Who We Are Ch. 03

All characters are over the age of eighteen.

Pilots Log:

It's been one and a half Earth years since the recorded start date of "Project Styx".

In that time, the recorded population of this planet ballooned from the two initial subjects to a number of approximately one hundred and fifty.

That number is likely to increase before this is all over.

I can't worry about this now, I'm here for an express purpose. My mission comes first.

However, it becomes hard to focus my mind when I observe the population.

A geo scan of the area revealed a cave behind a waterfall where I could easily hide my stealth craft for the next couple of days as I find what I'm looking for.

What I didn't account for was how some of the subjects were naturally attracted to the waterfall, seemingly having become aware of it before my arrival.

A particularly uncomfortable moment arrived when a male and a female used the waterfall to bathe.

It was just another reminder of what has been taken from them.

Like everyone else in the encampment, they arrived naked. For some reason, not a single member of the population covered themselves. Perhaps it was a side effect of the process that took their memories, I try to sway my mind from imagining a more nefarious purpose.

The two walked hand in hand under the waterfall and proceeded to bathe in the cool spray.

While I didn't recognize the male, I did identify the female.

I'm sorry to say it was Sara.

She was always a well-spoken and intelligent officer. I deeply respected her, a prototypical example of the mastery of one's baser urges we try to achieve.

It sickened me to my core to see what she had become, a crude unkempt animal, taking the male's cock in her and rutting like common animals laughing like children as they did so.

I wanted to hit something when I observed him release his seed into her. Worst of all, she seemed happy about it, as if this wasn't against everything she had stood for.

They left shortly after, and I was able to calm myself.

I must remain focused, as much as it hurts me, Sara, nor anyone else among the larger population, is my mission.

I'm only here for one, the one they call "Subject 1".

I will find them,

I will save them.

If it's the last thing I do.

End of Log.

---

"So," Adam began, his voice exerting itself as they lifted the beam into place, "Rumour around town is you and Sara have been sneaking off in the afternoons."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Bryce denied, taking off his leather gloves and wiping his forehead of sweat.

Bryce was new to town, having shown up only about a month ago. Like everyone else, he magically appeared in an empty field one day with no clothes and no memories. Unlike Adam, however, he didn't have to forage to survive.

When he arrived all he needed to do was follow the noise and find the already built town by the lake.

It had been a year and a half since Adam had first arrived in this land, also with no memories and no clothes, he had immediately set up camp by the lake officially becoming the first member of what would later be known as "Laketown".

Not the most original name, but it seemed appropriate.

He was the first, but very quickly, he wasn't the last. He soon ran into another person in these woods, a woman named Eve, who joined him in Eden and added her skills to help grow the camp, making life better and safer for both of them.

Shortly after, more people began showing up, similarly stripped of memories and clothes. Each one was welcomed to the camp with open arms and encouraged to use their skills for the betterment of the community.

What had once been a small tent by the lake had turned into a small town, littered with cabins, farms and public spaces where the residents of Eden could enjoy their lives, each one hopeful for the days when they would learn why they were here.

"I'm only telling you this because Erica won't shut up about it," Adam explained. "You'd think being nine months along would distract her, but nope, still the same gossip she always is."

"It..." Bryce hesitated. "It's no big deal, alright? We're keeping it casual, we're just seeing where things go."

"Hey, hey, you don't have to justify it to me, bud," Adam assured him, "Just be careful, your life can take a real left turn when you're 'keeping it casual.'"

"Listen to the man, Bryce," A female voice interrupted as she came around the corner. "Adam knows a thing or two about life's left turns."

Adam smiled when he saw Eve approach, covered in a layer of dirt and holding the left turn in question, a six-month-old baby boy, to her body.

"There they are." He grinned, grabbing his things and walking towards his family, kissing his son on the forehead and pecking Eve on the lips before turning back to Bryce, "You're good to pack up, right? I'm not leaving you hanging?"

