Day 115. 06:15 hours.
Forbes Park.
Peacock Mansion.
Level 5.
The Gymnasium.
The L5 Gymnasium smelled like sweat and copper and the mustiness of recycled air that had passed through too many lungs and too many hours of exertion.
The mats were old — salvaged from a defunct gymnasium in Makati, their foam cores compressed by weeks of use, their surfaces scarred by feet and knees and the repeated impact of bodies hitting the ground.
The lighting was functional but not warm — a row of LED strips bolted to the ceiling, their cold white illumination casting shadows that sharpened every angle of the room into something harder and more unforgiving than it actually was.
Gabby was already there when Ji-yoo arrived.
She stood at the center of the mat in a ready stance — feet shoulder-width apart, knees bent, weight distributed on the balls of her feet, hands raised to chest height with the fingers curled but not clenched.
Her breathing was controlled, deliberate.
Her eyes were fixed on the far wall, unfocused, reading nothing and everything.
She was eighteen years old.
A computer science student — Patient Eight from the Pasig facility, one of the eleven rescued women, the one who had been assigned to Mei's command station because she could code and because Mei needed an assistant.
She weighed perhaps fifty-two kilograms.
And she was, in Jae-min's assessment, the most naturally gifted non-Enhanced fighter in the compound.
She was also furious.
Not the loud, explosive fury that manifested in shouting or throwing things.
Gabby's anger was quieter — a sustained, controlled burn that lived behind her eyes and surfaced only in the sharpness of her movements, the intensity of her focus, and the way she threw herself at every training exercise as if the mat was an enemy she could defeat through sheer repetition.
Ji-yoo had seen it before.
She had lived it before.
And it was the reason she had chosen Gabby as her student.
Gabby could not manifest Soulbound Weapon.
She was not Enhanced.
The doctors had checked, Mei had run the diagnostics, and the results were unequivocal: Gabby was baseline human.
She could not generate the dimensional blade that Ji-yoo wielded.
She could not feel the gravity-shift that Ji-yoo used to read the ground.
She could not move at Enhanced speed or strike with Enhanced force.
But she could learn.
That was what Ji-yoo had decided, four weeks ago, standing in this same Gymnasium and watching Gabby throw punches at the heavy bag with a form that was raw and undisciplined but carried an unmistakable core of instinctive talent.
The footwork was wrong — too wide, too flat, the weight on the heels instead of the balls of the feet — but the timing was right.
The angles were right.
The way Gabby rotated her hips into the punch, transferring power from the ground through her core and into her fist, was the technique of someone who had figured out the mechanics of striking not through instruction but through the desperate, survival-driven necessity of making every blow count.
Ji-yoo had seen that kind of talent before.
In herself, at Gabby's age.
Before the Enhancement.
Before Soulcleaver.
Before everything that had made her into what she was now, there had been a girl who had fought because fighting was the only language she knew, the only skill that had ever made her feel like more than a victim waiting to happen.
"Footwork," Ji-yoo measured, low, stepping onto the mat, her dark eyes on Gabby's stance.
Gabby's eyes snapped to her.
The ready stance did not change — she held it with the discipline of someone who had been holding it for twenty minutes already, waiting.
"Again," Ji-yoo directed, low, her hand flicking forward.
Gabby moved.
She crossed the mat in three quick steps — a lateral shuffle that kept her weight low and her center of gravity stable, the balls of her feet pressing and releasing against the mat in a rhythm Ji-yoo had been drilling into her for four weeks.
It was good.
It was better than last week.
But the third step was a fraction too long — her right foot drifted past the optimal position by maybe four centimeters, enough to create a momentary imbalance a skilled opponent could exploit.
Ji-yoo did not speak.
She moved.
She crossed the distance between them in the space between one heartbeat and the next — not Enhanced speed, just the efficient movement of someone who had been fighting long enough to eliminate every unnecessary motion.
Her hand caught Gabby's extended wrist and redirected it, using the four-centimeter error in Gabby's footwork to pivot her off-balance.
Gabby stumbled — caught herself — and reset to the ready stance in under a second.
"Third step," Ji-yoo measured, low, her dark eyes on Gabby's feet.
"I know," Gabby returned, low, breathless, frustrated, her jaw tight.
"Then fix it," Ji-yoo directed, low, stepping back.
Gabby moved again.
Lateral shuffle.
Three steps.
