V – The Sound of Glass and Prayer
Kaodin's POV
The air tasted of scorched metal and something chemical, irritating enough to make his eyes bleeding red and water. Kaodin while trying to cover his face with his clothe wrapped fist, it was not much of help.
Kaodin shoved a fractured slab aside, openning the entrance into Mrs. Hong's family quarter, Xiao Ying work station, something crackling out, a blue sparkle almost like electricity, but the sound loud wasnt the high-pitch jizzle, but a low-thodding, like something was droppped down repeatedly.
As he pushed through the entrance, his throat tightened at a familiar scent - Mrs. Hong's cooking, but now threaded through the scorched metal smell, cutting into the back of his throat, and his stomach clenched against it before his lungs gave out in a rough, involuntary cough. then he noticed brownish and dried broth forming a spllattered area covering with orange carrot and yellowish mush of some kind and some meat where the pot tipped off right before the stove.
Kaodin called out across the wreckage, voice scraping against the chemical-thick air. Wawa moved ahead in spectral form, nose angled low, each paw placed with deliberate slowness. Then the cub's head lifted. The nose worked in short pulls, body drawing upright before dropping flat and cutting left, threading through the debris toward the rear of the workshop.
"You notice something, Wawa?", he asked, as he followd after close by. and then
Wawa's form flickered blue, then intensified. The cub's head snapped up, ears forward. A faint pulse of heat emanated from deeper in the wreckage, accompanied by the sound of shifting debris.
"Mrs. Hong?" Kaodin called out, voice raw from the chemical-laden air. "Xiao Ying? Cee-Too?"
He pressed forward, following Wawa into what had been an immaculate cream-yellow bathroom. Dust coated every surface. Debris blocked the threshold. The overhead lamp hung shattered. A broken thorium conduit sparked blue at irregular intervals along the far wall. Wawa's glow didn't adjust like a lamp. The faint light around his frame barely kept Kaodin from stumbling over the uneven floor.
Then right outside of what seems like a large shaft door, Wawa began hurling his tail while crept low, almost like he was observing whether if what he had noticed were hostile to his master or not, then he jottled toward the back of the large shaft door.
He staggered to his feet, half-blinded by dust. "Xiao Ying, is that you?".
The cub's tongue brushed her cheek, faint blue light trailing from the contact, heat residue splash of light more than organic touch of flesh. Then Kaodin moved in, he quickly picked her up, Xiao Ying with her usual long white dress with flowery pattern along the lower part of the blouser now greyish, and brown, her face and hair was dusted and slightly stained on the face.
"Xiao Ying", He called again as he shaked her slightly. then he began to look around to see if there are anyone else, but before he would ever needed to call out, Wawa worked the magic again, by the back, within the fell-off shower booth. Mrs. Hong's left metallic hand, now dusted, and slightly crackled by the elbow part, but unfazed. She called, "Kaodin, boy, how's Xiao Ying."
"Mr. Hong", Kaodin turned toward her immediately, "She's breathing, but unconscious"
"Wawa can you try licking her again."
Then Wawa turned from Mrs. Hong, ears swiveling once toward her before padding back to Kaodin's side. Mrs. Hong stared. Her free hand rose, shoulder lifting to rub her eyes against it, grit scraping across her lid. She blinked. The cub, luminous and compact, tail curling at the tip. Her mouth opened, then closed. She wiped her eyes a second time, slower, as though the problem was with the dust and not with the absence an answer she could hardly find.
Wawa pressed close to Xiao Ying's cheek. His head tilted, muzzle angling inward. Then came the flicker—soft blue pulses where tongue might have been.
Xiao Ying let out a small, breathy giggle, the sound half-formed and soft like a dream clinging to her. She opened her eyes slowly; her shoulder twitched and her hand went to the hollow of her neck, fingers skimming on her cheek.
The air tasted of copper and burnt plastic. Xiao Ying's fingers brushed her cheek where the warmth had been. Her voice came out cracked. "Um… you came, Kaodin...so the reroute. Wasn't it held?"
"I—I have no clues what are you talking about.", Kaodin smiked, but your mother….
Before he had finished it, a voice called out,
"Ying!"
Kaodin helped Xiao Ying upright. She braced against his arm, gaze sweeping the wreckage, adjusting to the dim flicker of failing circuits. She hadn't seemed to notice Wawa yet. The cub stood near the doorframe, luminous and still, head tilted as though learning the shape of the other living human, acquantances to his master.
