Day 116. 09:24 hours.
Forbes Park.
Peacock Mansion.
The Rooftop.
Minus seventy degrees
The cold burned the lungs, each breath a razor blade of frozen air.
The snow under their boots crunched — brittle, crystalline.
The wind carried the smell of copper-blood and frozen diesel from the yard below.
The wind died, and the rooftop concrete was a slab of ice under their boots.
The frost had crept up through the soles, through the rubber, into the bones of the feet.
The compound's thermal exhaust rose in columns around them — steam climbing into the indigo sky, catching no light because there was no light to catch.
The smell of the yard below had climbed with them, copper, diesel.
The particular iron stench of blood spilled in minus seventy — blood that had frozen before it could pool, red frost on white snow, crystallized and sharp.
The woman stood in the center of the rooftop, her bare feet on the frozen concrete.
The frost did not touch her, the cold did not touch her.
The wind — the wind that had been cutting across the rooftop at forty kilometers per hour — had died the moment she landed.
Her wind and Her sky.
Her hair moved, and not from the wind — there was no wind, from her.
From the air she controlled, the dark strands lifted and fell, lifted and fell, breathing with a rhythm that had nothing to do with the atmosphere and everything to do with the woman standing in it.
Her golden eyes caught the faint glow of the compound's thermal exhaust.
The gold was not natural, not the gold of melanin.
The gold of gamma radiation crystallized in the iris, the particular gold of a woman who had died and come back with the wind in her chest.
The woman stood on the rooftop, barefoot.
Three meters from Jae-min, smiling.
"Hi," The woman purred, her voice flirty, thick with love, her golden eyes locked on Jae-min. "My beloved big bro."
Jae-min had face-palmed.
Ji-yoo had recognized her, blood boiling.
Soulcleaver humming in her soul.
"Why are you here, bitch?" Ji-yoo had pressed, her voice venomous.
"My beloved big bro needs my help. So I came," The woman answered, her voice dripping devotion.
The rooftop, forty-three heartbeats, silence.
No one knew who this woman was, then Rico.
Rico, in the yard below, his red hands dripping, and his shoulder still bleeding.
He looked up.
The yard was red.
The snow — what was left of it, the parts Mark Jordan's Black Hell Flame had not flash-boiled — was red — Sixty bodies.
Or what was left of sixty bodies, the wind blades had sectioned them, the hollow points had opened their skulls, the gravity slugs had folded them in half.
The superhuman hands had torn them apart, and the pieces were freezing.
The blood that had sprayed was now red frost on the white.
The organs that had spilled — intestines, lungs, the particular anatomy of men who had come over a wall and found, at the wall, something that took them apart — the organs were crystallizing in the minus seventy, becoming glass.
Becoming something that would shatter if you kicked it.
Rico stood in the middle of it, His boots in the red.
His hands — the hands that had torn six men apart like tofu — were dripping.
The blood on his hands was still liquid, His body heat keeping it warm.
The Enhancement running hot in his muscles, the superhuman strength still humming, the particular heat of a man whose power had not yet cooled.
He went still, the still of a man who recognized a face.
The still of a man who had seen a ghost.
"Gabriel," Rico called, his voice rough, cracking. "You are alive?"
The woman — Gabriel — turned.
She looked down at Rico, at the compact, blood-covered, five-foot-five retired colonel with the scar on his left cheek and the black hair.
Her golden eyes widened.
"W-What the fuck?!" Gabriel stammered, her voice cracking, the flirty devotion gone. "U-Uncle?!"
Rico did not answer.
Rico could not answer.
Rico was staring at a woman he had believed dead for ninety-six days.
"Big Bro," Gabriel pressed, her voice urgent, her golden eyes on Jae-min. "What happened to Uncle?"
Jae-min lowered his hand from his face.
He looked at Gabriel.
He looked at Rico.
He looked at the yard — the blood, the bodies, the snow that was not white anymore.
He sighed.
"Long story," Jae-min measured, his voice flat, exhausted, his hand dropping from his face.
Gabriel stared at him — Then at Rico — Then at Jae-min — Then at Ji-yoo — Ji-yoo moved — Not walked — Not ran, levitated.
The gravity manipulation activated, and her boots left the rooftop.
Her body lifted — one foot, two feet, three — the air beneath her compressing into an invisible platform.
She crossed the three-meter gap in a single gravity-propelled glide.
Her arms went around Jae-min, not gently.
The hug of a woman shielding her brother from the woman who had stolen his first kiss.
Her chest against his chest, her hips against his hips, her arms locked around his neck, and her face buried in his throat.
