her about, but had never done so. He always managed to put it off. And now Evan still didn't know what exactly it was, or why WICKED was doing something like it.
She had no idea what this subject A7 should have accomplished in a place like a maze, or what qualified him to be put in there in the first place.
And still, Evan felt as though she had heard of the Maze Trials before. Though, perhaps, she had simply read about something similar and associated it with that.
"The antibodies produced in response have been the strongest we've ever seen," Chancellor Paige continued. She paused again, gauging the council members' reactions. They gave away nothing. "We're extracting a new serum as we speak, and with your support, we'd like to begin human trials."
Evan's eyes widened. Her mouth fell open. Luckily one of the three members, a woman, spoke up before she could protest and possibly embarrass herself.
"Thank you, Doctor. That is very impressive," the woman started, already sounding doubtful. "But we have been down this road before. Frankly, we are all beginning to wonder if – "
The first member who had spoken up cut her off. "If our resources couldn't be better spent elsewhere."
"Meaning?" Doctor Paige questioned. She looked unimpressed with the reactions, but also not surprised, in a way.
"Safe zones," the woman replied. Evan felt the tension in the room increase. "Protected areas like the one we're in. We could save as many people as possible."
Like Evanna, Teresa also seemed to have difficulty with staying quiet and merely listening. Only no one spoke up to stop her.
"How many?" she blurted.
The three members turned in their chairs to look at her. Evan shifted somewhat uncomfortably on her two feet as they glanced at her in her corner. She was supposed to look confident, like a captain should. But their scrutinizing gazes made her feel small and irrelevant.
Only the council member she and Garek had escorted offered her the smallest of smiles. It was barely visible, but it was there.
"A thousand?" Teresa asked as she started to walk towards the front. "Two thousand? And that's assuming your protected areas stay protected ... which we know they won't."
Ava Paige sat down in a chair as Teresa moved to stand in her place. Evan was almost impressed by the sudden boldness of the girl. Whenever she saw Teresa in the hallways, she looked far away, almost as if she didn't want to be seen. Or like she'd rather be somewhere else.
Now, though, she was standing in front of the three most important members of the council and she didn't even break a sweat.
"The infected already outnumber the healthy, three to one. All you'd be doing is delaying the inevitable," she stopped, realising her speech wasn't having much of an effect. Taking a deep breath, Teresa tried a different approach. "Have any of you ever lost someone to the virus?"
"A niece," the woman said, her voice tight. "Anna."
Teresa nodded, a genuinely sorry expression on her face. "I'm sorry we weren't able to help her. But imagine if we were able to live with the virus. To survive it. Imagine being able to tell Anna that you could give her the chance to a normal life. We've never been this close to a cure. And we've sacrificed a lot to get this far."
Teresa's eyes shifted to Evan as she spoke. Her eyes were glazed over and her eyebrows were drawn together, as if she was trying to say something without actually using words. Evanna frowned at her. She felt as though she was missing something.
"Please. Don't let those sacrifices be for nothing."
Glancing at the photo again, Evan's breath hitched in the back of her throat. Her eyes grew wide and her breathing shallow. The voices of everyone in the room sounded muffled and slowly they blurred out of focus. Evanna grabbed the wall, trying to hold herself up.
A body pushed her onto the ground. It landed on her back, threw arms over her head. Evanna sucked in a breath and whimpered as her wrist caught her fall.
Her wrist.
Why was it throbbing? Why did it hurt?
She pushed the body off of her. Her eyes widened as a familiar face stared back at her. It wasn't the same one from previous memories. He looked Asian. He looked like the boy in the picture on the screen ... in the room Evan had only been standing in seconds ago.
Where was she now?
Why was everyone shouting? Yelling? Fighting?
"Don't make me save you again, Shank," he muttered before getting up from the ground.
Shank . . . where had she heard that before?
He stalked off and Evan watched as another blurry figure threw a beeping device into a small circle of people dressed in black. They were holding guns. Familiar guns.
The circle exploded.
Evanna pushed herself from the ground and reached out for the person when her vision came back into focus.
Everything around her faded away.
She was back in the meeting room. The three council members were gone. She was no longer clutching the wall, but her breathing was heavy and her back was sweaty. Brushing the fallen strands of hair out of her face, Evan looked up from the floor.
