"I’m so sorry," I said, extending my hand.
She took it. Her grip was surprisingly firm for soone who had just been knocked down by a box. She rose smoothly, brushing dust from her clothes with quick, precise motions, the kind of practiced elegance that ca from years of being watched. The sunglasses had slipped down her nose. She pushed them back up with one finger, and in that half-second I caught sharp, dark eyes underneath, assessing in return.
She reached for the box. I had it before she could, lifting it easily.
"I’ve got it. Where does it go?"
She looked at over the rim of her sunglasses, the expression of soone who had been assessed and was now doing the sa.
"Third floor," she said.
"Going up anyway," I said, which was a lie dressed as convenience.
I started up the stairs. She followed behind , footsteps light. We reached the third floor landing. She passed , key already in hand, and opened the door. I carried the box inside.
The apartnt was full of unopened boxes stacked against the walls. None of them had been touched yet. She had just arrived.
First day.
"I’m Abram," I said, setting the box down.
She smiled, small and careful. "Catarina."
She said it the way people say nas they had decided to use. Smoothly. Without hesitation.
"Catarina," I repeated, tasting the lie. "Nice to et you, Cat."
"Full na, please," she said politely but clearly.
"Thank you, Abram," she added, a dismissal dressed as gratitude.
"First ti seeing you in the building," I said.
"Just moved in."
"Need a hand with the boxes?"
"No, thanks."
I turned toward the stairs. "Second floor if you need anything."
I started down.
"Abram."
I walked back up.
"I’ll need your help actually," she said, stepping deeper into the apartnt.
I followed.
Boxes were everywhere. She handed a set of curtains, dark, thick, heavy fabric chosen specifically to block light.
Avoiding sunlight, I thought as I carried a chair to the window, stepped up, and started fixing the rail. The material was dense in my hands. When the curtains were up, the apartnt went considerably darker. She turned on a lamp.
I walked toward the door.
"You’re not from the capital," I said.
"True," she replied, following out.
"You’re young to be living alone."
She smiled, the kind of smile that said you don’t know anything, and caught up with at the doorway. She held out a bronze card.
"Thank you, Abram," she said.
"I’m good," I said, not taking it. "It was nothing."
I turned and went down the stairs, boots quiet on the steps, feeling her eyes on my back until I reached my own floor.
I opened my apartnt door and stepped inside.
A woman on the third floor was now a mission. A woman on the fourth floor was becoming sothing I didn’t have a clean word for yet. And sowhere across the city, School Central waited with everything I had left unfinished before the plain had swallowed two weeks of my life.
A gold card sat on the couch, CGI’s welco gift. Two of them, actually. The specific generosity of an institution that wanted you functional and available. I picked one up, slid it into my pocket, locked the door behind with a solid click, and went downstairs.
Three days off. No mission. No briefing. No Bala standing at the head of a circle handing out assignnts.
School Central, I thought, pushing through the building’s front doors into the capital morning.
The air outside was crisp and sharp, carrying the low hum of traffic and distant voices. I flagged a taxi. The car pulled over smoothly.
The driver was female, quiet, with a passing resemblance to rcury that made look twice, sa sharp jawline, similar posture behind the wheel. The resemblance hit harder than I expected, pulling up the specific absence of soone who had driven through a forsaken city, a sandstorm, a field of infected, and had kissed in a parked car in the dark.
I settled into the back seat. The leather was cool against my back.
The capital moved past the windows in a steady stream, gleaming buildings rising high, crowds flowing along sidewalks, the specific alive rhythm of a city that had no idea what happened outside its walls to keep it standing.
Sunlight glinted off glass towers and polished cars. I watched it all and thought about Carrise Vale on the third floor, her thick curtains and her false na.
Good, I thought, leaning my head back against the seat.
The taxi carried deeper into the capital, the streets growing busier, School Central drawing closer with every block.
"What exactly are you going to do at Central?" the driver asked, catching my eyes in the rearview mirror.
I didn’t answer.
"Are you one of those who pay not to—" She stopped herself mid-sentence. "Rumors say things."
"I have friends there," I said.
"Then you must be from a rich family."
"Yes," I said, because it was easier than the truth.
She accepted it and kept driving, the city sliding past the windows in a blur of glass and steel.
Then the car slowed. People had spilled into the road ahead, faces turned upward toward a massive screen mounted on the side of a towering building. The driver pulled over without asking and stared at it with the focused attention of soone who already knew what this ant.
"That’s Riya," she said, voice hushed with reverence. "She only speaks publicly when the Life Layer is threatened."
I leaned forward between the seats.
The screen showed her clearly. Blue hair. Flawless, almost porcelain skin. A face that hadn’t aged since the forest vision in Eleanor’s bathtub, four won sitting in a circle in the leaves, hands joined, making a decision that would kill the world.
Riya Belmonte. Alive. Standing before the capital.
"The Life Layer grew weak," she said, her voice warm and perfectly modulated, carrying through the street speakers like velvet wrapped around steel. "The walls were in danger of being penetrated. But I tell you today that the Life Layer is functioning again. We are safe."
The street erupted.
People cheered, fists pumping, strangers hugging, relief washing across faces in visible waves. A woman nearby wiped tears from her eyes. A man lifted his child onto his shoulders so the boy could see. They moved off the road one by one, carrying the hope she had given them back into their ordinary lives like sothing precious.
They keep them with hope, I thought, watching them disperse. Fear first. Then relief. Then gratitude. Repeat until the walls beco the only thing they can imagine.
The driver shouted with the rest of them, fists raised, face flushed with joy, then pulled back into traffic. She kept talking the whole way, about Riya, about the walls, about how lucky they all were, with the fierce pride of soone who had been given a story and had made it her own.
I watched the screen until it disappeared behind us, Riya’s flawless face shrinking to a bright rectangle in the distance.
Source two.
The School Central gate ca into view ahead, tall and imposing, the familiar symbol etched into the stone. The taxi slowed to a stop at the entrance.
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