Ji-yoo's body was warm, the Enhancement running hot in her blood.
The gravity manipulation burned calories, generating heat, the particular furnace of a woman whose power was the sun's pull and whose body ran at thirty-eight degrees when the power was active.
Jae-min felt her heartbeat through his shirt, one hundred and twelve, elevated.
The rhythm of a woman whose fury was spiking her cardiac output, whose body was preparing for violence, whose gravity was bending the air around them into a shield.
The air between them compressed, the gravity field — invisible, imperceptible to anyone without spatial awareness — pressed against Jae-min's chest — Not painful, present.
The particular presence of a woman whose power was wrapping around him like a second skin, shielding him from Gabriel.
One dark eye was visible over Jae-min's shoulder, aimed at Gabriel.
That eye was not warm, that eye was the eye of a Preta captain, a rifle-scythe wielder, calculating exactly how many wind blades it would take to get through Gabriel's guard.
"Go away, bitch," Ji-yoo hissed, her voice venomous, muffled against Jae-min's throat, her arms locking tighter.
Gabriel did not flinch.
Gabriel did not leave.
Gabriel smiled.
The flirty, love-filled, perverted smile, the smile of a woman who had spent thirty-four years wanting the man Ji-yoo was hugging.
"No way!" Gabriel declared, her voice flirty, thick with love, her golden eyes burning into Jae-min. "Not until I claim and taste my beloved big bro."
Ji-yoo seethed.
The gravity around her spiked, The snow on the rooftop cracked.
The air pressure in a three-meter radius dropped, She hugged Jae-min tighter.
Rico, in the yard below, watched, his red hands at his sides, shoulder bleeding, and dark eyes on the rooftop.
He raised his free hand and pressed it against his face.
"Before, it was two menaces," Rico groaned, his voice exhausted, muffled by his palm. "It is three of them now."
Gabriel heard him.
Her golden eyes went to Rico, and the flirty, love-filled voice softened.
"I love you too, uncle," Gabriel called, her voice warm, genuine.
Rico did not remove his hand from his face.
Rico did not speak.
Rico stood in the yard, his hand on his face, his blood on the snow, processing the realization that the apocalypse was not the worst thing that had happened to him today.
Jae-min, in Ji-yoo's hug, sighed again.
"Everyone inside," Jae-min directed, his voice commanding, exhausted. "We discuss — now."
"Copy," Ji-yoo confirmed, her voice possessive, her arms vise-locked around his neck.
"Ji-yoo," Jae-min pressed, his voice firm, his hand on her wrist. "Let go."
"No," Ji-yoo defied, her voice stubborn, her face buried in his throat.
Jae-min did not argue.
He walked — ji-yoo still attached, still levitating slightly — toward the rooftop access door.
Gabriel followed, bare feet on frozen concrete, hair moving in its own breeze, and golden eyes on Jae-min's back.
Gabriel followed, bare feet on frozen concrete, hair moving in its own breeze, and golden eyes on Jae-min's back.
On the gap between his shoulder blades, where Ji-yoo's arms did not cover.
— • • • —
A family reunion at the Abadia house in Angeles City.
The garden, the mango tree.
The long table with the lechon and pancit.
Jae-min, sixteen, standing behind the house, alone, and the garden is empty.
The party noise muffled through the walls.
Gabriel, fifteen, walking around the corner, her hair shorter than, and her eyes the same gold.
Her smile was the same flirty, love-filled smile, and she had been watching him all afternoon.
Through the kitchen window, through the garden.
She walked up to him, she did not say hello, and she did not ask permission.
She grabbed the front of his shirt, pulled him toward her, and kissed him.
His first kiss, and Jae-min had not kissed back.
He had stood there, his eyes open, his sixteen-year-old brain trying to process what was happening.
Gabriel had pulled back — smiled, the flirty, love-filled smile — And then Ji-yoo.
Ji-yoo, standing at the kitchen window, holding a glass of iced tea, watching, sees her twin brother being kissed by their cousin through the glass.
The iced tea glass in Ji-yoo's hand cracked, the glass giving way under her grip.
The iced tea spilling down her wrist, the shards cutting her palm.
She did not notice; she was watching Gabriel kiss her brother.
Ji-yoo stood at the kitchen window, the iced tea glass cracked in her hand.
The blood running down her wrist, she did not blink.
Ji-yoo's arms tightened.
"Over my dead body," Ji-yoo thought, her soul screaming, her arms crushing Jae-min against her chest.
— • • • —
Day 116. 09:40 hours.
Forbes Park.
Peacock Mansion.
Ground Floor.
The Atrium.