This time the third step was precise — her foot landing exactly where Ji-yoo had drilled it, her weight balanced, her stance solid.
Ji-yoo did not redirect.
She nodded.
"Again," Ji-yoo directed, low.
The training continued.
Ji-yoo demonstrated a technique — a defensive roll, a weight transfer, a method of reading an opponent's center of gravity by watching the alignment of their shoulders and hips.
Gabby replicated it.
Ji-yoo corrected.
Gabby improved.
The cycle repeated, over and over, the two women moving across the mat in a wordless dialogue that communicated more through motion than language ever could.
This was how their sessions always went.
Ji-yoo did not explain the philosophy behind the techniques.
She demonstrated.
Gabby watched.
Gabby tried.
Ji-yoo corrected.
The instruction was physical, immediate, and relentlessly demanding — Ji-yoo accepted nothing less than perfection, and Gabby gave nothing less than everything.
Ji-yoo called a break after ninety minutes.
Gabby collapsed onto the edge of the mat, her chest heaving, her arms trembling with the accumulated fatigue of high-intensity training.
She drank water from a canteen in small, controlled sips — another thing Ji-yoo had taught her.
Hydration management.
Breath control.
The small disciplines that separated a fighter from a brawler.
Ji-yoo sat beside her.
Not close — not within arm's reach — but near enough that the two women could see each other's faces without turning their heads.
The Gymnasium was quiet except for the hum of the ventilation system and the distant, muffled sounds of the compound waking up around them.
Day 115 was beginning.
Gabby was the first to speak.
She usually was.
"Why are you teaching me?" Gabby asked, low, her dark eyes on the mat, her canteen between her knees.
The question was direct, unadorned, stripped of the social softening that most people would have wrapped around it.
Gabby did not do social softening.
She had not done it before the facility, and the facility had not taught it to her afterward.
Ji-yoo considered the question.
She had been expecting it.
She had been expecting it for weeks — ever since she had first seen Gabby hit the heavy bag and recognized the fierce, desperate energy behind every punch.
"Because you remind me of someone," Ji-yoo measured, low, her dark eyes on the far wall.
"Who?" Gabby pressed, low, her eyes turning to Ji-yoo.
Ji-yoo was quiet for a moment.
The ventilation hummed.
The compound breathed around them.
"Me," Ji-yoo laid out, low, after a pause, her dark eyes still on the wall. "At your age. Before I learned to be strong."
Gabby stared at her.
In the cold white light of the Gymnasium, her face was a study in conflicting emotions — surprise, confusion, and something else, something deeper that Ji-yoo recognized because she had worn it herself, years ago, when someone had first looked at her and seen something other than a problem to be managed or a victim to be pitied.
It was recognition.
The recognition of a survivor seeing themselves reflected in another survivor's eyes and understanding, for the first time, that they were not alone in the fury that drove them.
Gabby did not cry.
She was past crying — had been past it since the facility, since the van, since the moment a seventeen-year-old girl walking home from school had been forced to confront the fact that the world contained people who would take her and break her and use her, and that no one was coming to save her except herself.
She had fought in the van.
Ji-yoo had seen the evidence in the way Gabby moved — the instinctive defensive positioning, the automatic guard when someone approached from behind, the flinch-and-recover response that spoke of a body that had learned to protect itself before the mind could process the threat.
Ji-yoo saw all of it.
She saw it because she had lived it.
Gabby had been the youngest of four siblings.
Two older brothers, one older sister.
A mother who worked as a seamstress in a shop in Santa Mesa.
A father who drove a jeepney and came home smelling of diesel and sweat.
Gabby had been a third-year computer science student at Mapua — good grades, no particular ambitions beyond getting through the day and maybe, someday, building software that mattered.
Then a van had pulled up.
She had been walking home from school — a fifteen-minute walk down a street she had walked a thousand times, past the sari-sari store on the corner, past the basketball court where the older boys played every afternoon, past the church with its peeling paint and its door that was always open.
The van had been white.
Unremarkable.
Two men.
Masks.
Gloves.
The door had slid open and hands had reached out and Gabby had fought.
She had fought hard.
Ji-yoo could see it in the way Gabby moved — the way her hands came up automatically when someone entered her space, the way her weight shifted to her back foot in preparation for a defensive retreat.
The way her eyes tracked movement with the hyperaware vigilance of someone who had learned, in the most brutal possible classroom, that threats could come from anywhere and at any time.