Mrs. Hong's shout came from behind the collapsed doorframe. The heavy shaft had buckled inward, blocking her view entirely.
"I'm here!" Xiao Ying's voice came from beneath a tilted support frame. Kaodin dropped to his knees, bracing the beam while Mrs. Hong pulled the girl out. Xiao Ying clung to her mother, coughing but alive.
As Kaodin helped pulling Mrs. Hong out, he noticed, her complexion doesnt looks too good. But he didnt know what to say, he was too young to give any comment on adults anyway, that's so unpolite for his teaching. As he gazed outward and into what seems like a weird entrance, he was family with this workshop for a few months now, using this bathroom everyday, thus he didnt recognize there is this secret chamber. Kaodin began imagin, perhaps this was a place holding a secret, something like a mysterious secret trope he had seen in some movies or cartoons. However, as his gaze creapt in, he noticed a dimming blue light within the room, then as he focused his sight, "Cee-Too", he called.
The boy's gaze lifted toward Mrs. Hong. The skin beneath her eyes had gone tight, color rising along the rims, her jaw working against something she refused to let out.
A weight pressed against his chest, Kaodin felt familiar throb he had carried once before, in another time entirely.
The room stretched ahead. Bare cement walls. Narrow slits near the ceiling allowed crimson light to angle inward, striping the floor. In the far corner, beneath the faint illumination, sat Cee-Too.
He sat slumped against the wall, face down, a portable terminal propped across his lap, its monitor gone dark. The golden hair hung limp, the pale western-and-asian complexion of his face still finely shaped but slack, that hand-molded look of his face that always carried a smile now still and expressionless. His yellow cartoonish shirt was gone entirely. Only the short blue pants remained intact. The exposed alloy framing ran along his ribs and shoulders—precision-cut edges, interlocking plates sized for a body no taller than Kaodin's own. On the right side of his chest, a faint blue glow pulsed, dim and irregular.
Kaodin took a step forward. Wawa darted past him, positioning himself between the boy and the motionless figure.
"Cee-Too…" Kaodin whispered, crawling closer.
Cee-Too's head turned weakly. His voice came static-thin. "Kao… did… did we keep them safe?"
Kaodin's throat tightened. "Yeah. You were amazing Everyone's safe."
A flicker of light danced behind the boy's irises, an echo of a smile. "Good… balance maintained…" The glow dimmed.
"Stay with me." Kaodin reached forward, gripping Cee-Too's shoulder. The surface felt cool, synthetic. His other hand hovered above the faint glow at his chest. "Hey. We should spar again. I don't have a sparring buddy at all until I found you, buddy."
No response. Only the soft hum of cooling servos.
Mrs. Hong placed a hand on Kaodin's shoulder, her voice trembling despite its composure. "His core's cracked. Once the energy leaks below fifteen percent, there's no restart, but i think i could still save his memory core. I'm sorry, child."
Kaodin bowed his head, jaw clenched.
Before anyone could answer, Mrs. Hong's HDI comm blinked. Zhang Bo's voice cutting through static.
"Hong, we tried to reach you several times. Were you all safe?"
She steadied her breath. "Alive. Minimal injuries. But my son is down. Cee-Too."
"Acknowledged. Stay put."
"Wait, what about the relay? Was it successful? You still have power, which means the secondary relay held and you closed the circuit using the west-sector grid?"
"I guess it does, thanks you you and your family."
"Cee-Ar-Tee should be returning to extract you toward the assembly area. If his hands are tied handling CC containment, I'll send someone else." Zhang Bo's voice clipped short, already moving to the next call.
"In't this a bit too coincidental, first the thorium grid, and then the CC, So i guess something on the wall broke, look, you dont have to answer me, i will find out myself once i get to safety." Mrs. Hong answered as she looked at Kaodin who now accompanied by a strange glow of furball similar to a tiger.
"Alright, I'll leave that part to your device then. Out." Zhang Bo's voice crackled before going silent.
Xiao Ying stood a full arm's length away, heels together, hands pressed flat against her thighs. She seemed fully recovered now, as i handed her the portable pc, yet her stare had not shifted from Wawa who gazed up on me as i stopped to look at her.
"You can touch, but he's not familiar with you yet, so perhaps, you approched him slowly first.", Kaodin glanced as Xiao Ying while she spoke.