Twenty-two degrees
The warmth of PROMETHEUS, the air tasted of recycled heat, and the faint copper tang of blood tracked in from the yard.
The Steinway piano caught the LED light. The household assembled the Steinway piano.
The dining table — forty-three people in the seats.
Gabriel was standing at the far end, barefoot, out of place.
Jae-min stood at the head of the table, Ji-yoo beside him — not attached anymore, but her hand on his arm.
Her body between him and Gabriel, and her dark eyes on Gabriel.
Gabriel stood across the table, bare feet on the warm floor, and hair moving in its own breeze.
Golden eyes on Jae-min, Gabriel's golden eyes moved across the table.
Face after face, none of them were familiar, and none of them were family.
Her golden eyes found Jae-min and held.
Rico sat at the far end, shoulder bandaged — red hands clean, and dark eyes on Gabriel.
"Gabriel," Jae-min directed, his voice commanding, his dark eyes pinning her. "Why are you here? How did you know we are at Forbes Park?"
Gabriel's golden eyes came to his.
The flirty, love-filled look was still there — it was always there — but beneath it, something serious.
"I was at Clark," Gabriel laid out, her voice steady, the flirtation stripped clean. "Training exercise — my FA-50PH was on the tarmac. The freeze hit — the fuel froze. The runway froze — the base froze."
— • • • —
The cockpit of the FA-50PH.
Minus seventy — the canopy iced over, the instruments dead — the heater dead.
The engine was dead, and the canopy glass was opaque with frost.
The world outside — the tarmac, the runway, the control tower, the barracks — was gone.
Swallowed by the white, the cockpit was a capsule, A coffin, and the last thing she would see.
The instrument panel was dark, the HUD was dark — the radio was dead — she had tried it for six hours, the particular desperation of a pilot calling mayday into a sky that had stopped answering.
No response — no static, just the silence of a world that had frozen.
The smell of the cockpit was jet fuel and sweat and fear.
The particular smell of a pilot who knows she is going to die in her aircraft.
The JP-8 in the lines, frozen solid, the leather of the ejection seat, cracked from the cold.
Her own breath, fogging, the moisture crystallizing on the inside of the canopy.
The taste in her mouth was copper, the particular copper of a body that is starting to shut down — the blood pulling from the extremities, the capillaries in the gums bursting, the iron taste of a system in failure.
Gabriel, in the ejection seat, in her flight suit, in the particular cold that only a pilot knows — the cold that comes when the cockpit loses pressure and heat simultaneously and the outside air, minus seventy, pours in through every seal.
Her fingers went first — the frostbite and then her toes — then her nose.
Then her ears — the particular progression of hypothermia — the body pulling blood from the extremities to protect the core, the extremities dying first, the core holding on.
She could not get out; the canopy was frozen shut, the ejection seat mechanism was frozen, and the cockpit was a coffin.
Her breath fogged — slower, slower — the fog thinner, and the breathing shallower.
Her heartbeat slowed — eighty, sixty, forty, and thirty.
She was dying, she knew she was dying.
The particular knowing of a pilot whose instruments have all failed and who is, in the last moments, reading the only instrument that matters — her own body.
And in the dying — in the milliseconds before the brain shut down, before the heart stopped, before the body became a thing — in the dying, her last conscious thought was not of survival — Not of rescue — Not of God.
Her last conscious thought was of Jae-min.
"I want to fly to his side," Gabriel thought, her soul tearing open, the cold eating her from the inside.
"I want to give him everything. My virginity — my body. My life — everything I saved for him since I was fifteen. Everything I have been carrying for eighteen years, waiting, wanting, believing that one day I would stand in front of him and give it," Gabriel thought, her consciousness dissolving, the void pulling her under.
"Let me fly to him. Let me fly. Let me fly," Gabriel thought, the last prayer of a dying soul, the wish that would become wind.
Her heart stopped.
Thirty beats per minute — twenty, ten, zero.
She died, and in the death — in the Threshold, the near-annihilation, the milliseconds where brain function ceased, and biological life was gone — in that void, the gamma radiation that had been saturating her cells for thirty days crystallized.
The radiation did not give her strength, did not give her fire.
Did not give her healing, telepathy, or ice.
The radiation gave her what her soul had screamed for in the moment of death, flight.
Wind — the power to fly, to cross the distance, to reach Jae-min.
The power that was, literally, conceptually, the manifestation of her last wish — to fly to his side, Mach 1.5.
The speed of a desperate wish, her heart restarted — not the way it had been, different — faster.
Stronger — the wind was in her chest now.
The wind was in her chest, the canopy shattered — not from the outside.