She had drawn blood.
One of the men had a scar on his forearm where Gabby had bitten him — hard, deep, the kind of bite that said I will not go quietly and I will make you pay for every inch you take from me.
They had subdued her eventually.
They were bigger, stronger, and there were two of them.
But she had made them work for it.
The facility had broken her body.
It had not broken her spirit.
Ji-yoo understood this because it was her own story, transposed into a different key.
The same fierce, protective energy.
The same refusal to be a victim.
The same redirection — not destruction, but transformation.
The facility had taken something from Gabby, just as it had taken something from Ji-yoo, just as it had taken something from every woman who had passed through its corridors.
But it had also given something back.
It had given them a reason to fight.
A target for the fury that burned inside them.
For Ji-yoo, that outlet was Soulcleaver.
For Gabby, it was this — the Gymnasium, the mat, the endless repetition of techniques that transformed raw, instinctive talent into something sharper and more disciplined.
Footwork.
Positioning.
How to read an opponent's center of gravity.
How to defend.
How to evade.
How to survive.
"Break is over," Ji-yoo directed, low, standing.
Gabby stood.
The trembling in her arms had stopped — she had recovered during the brief rest, her body's stamina improving week by week as the training pushed her physical limits further.
She moved back to the center of the mat and assumed the ready stance.
Ji-yoo demonstrated the next technique — a defensive roll that transitioned into a standing strike position.
It was one of Ji-yoo's signature movements, a technique she had developed over years of Enhanced combat and refined into something that was, in its essential mechanics, executable by a non-Enhanced fighter.
The roll absorbed the impact of a fall or a throw, redistributing the kinetic energy through the body's largest muscle groups.
The transition from roll to standing was the critical element — it required precise weight transfer, core engagement, and the kind of spatial awareness most people took years to develop.
Gabby watched.
Then she tried.
The first attempt was clumsy — she rolled too far, her momentum carrying her past the optimal recovery point, and she came up off-balance.
Ji-yoo shook her head.
"Again," Ji-yoo directed, low.
The second attempt was better — the roll was tighter, the energy transfer more efficient, but the transition was still slow.
"Faster. You are thinking about it. Stop thinking," Ji-yoo pressed, low, her dark eyes on Gabby's core.
The third attempt was worse — the overcorrection sending Gabby sprawling on the mat, her elbow hitting the floor with a dull thud.
The fourth.
The fifth.
The sixth.
On the seventh attempt, Gabby moved through the roll with a fluidity Ji-yoo had not seen from her before.
The energy transfer was seamless — the momentum of the roll flowing through her core, into her legs, and up through her torso in a single, continuous motion that brought her to her feet in the same instant the roll ended.
Her hands came up to the ready position.
Her weight was balanced on the balls of her feet.
Her eyes were forward, focused.
The stance she assumed was identical to Ji-yoo's own ready stance.
Not a copy — an organic replication, the body finding the same optimal position through a different path of learning but arriving at the same destination.
Ji-yoo stared.
Gabby held the stance.
She did not move, did not speak, did not break the position.
She stood there in the center of the mat, small and fierce and absolutely still, her body aligned in the geometry of combat readiness with a precision Ji-yoo herself would have been proud of.
The silence in the Gymnasium was complete.
Then Ji-yoo smiled.
It was a small smile — barely visible, just the faintest upward curve of the lips.
But it was real.
It was the first smile she had given Gabby in four weeks of training, the first crack in the mask of demanding instructor, the first acknowledgment that the student had crossed a threshold from potential to competence.
Gabby saw it.
Her eyes widened — surprise, then something warmer, something that looked almost like pride.
Not the pride of accomplishment, but the deeper pride of someone who had been seen.
Recognized.
Acknowledged by the one person whose acknowledgment mattered.
"Good," Ji-yoo allowed, low, her dark eyes on Gabby.
One word.
It carried more weight than any lecture, any explanation, any demonstration Ji-yoo had delivered in the previous four weeks.
Gabby's chin lifted.
Her shoulders squared.
The fierce, burning energy behind her eyes flared brighter for a moment, then settled into something steadier, more controlled.
She was still furious.
She would always be furious.
The anger was not a phase — it was a part of her, woven into the fabric of her being as thoroughly as her brown eyes or her black hair or the scar on the inside of her left wrist where the facility's restraints had bitten into her skin during the worst of the nights.