Xiao Ying's hands came up halfway, fingers spread toward Wawa, then curled back against her thighs. Her mouth opened and closed once without sound, and almost so light and fluffy as she had picked up, Wawa darted through her reaching fingers an instant before they closed. The air where he passed left a faint crackling against her skin, the way metal feels before a spark jumps. Then he circled back to Kaodin's side and settled, head tilting toward Xiao Ying with the slow, measuring patience of a cat deciding whether a stranger was worth its time. Her brow had pulled tight, lips pressed flat, but her hands were already rising again.
Kaodin lifted Cee-Too's limp body in both arms. The weight was strangely lighter than he had expected, almost similar to his own. Maybe that's how she made him. "I'll carry him," he said. "Let's take him somewhere safer."
Mrs. Hong met his eyes. saw the fire there. and nodded once. "Then help us reach the service passage. Mechanical droid are supposedly descending to scan for any injured or casualty too."
Kaodin led the way, hurled through the collapsed entrance. Outside, the metallic, ancient-looking security droids had formed a perimeter, pulse rifles glowing blue. They turned their scanners toward the four civlians and one regisatered anomaly, recognized their IDs, and switched to escort mode.
"Civilians detected. Safe route: B-2 Assembly Area."
Mrs. Hong exhaled shakily. "Good. We're not far."
The mechanical android unfolded a stretcher from its chassis and laid Cee-Too across it in a single, economical motion.
"Mrs. Hong, Xiao Ying," Kaodin said, "I need to go somewhere first. I'll catch up with you later."
"Sure. Be safe, alright."
"You'd better be," Xiao Ying said, and her mouth pulled sideways, her complexion half-returned now that Mrs. Hong had wiped the dust from her face. "Or you could leave the cub with me and go by yourself."
Inside the Data Archive Nexus—Wanchai's Residential Quarter, the cultivation pod's readouts had been climbing for six minutes.
Wanchai kept one hand against the glass, watching the numbers rather than his daughter's face. The numbers were easier to hold.
Three simultaneous failures registered across the console. Genetic stability had fallen past the threshold the serum was designed to hold. One vial left, and I already used it. Thorium particulate inside the pod's filtration circuit had climbed beyond its rated capacity. The stabilizer compound read empty. The curve held its direction. Wanchai thought to himself.
Then he looked at his daughter.
Liara's fingers pressed against the inside of the glass, slow and effortful. Her lips moved. He leaned closer to the seal.
"Papa." The word came thin. "It hurts less."
He did not ask why. The console beside him continued cycling through its unresolved classification. He reached for the comm without turning around. "Zhang. It's Wanchai. The pod filtration is failing. Thorium particulate is inside the circuit. I need a medical escort to the Hub chamber. Now."
"Cee-Ar-Tee is inbound. Hold your position."
The line closed.
He stood between the console and the pod for a moment, the unclassified reading still pulsing at the display's lower edge. His daughter's hand remained against the glass. He did not have an explanation for either of them.
He reached for the manual crank and began to turn it. The old gears ground against their housing, resistance traveling up through his palms. The seal released in increments.
Wawa stopped.
Not because Kaodin stopped. The cub had been moving alongside him, spectral form low against the debris-scattered floor, and then simply was not moving anymore. His head had turned further east. Ears pivoted forward and held. The tail, which had been shifting in slow sweeps, went still at the base.
Kaodin watched the cub. His feet were already turning east.
"alright, i'll follow, lead on."
Wawa's outline drew inward, density tightening, the luminous edges pulling toward his own center. His nose hung close to the floor though nothing on the ground held his attention. The shoulders stayed low. His gaze held east.
Then Wawa took one step east and stopped, and looked back.
Kaodin's eyes moved past him. The corridor ahead still held scattered debris, far lighter than what Mrs. Hong's quarter had taken. What clung was the smell: scorched polymer bleeding from the ventilation seams along the upper right of the corridor wall.
Mrs. Hong had already started moving north toward the elevator shaft, Xiao Ying close behind her, one arm still pressed around Cee-Too's frame where it rested on the droid's stretcher. The route was clear. The escort droids held their perimeter geometry, pulse rifles angled outward, guiding the group toward the shaft without requiring direction.
Mrs. Hong glanced back. Her eyes found his, then found Wawa, still oriented east, still waiting.
She read it without asking.
"Go," she said. The word carried no question.
Kaodin looked once at Cee-Too's dim chest glow on the stretcher. "Stay in the balance," he said quietly. Whether he was speaking to the android or to himself was not clear even to him.
He turned east. Wawa was already moving ahead of him, form low against the grey-dusted floor, each step placing no sound.