Day 117. 07:40 hours.
Forbes Park.
The Peacock Mansion.
Ground Floor.
The Atrium.
The morning light fell through the atrium skylights in long golden rectangles across the polished concrete.
Dust motes turned in the beams like slow snow.
Forty-four people stood in loose clusters around the central 8K display.
The hum of conversation died the moment Jae-min stepped forward with the control wand.
The smell of fresh bread drifted from the ground-floor kitchen, tangled with the ozone tang of the NPU core three levels below.
Gabriel stood near the front.
Barefoot.
She had not changed.
She never changed.
Her knee-length black hair fell down her back like spilled ink, swaying each time she shifted her weight.
She was five-foot-seven, built the way a sculptor builds when he is not thinking about restraint — large, heavy breasts straining the thin cotton of her nightgown, a waist a man could wrap one hand around, hips that flared wide into a thick, firm ass the nightgown barely covered.
She was braless beneath it.
Her golden eyes tracked Jae-min's hands on the wand.
She had arrived six hours ago, carried the last three kilometers on wind she did not know she could make.
She had touched down on the rooftop at 01:30, disoriented, freezing, alive in a way that still did not feel entirely real.
Now she stood in the atrium of the place that had pulled her out of the sky.
The concrete was cold under her bare soles.
Rico was here, her uncle.
The rest she did not know yet.
Jae-min tapped the wand.
The display bloomed with a full schematic of the compound — every level, every room, every corridor rendered in crisp white lines against deep blue.
The holographic interface cast pale light across the faces of everyone gathered.
"Room assignments as of Day 117," Jae-min opened, low, his dark eyes on the display.
"Second Floor, nine bedrooms, all occupied."
"Room 1, Ji-yoo. Off limits," Jae-min directed, low, the first room pulsing amber. "Guitars, Marshall stacks, and other annoying stuff. Touch nothing or die."
Ji-yoo crossed her arms from her corner, her dark eyes already on Gabriel.
Soulcleaver's eight-foot shaft crossed her back — the rifle-scythe's four-point-five length black blade darker than the void, the purple crystalline shaft catching the atrium light, the weapon's gravitational distortion bending the air around it.
The blade hummed a single low note that vibrated in the back teeth of everyone within ten feet.
"Room 2, Uncle and Auntie," Jae-min continued, low, flicking the wand to the next block.
"Room 3, Mei, Aiko, and Elena Cortez. Mei needs wheelchair access," Jae-min added, low, highlighting the wider door.
"Room 4, Carmen, Esperanza, and Mira. Kitchen team," Jae-min noted, low, moving to the next assignment.
"Room 5, Daniela. Single. Near the lift for Workshop access. Lena joins when medically cleared," Jae-min laid out, low, his wand flicking to a corner room.
Gabriel leaned forward, her golden eyes scanning the display with the focus of a pilot reading a runway approach chart.
She found Jae-min's name on the Third Floor.
Master Attic Sanctuary.
Her lips curled into a grin that belonged on a fox in a henhouse.
"Room 6, Belle. Single. Near Command Deck," Jae-min continued, low.
"Room 9, Sofia, Gabby, and Lina. Greenhouse and training," Jae-min added, low, his dark eyes sweeping the display.
"Room 7 —" Jae-min began.
"Mine. I want the attic," Gabriel cut, her voice flirty, her finger jabbing at the Third Floor block.
The atrium went quiet.
The kind of quiet that pressed against the eardrums.
Forty-three pairs of eyes swiveled toward her.
Someone coughed.
The coffee machine on the far counter gurgled, oblivious to the tension.
"Absolutely not," Alessia refused, low, stepping forward, her arms folded, her indigo ponytail sharp against the white walls, her blue eyes cold.
"No," Jennifer echoed, low, her icy-blue hair catching the light, her blue eyes narrowing, the air around her crackling.
"No," Yue added, low, her hand resting on the hilt of her jian, her fingers loose.
"Try it and lose a finger," Hua threatened, low, her crimson hair swinging behind her, her cleaver angled at Gabriel's hand, her violet-blue eyes cold.
Gabriel pouted, thrusting out her lower lip, tugging at the hem of her nightgown — higher, not lower — exposing another inch of thigh.
"But my nightgown is so short. I get cold at night~," Gabriel wheedled, her voice cheery, batting her eyelashes at Jae-min. "Big bro keeps things warm up there~."
"Over my dead body, bitch," Ji-yoo fired, low, her dark eyes flat, and the gravity in the atrium spiked hard.
Loose papers lifted off the console.
A coffee cup trembled on its saucer, the liquid sloshing against the rim.
Gabriel's hair floated for a half-second before settling back against her spine.
The taste of ozone prickled on everyone's tongue like battery acid.
"Can I be the fifth wife, then? I can cook. I can fly. I'm very flexible, even in bed~," Gabriel offered, her voice bright, sliding closer to Jae-min, hooking her arm through his, pressing her hip against his, her breasts brushing his bicep, whispering the last part to him.
Jae-min pressed his palm to his forehead and dragged it slowly down his face.
His ears had gone pink.
"You will not be my fifth wife. You are my cousin," Jae-min stated, low, flat, prying her arm loose.
Rico chuckled from beside Marie, his broad shoulders shaking, his bandaged shoulder held carefully against his side.
"Three menaces under one roof now. Jae-min, Ji-yoo, and Abby," Rico observed, low, his dark eyes warm with weary affection. "God help us all."
Gabriel turned and blew Rico a kiss.
He caught it and tucked it into his shirt pocket.
"I love you too, Uncle," Gabriel chirped, her voice warm, beaming at him.
"Room 7. Second Floor. Near the stairs for rooftop access," Jae-min directed, low, highlighting the swap on the display. "It was Rosa's room. Rosa, you'll move to Room 8 with Ana and Lourdes."
Rosa nodded, her dark braids swaying against her shoulders, a small genuine smile on her face — the quiet grace of a woman who had survived the end of the world and no longer sweated the small things.
"Of course. I don't mind at all," Rosa agreed, low, smiling. "Ana and Lourdes are wonderful company."
Gabriel threw her arms wide, her nightgown strap slipping off one shoulder.
