The next afternoon, I parked in front of the university's aging biology building, watching students filter in and out with backpacks and half-finished coffees.
In my first life, this place had been a smoking shell six months into the Mist, the greenhouses melted down to warped skeletons. I'd found Dr. Kenna Okoye digging through the remains with bare, burned hands.
Now, the glass shone. The bricks were intact. The air smelled like cut grass instead of ash.
I checked my watch. Five minutes early.
The System pulsed.
[APPOINTMENT: DR. KENNA OKOYE]
[SURVIVAL VALUE: HIGH]
[RECOMMENDED APPROACH: HONESTY (PARTIAL)]
"Partial honesty," I muttered. "That I can do."
Inside, the hallways were cool and dim, lined with bulletin boards crammed with flyers about grad seminars and climate marches. I followed the directory to the third floor and found a door with a printed nameplate:
Dr. Kenna Okoye – Plant Genetics & Stress Physiology
I knocked.
"Come in," a voice called.
I stepped inside.
The office was a controlled chaos of papers, books, and potted plants. A tall woman in her late thirties stood behind a desk, dark skin, hair in a practical bun, glasses sliding down her nose. She wore a lab coat over a faded t-shirt with a double-helix graphic.
Her eyes flicked up, sharp and assessing.
"Ms. Shen?"
"Yes." I offered my hand. "Evelyn."
Her grip was firm, calloused at the fingertips. Someone who actually worked with her hands, not just pipettes and spreadsheets.
"Have a seat," she said, gesturing to a chair piled with journals. She swept them onto another stack without looking. "Your email was…unexpected. Private agriculture funding isn't exactly thick on the ground these days."
"I'm not exactly a typical investor," I said, sitting. "But I've read your work. Drought-resistant millet trials. Salinity tolerance in rice. Impressive."
She raised an eyebrow.
"Most people don't make it past the abstract," she said. "Or they skip to the 'potential applications' section and drag me into meetings about profit margins."
"Applications are why I'm here," I said, meeting her gaze. "But not the kind you're used to."
The System pulsed.
[SOCIAL CHECKPOINT: HONESTY THRESHOLD]
[REWARD FOR SUCCESS: +SP, ALLIANCE STABILITY]
Kenna leaned back, folding her arms.
"Alright," she said. "Surprise me."
I took a breath.
"How much do you trust the official climate reports?" I asked.
Her mouth tightened.
"As much as I trust grant committees to read past the first figure," she said. "Why?"
"You've seen anomalies," I said. "In your data. Growth patterns. Germination rates. Maybe fungal behavior in the soil."
Her eyes sharpened.
"Those aren't public," she said slowly.
"No," I agreed. "But I know the signs."
She studied me for a long beat.
"You're not a scientist," she said. "Your LinkedIn says project management, corporate side. No offense."
"I've…changed specialties recently," I said dryly.
She huffed a laugh despite herself.
"Okay, Ms. Shen. Let's pretend I believe you see patterns no one else does. Where is this going?"
I held her gaze.
"In about two months," I said quietly, "we're going to see environmental shifts that make the last decade look like a warm-up. Crops will fail in ways we don't have language for yet. Famine will be the kind version of what can happen."
She chuckled, a short, disbelieving sound.
"That's dramatic," she said. "You have a source for this? Or are we in tinfoil hat territory?"
"My source is…hard to explain," I said. "But I can show you something else."
I reached into my bag and pulled out a folder.
Inside were printouts: weather anomaly graphs I remembered from my first life. Images of the early Mist auroras, scrubbed from the internet weeks after they appeared. Charts I'd recreated from memory.
I laid them on her desk.
"I've been compiling this," I lied smoothly. "Cross-referencing public data, leaked reports, satellite deviations. Look at the acceleration curves. Look at the ionospheric disturbances. Whatever is happening—it's not linear. It's not natural."
She flipped through the pages, skepticism warring with the scientist's hunger for patterns.
Her fingers stilled on one graph.
"This shouldn't be possible," she murmured. "Not at this scale, this speed. Unless someone's…interfering."
"Experimental tech," I said. "Atmospheric manipulation. Failed projects no one wants to talk about."
Her eyes snapped up.
"You're saying—"
"I'm saying," I cut in gently, "that whatever the cause, the effect will be the same: we're heading toward a tipping point. And when we cross it, our current food systems won't keep up."
She stared at me, jaw tight.
"And you?" she said. "What, exactly, are you planning to do about it from your…'rural project'?"