"No, no, I can handle it," Bryce assured him. "See you tomorrow, boss."

"Bright and early," Adam waved, putting a hand on Eve's back and leading her down the road.

"And how are you two today?" He asked Eve as they walked,

"Well, it was harvest day," Eve explained, "Running around in the dirt all day, herding fifteen people to work together for the first time... yadda yadda. Thank all that is holy that I have the day off tomorrow I'm so fucking exhausted right now."

"I can see that makes two of you," Adam remarked, brushing his son's, whose name was River, hair.

"Lucky little bastard," she said, lightly kissing him. "He hung out under a tree all day. How does he get so tired?"

"A lotta life to live at his age," Adam reasoned. "Want me to take him?"

"Yes, thank you, my arms are killing me," Eve sighed in relief, handing River over to Adam, gently enough not to wake him. "So, what were you and Bryce talking about?"

"Oh, just confirming a rumour." Adam shrugged off,

"Oh, the one about him sleeping with Sara?" Eve asked, "Oh, and that's where the left turn talk came from. I get it now. Trying to warn him of your own mistakes."

"Careful, he might hear you," Adam said, feigning offence on River's behalf, inspiring a chuckle from Eve, "And even if I was, on a statistical level, I don't think there's much I can say to change the result."

"I guess not." Eve shrugged.

Adam and Eve thought themselves a weird exception when they found her pregnant. How many people who found themselves in a position like they were in, fighting for survival against nature with no memories, and do something as seemingly irresponsible as conceive a child in those conditions?

They thought they might serve as a warning to the new people showing up. Of the very real possibility of such a scary and complicating thing happening to them.

That was until their friend Mei announced her own pregnancy with her lover Sam, a month after Eve began to show.

Not long after, more and more of the women began finding themselves pregnant as more and more couples paired off.

It never took long for this to happen. Within a month or two of arriving, most people had paired off with a member of the opposite sex and had found themselves pregnant as well.

There were a couple of theories people had come up with. That perhaps this was just the natural course of nature, to be fruitful and multiply as their instincts demanded.

Some thought it had something to do with the fact that everyone lived naked all the time, that this was a natural outgrowth of the sexual tension brought on by such a decision.

Adam liked to joke that Eve was just a trendsetter, that she made pregnancy and later motherhood fashionable.

Eve responded by saying she hoped that was the only fashion she came into contact with.

Luckily, even with the influx of babies, the village remained strong, with plenty of resources for everyone to survive quite comfortably on and was expanding regularly and quickly.

"Funny enough, I was actually talking to Sara during lunch today," Eve explained.

"What did you talk about?" Adam asked.

Eve paused and stopped walking in the middle of the road.

"She asked me what 'Hatemonger' was," she said.

"Another one..." Adam said, "What did you tell her?"

"I told her not to worry about it," Eve assured him, "But... how many more people are we gonna run into with this thing rattling around their heads?"

"I don't know," Adam shrugged. "Maybe we should take your advice and not worry about it."

"You're right," Eve admitted. "You're right. After a year and a half of not knowing and being fine, we should just move on."

"That's probably for the best," Adam agreed, holding out his arm to which Eve smiled and grabbed, "Let's get you home and dunk you in the lake, you're not smelling too great."

"Hey, you're not exactly a fresh peach yourself, my love," Eve retorted.

---

Pilots log:

Through the use of my stealth craft's scouting drones, I'm able to observe "Subject 1" without them or their mate noticing.

The mate proves to be an obstacle. The plan was to sneak in, grab Subject 1 and sneak out before the population or anyone else noticed I was there, but for some reason I can't quite decipher, their mate won't leave them alone.

For hours I watched them as they walked home, wash themselves in the lake, amused themselves with the spawn, and eat dinner before copulating until the night rolled in and they fell asleep.

Do they not see a reason to go out? To expand their circle of sexual activity to other members of their community?