She caught it and snapped it back — the elastic making a sound like a tiny gunshot.
"That's so far from you! What if I have a nightmare?" Gabriel wailed, her voice breezy, clutching her chest. "What if I need my big bro in the middle of the night?"
"The Master Attic has a biometric lock. LINDA monitors all access," Jae-min laid out, low, flat, his dark eyes steady on hers. "You will not get in. You will not try."
Gabriel's pout morphed into a sly grin.
She sidled up to Jae-min and pressed her hip against his, the warmth of her body radiating through the thin fabric of her nightgown.
The smell of her — wind and sweat and something electric, like the air before a lightning strike — filled the space between them.
"Locks are foreplay~," Gabriel purred, her voice flirty, and her hand shot out to smack his backside — a crisp crack that echoed through the atrium.
Before Jae-min could react, her other hand dropped and cupped him through his cargo pants, her fingers wrapping him with shameless familiarity.
His entire body went rigid.
The control wand slipped from his grip and clattered against the console dock.
The atrium erupted.
Alessia's eyes flashed electric-blue.
Jennifer's telepathic field crackled like static before a storm, making everyone's fillings ache.
Yue's jian sang half an inch from its sheath.
Hua's eyebrows twitched, the temperature around her climbing another degree.
"Hands. Off. Now!" Alessia commanded, low, each syllable a scalpel, her blue eyes on Gabriel's wrist.
Gabriel released Jae-min with an exaggerated sigh and licked her palm theatrically, maintaining eye contact with Alessia the entire time.
The gesture was obscene, deliberate, utterly unrepentant.
Across the atrium, Mei's cheeks went crimson.
She pressed her hands to her face and turned her wheelchair away, the wheels squeaking against the concrete.
Aiko stood frozen at the workshop terminal, and the steel wrench on the bench beside her twisted slowly into a pretzel, the metal groaning as it deformed.
Elena Cortez went still at the thermal console, her fingers suspended above the keys, a flush creeping up the back of her neck.
Ji-yoo's gravity spiked again.
This time it held.
Soulcleaver hummed on her back — a low predatory note that vibrated in the teeth of everyone present.
The coffee cup on the console shattered, spraying ceramic shards across the concrete.
No one flinched.
Gabriel turned her head slowly toward Ji-yoo, met those dark, furious eyes across twenty feet of charged air, and winked — one deliberate, taunting wink that landed like a slap.
She trailed her fingers down Jae-min's arm as she turned back, possessive as a cat marking territory.
"Tour! You're giving her the tour. Now!" Ji-yoo hissed, low, jerking her thumb toward the stairs, her dark eyes on Gabriel.
The gravity field pulsed once more and then collapsed, leaving everyone's ears popping.
Jae-min exhaled, adjusted his pants discreetly, and straightened his shoulders.
The control wand went back into its dock with a soft magnetic click.
"Fine. Gabriel, with me. Everyone else, back to your stations," Jae-min ordered, low, his dark eyes sweeping the room. "We reconvene at 12:00 for the supply inventory."
Gabriel skipped after him, her bare feet slapping the concrete, her hair bouncing with each step.
She blew a kiss to the four wives as she passed — they did not catch it.
She blew one to Ji-yoo, and Ji-yoo's gravity spiked hard enough to crack the floor tile beneath her boots.
"Bye-bye, cousins! I'll bring him back in one piece! Mostly!" Gabriel called, her voice bright, waving with both hands, her golden eyes on the four wives.
The stairwell door closed behind them with a hydraulic hiss.
The atrium let out a collective breath it had been holding for four minutes.
— • • • —
Day 117. 08:00 hours.
Forbes Park.
The Peacock Mansion.
Second Floor.
Room 2.
The smell of coffee and sliced mango rolled through the open door in a warm wave.
Rico sat on the edge of the bed, his left shoulder wrapped in fresh gauze.
The bandage was stained dark where the wound still seeped — a slow, wet bloom of copper-and-iron that Gabriel could smell from the doorway.
Marie stood at the window with a cup of coffee cradled in both hands, her silk robe loose around her shoulders, her palm resting on the slight swell of her belly.
The morning light caught the gold in her hair.
A knock at the door.
"Uncle? Auntie?" Gabriel's voice came through the wood, flirty even at eight in the morning.
Rico closed his eyes.
The particular weariness of a man who had survived two divorces, a plane crash, the end of the world, and now this.
"Come in, Abby," Rico called, low, his voice rough.
The door opened.
Gabriel barreled in and threw her arms around Rico's neck, careful — mostly — of the bandaged shoulder.
Rico caught her with his good arm and held her for a moment.
The smell of her — wind and cold air and something electric — filled his lungs.
Then he set her down.
"Shoulder," Rico reminded, low, his dark eyes on hers.
"Sorry, Uncle," Gabriel offered, low, her voice softening for one second.
Then the flirty look was back.
She turned to Marie and dropped into an exaggerated bow, her nightgown strap slipping again.
"Auntie. You look radiant. Pregnancy suits you. Uncle doesn't deserve you," Gabriel declared, her voice playful, her golden eyes dropping to Marie's belly.
Marie laughed — a quiet, warm sound, the kind that filled a small room like sunlight through a window.
She crossed the room and set her hand on Gabriel's shoulder, her touch gentle.
"Sit down, eat," Marie directed, low, gentle, nodding to the plate of sliced mango on the nightstand. "You are too skinny."
"I am not too skinny. I am aerodynamic," Gabriel countered, her voice teasing, but she sat on the edge of the bed and picked up a mango slice anyway.
The fruit was cold and sweet, the juice running down her wrist.
Rico watched her chew, his dark eyes tired.
He had been sixty-two a hundred days ago, and the years Jae-min had pulled off him had not pulled off the exhaustion behind them.
The gauze on his shoulder darkened another shade as the wound seeped.
"Abby," Rico opened, low, his voice carrying the particular weight of a colonel addressing a subordinate.
Gabriel's golden eyes came to his.
The wind in the room stilled.
