Free The First: EVO Uprising by Kipjo Ewers

Secretary,” she returned with a bright cheese grin.  
      Graves turned and walked up the steps followed by his entourage with derogatory thoughts about jarheads and today’s youth running through his mind, while Rogers watched him leave with derogatory thoughts of pencil pushing bureaucrats.  
    They observed as the Secretary’s helicopter ascended into the air and took off; neither cared where it went.  
    “ So,” Erica sighed, “Just you and me now.”  
    “ You know that thing where you were whispering in my head,” said Rogers looking up at the sky.  
    “ Don’t do it again,” she answered also still looking up.  
    “ Also, if you think you’re going to run roughshod over me like you did the Secretary,” said Rogers still looking up, “you will lose.”  
    “ Fair enough,” she smiled. “Care to return to the Batcave and get settled in?”  
    He glanced at her before about facing back to the hanger. Erica turned and skipped, following him from behind.  
    ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜
    Another eight minutes later they returned underground to the main central command accompanied by the android sisters.  
    “ So,” Lady Tech got down to business, “what do you want to know about the Source?”  
    “ Everything,” Abe answered.  
    “ Maxine,” Erica addressed her android form.  
    Upon command, an onscreen image of a prison record appeared on the theatre size screen before Rogers.
    “ Sophia Dennison, formerly Sophia Matheson,” introduced Erica, “widow, thirty-nine years old, United States Citizen born in Mount Vernon, New York, originally resided in Houston, Texas. She graduated from Texas Southwestern with honors, formally a licensed doctor and skilled surgeon. Sentenced to death by lethal injection, which was carried out in 2008 for the murder of her husband, a former highly decorated United States Marine veteran.”  
    “ I know her,” nodded Rogers. “The super woman from the incidents in Texas and DC back in 08.”  
    “ Very good,” Erica nodded, “she is also the reason why you and I are the way we are now. She is the Source, the first EVO, or EVO Zero, and the cause of what we now call the Big Bang 2 incident. She was the one who stopped that nuclear warhead from wiping out the West Coast.”  
    “ A General went down for that, Bernard Matheson.” Rogers began putting the pieces together, “He’s…”  
    “ Her father-in-law,” Erica filled in the blanks. “Don’t know any of the stories between the two of them, but I image there was some pretty nasty family history there.”  
    “ How is she the reason we are who we are?” Rogers asked.  
    “ Maxine,” Erica requested again, “please bring up sequence theory 091312.”  
    The holographic globe in the middle of the room disappeared as a simulated projection of Sophia flying toward a nuclear warhead appeared.  
    “ It’s all just a theory, but when our girl slammed into that nuke she must have taken some considerable damage. I’m thinking deep tissue damage, maybe even more,” she began her explanation, “those cells, however, didn’t burn up and die, they regenerated into a viral form, multiplied, and went airborne allowing the winds to take it to the four corners of the earth thereafter contaminating our air, food, and water supply. As it infected a host, it either killed, remained dormant, or in the case of you and I, systematically destroyed our normal cells while replicating new ones in its place rewriting our DNA; turning us into who we are now. She is our “mother” so to speak, responsible for giving birth to the entire superhuman race.”  
    The holographic image changed displaying her abilities in detail.  
    “ EVOs are designated classes one to ten based on their ability to cause destruction from a city block to an actual city with the scale being Manhattan,” Erica pointed out. “Ms. Dennison has no designated