Chapter 4

Kyle Reynolds's POV

The alarm was set for 5:40, but I woke at 5:12, and once I was awake I couldn't fall back asleep. This bed used to be mine alone, but last night Sera was here too. She slept soundly, and I didn't want to disturb her.

She lay on her back, one hand resting naturally at her waist, her chin slightly turned toward the hatch. She was still on guard, ready to evacuate at any moment. I thought of seven years ago, the first time she slept in my car. Except that car was a Combine armored patrol vehicle, and the seats were hard enough to leave marks. Yet we hadn't felt uncomfortable back then—all we'd felt was the love flowing between us. It seemed like a beautiful memory from a long, long time ago.

She hadn't seemed this cold back then.

Kyle Reynolds—a name that had sat on the Combine's access roster for nearly eight years.

In the years I worked in the Combine's Cleaner division, I'd been inside rooms that only opened from within, stood in front of sample cabinets with inventory tags on them, seen people destroyed and recovered, seen organ delivery dates written into contract appendices.

Eden particles—the root cause of the apocalypse. A year before they descended, I heard whispers that the end was coming. And I didn't trust the Combine, so I decided to build a survival base myself.

The Titan is my masterpiece. It's the way out I reserved for myself and my friends. I have resources, I have neural resonance technology, and I have a team that can fight. I'm missing only one thing—Sera.

Seven years—I never stopped looking for her. In the first few years, my work continued. I had clearance and could access internal transfer records and missing-person lists. Later, when the apocalypse came, my clearance vanished with it, and I could only look for her in the simplest ways.

At every outpost, I held her photo and asked everyone whether anyone had seen her. For the first two years, I kept telling myself she had gone missing. From the third year on, I stopped thinking that way—perhaps she really had met with an accident. After that, searching for her became a routine item on my schedule.

I always said out loud that I was giving up the search. In fact, I really did want to give up, but I couldn't restrain my longing to see her. I always did many things that contradicted what I said.

So I kept searching for her. Fortunately, I finally found her.

Seven years ago she ended the relationship, and she did it without a fight. No argument, no explanation, just one line—don't look for me—and then she was gone. I went to every place she had ever mentioned, and all of them were empty, and that was still before order collapsed.

I miss her, so I search for her—but I can't find her. Perhaps I hate her, but that doesn't quite fit either; I still love her. I don't understand why she left me, but I'm willing to listen to her reasons, as long as she's willing to say them.

I lay in bed letting my thoughts wander aimlessly. Half an hour later, Sera woke up. We got up, and I took her to meet the other members of the base. Along the way, she kept observing the base's facilities. I didn't know how she had survived the apocalypse. I was very worried, and at the same time I blamed myself for not finding her sooner.

On the second deck, Vera was organizing the water tanks, Jax was flat on the couch scrolling his wristband, Cole was carrying nutrient fluid against his chest, and Taylor was crouched in the corner with a rotor blade resting on his knee. I raised my hand and went down the line: Vera, thermal control; Cole, geological control; Jax, communications; Taylor, mechanical.

Vera poured a cup of warm water and handed it over, looking at her without any hurry. "Morning. Sleep all right?" Cole nodded without slowing down. Jax came half off the couch and settled back. Taylor lifted a hand, grease across his knuckles.

Sera held the cup with both hands and said two words: "Very good, thanks."

Just then, Jax said with a hint of teasing, "Captain, if I remember correctly, the place you stayed last night only had one bed, right?"

Vera smiled. "What are you trying to say?"

Jax said, "Oh, nothing—just wanted to confirm."

I knew what Jax meant. He just wanted to tease me about my relationship with Sera. I looked at him. "Don't you have anything else to do?"

Jax immediately waved his hand. "All right, all right, I'll stop."

At noon, Odysseus announced lunch over the speakers: reconstituted potato starch and canned stewed beans, pressed meat patty, grilled chicken breast, hydroponic vegetables, canned sweet corn, concentrated soup. Then the usual note: tomato yield on the top deck was down twelve percent, and nutrient fluid should be prioritized.

This is our lunch. Our food supplies really are running low—it's time to go gather more.

After the meal, I took Sera to the bathroom—she needed to bathe. But she can't perceive water temperature and could easily get scalded, so I had no choice but to stay by her side.

She undressed herself. From her shoulders to her hips, the scars were densely packed, varying in depth, several of them split open and healed over along the same line more than once. I lowered my voice, not sure whether I was asking her or myself. "Where did your wounds come from? After we separated… have you been doing badly?"

Sera was silent and did not answer.

Her silence made me sadder. She used to be more lively than this.

What had she been through, to turn from that liveliness into a stagnant pool?

I washed her hair. The hot water opened it out, and the roots came up a vivid blue against the black at the tips, the line between them so clean it didn't look dyed—it looked grown. My fingers stopped in the air.

She felt the pause and turned her head to look at me.

"Your hair," I said.

She was silent for two seconds, her voice without any lift. "Ran out of dye."

Suddenly, Sera's hair moved. It wrapped around my fingers as if it had a life of its own. I had never seen anything like it and froze on the spot.

Since the night before, I had been running neural resonance checks on her body, and her body had barely responded—no pain, no fatigue, no oxygen debt, nothing.

Her hair, though, was very responsive.

I didn't ask again, and I didn't say anything. I wrapped her in a towel and carried her down.

She stood on the balcony combing her hair. On the third-deck landing, Dorian stopped me and took a small dark bottle out of his coat pocket. There were a few green pills at the bottom. "One a day, plant-based. It stabilizes GCI—it can't lower it effectively, but it's enough." He put the bottle into my palm.

I handed those pills to Sera.

She looked at me, unscrewed the cap, tipped a green pill into her hand, and swallowed it with water.

Vera asked what it was, and Dorian said from across the table, "Her new medicine."

Today was leisurely, with nothing major happening. After half a day together, the members who hadn't accepted Sera at first seemed to have developed some tolerance for her. The relaxed atmosphere lasted until dinner. After the meal, I told them Sera would move to the second deck and live with Vera.

Vera was warm and full of energy. I felt that since Sera left, she had changed a lot—she seemed more silent, more withdrawn. If Vera's warmth could reach her, maybe Sera would be a little happier. Besides, they were both girls and about the same age; they should have plenty of common topics.

Vera immediately cut in, saying, "Great! I've been wanting to ask about the supermarket situation and how she handled it."

At night, everyone returned to their rooms. I looked at the text on the screen. As soon as the snow stopped, Sera would leave. But I didn't want her to go. After thinking it over, I deleted that rule.