"You are home now. That is good," Rico laid out, low, his dark eyes steady. "But you will behave. You will not grab Jae-min in the atrium. You will not bait Ji-yoo. You will not call him 'big bro' in front of the household. He is the Captain of this compound. You will call him Captain, or Jae-min, or cousin. Not 'big bro.' Not 'beloved.' Not in public."
Gabriel's lower lip pushed out.
"But Uncle —"
"I am not finished," Rico cut, low, his dark eyes hard. "Jae-min has four wives. He has a sister who would gut you for what you did in the atrium this morning. He has a household that depends on him. You will not be the thing that breaks this compound apart. Do you understand me?"
Gabriel's golden eyes held his.
The wind in the room shifted — a soft exhale that stirred the curtains and lifted the corner of the mango plate's napkin.
Then it stilled.
"I understand, Uncle," Gabriel allowed, low, her voice stripped of the flirtation for once. "I will try."
"Try harder," Rico corrected, low.
Marie squeezed Gabriel's shoulder once, then withdrew her hand.
"He missed you," Marie murmured, low, gentle, her dark eyes on Gabriel's face. "He did not say it the way Rico says it. But he has been carrying your absence for months. Be gentle with him."
Gabriel's golden eyes dropped to the mango plate.
Her throat moved.
The juice on her wrist had dried to a sticky film.
"I will, Auntie," Gabriel allowed, low, her voice soft.
The room held for a moment — the three of them, the morning light, the smell of coffee and mango, and the faint copper tang of Rico's bandage.
Then Gabriel's grin came back.
She reached across and stole a second mango slice, the juice running between her fingers.
"Can I have his room, though? The attic?" Gabriel pressed, her voice flirty, her golden eyes on Rico.
"No," Rico refused, flat.
"Can I have his pants?" Gabriel tried, her voice bright, her grin widening.
"Get out," Rico directed, low, pointing at the door with his good arm, his mouth curving despite himself.
Gabriel laughed, bounced to her feet, and blew them both kisses as she backed toward the door.
"Thank you, Uncle. Thank you, Auntie," Gabriel offered, low, her voice warm for one breath. "I'll be good. Mostly."
"Mostly is not good enough," Rico countered, low, his dark eyes on hers.
"It's the best I've got~," Gabriel admitted, low, her voice teasing, and she disappeared into the hallway.
Her bare feet slapped the concrete, the sound fading down the corridor.
Rico exhaled.
His good hand found Marie's.
"She is going to be a problem," Rico allowed, low, his thumb tracing Marie's knuckles.
Marie squeezed his hand.
"She is family," Marie corrected, low, gentle, her dark eyes on his face. "Family is always a problem."
Rico's mouth curved — the faintest movement.
"She is definitely an Abadia," Rico allowed, low.
Outside the window, the snow fell in the minus seventy, indifferent to the small domestic scene inside.
The mango plate sat half-empty on the nightstand.
The coffee in Marie's cup had gone cold.
— • • • —
Day 117. 08:30 hours.
Forbes Park.
The Peacock Mansion.
Ground Floor.
The Kitchen.
The air was thick with the scent of garlic sizzling in rendered pork fat — the particular sweetness of allium caramelizing in hot lard.
A wok of shimmering oil popped on the far burner, each pop releasing a burst of heat that Gabriel could feel from the doorway.
Hua stood at the prep station, a cleaver moving in precise arcs through a pile of root vegetables.
Each stroke was a surgeon's incision, the blade catching the overhead light with every upswing.
Gabriel stopped in the doorway, her mouth hanging open, her hands gripping the frame.
"You're Hua," Gabriel breathed, her voice lively, her golden eyes wide. "The Hua. The celebrity chef. The woman who made the Senate kitchen look like a home economics project."
Hua did not look up from the cutting board.
"Grab an apron. Onions need peeling. Basket by the window," Hua directed, low, pointing with the tip of her cleaver without breaking rhythm.
Gabriel scrambled to the basket, yanked an apron over her nightgown, and started peeling onions with the enthusiasm of a recruit on her first day.
The papery skin curled under her nails, dry and whispering.
The acrid sting hit her eyes within seconds, and tears streamed down her cheeks in rivers she made no effort to wipe.
"These onions are weapons of war! I love it!" Gabriel laughed, her voice bright, hacking at another layer with more enthusiasm than skill.
Hua glanced at the carnage on the cutting board — uneven chunks, papery skin clinging to the flesh, juice weeping across the steel — and one eyebrow rose.
She returned to her own work without comment, but the wok on the far burner held at a perfect, even temperature — Hua's particular genius with heat, the kind of precision that no thermometer could fault because it came from thirty years of standing over stoves.
"Can I learn? Your knife work is incredible," Gabriel pressed, low, wiping her eyes with the back of her wrist, smearing onion juice across her cheek.
"First, onions. All of them. Then we talk," Hua decided, low, sliding another basket toward her without looking up.
Gabriel attacked the second basket with renewed vigor, tears and smiles competing for dominance on her face.
Jae-min leaned against the doorframe, his arms crossed, watching his cousin reduce a pile of onions to rubble.
Gabriel smacked Jae-min's backside as she passed him on the way to the compost bin — a wet, onion-juice smack that left a damp print on his cargo pants.
Her hands reeked of onion.
Her grin stretched ear to ear.
— • • • —
Day 117. 09:00 hours.
Forbes Park.
The Peacock Mansion.
Level 2.
The Infirmary.
The lift doors opened onto the Infirmary with a soft pneumatic hiss.
The sterile scent of antiseptic hit Gabriel's nose first, sharp and clinical, then dried lavender from a sachet on the counter softened it.
Alessia stood at the central station, reviewing patient charts on a holographic display, her indigo ponytail sharp against the white walls.
"Gabriel. Welcome to the Infirmary. Tea is on the warmer," Alessia greeted, low, not looking up from her charts.
Gabriel poured herself a cup of green tea and cradled it, the warmth seeping into her palms.
She inhaled the steam — bitter, grassy, the undertone of high-quality leaves — and closed her eyes for a moment.
"Can you fix anything? Bones? Burns? Spinal columns?" Gabriel pressed, low, blowing on the surface of the tea, her golden eyes on Alessia.