But now the fury had a direction.
Now it had a form.
Now it lived in the precision of her footwork and the alignment of her stance and the fluid mechanics of a defensive roll that ended in a ready position that was, in every meaningful respect, identical to the one used by one of the most dangerous Enhanced fighters in the frozen city of Metro Manila.
— • • • —
Day 115. 08:00 hours.
Level 5.
The Gymnasium.
Ji-yoo dismissed Gabby for breakfast.
Gabby grabbed her towel, her canteen, and followed Ji-yoo out of the Gymnasium toward the Piano Lift — the lift that connected L5 to the Ground Floor, the one beside the Steinway, designated for L4 and L5 access only.
In the lift, Ji-yoo's hand found the railing.
Her dark eyes on the floor indicator.
The on of a woman whose mind was already on the next thing — and the next thing, always, was Jae-min.
Gabby watched her.
The watching of a student watching a teacher for cues she did not yet know how to read.
The lift opened on the Ground Floor.
The Atrium.
The Steinway.
And Jae-min — standing at the dining table with a cup of coffee, his black eyes on a tablet, his spatial awareness already mapping the compound around him.
Ji-yoo changed.
The change was not dramatic.
It was not visible to anyone who did not know her.
But Gabby — who had spent four weeks learning to read bodies, to read stances, to read the alignment of shoulders and hips for intent — Gabby saw it.
Ji-yoo's spine straightened.
Not the military straight of the Gymnasium.
A different straight — the straight of a woman whose center of gravity had just shifted toward the nearest object, the straight of a compass needle finding north.
Her shoulders dropped a centimeter — the tension of the instructor leaving, replaced by something softer, something that Gabby had not seen on Ji-yoo's body before.
Her dark eyes, which had been scanning and assessing and calculating for ninety minutes in the Gymnasium, went soft.
Soft.
The word landed in Gabby's mind like a stone in still water.
Ji-yoo — First Lieutenant Ji-yoo Del Rosario, rifle-scythe wielder, the woman who had just spent ninety minutes drilling Gabby into the mat with a face carved from marble — went soft.
At the sight of her brother.
"Jae-min," Ji-yoo called, low, her voice carrying a warmth Gabby had never heard in it, her feet already moving toward him across the Atrium.
Jae-min looked up.
His black eyes found Ji-yoo.
The found of a man whose spatial awareness had been tracking her heartbeat since she left the Gymnasium and who was, in this moment, not surprised to see her walking toward him but surprised, always, by the quality of her attention.
"Ji-yoo," Jae-min returned, low, his dark eyes on her.
Ji-yoo reached him.
She took the coffee cup from his hand — took it, not asked, the taking of a woman who had been sharing her brother's food and drink since after they were born and who was not, in this compound or any other, going to start asking permission now.
She drank.
She set the cup down.
She did not give it back.
Gabby stood at the lift entrance.
Watching.
The watching of a woman who had spent four weeks learning to read bodies and who was, in this moment, reading a body she did not understand.
Ji-yoo's body, around Jae-min, was a different body.
The marble was gone.
The instructor was gone.
The Lieutenant was gone.
What was left was something Gabby did not have a word for — a woman orbiting a man with the gravity of a moon around a planet, a woman whose every micro-movement was calibrated toward him, a woman whose dark eyes, when they landed on Jae-min, carried a heat that was not combat and not sisterhood and not anything Gabby had been taught to name.
Jae-min's hand came up.
His fingers found a strand of Ji-yoo's dark hair — the strand that always escaped her pony-tail, the strand that hung across her right eye when she trained, the strand that Jae-min's hand found and tucked behind her ear with the automatic gesture of a man who had been doing it since they were children.
Ji-yoo leaned into the touch.
The lean of a woman whose body had just been given permission to stop performing and who was, in this moment, taking that permission with both hands.
Gabby's breath caught.
The catch of a woman who had just seen something she was not supposed to see.
Not because it was wrong — but because it was private.
The private of two people who had been sharing a womb and a cockpit and a household and a name for thirty-four years and who were, in this moment, in the Atrium with coffee and a strand of hair, performing the intimacy of twins that the world did not get to watch.
But Gabby was watching.
And Gabby was learning.
And what Gabby was learning, in this moment, was not footwork or defensive rolls or the alignment of shoulders and hips.
What Gabby was learning was the way Ji-yoo looked at Jae-min.