Is it not part of the human instincts they find themselves slave to to go out and seek diversity in genetic material? For what possible reason would they isolate themselves in the evening, engaging in surface-level conversation and being pathetically entranced by every move and noise their infant bastard makes?

I believe the morning grants me an opportunity to catch Subject 1 separate from their mate.

My patience had paid off.

End of Log.

---

Adam woke up that morning to the feeling of something wrapped around his cock.

Looking down, he saw that Eve had taken his morning wood into her mouth.

She smiled up at him when she saw he was awake.

"That's a hell of a way to wake up," he said softly, careful not to become loud enough to wake River, still sleeping in the other room, despite how hard Eve's tongue made that task.

"Sorry, I couldn't help myself," Eve said, pulling him out of her mouth. "It looked so lonely standing at attention like that."

"Oh, I'm not complaining," Adam grinned, grabbing her hands and pulling her up onto his lap, giving her a good morning kiss at the top of his penis brushed against her entrance, "You looking forward to your day off?"

"Hmm..." Eve moaned contentedly, "Think I might do some gardening... go have a visit with Mei. I just wish you had the day off with me."

"Baby, if we both had the day off, there's a good chance we would never leave this bed," Adam explained.

"Well, that might be fun too," Eve grinned, leaning in for another kiss. "How long until you have to meet Bryce?"

"As long as it takes," Adam answered breathlessly.

"Good answer," Eve said, lifting herself up by about an inch, allowing Adam to grab the base of his dick and hold it up for her to lower herself onto.

It had taken a lot of practice to get Eve to stop screaming during sex, what with new neighbours and a baby trying to sleep in the immediate vicinity.

She eventually learned that great fun could be had with keeping it contained, in letting the pressure build up.

She had eventually turned her scream into a high-pitched whisper for Adam's ears alone, much like the one she was giving off now as she bounced up and down on her lover's cock.

Neither of their orgasms were particularly notable that morning, which was just fine with them.

After a long talk they had a couple of months into their relationship, they came to the consensus that not every sexual encounter they had must be an earth-shattering explosion of lust that set every nerve in their body on high alert.

Sometimes, they didn't want that. All either of them wanted to do was hold the other close for a few moments and physically reaffirm their love for each other.

Adam took as much pleasure in feeling the breath in her back as he did with cumming inside her, and Eve felt as much love for him with her face pressed into his collarbone as she did when accepting his release.

Neither said anything to the other for the longest time, they felt no need to disturb the silence as they felt each other's bodies be graced by the cool morning wind.

The silence was broken by the sound of River waking up in the other room.

"And that's my cue to leave," Adam groaned, kissing Eve on the forehead before sitting up.

"Typical man," Eve joked as she stretched out of the bed and watched him quickly clean himself off in the water basin and gather his things. "Has his way with the girl and leaves her to deal with the results."

"Yes, I'm a real cad, aren't I?" Adam shrugged. "Counterpoint, though, what if the man came back home with one of Zara's bottles of wine to turn the girl to his favour?"

"Then the girl might have to make a nice dinner to go along with it," Eve countered.

"It's a date," Adam said, leaning down to kiss her one last time before stepping out the door. "See you tonight."

You might think that with Eve's day job leading the town's agriculture, the last thing she would want to do was spend the day tending to more plants in the old garden Adam had built her when they first arrived.

But you'd be mistaken, she loved that little garden. She stopped growing food in it long ago, back when the fields were established, now she grew flowers, spices and other such plants that she discovered were delicious when ground and mixed with boiling water.

It wasn't a large amount of work either, once the weeds were pulled and every inch of the soil got a decent helping of water, her work was mostly done, leaving her time to sit in the shade with her son, playing with him or even napping when the mood struck them.

Occasionally, Mei would come by for a visit when she wasn't busy with her weaving job, but today it was just Eve and River, which sounded just right to her.

After the stress of the last few days, she needed some time to rest, some nice time in the shade, feeling a cool breeze caress her face as her son slept in her arms.