Alessia finally looked up.
Her blue eyes assessed Gabriel with clinical interest — no warmth, no malice, only measurement.
She catalogued Gabriel's posture, her pupil dilation, the slight tremor in her hands that spoke of recent hypothermia.
"Anything short of death. And I am working on that," Alessia noted, low, adjusting a vial of iridescent fluid on her tray, the fluid shifting colors — opal, then pearl, then electric blue.
Gabriel whistled low, the sound echoing off the tile walls, rattling a tray of instruments.
"Combat medic dream. My squadron would have killed for you," Gabriel remarked, low, sipping the tea, her golden eyes on Alessia. "We had a corpsman who couldn't fix a paper cut."
"I could teach you field triage, if you are staying," Alessia offered, low, her expression softening by a fraction.
"I'm staying," Gabriel confirmed, low, grinning. "You're stuck with me now."
— • • • —
Day 117. 09:30 hours.
Forbes Park.
The Peacock Mansion.
Level 2.
The Atrium.
Jennifer sat cross-legged on a meditation mat, her eyes closed, her fingers resting on her knees in a mudra Gabriel did not recognize.
The air around Jennifer felt thicker, heavier, like the charged moment before a thunderclap.
The hair on Gabriel's arms stood on end.
The taste of copper sat on the back of her tongue.
"Telepathy. Can you read me right now?" Gabriel pressed, low, leaning down, her golden eyes on Jennifer's face.
Jennifer opened one eye.
The icy-blue of her iris caught the light, the pupil contracting to a pinprick.
"I am choosing not to. Your surface thoughts are vivid," Jennifer admitted, low, the corner of her mouth twitching despite her composure.
Gabriel grinned and thought very deliberately about Jae-min shirtless, oiled, and bending over a motorcycle — the line of his spine, the sheen on his shoulders, the grease on his fingers.
She projected the image with the focus of a targeting laser.
Jennifer's eye snapped shut, her jaw tightening, a vein pulsing at her temple.
The meditation mat's edges curled upward as her concentration fractured.
"Please stop. I need to focus," Jennifer requested, low, pressing her fingers to her temples, her breathing shallow.
"Does wind interference mess with your signal? I can make a lot of wind," Gabriel probed, low, a gust swirling around her ankles, rattling the mat's edge.
"The interference is manageable. Please go," Jennifer dismissed, low, waving her away without opening her eyes, a thin sheen of sweat on her forehead.
Gabriel backed away, hands raised in surrender, the gust dying as quickly as it had formed.
She blew Jennifer a kiss that Jennifer, wisely, did not acknowledge.
— • • • —
Day 117. 09:45 hours.
Forbes Park.
The Peacock Mansion.
The Standard Lift.
The lift doors closed behind them with a pneumatic hiss.
Gabriel pressed the button for Level 5.
The car hummed around them, the vibration traveling through the floor plates, the LED display counting floors with a slow, deliberate pace.
Gabriel's golden eyes found the camera in the ceiling corner — the small black dome that Ji-yoo watched from.
She looked directly into it.
She smiled.
Then she turned, grabbed Jae-min by the collar of his shirt, pulled him down to her height, and kissed him.
Full on the mouth.
Her lips pressed against his — warm, deliberate, thorough — the kiss of a woman who had been waiting eighteen years for this and was making up for lost time in the span of four seconds.
Her eyes stayed open, her golden irises locked on the camera in the ceiling corner, the entire time.
Jae-min went rigid.
His hands came up — not to push her away, not to pull her closer, but in the particular frozen gesture of a man whose brain had short-circuited between the two options.
She held the kiss for one beat.
Two.
Three.
Then she released him, stepped back, and licked her lips theatrically — maintaining eye contact with the camera the entire time.
"Eighteen years," Gabriel murmured, low, her voice flirty, her golden eyes on the camera dome. "Worth the wait."
Jae-min pressed his back against the lift wall, his dark eyes wide, his hand covering his mouth.
His ears had gone scarlet.
The lift hummed on, indifferent.
Two floors below, in the L2 Command Deck, Ji-yoo sat in her chair before the wall of camera feeds, her knuckles white around the armrests, her dark eyes locked on the lift camera's feed, her jaw clenched so tight the tendons stood out on her neck.
Soulcleaver hummed on her back — not the low predatory note of warning, but the high, keening whine of a weapon that wanted to be drawn.
Ji-yoo could not kiss him.
She was his twin.
The twin thing — the particular taboo that lived in the Del Rosario blood, the line that Ji-yoo had drawn for herself when they were sixteen and had never crossed — meant that her lips would never touch his.
Gabriel knew this.
Gabriel had known this since they were teenagers.
She had taken his first kiss in the garden while the family ate in the yard.
And Ji-yoo — Ji-yoo, who had already given her own first kiss to Min-joo, the kiss that was supposed to be the twin thing but had been given away to someone else — Ji-yoo had hated her for it.
Gabriel had taken the first kiss then.
She was taking another one now.
And Ji-yoo could not answer it, because Ji-yoo had given her first kiss to Min-joo and could not claim the twin thing she had already broken.
The lift doors opened onto Level 5.
Gabriel skipped out, her bare feet slapping the concrete, her hair bouncing, her grin stretching ear to ear.
"Come on, big bro! We've got a tour to finish!" Gabriel called, her voice bright, her golden eyes on the corridor ahead.
Jae-min exhaled slowly, his hand still covering his mouth, his dark eyes on the lift camera in the ceiling corner.
He could feel Ji-yoo watching.
He could feel the gravity spike from two floors below.
He followed his cousin into the corridor, his ears still burning.
— • • • —
Day 117. 10:00 hours.
Forbes Park.
The Peacock Mansion.
Level 5.
The Gymnasium.
The Piano Lift shuddered and clanked as it ascended past levels the standard system could not reach, the industrial lighting flickering with each floor.
The smell of sweat and chalk filled the cavernous space.
Yue stood at the center of the mat, moving through a Jian form so slow and precise it looked like meditation, her black hair pulled back, her marble eyes on the blade.
Each cut traced a line of condensed air that shimmered faintly in the overhead light, leaving contrails that lasted two full seconds before dissolving.
