As they drove into the hangar at Area 51, the Brothers noticed that everyone seemed on edge their minds on something else. Throwing the keys to a human worker, Aiden explained about the girls in the trunk and handed the man the serum that would keep them sedated while they were transported.
Walking through the halls, Aleksander could sense that something big had happened while they had been gone. The whole place felt tenser than usual, and everyone was jumping at shadows. Stopping, he leaned down to one of the human clerks walking the hall and asked him what it was. All the frightened little human could say was, “He’s b-b-back…” and faint, which wasn’t very helpful. Aleksander mulled this over, thinking about who it could be as they both continued walking.
Suddenly and inexplicably, they both felt a ripple of power moving through the complex towards them, like a wave in the ocean traveling through the walls. With a sudden familiar jolt, like being lifted up and dropped back down, they both shifted into the alternate time stream that had rippled reality throughout the area, and which only they and one other could enter. With a horrified glance between them, they both said it at the same time, their minds in sync.
“Adrian…”
With another warp of reality shaking the fabric of space, they both melded their minds together and started running past the nearly stationary humans in the halls, closing in on the source of the distortion, flipping off walls and jumping over humans as they went. Skidding into an office deep down inside the complex, they felt the distortion end as they gazed down at the man before them, neither wanting to believe that what they were seeing was real, but unable to deny what their eyes were telling them.
Still taller than most humans, the creature was smaller than them both. He was dressed in tight-fitting black pants and a black leather jacket that hung almost to his knees, his purple hair held back from his face by a pair of sunglasses and his hands sheathed in black leather gloves. As the brothers came in, he turned and smiled at them, his eerie turquoise eyes seeming to twinkle around the hourglass-shaped pupils, the tips of extended incisors showing over his lower lip.
“Hello Big Brother. Long time no see. You look healthy.” The creature said, turning back to the military official he was sitting across from, continuing his recently interrupted conversation.
“As I told you before, General, You need not know why I have left my state of study. I have my own reasons, and I seriously doubt your inferior mind could comprehend them, let alone tell me what to do. Especially with all the drugs you pump into it.”, The being went on, his genial smile seeming to become dangerously predatory as his eyes started to twinkle darkly.
“Regardless, I must know, and my personal choices are none of your business. You are still a vassal of our Government, and as such we are responsible for your actions. Therefore, we must be sure you won’t cause undue havoc.” The General said, seemingly unaware of the creature’s malicious grin or the blatant insult to his person as he droned on in a voice that Aleks reflected must be reserved for bureaucrats, it was so boring.
“Undue? Undue!?” the creature’s voice reached a hysterical high as he spoke, “All havoc I ever cause is due! It’s been due for a long time, longer than you’ve been alive! In fact, I do believe it’s about time I caused a little havoc in here, yes?! But first, kindly read this, and tell me what you think.” Upon his last sentence, he was suddenly all smoothly sane again, a dark smile resting on his lips. Disturbed by the Ever’s behavior, the man took the slip of paper offered by the creature before him, eyeing him suspiciously as he did.
The slip of paper read:
Everything this man does is sanctioned by me. Do not interfere in his operations in any way, or I will not be responsible for the consequences.
-G.Y.B.
The General looked up just in time to watch the creature grin widely and say in a soft voice, “My name is Adrian. And you now have the honor of being the first to die by my hand in many years.”
With a flash of his strange eyes, Adrian slowed time down to the level it was before, slashing through the General’s neck with a solidified strand of ice he had summoned from a bottle in his pocket and stepping back, watching the spray of blood in slow time with a look of ecstasy. He leaned in slightly, licking some of the blood out of midair with a rapturous expression before turning to the brothers.
“Marvelous, isn’t it Brother? Or should I say Brothers? You seem to have split into two again while I have been absent.” Adrian said, speaking softly to his older brothers. His voice kept slipping between an old British accent and a strange Irish brogue as he continually switched between Ever and English, which was strange because Ever, as a language, was harsh and angry-sounding, making accents hard to affect. Add to that the strange sense of his voice coming from two places, and Adrian became a terrifying person to speak to, even without his garishly insane appearance.
As time began to flow normally, Adrian smiled, sighing happily as the sped up motions of his slice sprayed blood all over him. Aleksander found this strange, considering he had always been the least gory of the Brothers. Before he had gone into seclusion, he had absolutely disdained getting dirty in any way or killing humans. It was unclear what exactly had changed, but something had, since this creature before him was sighing in satisfaction after slaughtering a man.
“Adrian, what’s wrong?” Aiden said, worry painted in his eyes.
“Nothing is wrong, Brother. Rather, everything is right again! I feel free!” Adrian ran a finger through the gap in the General’s neck, licking the blood off of it as he started to dance lightly around the room. “I feel happy once more, uninhibited as we should truly be!”
