When I finished explaining what had happened and what I wanted to do next, nobody said anything for a long moment. They just stared at me like they were trying to decide if I had finally snapped.

  Jess was the one who broke the silence. She looked tired enough to fall over, but she still managed to give us that look.

  “Okay. You can smoke,” she said, like she was granting permission for a crime.

  Shawn and I lit up immediately, but we were careful not to blow smoke in her direction. It hit me, briefly, how all of us had started treating Jess like some kind of mother figure, and how we were more worried about annoying her than we were about half the mobs we had fought.

  Siva was the first to ask what everyone was thinking.

  “Can we speak to her?”

  “Eva?” I said, already half-dreading the answer. “I don’t know. Let me ask.”

  I opened the chat window and Eva pinged me instantly, like she had been waiting to jump in. The answer was simple. She was bonded to me, and only me.

  I looked back at the three of them. “No. She says you can’t. She’s… bonded to me. Only me.”

  That earned another stretch of silence, and then the questions came. They kept circling back to the same thing. Do I trust her? Do I think she’s lying? What does she want? Is this some kind of system trick? Every time I tried to explain, Eva would chime in on my side of the chat, getting more and more annoyed at how my friends were talking about her like she was an infection.

  It turned into a miserable back-and-forth where I felt like a translator for something I barely understood myself.

  In the end, we landed where we always seemed to land lately.

  We didn’t have a choice.

  Jess confirmed it too, after she thought about it for a while. Whatever Eva was now, Jess couldn’t remove her. It wasn’t the kind of thing she could heal, cut out, or purge. It was just… there.

  Jess stood and walked around the table. She stopped behind me and smacked the back of my head lightly, not hard, but enough to make a point. Then she leaned forward and hugged me, quick and firm, like she was trying to keep me from drifting off somewhere dark.

  “You’re an idiot,” she said quietly. Then her voice softened. “But you’re our idiot, Chris. Now let’s work out the plan again, and I’ll try to figure out how not to get all of us killed in the process.”

  She went back to her seat like that was that.

  We talked through the plan again, properly this time.

  First, we still let Rajan’s people come in to help with system activation and training. New Jurong could not stay the way it was. They needed more people with classes, more people equipped, and more people who knew what they were doing the next time something came through the gates.

  While that was happening, Jess and Farah would lead an envoy to the other neutral settlements to propose the same setup. We were hoping what happened here would finally convince the others that staying passive was not going to keep them safe.

  Shawn and Shaheerah would do the same, just along a different route. We knew of at least three other settlements like New Jurong, and we needed to reach them as soon as we could.

  Siva was going to continue his bike lessons. I needed him mobile. I had a feeling we were going to need those riding skills before the end.

  Then there was my part, and I knew it was the part nobody liked, including me.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  I was going back into Temple territory under invisibility, with the goal of taking one of their guards or adherents alive. We needed information, and we needed something we could use. We couldn’t keep reacting to them. We had to start shaping the board.

  But that depended on Eric. It depended on how fast he and his friends could install the upgrade module, and whether he would agree to help with what came next. Based on how he handled our vehicles and how he reacted to the module, I knew he could do it. The harder part was getting him to commit.

  After that, we’ll move onto Phase two.

  When we finally stopped talking, I looked at the three of them across the table and felt something tighten in my chest.

  It was past midnight. We were sitting in a cemetery. Everyone was exhausted. And still they were here.

  Well done, Chris. It took the end of the world for you to start caring again.

  I pushed Amira’s voice down before it could get its hooks in.

  We were running on fumes by the time we made it back. Exhaustion, and the strange relief of having an actual plan, finally knocked me out for real.

  Morning came with a hot cup of coffee.

  I woke to Farah standing over me, holding it out with both hands like she was afraid I might refuse. I sat up, blinked the sleep out of my eyes, and took the cup. The heat against my palms felt almost unreal.

  “Thanks,” I murmured, managing a small smile.

  Around us, the settlement stirred into a fragile kind of normal. People climbed out of tents. Someone coughed.Shaheerah and Prema were already moving through the chaos with purpose, organising, counting, pointing, giving directions like they could stitch the place back together by force of will.

  Farah kept her voice low. “Most agreed to the training. Still a few holdouts, but… not many.”

  Before I could reply, the sound hit us.

  Engines. A lot of them.

  A convoy rolled through the broken gates of New Jurong. Cars, pickups, vans, then, absurdly, a couple of actual public buses, like the world had not ended and we were all just waiting for the morning commute.

  My team was already awake and moving by the time we reached the courtyard. Shaheerah, Frank, and Prema joined us, the remaining council forming up beside us as if this was a formal reception and not a handover to a gang of armed Rebels.

  One of the vans pulled up and stopped. A woman stepped out.

  She looked to be in her thirties, dressed simply in jeans, a shirt, and a jacket, but her hands were covered in steel gauntlets that looked heavy enough to break bone. I caught sight of Guitar Guy perched on the back of a pickup nearby. He gave me his now-customary two-finger salute. I nodded back.

  The woman walked up confidently to me. “Chris, I assume?”

  I nodded.

  “Rajan apologizes he couldn’t make it in person. I’ll be overseeing this. Linda.” She offered her hand.

  I was still trying to figure out how I was supposed to shake a gauntleted hand when the gauntlet blinked away into her inventory. Underneath were neatly manicured nails.

  What the hell.

  I shook her hand and introduced the others. Prema stepped in almost immediately and took charge, splitting people into groups, assigning roles, directing the first wave of trainees toward the buses and the staging areas. We let her take that part.

  The rest of us moved to our own pieces of the plan.

  I pulled Jess into a long hug before she left with Farah and a team of fighters. She squeezed back, quick and tight, then stepped away without looking at me for too long. Shawn caught my eye across the courtyard, already linking up with Shaheerah near another vehicle. He gave me a sharp nod. They were heading out to the other settlements.

  Then it was just me and Siva.

  We walked toward the parking area where the bikes were lined up and the Phantom was waiting.

  As I swung a leg over and settled my hands on the grips, Siva put a hand on my shoulder.

  “Be careful,” he said quietly. “I need you to come back.”

  I covered his hand with mine for a second, then gave it a light pat. I did not trust myself to say anything that would not come out wrong.

  The engine growled to life.

  I rode out through the gates of New Jurong while the Rebel vehicles behind me began peeling off in different directions, everyone chasing their own part of the plan.

  Outside, I took a right. After a few minutes, the noise faded until the road belonged to me again.

  Alone.

  No. Not alone.

  I opened my chat window as I rode.

  Chris: You ready for this, Eva?

  Eva: I’m with you, Chris. I’ll always be with you.

  Great. Not creepy at all.

  I kept my eyes on the road and aimed the bike back toward West Gate.