The whisper of the blade was the only sound in the cavernous space, and it carried a weight that pressed against the eardrums like deep water.
Gabriel watched in silence, her teasing demeanor dropping for a moment, her golden eyes on Yue's form.
She recognized trained discipline when she saw it — the kind that took decades, not months.
"That's beautiful. Can you teach me?" Gabriel murmured, low, when Yue completed the form and lowered the Jian to rest position.
Yue sheathed the blade — the steel whispering against the lacquered scabbard — and turned, her expression unreadable, her dark eyes assessing Gabriel the way a calligrapher studies a blank page.
"Blink is my movement art. You have wind. Different engine," Yue offered, low, inclining her head. "But the Jian form is for anyone with patience."
"I have patience. Sometimes. When I'm not horny," Gabriel admitted, low, her voice eager, and Jae-min groaned beside her, pinching the bridge of his nose.
Yue's lip twitched — the closest she ever came to a smile in public — and she turned back to her starting stance, the Jian sliding from its sheath with a whisper that sounded almost approving.
Paolo emerged from the weight rack, a Sailor Moon doll tucked under his arm, his other hand trailing frost across a barbell.
Ice crystals bloomed wherever his fingers touched — fractal ferns crawling across the knurled grip — and the metal sweated condensation in the warm gym air, droplets running down like tears.
"Oh! You're the ice guy. Sailor Moon!" Gabriel exclaimed, low, her voice bright, pointing at the doll with both hands. "I had that doll! Well, the bootleg version."
Paolo held the doll protectively against his chest and stepped back, his expression wounded.
"She's not a bootleg. She's authentic. 1992 first run," Paolo corrected, low, his tone carrying the gravity of a man defending a sacred relic.
"Ice walls, right? Can you make a full fortress?" Gabriel pressed, low, crouching to examine the frost crawling along the barbell, the cold prickling her skin, raising goosebumps on her bare thighs.
Paolo erected a wall of ice between them in the time it took Gabriel to blink.
The wall was three inches thick, perfectly smooth, cold enough to make her nose sting and her breath plume in the warm gym air.
Frost ferns crawled across its surface in delicate, fractal patterns that caught the halide light and scattered it into tiny rainbows.
"Full fortress, yes. I'm on L1, you're on Second Floor — two floors up," Paolo stated, low, from behind the wall, his voice muffled by the ice.
Gabriel knocked on the ice with her knuckle and giggled at the clear, bell-like sound, the vibration traveling up her arm, making her teeth ache.
"We're going to be great neighbors," Gabriel declared, low, her voice teasing, and smacked Jae-min's butt as she stood, the crack echoing off the gymnasium walls, startling a set of dumbbells off their rack.
— • • • —
Day 117. 10:30 hours.
Forbes Park.
The Peacock Mansion.
Level 1.
The Corridor.
L1 was quiet.
Only two residential quarters on this floor — Paolo's and Mark Jordan's — carved out of the maintenance level beside the generators and the UV water filtration.
The rest of the level was storage and the marine tunnel access, the air cooler here, the hum of the NPU core muffled by ten meters of poured concrete and lead sheeting.
Mark Jordan leaned against his doorframe, a model of the Gundam 00 Raiser held aloft in one hand.
A faint shimmer of jet-black flame curled from his fingertips around the model's wing.
The flame ate light rather than producing it — the air around him felt several degrees cooler, the shadows on the corridor wall leaning toward the flame instead of away from it.
"Black Hell Flame. That's terrifying. I love it," Gabriel praised, low, her voice cheery, stopping to admire the model's panel lines.
Mark Jordan adjusted his glasses and tilted the Gundam so Gabriel could see the detail work — the decals, the panel wash, the tiny chipped-paint effect on the edges.
His expression remained deadpan, but a flicker of pride crossed his features like heat lightning, there and gone.
"Gundam 00. Best series. Fight me," Mark Jordan challenged, low, his tone flat and absolute as a court ruling.
"I'm a pilot, not that pilot," Gabriel joked, low, her voice flirty, gesturing at herself and then at the faded FA-50PH stencil on the borrowed shirt she wore. "But Setsuna was my hero."
Mark Jordan snorted — a sound that might have been a laugh compressed into a single syllable by years of restraint.
He looked at Gabriel with something approaching respect, his amber eyes on hers.
"L1, my room. You're up on the Second Floor — two floors up," Mark Jordan mentioned, low, pointing at the ceiling. "Keep the stomping to a minimum."
"I make no promises," Gabriel countered, low, her voice teasing, winking at him, her golden eyes bright.
"Then I make no promises about the Black Hell Flame under your floor," Mark Jordan deadpanned, low, turning back into his room with the Gundam raised like a torch, his amber eyes on the model.
Gabriel laughed and waved goodbye, already dragging Jae-min toward the standard lift by his belt loop.
— • • • —
Day 117. 11:00 hours.
Forbes Park.
The Peacock Mansion.
Level 2.
The Command Deck.
The holographic interface of LINDA filled the room with pale blue light, data streams cascading down invisible panes like digital rain.
Mei sat at the central console in her wheelchair, her fingers dancing across haptic keys, her crimson pigtails bright against the dark monitors, her violet-blue eyes on the data streams.
The low hum of servers filled the room with a white-noise drone.
"Mei, right? The computer genius," Gabriel greeted, low, her voice breezy, wheeling a chair over to sit beside her.
Mei blushed to the roots of her crimson hair and nodded without making eye contact, her violet-blue eyes on her screen.
Her fingers never stopped moving across the keys.
"LINDA. She's beautiful. What architecture?" Gabriel pressed, low, her voice curious, studying the cascading data streams with the trained eye of someone who had worked with military avionics.
"Distributed neural mesh. Self-correcting. She learns from every input," Mei explained, low, her words barely above a whisper, her eyes on her screen.
Gabriel leaned closer to the console and waggled her fingers at the nearest holographic pane.
The data streams parted around her hand like water around a stone, the blue light bending around her fingers.
"Hey, LINDA. What's the lock code on the Master Attic Sanctuary?" Gabriel tried, low, her voice casual, leaning back in her chair with fake nonchalance, her golden eyes on the pane.
