Chapter 8

Emily Varen

I leaned against the container's cold metal wall. I wiped amniotic fluid and blood off Adam with gauze dampened with distilled water.

My movements were mechanical, like repairing broken equipment. When I finished, I wrapped him in the silver thermal reflective blanket. I stuffed the blood-soaked sheet into a sealed bag.I would burn it at first light.

I laid out sterile linens scavenged from an abandoned medical station. My strength vanished. I slumped to the metal floor and pulled Adam close.

His breath brushed my skin. The rigid wall inside me cracked. I whispered.

"Thank you… for choosing to live. Mom will protect you."

If he had not survived, everything I endured meant nothing.

Darkness swallowed me. My hand curled instinctively to shield him.

A sharp, staccato cry woke me. Not the endless wail of a newborn. It sounded like a low-battery warning.

I jolted upright and lifted him to nurse.

His suction was brutal. Sharp pain pricked my nipple. With my free hand, I tore open a pack of protein nutrient paste and squeezed it into my mouth.

My gaze locked on Adam. A normal infant's vision blurs, but his stare fixed fully on me.

"At least you use less power than those Rust-Walkers," I muttered. I ripped open a second pack. That had been my full daily ration. I burned extra fuel to feed him. I did not know how long I could sustain this.

Bleeding continued for two full weeks. I found no clear definition of "normal" in the tattered medical manual Old Dake had left.

On day eighteen, I sat staring at the dark red stains on cloth. My mind ran calculations: blood loss, the threshold for death. Panic coiled around my lungs.

I held Adam while he nursed, my voice dry.

"Adam… Mom might not last another month. If I die, you won't survive three days alone."

Adam stopped sucking. His deep gray eyes locked onto mine. He did not cry, only stared, quiet and still.

The crushing despair eased. I wiped my cheek and snapped at myself. "Don't make a fool of yourself in front of the kid…"

The bleeding stopped on day twenty-three. I dug through trash and found a broken scanner manual. Fractured paragraphs described postpartum lochia. The death threat lifted. I tossed the paper into the incinerator without emotion. No document hinting a woman and baby live here can be left behind. I got lucky, but my body was broken.

Six weeks after birth, I realized I had named him Adam that night, but never given him a surname. Wasteland survivors named children after machine parts or codes, cutting their "sentimental value" if megacorps conscripted them.

I looked down at the infant. Dr. Victor's words echoed: preserve the Architect's bloodline.

"Adam… In old-world myths, he was the first human. You're the new human of this hellish place." I gave a bitter smile. "Now I’ll give you your family name."

Grandma used to call me "brat." "If the name embarrasses you, Mom will change it. No matter what you grow into… you'll always be my brat to me."

I hardened my tone. "Adam Varen. That's your full name. Remember it." The only thing I can give him that belongs to no megacorp, no nanite experiment.

Adam cut his first tooth while nursing. Pain pierced my skin. I tried to pull back. His tiny hand clamped to my shirt, stronger than any infant his age.

"Adam Varen! Go easy!" I growled.

He released my nipple at once. His next suck was gentler.

I froze. At less than four months old, he should not understand a full sentence. I tested him. "Raise your hand."

Adam slowly lifted his right hand. "Put it down." The hand fell back.

Cold sweat soaked my back. "You understand me, don't you?"

He could not nod. But the focus in those gray eyes was answer enough.

"Then remember. Obey what Mom tells you. Understand?"

He blinked. I took that as a yes. He is no ordinary baby. The Root Authority mark was carved into him from birth. I must set rules, or he will spiral out of control.

Five months postpartum. I held Adam while checking traps. My arm suddenly weakened. I nearly dropped him.

I set him in the cradle and went to lift a filtered water bucket. It rose three centimeters. My wrist shook. It crashed back down.

I grabbed the plasma blade and swung at scrap steel thick as an arm. Before pregnancy, two strikes split it. Now I strained seven times to crack a thin line.

I leaned against the wall. "I'm useless. Worse than the women hiding safe in the bases."

Adam watched me quietly. I met his gaze and pulled a hopeless smile.

"See? Mom barely has the strength to protect you. I have to hunt for supplies. You better pray I come back alive." My strength collapsed. The experimental serum's side effects ate at me. Staying trapped here will kill us both.

I knelt by the hydroponic rack and plucked three deformed tomatoes, two blackened chili peppers, a handful of pale lettuce. Nanites saturated this land. Unedited natural crops grew twisted.

I counted the stores: twelve packs of protein nutrient paste, eight compressed biscuit bars, one nearly empty vitamin canister. At our current rate, the stores would last fifty days.

If I cut to one pack a day, we hit seventy days. But my milk would dry up. If we weaned him early, an infant's gut might not survive high-protein paste.

I spoke quietly. "We have to go out, brat. And I'm taking you. I won't leave you alone here." Leaving him locked here carries bigger risk. If scavengers break in, he cannot defend himself. I have to bring this ticking bomb with me.

Six months and five days. I rebuilt an old tactical backpack into an infant carrier: top lid cut off, bottom lined with thermal reflective blanket, cross straps from elastic bandages.

I settled Adam inside. His head peeked over the top.

"Don't move. If Rust-Walkers show up, you make zero sound. Hear me?"

Adam watched me, silent. I pinched his cheek. "It would be nice if you truly understood… Doesn't matter. You don't have a choice anyway."

I slung the backpack on. His weight pulled down hard. This load meant nothing once; now my lower back ached.

I grabbed my plasma blade and homemade electromagnetic rifle and walked to the exit. I glanced back at the empty container.

"If we don't come back… dying out here beats suffocating inside this metal box." Scavenging is a gamble. But hiding is a slow death. No middle ground.

I pushed a cart salvaged from an abandoned lot, wheels swapped for quiet rubber. Adam rode on my back. I avoided every path I had traveled before — repeating tracks handed your coordinates to scavengers and Rust-Walkers.

Halfway out, my legs went weak. I sheltered in the shadow of a derelict building. Adam's eyes locked onto distant ruins.

"What?" I spoke before I thought. Adam let out a short "ah" and pointed at the rubble.

I frowned. A collapsed residential block. I had planned to circle wide around it. Adam made the sound again, sharper.

I decided. Trust my gut — or trust whatever strange sense Adam possessed. I pushed the cart toward the ruins. I do not know what he detects. Heat? Bio-electromagnetic waves? Only one gamble.

We followed Adam's lead into the collapsed neighborhood. Corpses were sparse. Most residents had evacuated. I kicked open rusted doors and found vacuum-sealed rice, flour, dried beans, cans, and a full crate of compressed biscuits.

I stuffed the cart. I also grabbed toothpaste, soap, feminine supplies — useless now, but tradeable — and infant clothes. The cart filled.

"You really deliver, don't you…" I lowered my head to Adam. "Or it's just dumb luck."

On the return, I took a separate route. The heavy cart, Adam's weight, my weakened body — I stopped to catch my breath every hundred meters. I had to reach the Electronic Trench before dark.

Two kilometers out. Adam, quiet until now, burst into frantic babbling. His hands waved wildly. He nearly cried. The first time he had shown such fierce emotion.

I halted the cart, dropped low, and gripped my plasma blade.

I scanned the space. No Rust-Walkers. No scavengers. But Adam's babbling grew frantic.

My heart hammered. Cold sweat dripped. I had no clue what he picked up, but instinct screamed one thing.