The look.
The look of a woman whose brother was the center of her universe.
The look that said: this man.
This man is the reason.
This man is the point.
This man is the axis around which the rest of the world rotates, and I — Ji-yoo Del Rosario, rifle-scythe wielder, the woman who just drilled you into the mat for ninety minutes — I exist to stand beside him.
Gabby understood, in that moment, why Ji-yoo had chosen her.
Not because Gabby reminded Ji-yoo of herself.
That was true, but it was not the reason.
The reason was simpler.
The reason was: Ji-yoo needed someone to train because Ji-yoo could not be everywhere.
Ji-yoo could not stand beside Jae-min in every room, on every roof, in every frozen corridor of every abandoned building they raided.
Ji-yoo needed a subordinate.
Someone who could fight.
Someone who could protect Jae-min when Ji-yoo was not there.
Someone whose loyalty to Jae-min would be, like Ji-yoo's, absolute.
Ji-yoo was not just training Gabby to fight.
Ji-yoo was training Gabby to be an extension of herself — another pair of eyes on Jae-min, another pair of hands between Jae-min and the world, another body positioned between Jae-min and anything that would take him from her.
The bro-con.
The devotion of a sister whose brother was the sun and whose own gravity existed only because the sun existed.
Gabby had heard the term before — had seen it in anime, in manga, in the corners of the internet where such things were discussed.
She had never seen it in person.
She had never seen it walking toward her across an Atrium in a frozen compound, taking a man's coffee, leaning into his touch, looking at him with eyes that carried a heat that had no name.
She was seeing it now.
And the seeing was changing her.
The changing of a student who had just realized that her teacher was not teaching her to fight for fighting's sake.
Her teacher was teaching her to fight for Jae-min's sake.
And the distinction — the distinction between fighting for yourself and fighting for someone else — was landing in Gabby's chest like a fist.
Because Gabby had been fighting for herself since the van.
Fighting for survival.
Fighting for the satisfaction of making her body into something that could not be taken again.
But Ji-yoo was offering her something different.
Ji-yoo was offering her a target.
A direction.
A person worth fighting for who was not Gabby.
Jae-min.
The man with the coffee and the strand of hair and the spatial awareness and the four wives and the cousin on the way and the compound and the weapons and the void.
The man who had given Gabby a room and a purpose and a teacher.
The man who was, in Ji-yoo's eyes, the sun.
Gabby looked at Jae-min.
The looking of a woman who was, for the first time, seeing him not as the compound leader but as the thing Ji-yoo saw.
The axis.
The point.
The reason.
Jae-min felt the look.
His spatial awareness mapped Gabby's heartbeat — eighty-four, elevated, the rhythm of a woman whose chest had just been rearranged.
His black eyes moved from Ji-yoo to Gabby.
Held the look for one beat.
Then returned to his tablet.
He did not say anything.
He did not need to.
The look had been noted.
Filed.
The filing of a man whose spatial awareness tracked every heartbeat in the compound and who understood, with the understanding of a man who had been Ji-yoo's twin for thirty-four years, that his sister had just done something to Gabby that Ji-yoo had been doing to him since the day they were born.
She had given Gabby a sun.
"Sit," Ji-yoo directed, low, her dark eyes on Gabby, her hand still on Jae-min's coffee cup. "Breakfast. Then we train again."
"Copy," Gabby confirmed, low, her dark eyes on Jae-min, her heartbeat at eighty-four, her chest rearranged.
She sat.
At the dining table.
Across from Jae-min.
Beside Ji-yoo.
The beside of a woman who had just been given a position and who was not, in this moment, going to let it go.
Ji-yoo saw.
The saw of a woman who had just watched her student look at her brother with the first faint heat of devotion and who was, in this moment, satisfied.
The student was learning.
The student was becoming.
The student was, in the way that mattered, becoming Ji-yoo's — and through Ji-yoo's, Jae-min's.
Gabby ate her breakfast.
Her dark eyes on Jae-min.
Her heartbeat settling to seventy-two.
Her chest still rearranged.
The rearranged of a woman whose fury had just found a sun.
— • • • —
Day 115. 06:00 hours.
Level 5.
The Gymnasium.
Training day nineteen.
Progress.
"Stance. Strike. Block. Sweep. Reset," Rico directed, low, his dark eyes on the four women.
Thirty minutes.