LINDA's response was immediate and flat, delivered with the digital equivalent of a raised eyebrow.
"Access denied. Biometric required. Nice try, Second Lieutenant Abadia," LINDA reported, low, a hint of amusement threading through the synthesized tone.
Gabriel pouted and slumped in her chair, arms crossed over her chest, her golden eyes on the holographic pane.
"Even the AI betrays me," Gabriel grumbled, low, her voice playful, slumping lower until her spine curved against the backrest.
Mei glanced at Gabriel and then at Jae-min, her blush deepening to a shade that rivaled a ripe tomato.
She turned her violet-blue eyes back to her screen and cleared her throat.
"She's very protective of the Attic," Mei murmured, low, her eyes on her screen. "Very... thorough."
"I noticed," Gabriel muttered, low, glaring at the holographic pane as if it had personally wronged her.
Mei's fingers hesitated on the keys.
She sneaked a glance at Jae-min, then looked away so fast her blush deepened.
Gabriel caught the look, filed it away, and kept quiet — for once.
— • • • —
Day 117. 11:30 hours.
Forbes Park.
The Peacock Mansion.
Level 5.
The Engineering Workshop.
The whine of a lathe filled the air at a frequency that set Gabriel's teeth on edge.
The smell of machine oil and hot metal stung her nostrils — the particular industrial bite of cutting fluid and vaporized steel.
Aiko stood at a workbench, her hands hovering over a sheet of steel that was reshaping itself like liquid mercury under her will, her black hair behind her, her eyeglasses catching the overhead light, her black eyes on the metal.
The metal flowed, folded, and hardened in patterns that defied conventional metallurgy, each transition seamless and silent.
"Metal Manipulation. You're a one-woman factory," Gabriel observed, low, her voice lively, watching the steel fold into a perfect bracket.
Aiko did not look up.
The steel trembled slightly when Gabriel stepped closer, vibrating like a tuning fork pressed to a magnet.
A bead of sweat traced down Aiko's temple.
"I watched you at the atrium. The wrench. That was you," Gabriel pressed, low, her voice curious, grinning. "It folded into a pretzel."
Aiko's jaw tightened.
The bracket compressed into a solid cube with a sound like a gunshot — the crack of metal collapsing on itself — making Gabriel jump, and the lathe operator across the room look up in alarm.
"I don't know what you mean," Aiko denied, low, her tone clipped, her hands steady despite the steel humming beneath them, her black eyes behind her eyeglasses on the cube.
Gabriel held up both hands in surrender and took a step back, her grin softening into something more genuine, more careful.
"Secret's safe with me, sugar," Gabriel assured, low, her voice casual, backing away with a conspiratorial wink. "I fold things too. Mostly panties."
Aiko's cube crumpled into a sphere, the metal groaning as it deformed.
Gabriel decided that was her cue to leave, dragging Jae-min toward the Piano Lift before the sphere became a projectile.
— • • • —
Day 117. 12:00 hours.
Forbes Park.
The Peacock Mansion.
Ground Floor.
The Thermal Console.
Elena Cortez sat before a wall of readouts showing the compound's geothermal and solar outputs, the screens casting green and amber light across her face.
She was twenty-four, five-foot-two, her waist-length black hair loose down her back, her black eyes on the tablet in her lap — a Computer Science graduate from UP Diliman who had ended up running the compound's thermal systems because someone had to, and she was the one who understood the code.
Gabriel stopped in the doorway.
The woman at the console was nine years younger than her, built like a programmer, not a pilot, and had clearly never been inside a cockpit in her life.
Gabriel's usual flirtation stalled.
This was not a woman who would respond to a salute or a wink.
This was a woman who would respond to a logic problem.
"Hey. I'm Gabriel. Abby. The new one," Gabriel offered, low, her voice casual, leaning against the doorframe, her golden eyes on Elena's screens.
Elena looked up.
Her black eyes catalogued Gabriel in two seconds — the nightgown, the bare feet, the hair, the particular energy of a woman who had just arrived and was already too much.
"Elena. I run the thermal systems," Elena laid out, low, her tone even, her black eyes on Gabriel's face. "You are generating a lot of heat standing there. The thermal sensors flagged you when you walked in. Your baseline is point-four degrees above the corridor average. I can see your heat signature on my screen right now."
Gabriel blinked.
"You can see me?"
"I can see everything that generates heat in this compound," Elena confirmed, low, turning back to her readouts. "You are the brightest thing on my screen. Including the stove."
Gabriel laughed — a genuine sound, surprised out of her.
"That's the nicest thing anyone's said to me today," Gabriel admitted, low, her voice warm.
Elena's mouth curved — the faintest movement — and she returned to her keys.
Gabriel watched her work for a moment, the fingers moving across the console with the particular speed of someone who thought in code.
She did not press further.
Some people were not for flirting with.
Some people were for respecting.
Gabriel nodded once — to herself, more than to Elena — and followed Jae-min toward the lift.
— • • • —
Day 117. 12:30 hours.
Forbes Park.
The Peacock Mansion.
Level 2.
The Infirmary Recovery Bay.
Lena lay propped on a medical cot, her legs covered in a thin sheet.
Where skin should have been, nacreous light pulsed — opalescent, iridescent, like the inside of an abalone shell catching sunlight.
The glow shifted colors as Lena breathed, cycling through pale pinks and blues that painted the white walls in soft, living tides.
"Hey. You're Lena. The one who can't walk yet," Gabriel greeted, low, her voice soft, pulling a chair beside the cot with a scrape of metal on tile.
Lena smiled — slow, gentle, warm enough to take the chill off the sterile infirmary air, her golden-white eyes the color of winter sky, pale and clear and full of quiet light.
"Not yet. But soon. Alessia says the tissue is integrating," Lena offered, low, touching the sheet over her legs with tentative fingers, the nacreous glow brightening at her touch, then dimming.
Gabriel reached out and placed her hand over Lena's without asking permission.
The warmth of her wind-tinged skin seemed to soothe the pulsing light, the iridescence dimming to a soft, steady glow beneath the contact.
