22A/N: Okay, I've had this idea in my head for a while now, and I thought I'd let it out. A different style than my usual work, I suppose. Hope you like it anyway. Basically my take on Adam and Eve and all that wonderful crap. Just don't expect me to stick to the Bible because, frankly, I've never read the thing. This is not religious.
Perfect Failure
Chapter one: Origins
They say it's the only safe place on Earth. It's a sanctuary, a haven, a light in the darkness... it's the stranger next to you whistling "Yankee Doodle" in your ear at the end of the world. The mother reunited with her lost child, tears fading to choked-up laughter. ...Yeah. Right. I can define their lies a million different ways, twist the truth and hide the puppet strings... but for what? They've already done all that for me. Take a look around. The posters, the smiling faces on the Network screens... all blatant lies. If, that is, you know how to find them. Because Eden isn't perfect, it isn't safe, and it isn't Yankee Doodle at the apocalypse. It's the violin with its strings pulsing to the fervently ominous rhythm of the bow, way after the death of millions. It's a melody that's getting louder, stronger, darker... and yet most of the population can't hear a thing.
Adam smiles in the harsh lights of the operating room. His footsteps are almost silent, mere whispers gliding over linoleum tiles. He gazes at the girl on the padded steel table, rests a hand on her forehead. On the outside she appears to be dead. A corpse, someone whose surgery failed to work out. Her skin is pale and her eyes are shut; an IV is taped into one arm and bandages are just visible at the back of her neck. Yet Adam can feel her life pulsing beneath his palm. He retracts his touch and steps back a bit to nod at the medical team.
"You've all done well." His voice echoes off the concrete walls, fading eventually into sterile white nothingness. The smile remains on his face, but this time it's different; secrets play hide and seek behind his lips and contacts hide more than poor vision. There's so much more he wants to say, but he swallows the worries and the last-minute regrets and glances back at the girl. "...The situation seems like it's been much improved. How long until she's conscious?"
A woman steps forward quietly, nervously. She tucks a strand of limp brown hair behind her ear, trying to figure out what to tell him. She's just the nurse, the student working extra time to get experience credits. Now she's wondering if she should've gotten way out of there long ago.
"That'll be a few more phases at the vary least," she says, the sentence wavering. Adam nods again, but his mind wanders elsewhere. Moral questions and tentative doubts linger at the edges of his awareness. This place is supposed to be secure, designed to be safe. And it is. Was. He stares at the child, unconscious with her life now defined by wires and tubes and bloodstained gauze. He shivers… looks away… and sighs.
What the hell am I doing? It's not the thought he wants to be thinking, but it comes unbidden anyway. A few phases. That's all. A few phases, she said, until this single girl changes Eden forever. Adam forces one last smile and leaves the room. This time, his footsteps are silent.