Alessia — cuts shorter, the scalpel-hands translating to knife work that Rico acknowledged with a nod.
Jennifer — reading Rico's intention before he moved, the telepathy giving her an edge that was almost unfair, her blocks tightening.
Hua — clean, her thermal shimmer contained, her strikes landing with precision.
Yue — flowing through Murim hand forms that made Rico's jaw work, the swordmaster moving with the grace of a woman whose body had been trained for combat since childhood.
"Good. Progress. Done," Rico allowed, low, his hand on his hip.
— • • • —
Day 115. 06:45 hours.
Level 5.
The Gymnasium.
Paolo trained.
Progress.
Jae-min was building Paolo's body.
Twenty-nine days in.
The chubby, general relativity student who had arrived at the compound on Day One was changing — the softness hardening, the endurance building, the transformation of a man whose body was being forged by a Del Rosario.
"Push-ups. Thirty. Go," Jae-min directed, low, his dark eyes on Paolo's form.
Paolo dropped.
Thirty.
Clean.
His arms shaking on the last three but holding.
"Sit-ups. Thirty. Go," Jae-min pressed, low.
Thirty.
His abs burning.
His breathing controlled.
"Squats. Thirty. Go," Jae-min laid out, low.
Thirty.
His legs trembling but stable.
"Spear. Stance. Grip. Thrust. Reset," Jae-min directed, low.
Paolo's thrusts were loosening.
The mechanical quality was fading.
The fading of a man whose body was learning the language of the spear the way it had learned the language of general relativity — through repetition, through precision, through the devotion of a student who had decided that the body was a problem worth solving.
"Better. Progress," Jae-min allowed, low, his hand on Paolo's shoulder.
"Same time tomorrow," Paolo confirmed, low, his arms trembling, his Sailor Moon doll watching from the wall.
— • • • —
Day 115. 08:30 hours.
Level 5.
The Engineering Workshop.
ARTEMIS was taking shape.
Mark Jordan sat at the laptop, his amber eyes on the SOLIDWORKS screen.
The design was thirty-four percent complete.
The accelerator first-stage housing was fabricated — the YBCO bore shaped by Aiko, the external seams welded by Daniela, the thermal profile monitored by Lena.
The first stage sat on the workbench beside the laptop — a cylinder of superconducting ceramic and welded steel, the first physical component of a weapon that would fire ionized particles at orbital range.
Aiko was at the shaping station, her bare hands on the second-stage focusing array — the Metal Manipulation pressing copper into the magnetic coil geometry Mark Jordan had specified.
The geometry of a woman whose power was shaping a weapon she would never fire.
Daniela was at the welding station.
The TIG welder was running a bead on the second-stage housing — the argon shield holding, the weld zone at eight hundred forty degrees.
The TIG was hers now.
The MIG was backup.
The upgrade of a woman who had asked for a TIG welder and had received one and had, in the seventeen days since, made it an extension of her hand.
Lena was at the monitoring station, her mechanical fingers interfaced with the diagnostic ports, her golden-white eyes on the readout.
She had been on the rooftop this morning — five minutes, Jae-min at her side, the sky indigo and vast.
The vast of a woman who had been given the sky and who was, every morning, taking it.
"Professor," Daniela opened, low, her dark eyes on the weld pool. "Second-stage housing seam two complete. Tolerance holding. Ready for seam three."
"Proceed," Mark Jordan directed, low, his amber eyes on the screen. "Lena — thermal profile on seam three. Keep the zone at eight-forty or below."
"Copy," Lena confirmed, low, her golden-white eyes on the readout, her mechanical fingers on the diagnostic port.
[Mei]: "APOLLO plasma containment model is in review," Mei reported, low, from the L2 Command Deck via the intercom. "Initial geometry locked. Professor, the second-stage magnetic array needs your sign-off before I send it to fabrication."
"Review tonight," Mark Jordan directed, low. "ARTEMIS first. APOLLO second."
[Mei]: "Copy," Mei confirmed.
Jae-min stood in the Workshop doorway.
His dark eyes on the first stage — the physical component, the cylinder of ceramic and steel, the first piece of ARTEMIS that existed in the world and not just on a screen.
"Timeline?" Jae-min asked, low, his dark eyes on the first stage.
"Seven months, three weeks per platform," Mark Jordan laid out, low, his amber eyes on the screen. "ARTEMIS first. APOLLO second. First stage complete. Second stage fabrication: two weeks. Full platform integration: seven months, three weeks. We are ahead of schedule."