The soft rhythm of River's tiny lungs rising up and down as he slept was eventually too much for Eve. She felt her eyelids grow heavy and closed them for a moment.

She wasn't sure if she had fallen asleep or not. The next time she opened her eyes, the world was how she left it, the light was the same, the sun was the same, and River was right where she had left him.

Well... one thing was different.

The cabin's front door was open.

It was a heavy door, Adam had built it that way, strong enough to keep out wild animals if the time came to it and much too strong to be opened by the gentle breeze that came across the lake.

"Maybe I did fall asleep," Eve thought to herself. Adam must've come home for lunch and not wanted to wake her. He's done that on occasion, she knew he enjoyed seeing her asleep like that, and especially when River was sleeping as well, the last thing he would've done was do something to wake her.

Eve carefully stood up from the ground, holding River in such a way as to not wake him, and slowly approached the house.

"Hello?" She called out as she stepped inside, "Adam, you there, babe?"

"Eve..." said a voice she didn't recognize.

She spun around to the opposite end of the house, standing in the corner was a woman she had never met before.

Eve had met plenty of strange women ever since she arrived at Lake Town, but this one was different.

She was clothed.

It wasn't clothing she had ever seen before. It was blue like the night sky with yellow lines that pulsed with unnatural light. It clung to the woman's form tightly, but Eve couldn't make heads or tails of its construction. There were no seams in it, no bindings, no stitches. There was no hint of how this woman would've put on an outfit such as this.

There were a number of disconcerting things about the woman's face, for one, her skin was perfect, too perfect. There wasn't a blemish, a bump or even a colour change across the whole thing. While she could be considered beautiful, there was an uncanny nature to her. Like she had been engineered days ago rather than lived as long a life as her apparent age suggested.

But that wasn't the big problem for Eve, despite the entirely alien outfit she was wearing, her almost inhuman face and the fact that she had broken into her home, that all came a far second to Eve.

This woman, whoever she was, had the same face as Eve.

"Who are you?" Eve demanded, holding River close to her body.

"Eve..." the woman repeated, her voice sounding relieved despite her stoic face.

Eve spun around and grabbed a knife off the kitchen counter.

"Answer my question, or so help me!" Eve growled, pointing the knife at the woman.

"You don't recognize me?" The woman asked, sounding disappointed, her face finally beginning to show some emotion, "You don't know who I am?"

"Should I?" Eve asked.

"I knew you would answer like that," The woman said, looking down and nodding, "I wished it different, but here we are. Can you put down the knife?"

The woman flicked her wrist, and the knife shot out of Eve's hand, flying through the air and landing back on the counter where it had been resting before she grabbed it.

"Please, sit." The woman said, flicking her wrist again, pulling out the chairs from the kitchen table for her to sit.

By some miracle, River was still asleep, Eve breathed a sigh of relief at the fact, but only for a moment as her body filled with terror at the strange woman, of her abilities, of her purpose for being here, at the danger she brought.

Eve's heart pounded in her chest as the two sat down.

"My name is Ava," the woman began, "I am your sister."

----

It wasn't until Adam had gotten to the job site that he had noticed that he had forgotten his lunch.

That didn't sit right with him, he had wanted to get this building's frame done by the end of the day, a plan that would've been greatly hindered by the time it took to walk home and grab lunch.

This plan was also greatly hindered by the fact that Bryce was now an hour late to work, and Adam had nearly put up a whole new wall by the time Bryce came down the road with a pale expression and a red mark over his cheek.

"I thought we said bright and early," Adam said, hammering in the nail he was working on before standing up to greet him.

"Yeah, sorry," Bryce stammered, "I just... It's been a hell of a morning."

"It's been a perfect morning," Adam contradicted, continuing to work, purposely oblivious to whatever act of distress he suspected Bryce was putting on, "Weathers great, these are ideal working conditions."

"Sara's pregnant," Bryce finally relinquished.

Adam paused and looked up at Bryce, unsure of what to say.