From the inside — the wind — her wind — blew it outward, a thousand fragments of safety glass into the frozen air of Clark Air Base.
She rose from the cockpit, barefoot.
The flight suit burned away — not by fire, by wind, by the friction of the air she controlled.
What was left was the dress, the dress she had been wearing under the flight suit.
The dress she had put on that morning was the one she wanted to be wearing when she saw him again.
She did not know what had happened to her.
She only knew that she had died and that she was alive and that the wind was hers and that Jae-min was south and she was going to fly to him.
She flew.
— • • • —
"I survived," Gabriel breathed, her voice quiet, her golden eyes distant. "I do not know how. I was in the cockpit. I was dying. And then I was not. And the wind was mine. And I could fly."
"You do not know what happened?" Jae-min pressed, his voice sharp, his dark eyes narrowing.
"No, I don't," Gabriel confirmed, her voice steady, her golden eyes holding his. "I just know I have a power. And I know I can fly. And I flew to you."
The table was quiet.
Jae-min looked at her — his dark eyes on her golden eyes.
He did not explain — not yet, the explanation — the Gamma Fall, the Threshold, the Inner Desire — would come later.
For now, the practical.
"And Forbes Park?" Jae-min pressed, his voice sharp. "How did you know?"
Gabriel smiled.
The flirty, love-filled smile, Jae-min's dark eyes went to Gabriel.
"The hail?" Jae-min pressed, his voice incredulous, his dark eyes widening.
"The hail," Gabriel laid out, her voice steady, her golden eyes on his. "I was at Clark. Dying in the cockpit. When I came back — when the wind was mine — I could hear things. Radio — frequencies — the particular frequencies that the wind carries if you know how to listen. And one morning, seventeen days ago, I heard a hail. Open broadcast — common survival band. No encryption — no identifier. Just a voice in the static, calling. Calling to anyone — calling to survivors. Calling south."
"I am alive," Gabriel declared, her voice fierce, her chin lifting. "I heard the hail. I followed it — forty-five minutes. Mach 1.5 — south. To you."
"And the siege?" Jae-min pressed, his voice sharp, his body straightening.
Gabriel's golden eyes held his.
The flirty, love-filled look softened.
"They were shooting at you," Gabriel opened, her voice cracking, her golden eyes glistening. "I heard the rockets. I felt the explosions through the air. I arrived — I saw the groups. I saw you on the rooftop. With the rifle — and I thought — "
She paused.
"I thought they were going to kill him," Gabriel choked, her voice breaking, tears spilling. "They are going to kill my beloved big bro. And I am not going to let that happen."
Ji-yoo's hand tightened on Jae-min's arm.
"So I killed them," Gabriel finished, her voice flat, tears tracking her cheeks. "Twenty-three — nineteen seconds. Wind blades — and then I landed. And I measured him."
The table was quiet.
Jae-min looked at her; the face-palm was gone.
In its place — the face of a man who was, despite everything, glad.
"Gabriel," Jae-min allowed, his voice quiet, genuine, his dark eyes softening. "Welcome home."
— • • • —
Day 116. 10:00 hours.
Ground Floor.
The Atrium.
Twenty-two degrees
The briefing was over.
The table sat with it.
Now, Gabriel was meeting the household.
And the household was meeting Gabriel.
Gabriel's golden eyes moved from face to face, stranger, stranger, stranger.
Jae-min was doing the introductions.
"Alessia — healing. My wife," Jae-min directed, his voice even, his hand on Alessia's shoulder.
Gabriel's golden eyes went wide.
"Wife?" Gabriel stammered, her voice cracking, the flirty look shattering.
"Wife," Jae-min confirmed, his voice flat.
Gabriel's mouth opened, closed.
Opened.
"Jennifer — telepathy. My wife," Jae-min continued, his voice even.
Gabriel's golden eyes went wider.
"Yue — space. Blink — my wife," Jae-min continued, his voice even.
Gabriel's mouth was still open.
"Hua. My wife," Jae-min finished, his voice even.
Gabriel stopped.
Her golden eyes went to Hua.
And Hua — Hua Lian Santos, a celebrity chef.
The woman whose cooking show Gabriel had watched every Thursday for five years.
The woman whose cookbook Gabriel had memorized, the woman whose face had been on every food magazine in the country.
Gabriel choked.
"You," Gabriel stammered, her voice cracking, her hand pointing. "You are — you are — "
"Hua," Hua measured, her voice even, her crimson hair in a high bun, a dish towel over her shoulder. "I cook."