"Copy," Jae-min confirmed, low, his dark eyes on the Workshop.
He watched the first stage for another beat.
Then he turned and walked out.
— • • • —
Day 115. 10:00 hours.
Forbes Park.
Peacock Mansion.
The Rooftop.
The sky.
Four days.
Four mornings.
Four five-minute visits to the rooftop.
The ritual that had started on Day 111 — Jae-min keeping the promise he had made on Day 106, five days late, and then keeping it again the next day, and the next, and the next.
Lena asked.
Jae-min confirmed.
Every morning.
Five minutes.
The sky.
Lena stood at the rooftop access door.
Her thermal suit on.
Her mechanical fingers at her sides.
Her golden-white eyes on the door.
Her nacreous legs clicking softly against the floor.
She was not the same woman she had been four days ago.
The woman four days ago had been underground for nineteen days and had been waiting, quietly, for a promise to be kept.
The woman today had been on the rooftop four times.
The woman today had a ritual.
The woman today had something to wake up for that was not a containment shell readout.
Jae-min stood beside her.
His dark eyes on the door.
His spatial awareness mapping the rooftop beyond — the wind speed, the temperature, the structural integrity.
The mapping of a man who had done this four times and who was, in this moment, doing it again because Lena had asked and because the sky was not a gift but a debt and debts were paid daily.
"Five minutes," Jae-min laid out, low, his dark eyes on the door.
"Five minutes," Lena confirmed, low, her golden-white eyes on the door, her mechanical fingers clicking once.
He opened the door.
The cold hit them.
Minus seventy.
The wind.
The thermal exhaust rising.
The indigo sky above — the deep, absolute indigo of a sky that had not seen the sun in one hundred and fifteen days.
Lena stepped onto the rooftop.
Her nacreous legs on the frozen concrete.
Her golden-white eyes up.
The sky.
She looked at it the way she looked at it every morning — with the looking of a woman who had been underground and who was, for five minutes, not underground.
The looking did not get smaller.
The looking did not become routine.
The looking was, every morning, the same looking — the overwhelming, unbearable gift of seeing something that was not a ceiling.
Jae-min watched her.
The watching of a man whose spatial awareness tracked her heartbeat — sixty-two, elevated, the rhythm of a bionic body that was, in this moment, more human than it was any other time of day.
He had been watching her for four days.
Not the way he watched the compound — the tactical, spatial-awareness mapping of heartbeats and heat signatures and structural integrity.
The other watching.
The watching of a man who had started to notice things about a woman he had not noticed before.
The way she held her canteen — both mechanical hands around it, the fingers clicking softly, the clicking of a woman whose hands were bionic but whose gestures were still human.
The way she tilted her head when she was thinking — the tilt of a student, the tilt of a woman who had been a computer science major before the facility and who still, in the Workshop, tilted her head at problems the way she had tilted it at code.
The way she said his name — not Captain, not Jae-min Del Rosario, just Jae-min.
The way her golden-white eyes, when they found his, carried a trust that was not the trust of a subordinate for a commander but the trust of a younger person for an older one.
The trust of a sister.
The thought landed in Jae-min's mind and stayed there.
The trust of a sister.
Not Ji-yoo — Ji-yoo was his twin.
Not Alessia or Jennifer or Yue or Hua — those were his wives, his lovers, the women who shared his bed.
Elena Cortez was — Elena Cortez was something else, something he was not going to think about on this rooftop.
Lena was — Lena was the woman who had asked for the sky and who had been given the sky and who looked at him, every morning, with the trust of a woman who had been Patient Twelve and who was now, on this rooftop, someone else.
Someone who was becoming, in Jae-min's spatial awareness, the shape of a sister.
He did not say it.
He did not name it.
He did not tell Ji-yoo, or Alessia, or anyone.
The naming would come later, or it would not come at all.
But the shape was there.
In the four mornings.
In the five minutes.
In the way Lena's golden-white eyes found his when she stepped onto the rooftop and the way her mechanical fingers clicked once — not a report, not a confirmation, just a click.
The click of a woman who was, every morning, glad to see him.
The click of a sister.
Lena looked at the sky.
Five minutes.
The indigo.
The wind on her face.
The tears that froze on her lashes — not tears of sadness, not anymore.