"I mean, I did warn you," he said, breaking his silence. "Well, I guess congratulations are in order, you're gonna be a dad. You may be freaking out right now but trust me, it's the greatest thing ever. What's with the welt?"

Adam pointed to the mark on Bryce's cheek.

"I may or may not have asked her if she was sure it was mine..." Bryce admitted.

Adam tried his hardest, but he couldn't help but laugh.

"Okay, just for future reference. That's literally the worst thing you could say in that moment."

---

"My sister?" Eve questioned, barely believing the words as they flew past her tongue.

"I understand that might be difficult to believe," Ava said, leaning back casually and placing her wrist on the table, giving Eve a clear view of the bracelet wrapped around it pulsing with magenta lights, "But it is true."

Eve almost didn't believe her on impulse, but the proof literally looked her back in the face. While Ava's likeness wasn't a perfect recreation of Eve's, anyone who spent any length of time with either of them could point out obvious differences, the similarities were certainly too great to ignore.

"I'm sorry it took me so long to find you, Eve," Ava continued, "But there were a great number of possible planets the galactic federation could've put you. You were very well hidden."

"The who?" Eve asked,

"The galactic federation," Ava repeated, "The ruling government over humanity's actions within deep space. Or at least what's left of humanity."

"Wait, so they're the reason I can't remember anything?" Eve questioned, glancing out the cottage window at the rest of Laketown in the distance, "The reason none of us can remember?"

"Precisely," Ava confirmed, "They're the reason you've spent a year and a half of your existence on this mudball. Wallowing like some sort of lower life form."

"I know it's the rainy season, but jeez..." Eve mumbled, surprised by the venom in her voice, "Why did they do this to us?"

"As some sick punishment, I suppose," Ava sneered, "I've been only observing this community for a few days. Those days have been the most torturous of my life. Watching you all scrape and grunt your way through the day, ripped of your modesty and humanity. Left to dig through the dirt, copulating and producing offspring as the Neanderthal did."

"Pardon?" Eve questioned, lost in Ava's colourful word choice.

"My own sister," Ava continued, "Left to birth that... that thing."

She pointed to River, who had drifted off to sleep in Eve's arms.

Eve felt a twinge of rage hearing someone disregard her son, her beautiful, perfect baby boy, in the same way you would a cockroach.

"Do you have a problem with my son?" Eve asked, her face and voice tight.

"I suppose it's not his fault he was created in such a barbarous way," Ava said, putting up the wall of civility after letting it slip.

"How else would he be created?" Eve questioned, now more confused than anything.

"Ah, of course, you wouldn't know," Ava realized, "Humanity has moved past the disgusting way we used to reproduce in the past. We've long since used much cleaner gestation tubes to create new generations, each genetically perfect based on a master human genome. It's a much more civilized way to create humans, especially compared to sexual intercourse."

Eve was shocked by her attitude. Sexual intercourse, uncivilized? What kind of civilization was worth building if she couldn't make love to Adam? Was the feeling of carrying the child of the man you loved a foreign feeling to today's women outside of Lake Town? What miserable existence had they created for themselves?

"Well, I suppose perfect is an inaccurate statement," Ava corrected, "The galactic war increased the need for new people to fuel the war machine. They started cutting corners on the process, a few mistakes were made. Like you and me, the first twins in two centuries, an egg mistakenly split during incubation. Not that these extra bodies were of much good, most of our generation were chewed up and spat out in the Hatemongers' war machine."

Eve's heart stopped.

Hatemonger?

The name made her blood run cold.

She could barely stammer out her next word...

"Who?"

"He was the most feared general in the federal army. Famous for his cruelty and bloodlust. More death was brought by his hand than by anyone else in human history. Fueled by no greed, no ideology, only a simple and pure lust for death." Ava explained, "It was by his order you were put here, he took your memory, he took your dignity, he took you from me."

"I..." Eve gasped, her tongue inescapably dry, "I still remembered the name, most of us do."