I smiled, small and sharp.
"I'm building a safe haven," I said. "Somewhere far enough from the obvious targets that we get a grace period. And in that haven, I want crops that can survive what's coming. Plants that can handle salinity spikes, temperature swings, altered light spectra. Maybe even…new kinds of stress we haven't named."
Her eyes flashed.
"You're talking about a private ark," she said. "For the chosen few."
Guilt pricked, but I didn't flinch.
"I'm talking about proving something works on a small scale," I said. "So when the rest of the world finally understands what you've been shouting in your papers, there's a model to replicate. But I won't lie to you. First priority is survival. Of my family. Of the people I pull in. Of the people I pay to help me."
Silence stretched.
Finally, she exhaled, long and slow.
"You are either insane," she said, "or you are seeing something everyone else refuses to see. Unfortunately, those two are not mutually exclusive."
The System pinged.
[TARGET: DR. KENNA OKOYE]
[SKEPTICISM: 71%]
[CURIOSITY: 84%]
"What exactly are you offering?" she asked.
"Funding," I said. "A private lab on my land once the basic infrastructure is up. Freedom from grant cycles and publication quotas. A chance to push your research past what the ethics board would sign off on if the world weren't on fire."
Her lips twitched.
"You don't sugarcoat," she said.
"I don't have time to."
She tapped the folder.
"And if I say no? If I stay here, keep writing papers no one reads?"
"In seventy days," I said quietly, "this building will be under a sky the color of poison. Power will go out. Supply lines will snap. Your samples will die in their growth chambers, and the only thing anyone will care about is what food they can steal from the cafeteria before it runs out."
She was very still.
"You speak like you've seen it," she said.
"I have," I answered, before I could stop myself.
Her eyes narrowed.
"Dreams?" she asked. "Visions?"
"Call it that if you want."
She leaned back, studying me.
"You realize how this sounds?"
"I do," I said. "And I'm still here. Which means either I'm right enough that it doesn't matter how I sound, or I'm wrong and you've wasted an hour entertaining a madwoman. Low cost, potential high reward."
Silence again.
Finally, she snorted.
"Fine," she said. "I'll consult. Part-time, to start. You cover my weekends and some equipment. If you're still…coherent after two months, and the sky is doing whatever you think it's going to do, we renegotiate."
The System chimed.
[SPECIALIST RECRUITMENT: SUCCESS – PARTIAL CONTRACT]
[+20 SURVIVAL POINTS]
SP: 105.
I extended my hand.
"Deal."
She shook it.
"One condition," she added. "No cults. No end-times sermons. I don't care what you think you've seen, I'm not joining a doomsday church."
I laughed, genuine this time.
"No cults," I said. "I'm allergic to groupthink."
She smiled despite herself, then glanced at the folder again.
"You realize," she said, "if any of this is true, the government knows more than we do."
"I know," I said.
"And they're not telling us."
"They're…preparing. Quietly."
Her jaw clenched.
"Then we prepare loudly," she said. "At least on our little hill."
I smiled.
"That's the plan."
Chapter 6 – Fault Lines in the Family
Saturday lunch at my parents' apartment smelled like chili oil and nostalgia.
The hotpot pot bubbled in the center of the table, steam fogging the windows. My father hovered with a ladle, insisting everyone take "just one more" piece of meat. My mother fussed over side dishes. The local news murmured in the background.
Danny showed up late, as usual, hair damp from a rushed shower, laptop bag slung over his shoulder.
"Sorry, sorry," he said, dropping into a chair. "We pushed a hotfix this morning and—"
"No work at the table," my mother scolded. "You can code after you eat."
He grinned. "Yes, ma'am."
Ryan was already fishing for fish balls in the broth. Lily was scrolling on her phone surreptitiously under the table, thinking I didn't notice.
Alex poured tea, sliding my father his favorite cup without asking.
For a moment, it was easy to pretend nothing was wrong with the world.
Then the news anchor's voice cut through the familial noise.
"—images have been circulating online of strange lights in the night sky over several major cities. Experts suggest these may be related to ongoing ionospheric disturbances, but stress there is no immediate danger to the public—"
My mother clicked her tongue and muted the TV.
"Always something to scare people," she said. "Eat, eat. Before it gets cold."
I watched the silent footage replay on the screen: grainy videos of greenish curtains of light flickering over skyscrapers. Comments scrolling fast: #alieninvasion #worldending #nofilter.
Lily caught my eye, then glanced at the screen, then back to me.