Lena's breath caught, then released.
"You'll walk. I'll give you a wind ride if I have to," Gabriel promised, low, her voice gentle, her golden eyes on Lena's face. "I've carried heavier."
Lena laughed softly, the sound like wind chimes in a light breeze, her mechanical fingers clicking once.
"I might take you up on that," Lena accepted, low, squeezing Gabriel's fingers.
"I'll hold you to it," Gabriel vowed, low, her voice soft.
— • • • —
Day 117. 13:00 hours.
Forbes Park.
The Peacock Mansion.
Second Floor.
The Training Room.
Gabby was working a heavy bag, her fists wrapped in tape, each impact sending the bag swinging on its chain with a rhythm like a metronome.
Sweat darkened her tank top between the shoulder blades.
The smell of leather and effort hung thick in the air, mixing with the sharp tang of adhesive tape.
"Hit it harder. From the hips," Gabriel coached, low, her voice impish, stepping into the room uninvited, circling the bag like a trainer.
Gabby threw a roundhouse that cracked the bag's outer casing, sending a puff of filler into the air that drifted in the ventilation current.
"Who are you?" Gabby demanded, low, catching the bag, steadying it with a forearm pressed across the leather, her dark eyes on Gabriel.
"Gabriel. Abby. New roommate on the floor," Gabriel introduced, low, her voice teasing, holding up her fists in a loose guard. "I used to fight in the squadron ring for beer money."
Gabby sized Gabriel up and down — the nightgown, the bare feet, the stance that contradicted both: weight forward, chin tucked, hands loose and ready.
She grinned with the genuine warmth of a fighter recognizing another fighter.
"Rematch. When you're settled," Gabby challenged, low, unwrapping her hands with practiced pulls, her dark eyes on Gabriel.
"Bring beer," Gabriel accepted, low, her voice warm, bumping fists with her, the tape on Gabby's knuckles rough against Gabriel's palm.
The contact felt like a contract signed in sweat.
— • • • —
Day 117. 13:30 hours.
Forbes Park.
The Peacock Mansion.
Second Floor.
The Corridor.
The rescued women found Gabriel as she moved through the Second Floor corridor, drawn by the commotion of her arrival like moths to a very loud, very inappropriate flame.
They emerged from doorways and corners, each carrying something to offer, each wearing the tentative smile of people who had learned to be generous with what little they had.
Carmen pressed a warm empanada into Gabriel's hand, the pastry still hot enough to steam, the crust flaking against Gabriel's palm.
The smell of cumin and beef and fried dough hit her nose — achingly familiar, Sunday-morning familiar.
"Eat. You are too skinny," Carmen insisted, low, patting Gabriel's cheek, her dark eyes warm.
Esperanza braided a strand of Gabriel's hair and tucked a sprig of rosemary into it.
The herb's sharp, piney scent cut through the corridor's recycled air.
"For remembrance," Esperanza murmured, low, her fingers quick and sure.
Mira showed Gabriel the kitchen schedule — Gabriel's name already added in neat block letters beside Carmen's and Esperanza's.
"You help with prep. Tomorrow, six a.m.," Mira instructed, low, tapping the schedule with a flour-dusted finger, her young face serious.
Lourdes blessed Gabriel with a small cross traced on her forehead, murmuring a prayer in rapid Spanish that Gabriel did not fully catch but felt in her bones.
The old woman's fingers were cool and dry, like parchment.
Ana handed Gabriel a folded paper crane so precise it looked machine-cut, each crease sharp enough to cut paper.
"For luck," Ana whispered, low, pressing it into Gabriel's palm, her dark eyes gentle.
Sofia, quiet and watchful, nodded and smiled from the doorway of Room 9, her arms crossed but her eyes warm, her engineering mind already cataloguing the new arrival.
Belle, from Room 6, waved shyly through her cracked door, her face half-hidden behind the edge, fingers wiggling in greeting, her dark eyes focused on the pattern of Gabriel's nightgown hem.
Daniela appeared briefly from Room 5 with a socket wrench in one hand and grease on her cheek, waved once, and disappeared back inside with a muttered apology about a timing belt, her mind already on the next problem.
Lina appeared at the end of the corridor with a sprig of basil in one hand and a small clay pot of soil in the other — the L3 greenhouse's first offering of the day, the smell of green leaves and wet earth cutting through the recycled corridor air.
She pressed the basil sprig into Gabriel's palm without a word, her dark eyes steady, her hands still stained with the particular ochre of greenhouse soil.
"For the room. It needs a plant," Lina offered, low, her voice carrying the particular quiet of a woman who spent her days with growing things.
Then she nodded once and walked back toward Room 9.
Rosa stood in her own doorway — Room 8, newly shared with Ana and Lourdes — and lifted a hand in greeting, her dark braids still swaying from the morning's move, a small smile on her face.
Gabby leaned out of the training room with a towel around her neck and raised a tape-wrapped fist in solidarity, her dark eyes on Gabriel.
Even Lena's voice crackled over the corridor intercom from the infirmary, thin and clear and warm despite the static.
"Welcome home, Abby. I'll meet you properly when Alessia lets me out of here," Lena offered, low, through the speaker, her mechanical fingers clicking softly in the background.
"Welcome home, Abby," Carmen declared, low, her dark eyes on Gabriel, and the others murmured their agreement in a chorus of warm, accented voices that filled the corridor like a hymn.
Gabriel bit into the empanada and felt her throat tighten.
The taste of cumin and beef and fried dough was so achingly familiar that for a moment she could not speak — it tasted like her mother's kitchen, like Sunday mornings before the world ended, like everything she had lost and everything she had just found in the space of a single bite.
"Thank you. All of you," Gabriel managed, low, her voice rough, the empanada crumbling in her grip, her golden eyes wet.
Throughout the tour, Gabriel smacked Jae-min's backside every time she passed him — seven times by his count, twelve by Ji-yoo's camera tally.
Each smack was accompanied by a wink, a squeeze, or a whispered comment that made Jae-min's ears go red and made Ji-yoo's fist clench tighter around whatever surface was nearest.
And Ji-yoo watched.
