Evolve

Fifteen

"What were you thinking bringing another one of you into this house?" Delilah asked as Evan quietly ate a burger on her couch. He wouldn't stop asking for one on the way over and I gave in for sanity's sake. She had just finished using quite colorful Spanish terms after we arrived and now felt the need to use English again.

"I apologize, but he is not like Evelyn, he is a child." I stated calmly.

"Hey! I am thirteen." He replied between bites of his burger. He quieted down as both Delilah and myself shot him a glare that could burn a hole through the wall.

"I apologize again, he is thirteen apparently." I said, this time being the one to receive a glare from her.

"That's not the point, Primera," Delilah said again more quietly after a moment. She paced around Miguel's crib as he slept inside and I stood between her and Evan.
"You're orders are to protect Miguel and myself, and look what you did. How do we know Evelyn won't show up here next? What does she even want from you besides causing chaos in the city?"

"I am aware how this situation may appear, but I had to figure out more about EV-0 and stop Evelyn from harming your family. Both those missions were accomplished for the time being. She appears to want the command keys for both Evan and myself, though I am not quite sure why. She might want control over us. Perhaps you should start behaving more like a crime lord than a mother and not be so concerned over me." I said, with a glare of my own. I did not mean to respond in such a way, the anger was caused by Evelyn but accidentally directed at Delilah.

"She may be a bugger threat than I first thought..." Delilah thought it over. Emotions shown on her face only for a moment at a time until it became set in stone.
"I have said it before, do not mistake my kindness for weakness." She replied, not backing down.
"Believe it or not, some people do think of you as a person Eve, not just a weapon. However, as you wish. If you are supposedly worth millions of dollars and made of such high end technology, how is it Evelyn was able to escape you twice already?"

"I...I am unsure." I replied, at a loss for words. Lately it was getting increasingly difficult to control my emotions, a fact that greatly irritated me. I had to be clear headed and decisive in all I did.

"That's an easy one," Evan spoke up suddenly,
"that's because Eve was cutting edge technology when she was built. Now she is not. Simple." He took another bite of his burger.

"What do you know about this, niño?" Delilah asked and sat beside him. I rolled my eyes and remained standing in my spot.

"Well," he started after a moment,
"It's like my technology compared to Eve's. At the time I was built, I was the most advanced cybernetic organism there was. Now, I am not." He said plainly.

"Our technology is indeed different then?" I asked, noting how he wasn't as strong or fast as me and his sensors took much longer to gather information.

"Mostly, though I assume we have a similar power source and basic cells. Although, we have obvious major differences," He finished his burger before continuing,
"I woke up nearly ten years ago, but age at about half the rate of a normal human. See, where you were made as an artificial life form, Ricardo did something different for me." He stopped and looked at Delilah.
"Should I continue? I know he was your dad and all."

"Yes, Evan. I will be fine, thank you." She replied directly.

"Alright, well he wanted to do his cell experiments to see if he could grow the cybernetic body parts he wanted. He didn't have a test subject, so he made one. Ricardo used his own DNA and his nano technology to create a living person already embedded with his artificial cells. He created me as a result, though I just have a basic genetic structure similar to him I don't believe I am an exact copy." He stated.
"My nanobots heal my cells as they start to die and greatly decrease my aging process so even though it's been a decade, I am still in my early teens." He sighed.

"I see," I began,
"Ricardo not only created cybernetic life, but biological as well." I couldn't help but wonder why he never said anything to me when I briefly worked for him. It was possible that he needed resources or finances to help finish building Evelyn. The thought that I had a hand in her engineering angered me slightly.
"Which means you go to school and eat food because you are more human than I am. You were never made as just a machine."

"Pretty much. You know what's funny? I remember hearing about Delilah when she was younger and about EV-01, Ricardo's next project. Funny how now I have met both of you."

"I am sure we are much different than you expected. How is it you are able to go to school?" Delilah asked.

"Oh, well Ricardo helped set me up at first then I took it from there. I needed to go into hiding and he didn't want me destroyed. I switch through nearly every school in the city, hacking computer systems so it all seems normal. Every year I go to a different school and learn there then move on to another one." He replied.

"You keep going from school to school? What about if the teachers wanted to meet a parent and what did your friends think?"asked Delilah.

"Yeah, I found ways around that, had a few close calls but I never got caught. Besides, it's not like I can exactly make too many friends." He stated plainly.

"I'm sorry." Delilah managed to say, and she looked sincere. After all, it was her father who forced Evan to be created how he was.

"It's alright, I got over most of my negativity a long time ago. Now I just try to learn as much as I can and help out, like Ricardo did. Well, except I won't get obsessed of course."

"Obsessed?" Delilah asked, and even I raised an eyebrow at that.

"Yeah, after he created me he tried to upgrade my systems further. It didn't work, I am made how I am, so he began his new project, EV-01. He told me he would call her Eve." Evan smiled slightly at me as he talked. Although he was much younger, his gaze felt like he an elder sibling seeing his new baby sister for the first time. I did not appreciate this, but I let it go for his sake.

"He became obsessed with finding a way to extend life, cheat death basically. I'm sorry, Delilah but I think he knew he didn't have much time left." Evan added. Delilah nodded slowly and gestured for him to continue.

"Well, he made you with more cybernetic parts, more nanobots. I'm pretty sure he wanted to keep you human too, though I was separated from him before you awoke. That's when his bosses started to catch on to his experiments. He hid us away, me in school after school and you buried in your capsule, supposedly never to awake. Life's strange, huh?" He finished and walked over to watch Miguel nap.

"Based on that logic, Ricardo continued using his grants and then drug money to fund his last experiment. He must have created an EV-02 that was almost all nanobot technology, and that's where Evelyn comes in." I concluded.

"Yeah, there's always a black sheep in the family somewhere." Evan replied.

"She is not my family." I stated, not wanting to say how he technically was not my family either.

"My father's illness must have done this to him," Delilah said and joined Evan in watching her son.
"He was not like this when I was growing up. Thank you for informing us, Evan. Eve, I now know your next mission." She added, and expertly entered commands on my key in her phone without looking.

"What mission?" I asked, Evan seemed curious as well.

"With the deaths of Osaka and Matsui, Yokozuna will realize someone is controlling you. He won't know about Evelyn, he'll just assume you are being ordered to kill the other crime lords. It is only a matter of time until he finds out I have your command and comes after my empire. If he does that, my finances may be lost or my safety in jeopardy. You will have to find out where he is, before he can go after me or reach out to Maximilian Caliber. I would stand no chance if they formed any kind of alliance." She paused for a moment as she finished typing her commands.

"Yokozuna may be too far underground to reach for the moment, so until he comes out of hiding we must switch targets. Your missions will be to find a way to defeat Evelyn for good, her presence is a wild card we can't afford to have. The other other will be to find and eliminate Maximum Caliber, without him the Caliber empire will fall apart just long enough for me to get enough funds to secure my safety." She concluded, and finalized her orders with a push of a button on my command key. Whether or not I agreed, I now had no choice in the matter.