"You are Hua Lian Santos," Gabriel gasped, her voice trembling, her hand coming up to point. "I watched you — every Thursday — your knife work — "
Gabriel stopped — she looked at Jae-min.
She looked at Hua — she looked at Jae-min.
"Big Bro," Gabriel pressed, her voice spinning, her golden eyes bouncing between Jae-min and Hua. "You married Hua Lian Santos?"
"Yes," Jae-min confirmed, his voice flat.
But it was about to get worse.
"And this is Marie," Jae-min laid out, his voice even, his hand moving to Marie. "Uncle's wife."
Gabriel's golden eyes went to Marie — Marie Dela Torre, famous actress.
The woman whose face had been on every billboard in the country.
But the woman sitting at the table was not fifty-four.
The woman sitting at the table was thirty-seven, the face of a woman in her prime, not a woman in her fifties.
Gabriel had seen Marie Dela Torre on screen — the movies, the billboards, the magazine covers.
Gabriel knew what fifty-four looked like on Marie Dela Torre.
This was not fifty-four, this was thirty-seven.
The face of a woman who had aged backward.
Gabriel choked again.
"You are Marie Dela Torre," Gabriel stammered, her voice cracking. "You are — "
"I am Marie," Marie measured, her voice gentle, her hand resting on her belly. "And I am your Uncle's wife. And I am pregnant with his child."
Gabriel's golden eyes went to Marie's belly.
The small bulge, nine weeks.
"Pregnant?" Gabriel choked, her voice cracking, her golden eyes dropping to Marie's belly. "Uncle is going to be a — "
"Father," Rico confirmed, his voice gruff, his hand on Marie's shoulder. "Long story."
Gabriel looked at Rico, at the face.
The face she had known her entire life — the compact, five-foot-five retired colonel with the scar and the black hair.
But the face was wrong, not wrong, young.
The face of a man in his late thirties, not his early sixties.
The face of a man who had aged backward.
The same face from the AFP Hall of Fame portrait — but the portrait was forty years old, and the face sitting at the table was not.
"Two wives," Gabriel breathed, her voice stunned, her golden eyes on Rico. "Uncle, you had two wives. They both left — and now — now you have a wife. And she is Marie Dela Torre. And she is pregnant. And you — you look — uncle, you look thirty-seven. You are sixty-two — and Marie — Marie is fifty-four. And she looks thirty-seven. What — what happened to you guys?"
Then Gabriel's golden eyes went back to Jae-min.
The four wives: Alessia, Jennifer, Yue, and Hua.
Four women married to her beloved big bro, Gabriel's golden eyes filled.
The tears did not fall immediately; they gathered.
The gold of her irises brightens behind the wet.
The particular brightness of a woman whose Enhanced body was producing moisture it should not have been producing at minus — no.
Inside — twenty-two degrees, The PROMETHEUS warmth — her body was warm.
Her body could cry, and the first tear broke, ran down her left cheek, and caught the LED light.
Glinted gold — the tear carrying the radiation, the particular gold of an Enhanced woman's tears.
The second tear — the right cheek, faster.
The third, the fourth.
The particular mathematics of a woman's composure collapsing — exponential, each tear faster than the last, the dam not breaking but dissolving, the structure of eighteen years of wanting and flying and killing and arriving and finding — finding four wives and an idol chef and a pregnant actress and a compound full of strangers who were not her.
The tears came, not sadness — Not grief.
The tears of a woman who had just had every expectation — every fantasy, every flight at Mach 1.5 fueled by the belief that she would arrive and claim him — shattered — Gabriel cried.
Standing in the Atrium — barefoot, hair moving in its own breeze.
Golden eyes wet — Gabriel Diaz Abadia — second Lieutenant, PAF, enhanced, killer of twenty-three men — cried — Ji-yoo watched — And Ji-yoo levitated.
The gravity manipulation activated, her body lifted off the floor, her arms came up, and her fist pumped the air.
"TAKE THAT, STEALING BITCH!" Ji-yoo screamed, her voice triumphant, her fist in the air, her body levitating, the grin — manic, cracked-open — on her face.
Gabriel, through her tears, looked at Ji-yoo.
"This is not over," Gabriel declared, her voice thick with tears, her golden eyes blazing at Ji-yoo. "Four wives — fine. I will be the fifth."
"No," Ji-yoo fired, her voice venomous, her fist still pumping the air.
"Fifth," Gabriel countered, her voice stubborn, tears still tracking her cheeks.
"No," Ji-yoo repeated, her voice final.
Jae-min, between them, sighed.
Rico, at the far end of the table, pressed his hand against his face again.
Day one hundred and sixteen, the siege was over.
The war for Jae-min was not.