"You saw that too?" she murmured.
"We'll talk later," I said softly.
She nodded, face shuttering.
My father, oblivious, lifted the ladle.
"Evie, more meat," he said. "You're too thin. Alex, you too. Working too hard, both of you."
"We're fine, Dad," I said, but accepted the extra slice anyway.
"So," my mother said, eyes bright. "This countryside place you're buying. Tell us everything."
There it was.
I set my chopsticks down.
"It's about an hour and a half out," I said. "Near the old mines. Good soil. River access. Lots of trees. I thought… it might be nice to have somewhere quiet. For weekends. For when you and Dad want to get away from the city."
Her face softened.
"You did this for us?" she said.
"Partly," I said. "Partly as an investment. But mostly… I think it would be good to have options. If something happens here."
Danny snorted.
"You sound like those prepper guys on YouTube," he said. "What, you think society's going to collapse because the sky's a little weird?"
"Danny," my mother chided. "Don't make fun of your sister."
"I'm not," he said, holding up his hands. "I'm just saying, if the world ends, my app won't matter anymore, so I might as well enjoy the grind while it lasts."
He grinned, but there was a flicker of uncertainty in his eyes. He'd seen the same videos. Read the same headlines.
"Humor is a coping mechanism," the System noted dryly.
[FAMILY MEMBER: DANNY SHEN]
[ADAPTABILITY: HIGH]
[DENIAL: MODERATE]
[SURVIVAL PROBABILITY (ASSISTED): 78%]
"I don't think the world's going to end," I said, choosing my words carefully. "But I do think it's…smart to have a place with clean water, land, and some distance from the chaos. Natural disasters, power outages, anything."
"You've been reading too many disaster novels," my father said, but his tone was fond. "Still, countryside is good. I grew up in the country. Your mother too. Maybe when you're all tired of your city jobs, we'll go and grow vegetables together."
He laughed, imagining a retirement fantasy.
He had no idea how close that was to my plan.
"Speaking of vegetables," my mother said, brightening. "Will there be space for a garden? I've always wanted to grow my own chili peppers again."
"There will be plenty of space," I said. "Actually, I was thinking… once things are set up, maybe you could move there. At least part-time. Less pollution. Fewer stairs."
She waved a hand.
"Oh, I'm not that old," she said. "And we have friends here. The market. Your mahjong aunties."
The System pulsed.
[RELOCATION RESISTANCE: 64%]
[RECOMMENDATION: SLOW ACCLIMATION]
"Not now," I said quickly. "In a few months. Just… keep it in mind."
She eyed me.
"You sound serious," she said.
"I am," I replied.
We ate in relative silence for a few minutes.
Then Lily spoke up.
"Grandma," she said, "if Mom buys a farm, can we have goats?"
Ryan's head snapped up.
"Goats?" he squeaked. "For real?"
My mother laughed.
"Why not?" she said. "When I was your age, we had chickens and ducks and one very bad-tempered goat."
"See?" Lily said. "Grandma approves. We should all move. I'll run the goat division."
Ryan thumped the table, eyes shining.
"I'll build a space base on the farm," he declared. "We'll be the first farm in space."
Alex chuckled.
"Ambitious."
As they spun fantasies about goats and treehouses and "space farms," the tension in the room eased.
I let them talk, adding comments here and there, painting the base in gentle colors: sunsets, fresh air, a big kitchen, a garden.
I didn't mention reinforced walls. Or watchtowers. Or how many cubic meters of storage we'd need for water if the river turned poisonous.
Later, as we were leaving, Danny pulled me aside in the hallway.
"Hey," he said, voice lower. "You really think things are going to get…bad?"
I studied his face.
"In our lifetime?" I asked. "Yes."
He shifted, uneasy.
"And this land thing," he said. "It's not just a retirement dream, is it?"
"No," I said. "It's a contingency. A serious one."
He blew out a breath.
"Alright," he said. "You've got this look in your eye like when you told me to sell that stock before it crashed. I'll trust your crazy. Just… tell me when it's actually time to pack a bag, okay?"
Warmth spread through my chest.
"I will," I said.
The System chimed.
[DANNY SHEN – TRUST LEVEL: INCREASED]
[EVACUATION COMPLIANCE LIKELIHOOD: 82%]
[+10 SURVIVAL POINTS]
SP: 115.
As we stepped out into the hallway, the muted TV in the living room flickered.
The same silent footage of green auroras played again, looping.
The sky above the city, already changing.