"Intentional, I expect," Ava guessed, "Whatever removed the memory from your minds was likely designed to leave him there. He likely enjoyed the idea of being the boogeyman for his victims."

"He sounds awful," Eve said, gripping River tighter.

"No one's heard from him for a while, but practically, he holds the future of humanity to his sick whims. Although, of course." Ava continued, almost chuckling, "That future doesn't extend as far as it once did."

"What do you mean?" Eve questioned.

"The last copy of the master genome was destroyed at the end of the galactic war. About two of this planet's years ago now, humanity doesn't have the knowledge or resources to create another." Ava explained.

"That's horrible," Eve gasped, "What are they going to do?"

"Likely die out, I suppose." Ava shrugged, "Either from old age or by killing each other over the last scraps of the universe. Either way, our plans don't change. I'm getting you out of there."

"What?"

"That's why I'm here. To retrieve you. Now, hurry up, put down the whelp and let's get going," Ava demanded, rising to her feet.

"I'm not going anywhere," Eve immediately rejected.

"It's not long before the Hatemonger's ship detects my presence here," Ava explained, "Humanity is doomed, the best we can do is get on my ship and escape to the furthest corner of the galaxy where no one can find us."

"I'm not leaving my family," Eve explained,

"Family? Who?" Ava demanded, "The lobotomized man you're playing husband and wife with and the bastard you created. I'm your family, your sister, forget them."

"What in hell's a husband and... never mind," Eve shrugged off, "I have a life here. I have people I love here, and if Hatemonger really is coming, I need to protect them from him."

"Don't you get it, there is no protecting from him." Ava snapped, almost screaming now, "He will burn this planet to ash just to have something to watch... You really think some naked cavemen can stand up to him?"

"Honey?" A voice called from outside, climbing up the porch, "Everything okay in there? You're being pretty loud."

The door casually opened, and Adam walked in, his attention pulled to his hands as he ran a wet cloth through his dirty fingers.

"Sorry if I'm intruding, I just forgot my lunch so..."

Adam finally looked up at who he thought was Eve.

He was shocked to see her wearing clothes,

"Eve, what are you wearing?" He questioned, doing a double-take when he saw the real Eve clutching their baby in the corner of his eye.

"What the..." his voice trailed off, looking back and forth between the two women.

"What the fuck!" Ava screamed, waving her hand and telekinetically throwing Adam back outside, through the door, shattering it on impact.

"Is this all some kind of power play? You sick bastard!" Ava continued, marching outside after him and throwing him against the shipping container, pinning him to it without even touching him.

"Not so tough now, are you?" Ava mocked, "Not when you don't have a fucking battalion behind you."

"Ava, stop!" Eve shouted, stepping in between her and Adam, luckily having left River inside the cabin.

The second Eve stepped forward, Ava retracted her hand, releasing Adam from her pull.

Eve immediately turned around to check on Adam.

"Baby, baby, are you okay?" She said softly, grabbing his shoulders and checking him for serious injuries, for which she found none.

"Eve, why does she look like you?" Adam asked, hissing through the pain, "What the hell is going on?"

"She says she's my sister," Eve explained, "I don't know what happened, she just flipped out."

"Eve, move!" Ava ordered, slowly and carefully approaching the two.

"What the hell are you doing?" Eve demanded, Turning back towards her sister.

"You need to trust me," Ava insisted, "I'm protecting you."

"Protecting me from what?" Eva demanded, "From the man I love, the father of my son?"

"You don't understand," Ava tried to reason,

"Understand what?" Eve insisted, "Why are you attacking Adam?"

"Because it's him, he's the reason you're here," Ava explained, "I finally understand, it wasn't enough to rob you of your dignity and leave you alone on this planet to devolve. He had to witness it personally. He had to make himself the instrument of your humiliation. What better way to do that than to make you carry his seed, completely unaware of the monster he tricked you to love?

God damn it, Eve. Adam's the Hatemonger."