“Brother… How long has it been since you were captured and went into your seclusion?” Aleksander asked, his eyes suspicious and guarded. He had a feeling something had changed his brother, and there was that one myth about the Evers.
“Roughly two and a half thousand years for me. Only about three hundred for you, am I right?”
Aiden and Aleksander shared a look of disbelief. That age made him nearly twenty-two hundred years older than them. No wonder he was going insane, as every Ever was said to do when they reached an age beyond what even their minds could handle.
“I know what you’re thinking, and it’s untrue. I’m not insane… Yet. But I will be in about a hundred and fifty years. That’s why I’m here. I want to enjoy life while I still can enjoy it the way it really is.” As they talked, Adrian started to sculpt a figurine out of ice that seemingly came from his fingers, still bouncing on the balls of his feet.
“So… Since you’re here, I’m guessing you found the solution to breaking the Power limit? I mean, that is your big project that you’ve been working on for two thousand years, isn’t it? And obviously you’ve figured it out, because that ice isn’t coming from your water pouch, now is it?” Aleksander said, watching Adrian as he would a wild beast that appeared to have created a nuclear weapon.
“Yes, Brother. But you would not believe the price I paid to gain this… Ability… Years of my life are gone. I have seen the future, and I have seen the past. Life has chosen to grant me one last chance at happiness, and I WILL take it.” Adrian suddenly seemed to grow very still, the figurine falling from his now-limp fingers, his eyes locked in his head as his whole body stood still, not even breathe moving his form. Suddenly moving again, he was much more somber, taking a seat before the desk. “Before I reveal it, let us discuss some things. You’re both familiar with all the theories of how Evers are born, correct? And considering none of us can remember our childhoods, it has always been speculation?”
Aiden and Alex nodded, both speaking up together, in one voice.
“Yes, there’s many theories. There’s the idea that we are in fact the next stage of evolution, created randomly by genes in certain new patterns. Then there’s the idea that we were created by some higher being as a replacement for humans, just as humans replaced the race before them. Then there’s the idea that we are created by traumatic events in the life of our human host, bringing about a natural change in the body. Then there’s the more outlandish claims, that we’re aliens from Mars, that we are in fact demons from Hell sent to plague the Earth for Man’s sins. They’ve all been tossed out as impossible by every scientist we have, or at least every serious one.”
Adrian smiled, laughing softly. “Well, I have succeeded in discovering what they couldn’t. Among all my years of study, I have discovered that there are actually breeds of Ever, which we all knew, but what we didn’t know is that we’re actually the first race that humans replaced. Here, this might take a while, have a seat.” Adrian gestured to the door and then the ground, sealing the room and raising comfortable chairs out of the concrete floor.
“I have been unable as of yet to classify every Breed, but from what I can tell, there are about 9 major breeds, based on what their strength is and where they originated. I have classified them in this mind of mine, which means you now know it. But what no one has ever realized is the why of our species. I mean, are we human? Or something… more? I’ve actually discovered a lot about us. Our physiology is fundamentally different from humans for one main reason, and this is where I’m still attempting to figure things out. Whereas they have 23 pairs of chromosomes, Evers have about 28, which is strange. Stranger still our extra ten chromosomes, although extremely easy to find, are almost impossibly complex, as if made so that they’d never be figured out. I have only been able to figure out two pairs of them in the time I’ve taken, but I’m close to unlocking another. One is the “Super Chromosome”, as I like to call it. It’s what gives every Ever their superhuman strength, speed, and intelligence, along with the small ability all Evers have to change their appearance. The other is the one that I eliminated, which happens to be the “Limiter”, keeping every Ever to a certain amount of ability. I have also removed it in you two as a test subject for mass-release into the population. I believe the effects will manifest soon…” Adrian lapsed into silence, seeming to stare off into space at something only he could see.
“Brother? Brother?! YO, ASSFACE!!!!” Aiden yelled. Alex gave him a scornful look and was answered with a shrug, as if to say It worked before.
Adrian suddenly seemed to focus again on them. “I apologize; I seem to have found the object of my current mission and am anxious to go to her. I must be about my business, but our mind link is now restored, so if you ever have need of my services, please don’t hesitate to ask. And remember, I’m just on the other side of the Rabbit Hole.” Adrian stood up and bowed formally, grinning and suddenly jumping up to slam through the concrete ceilings all the way to the surface, walking away as the cement rearranged back to its proper formation in his wake.
“Sometimes, it scares me how smart and powerful that boy is. He truly is the strongest of us right now…” Aleksander said. Aiden just nodded solemnly.
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