Ry cleared her throat. “I’ve been digging in the darknet, looking for chatter around the AI. Nothing concrete, but I did find a few strings of code that look like gibberish—but I believe it’s shorthand for wargame modules. Or maybe simulated trials.”
“Meaning someone’s testing the software,” Jupiter muttered.
“Not necessarily,” Ry added. “It could be chatter meant to make us spin our wheels. Anything’s possible.”
Jupiter sat down and pulled up a separate window. “I’m tracing handles from the boards. A few names keep popping up. Could be aliases. Could be nothing. But we’re following every breadcrumb.”
Kawan watched them all work—Specs chewing on her hoodie strings, Ry tapping away like the keyboard owed her money, Jupiter toggling between tabs with speed only obsession could generate. Kawan felt both a bone-deep gratitude and a gut-level dread. They were doing everything they could.
But what if it wasn’t enough?
He turned to leave, pulling open the door, the early evening sun spilling in. Before he could step out, Specs’ voice stopped him.
“Kawan?”
He glanced back.
She stood in the doorway behind him, arms crossed, vulnerable. “I never said thank you. For bringing me here. For caring enough to drag me out of that spiral.”
“You don’t need to thank me.”
“I do. Because I wouldn’t have made it, not if I stayed back there. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t even think. But here? At least, I can function.”
Kawan stepped closer. “You don’t have to be okay. You just have to keep yourself open to being okay.”
She nodded, swallowing hard. Then she added, quieter, “I’m worried about Lark.”
“I know. So am I.”
“She’s been drowning in work for the past two years. Like she couldn’t stop, like something was chasing her. This... might be the thing that breaks her. That convinces her she really is alone.”
Kawan’s jaw tightened. “I’m not gonna let that happen.”
Specs gave him a nod, one that said she believed him. Hoped he was right.
He stepped off the porch, the crunch of gravel beneath his boots suddenly sounding like thunder in the distance.
Because it wasn’t just a storm on the horizon.
It had already begun.
The apartment was quiet. Too quiet.
No big belly laughs from her father. No giggles from her mother while she danced around the kitchen making breakfast.
Lark blinked into the shadows, the familiar peeling wallpaper and flickering ceiling light barely visible past the haze of hunger and fear. Her feet were cold against the cracked linoleum. She sat on the floor in the kitchen, knees pulled to her chest, arms wrapped tight around her middle. Her tummy growled, and her throat burned from crying.
The fridge still hummed. The neighbor's TV blared through the walls. All the shades were drawn shut, but she knew it was daytime since the sun peeked through the sides.
Hours bled into each other, stitched together by whimpering and cold Pop-Tarts she couldn't heat because she wasn’t allowed to use the toaster without help. Her fingers were sticky. She wanted to be brave. She had been brave.
But bravery didn’t tell her where her parents were.
The bang at the door jolted her. She crawled under the table, clutching a plush bear missing one eye. The bear smelled like Mama’s perfume. Like something safe.
When the door creaked open, bright light spilled in. A uniformed man stepped inside, muttering a soft curse under his breath.
“Hello,” he whispered. “Baby girl… where are you?”