Tears of the gratitude of a woman who had been given a ritual and who was, every morning, taking it.
Jae-min stood beside her.
His dark eyes on the sky.
His spatial awareness on her heartbeat.
Sixty-two.
Sixty.
Fifty-eight.
The rhythm of a woman who was, for five minutes, at peace.
He thought of Ji-yoo.
His twin.
The woman who had been beside him since before he was born.
The woman who was his moon.
He thought of the way Ji-yoo looked at him — the bro-con, the devotion, the moon.
And he thought of the way Lena looked at him — the trust, the ritual, the click.
They were not the same.
They would never be the same.
Ji-yoo was his twin.
Lena was — Lena was the woman he had given the sky to.
The woman whose mechanical fingers clicked when she saw him.
The woman whose golden-white eyes went soft, every morning, at the sight of the indigo vastness above her.
The woman who was, in the way that mattered, becoming his unofficial sister.
Lena's five minutes were up.
She did not look at him.
She looked at the sky one last second — the last-second of a woman storing the sight for the next twenty-three hours and fifty-five minutes — and then she turned.
"Thank you, Jae-min," Lena measured, low, her golden-white eyes on his, her mechanical jaw working, her voice the rebuilt-throat voice that was, in this moment, steady.
"Tomorrow," Jae-min returned, low, his dark eyes on her.
"Tomorrow," Lena confirmed, low, her mechanical fingers clicking once — the click of a woman who would be here tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that, for as long as the sky held and the man beside her kept the promise.
They went back inside.
The door closed.
The cold stayed outside.
The warmth of the compound rushed back in.
Lena stood in the stairwell.
Her thermal suit frost-covered.
Her golden-white eyes still wet.
Her mechanical fingers clicking softly.
She turned to Jae-min.
"Jae-min," Lena opened, low, her golden-white eyes on his, her mechanical jaw working.
"Hmm?" Jae-min returned, low, his dark eyes on her.
"Why?" Lena asked, low, her mechanical fingers clicking once. "Why do you bring me? Every morning. Why?"
Jae-min looked at her.
The looking of a man who had just been asked a question he had not yet answered for himself.
Why.
Why did he bring her.
Why did he keep the promise.
Why, every morning, did he open the rooftop door and stand beside a bionic woman in minus seventy for five minutes and watch her look at the sky.
Because she had asked.
That was the answer he had been giving himself for four days.
Because she had asked and he had promised and debts were paid.
But that was not the whole answer.
The whole answer was the shape.
The shape of a sister. The shape that had been forming in his spatial awareness for four mornings and that was, in this stairwell, becoming something he could almost name.
"Because you are mine," Jae-min laid out, low, his dark eyes on her.
The words landed.
Lena's mechanical fingers stopped clicking.
Her golden-white eyes on his.
The stillness of a woman who had just been claimed — not as a wife, not as a subordinate, not as a patient.
As something else.
Something that did not have a name yet but that was, in the stairwell of the Peacock Mansion on Day One Hundred and Fifteen, real.
The real of a man who had just told a bionic woman that she was his and who meant it the way he meant Ji-yoo — not the way he meant Alessia, not the way he meant Jennifer, not the way he meant Yue or Hua.
The way he meant family.
The way he meant blood.
The way he meant: you are mine, and I will bring you to the sky every morning for as long as the sky holds, because that is what family does.
Lena's golden-white eyes held his.
The mechanical jaw worked.
The rebuilt throat made a sound — not a word, just a sound.
The sound of a woman whose voice was trying to catch up to what her chest was feeling.
"Copy," Lena measured, low, her mechanical fingers clicking once — the click of a woman who had just been given a word and who was, in this moment, filing it in the same place she filed the sky.
She turned and walked toward the L2 Infirmary, her nacreous legs clicking on the stairs, her mechanical fingers at her sides, her golden-white eyes forward.
The bionic woman who had asked for the sky and had been given the sky and had now been given something else — a word, a claim, a place.
The place of an unofficial sister in a compound that had become, in one hundred and fifteen days, a family.
Jae-min watched her go.
His spatial awareness tracking her heartbeat all the way to the Infirmary — sixty-two, sixty, fifty-eight, fifty-six.
The rhythm of a woman who was, for the first time in twenty-three days, not waiting for anything.
Because she had been given tomorrow.
And the day after.
And the day after that.
And a word that meant: you are mine.
Day one hundred and fifteen.