Who Is Eva Hausen?

Tins of fine chocolates fall from trembling hands.

Eva Hausen leaves the Happy Drunk Liquor Store half a street behind. Rain lashes West End. The streets become beds for sudden streams, channels created by the downpour. Buildings typical of the district, with their distinctive shapes, surround a chaotic arrangement of streets, passages, alleys, and roads. Amid it all, Eva runs as fast as swollen ankles allow. Both hands support her bulging abdomen, where her baby grows only weeks from the tentative due date. Like rats aboard a sinking ship, crowds run opposite her direction. That terrified human tide makes progress difficult.

It grows worse when the first drops, like a timid warm drizzle, become dense rain made of heavy cold drops. Desperation has marked the woman’s face since she left the liquor store. She ran without looking back and does not know whether Rob is close behind. People block her from moving faster, intercept, shove, force her aside, even step on her feet without regard for her pregnancy. A woman fleeing what appears to be a group of infected people collides with Eva and knocks her down, never looking back when Eva lands seated on the sidewalk. To avoid being trampled, Eva crawls to a wall and remains there, backside on wet ground, back against soaked masonry.

She is nervous and tense; her hands tremble with the rest of her body. Rain falls relentlessly, with nowhere to shelter. The drops hurt. West End becomes impassable, a human stampede occupying street and sidewalk. Traffic has stopped somewhere beyond her sight. She waits half an hour—thirty exasperating, extreme minutes—before rising again, using the wall for support. The streets are clearer. She looks left and right, resumes walking without running. People remain nearby, though fewer than before. At last she reaches the parking lot, where her white four-wheel-drive SUV is the only visible vehicle.

It has been vandalized, graffitied, struck, and scratched. She does not care; she only wants safety. She opens the door, enters as quickly as possible, shuts it, and locks all four doors from within. Pressing a green button with her right thumbprint, she starts the electric motor, dashboard, and lights. A hologram projected across the windshield shows missed calls from someone named Abraham, including his photograph. Eva grips the wheel with both hands, intending to drive away from the lot and West End. She cannot. At last the most nervous wave of anguish she has ever known reaches her, releasing the strained crying held back for so long.

Inconsolable, so anguished she can barely breathe, her face turns tomato red. She screams, kicks, drums the wheel; tears fall from emerald eyes. She still seems to feel that man’s dirty hands upon her, his sour breath, the smell of greasy dandruff. She can still smell sweat trapped in clothes unwashed for months. Disgust, nausea, absolute revulsion overwhelm her. She feels the claustrophobia caused by desperate darkness between the liquor-store shelves. Amid an unbearable fit of uncontrollable sobbing, a loud alarm sounds inside the running vehicle—an insistent incoming call from Abraham.

Eva cannot stop crying however much she wants to. Even so, through tears, she studies the image projected inside the windshield and recognizes the caller. Little by little she calms while the shrill incoming-call melody repeats. She wipes tears, dries reddened cheeks as best she can, adjusts herself in the seat, and delicately moves her hand from left to right. The ringtone stops. A handsome young man appears in the hologram, apparently in a hospital corridor.

"Hello, good afternoon. Eva?" Abraham greets her.

"Yes, it’s me." The woman makes an enormous effort not to cry again.

"I’m Abraham, Aaron’s son. Is something wrong?"

"I went to a liquor store to buy fine wine for my mother. I’m supposed to go to Lawrence Island to pick up my sister and have dinner with my family. But there was a man in the liquor store, and…" Eva cannot speak. She sobs, struggling desperately not to collapse into tears.

"Yes, tell me. What happened? Did someone try to rob you?"

"Nothing. Forget it, I’m fine. I’m fine now. Why did you call, Abraham?"

"I’m sorry to call at a bad time. You see, we must continue work on our project. You know—better not say anything on a call like this, just in case."

"Yes, I know what you mean." Eva uses the moment to dry her tears.

"Perfect. The thing is, we need more samples. We’ve run dry and must continue. Do you think you can bring samples today? It will be the last time."

"That’s what you said last time. You said it would be the last."

"I know, I know. Demand for the reagent was very high."

"You said the reagent wouldn’t run out for decades."

"I accept responsibility; it was my miscalculation. It won’t happen again, I assure you."

"I signed an agreement with Aaron. I fulfilled my part."

"I know, and we fulfilled ours. This would be a new agreement for a smaller quantity. It won’t take more than an hour."

"Doesn’t it matter that my pregnancy is this advanced?"

"We’ll manage it. Don’t worry about any of that."

"I don’t know. Does Aaron know?"

"This agreement won’t be with my father. It will be directly with me." Eva runs her hands across her face and hair.

"I don’t know." Eva considers it. "Are you still taking people to the Wastelands to study the virus spreading there?" The question causes sudden silence.

"Let’s not say that so lightly. We don’t know who may be listening to calls. But yes, we synthesized a vaccine, though we will not stop testing," he answers, plainly uncomfortable.

"I have a test subject who may interest you. If he’s useful as a guinea pig, I’ll send you the liquor store’s location and we’ll consider the samples for the reagent settled," Eva proposes in a somewhat hesitant voice.

"Revenge, is it? Seems fair. Send the coordinates; we’ll collect him before midnight."

"Perfect, thank you. I have to go," Eva says hurriedly.

"Before you do, I have good news. I found the subject you asked us to locate long ago." Eva’s face transforms completely, all sadness clearing and yielding to hope. "We have him at the clinic. He was badly damaged, the virus at a very advanced stage, but he is stable now. We restored him with CryoLife. When you come today, you may take him with you if you wish. I understand the service has already been paid for." Eva is stunned.

"You found him? Really? He’s at the clinic?"

"Yes, here at BioGenLife. We’ll transfer him to a hospital room shortly. He’ll remain there until you collect him, if that suits you."

"I’m not sure I can reach Stormport Medical Complex today. I intended to go the other way."

"As I said, we urgently need the reagent. Give us twice the samples and we’ll never have this conversation again. Payment, naturally, will be twice last time’s amount, plus additional costs for the inconvenience. What do you say?"

"We’re talking about a very large sum."

"The sole condition is that we need the reagent within the next few hours—less than ten, to be precise. That’s our window for Brittany Condon to enter CryoLife, be restored, and continue with… well, everything she does."

Eva considers it, sighing with eyes closed while running both hands through rain-soaked hair. Anguish and the urge to cry have not entirely cleared.

"No problem, Abraham. All right. What time would suit you for me to come by?"

Once Abraham and Eva settle the details, she starts the car, leaves West End, and heads toward Stormport Medical Complex and BioGenLife. Her plan to dine with her family tonight and sleep in the fuchsia bedroom where she grew from earliest childhood will have to wait.