From every camera feed in the compound, from every angle that the system could provide.
She watched Gabriel's hands on Jae-min while her knuckles went white around the armrest of her Command Deck chair, and Soulcleaver hummed a continuous low note that only she could hear — a sound like a predator growling in its sleep, growing louder with each smack.
Gabriel knew Ji-yoo was watching.
She looked directly into every camera she passed, smiled, and blew kisses aimed at the lenses like precision-guided munitions.
The baiting was deliberate, calculated, executed with the tactical precision of a fighter pilot running a strike pattern.
— • • • —
Day 117. 17:00 hours.
Forbes Park.
The Peacock Mansion.
The Rooftop.
The sun hung low over the compound, painting the sky in bands of burnt orange and deep violet.
Gabriel stood at the rooftop railing, the wind catching her hair and lifting it in a dark curtain behind her.
The air smelled of rain that had not arrived yet — petrichor and dust and the green tang of distant fields — and the distant hum of the NPU core vibrated faintly through the soles of her bare feet.
The railing was still warm from the afternoon sun under her fingers.
She heard his boots on the stairwell before she saw him.
She always heard him.
The cadence was as familiar to her as her own heartbeat — a rhythm she had memorized somewhere between childhood and catastrophe, between the boy who used to chase her around Rico's backyard and the man who ran a compound full of survivors.
Jae-min emerged onto the rooftop with two bottles of cold water in hand.
Condensation dripped from the plastic and spotted the concrete at his feet.
He stopped when he saw her silhouette against the dying light, her hair a dark banner in the evening thermals, and something in his chest loosened that had been tight since the atrium.
"You found the roof," Jae-min observed, low, walking to the railing beside her, setting one bottle down.
"I found it the second I woke up. Wind girl knows high places," Gabriel confided, low, not turning around, her fingers curling around the railing, the metal still warm.
Jae-min opened his bottle and took a long drink, the wind tugging at his hair, pulling strands across his forehead.
He tasted salt on the breeze — the sea was closer than it looked, carried inland by the thermal currents Gabriel unconsciously fed.
The air around her was always moving, always breathing, as if the sky itself had taken up residence in her lungs.
Gabriel moved before he could react.
She stepped behind him and wrapped both arms around his waist, pressing her body flush against his back with her breasts flattened against his ribs, her chin finding his shoulder, one hand splaying across his stomach, fingers spread wide beneath his shirt, warm against his skin.
"It feels like home already," Gabriel whispered, low, her breath warm on his neck, stirring the fine hairs at his nape.
Jae-min went rigid for a moment, then forced himself to breathe.
He could feel the warmth of her through his shirt, the steady drum of her heartbeat against his spine, the impossible solidity of a person who should have been dead in a cockpit at thirty thousand feet.
The wind swirled around them both, gentle, protective, carrying the smell of her hair — something clean and electric, like the air after lightning.
"You can stay," Jae-min murmured, low, staring at the horizon where the sun was bleeding into the sea.
Gabriel's arms tightened.
A tear slipped down her cheek and landed on his shoulder, darkening the fabric.
She pressed her face into the curve of his neck while her shoulders shook, the tremors traveling through both their bodies like seismic waves.
"I died in that cockpit," Gabriel confessed, low, her tears dampening his collar, her voice muffled against his neck. "The cold took everything. My hands. My breath. My name. All gone. Then I woke up, and the wind was in my chest, and I could breathe. I followed your signal like a runway light. Three kilometers on the wind I didn't know I could make."
"And now —" Gabriel's voice broke.
The word hung in the air, incomplete, a door left open.
Jae-min covered her hand on his stomach with his own, his dark eyes on the horizon.
The sun painted them both in gold, and the wind — her wind — swirled around them in a gentle embrace that no thermal current could explain.
It smelled of rain and salt and the green edge of living things.
It held them both like a prayer.
"You're here. You're alive. You're family," Jae-min allowed, low, his thumb tracing her knuckles, his dark eyes on the sunset. "That's all that matters."
Gabriel laughed through her tears — a wet, shaky sound that was half sob and half joy — and held him tighter.
The sunset deepened around them, the violet swallowing the orange, the first stars pricking through the darkening canopy overhead like pinholes in a curtain.
Somewhere below, the compound hummed with life and purpose and the small, stubborn machinery of survival.
Gabriel felt all of it through the soles of her feet and the skin of her chest and the wind that breathed with her.
Then her hand on his stomach drifted south.
One finger.
Two.
The tenderness evaporated like morning dew, replaced by something far more familiar and far less appropriate.
"Since I'm staying... the Master Attic Sanctuary Double King..." Gabriel murmured, low, her lips brushing his ear, her tone shifting from broken to calculating in the span of a single breath.
Jae-min grabbed her wrist before it reached its destination and held it firmly, his grip tightening when she tried to wiggle free.
The shift from grief to groping was so fast it gave him whiplash.
"Go to bed. Your bed. Room 7. Second Floor. Alone," Jae-min ordered, low, pulling free and stepping back, his dark eyes on hers.
The sudden absence of her warmth against his back left him colder than the evening air had any right to.
Gabriel let him go with a theatrical sigh, wiping her tears with the back of her hand.
She picked up the water bottle he had brought and took a long sip, the cold water shocking her tear-swollen sinuses back to normal.
She was smiling again by the time she lowered it.
"Locks are foreplay," Gabriel reminded, low, her voice flirty, and her free hand shot out and squeezed his backside one final time — firm, deliberate, possessive, a claiming and a promise.
She turned toward the stairwell, her hair catching the last of the light like a banner, the wind she carried lifting the hem of her nightgown one last time.
The nightgown was already too short.
The wind made it shorter.
"Dream of me, cousin," Gabriel called, low, her voice flirty, and disappeared down the stairs with a laugh that echoed off the rooftop walls and chased itself down the stairwell like a ghost with good legs.
Jae-min stood alone on the rooftop, his face in his hands.
The wind died without her.
The stars continued their slow ignition overhead, indifferent to the tribulations of one man and his very persistent, very perverted, very much alive cousin.
He stayed there for a long time, watching the sky darken, before he finally picked up his water bottle and followed her down.