Teresa and the Chancellor were conversing silently over by the window. They seemed to have forgotten about the guard in the corner of the room. They didn't look the least bit worried either, which meant they hadn't seen Evanna's little freak out.
The boy's picture was still displayed on the screen. Quietly, Evan walked towards it. She squinted her eyes, searching for the mention of a name, country of origin – anything. Anything other than Subject A7, anything that made him more human and less of a guinea pig.
She almost bumped into one of the chairs with how close she was getting to the screen. Still Teresa and Doctor Paige said nothing, saw nothing. They were so immersed in their conversation that they didn't notice anything.
Normally Evan would have tried to overhear what they were talking about. If she wasn't so focused on the picture of the boy that looked so goddamn familiar she would have done just that.
Her eyes darted between the 'subject A7' tag and the photo over and over when . . . it finally dawned on her. Evan gasped, stumbling backwards. She tripped over her own feet and tumbled to the ground. Finally, the other two women in the room realised she was still there.
Teresa raced over to her, offering her hand. Evan didn't move, didn't react. Teresa helped her up and Evanna let her, her eyes still focused on the picture of the boy ...
No.
The picture of her friend.
"Are you okay?" Teresa asked.
Evan nodded quickly, wanting to get away. Wanting to get her thoughts in order, her breathing normal. The Chancellor shot her a wary look. Gulping down her nerves, Evan forced herself to at least look she wasn't freaking out.
"I'm fine," she quickly said, brushing off her pants. She faked a smile, hoping it would look real.
Teresa frowned, looking her over. "Are you sure? Your hands are shaking."
Evan quickly rubbed them together, laughing it off. It sounded awkward, forced. "It's nothing. Just ... embarrassed that I tripped over nothing."
Smiling kindly, Teresa pulled her hands back, letting go of Evan. She tried to return the gesture but the earlier revelation wouldn't let go of her long enough for a smile – even a fake one – to appear on her lips.
Doctor Paige cleared her throat. "Well, Evanna, I'm sure Janson has other tasks laying around for you," she gestured at the door. "We won't keep you any longer. And thank you for attending this meeting. I felt safer already."
Evan couldn't tell if she was being genuine or not, so she simply nodded. "N-No problem."
She hurried out of the room before either of them could say anything else. Her heart was racing. Evan was certain it would burst out of her rib-cage if she didn't calm down soon. Her fingers were tingling and her hands were clammy.
Her feet carried her to her room on auto-pilot. She ignored everyone who tried talking to her on the way there. Her mind was too focused on holding onto the one concrete thing she finally remembered.
Reaching her room, Evan slammed the door shut behind her. She noticed Garek was no longer there and he had made the bed. The walls were bare of any and all evidence of past research and the clothes she had lent to him were folded and neatly placed on the dresser.
She fell against the door with a thud. Even the simple action was strangely familiar. It was as if that one clear memory had shaken loose more.
Letting out a breath, Evan closed her eyes and sunk to the floor. Her hands were clasped together, her shirt clinging to her sweaty skin. To anyone else it would look like she was sick, and she was going to use that to her advantage if anyone asked her to do something else today.
Her mind was reeling. There was no way that she could focus on anything other than that name. There was no way she could execute any kind of missions when her head wasn't in it.
Janson would have to do without his favored captain for another day. If he came into her room and see her like this, he would buy the sickness story. He would probably say it was another side effect from the pills, too.
The pills.
She had taken them for months and only now did she finally have something real. It didn't add up. And that after having taken two pills instead of the prescribed one. Did that mean they truly worked? Had she just needed more than one to finally remember?
The temptation to swallow down the whole thing was there. The taste of finally remembering something clearly was fresh and Evan wanted more of it.
But she stopped herself. Even then she still had enough wits about her to know that swallowing an entire bottle of pills was not the way to go. She suppressed the urge and let her head fall back.
Finally, and not a fake one either, a smile tugged at the corners of her lips. Her breathing slowed down and the heavy weight that had sat on her chest for months on end had become a little lighter. A little more bearable.
The name fell from her lips easily. It was weird, familiar and incredibly comforting.
"Minho."
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hello there! yes, this isn't a dream or a hallucination, i actually updated this story. i know it's not that long but i'm going for that "quality not quantity" thing. i hope it worked out ahah. thank you all so much for waiting this long and for your kind words in the previous chapter. it means a lot to me xx
i hope you enjoyed! leave a comment and or vote if you liked it. i would really appreciate it.
-saz