Day 184. 06:00 hours.
The infirmary. L2.
Alessia was standing at her station with the tablet open and the data on the screen — the eight pieces of the puzzle, the pattern, the anomaly, and the number.
Seven percent.
Her compatibility with Jae-min was seven percent.
Seven.
The number that was almost zero, the almost-zero that meant she could not have a child with the man she loved, and the could-not was the thing she had been sitting with for three days and that she was, on this morning at six in the morning, done sitting with.
"Seven percent. I kept filing it under compatibility... under investigation... because that was easier than admitting what it really meant. I am a doctor. Doctors solve problems. But I am not only a doctor. I am a woman who wants a child with her husband, and I refuse to let seven percent become a wall between us." Alessia resolved, her blue eyes fixed on the number on the screen while her jaw slowly set with the quiet determination of a woman who had finally made her decision.
She was done.
The upgrade.
The upgrade that Jae-min had done before — the bestowal, the essence of dead Enhanced absorbed by his void and given to her.
The Snake Man decoy essence on Day 150, the thin trickle, the fragment, the +2% that had raised her from five to seven.
The +2% that had proven the concept: essence could raise compatibility.
The decoy had been a sip.
The real thing — the Snake Woman's full essence, the one Jae-min had absorbed in the cavity when he had killed her — that was in Jae-min's void right now.
The full essence.
Not a sip.
A river.
And the raiders.
Sixty-seven raiders dead, their essences absorbed.
Sixty-seven Enhanced essences were sitting in the void that Jae-min could give her the same way he had given her the decoy.
She needed the essences.
She needed the Snake Woman's full essence.
She needed to raise her compatibility from seven to — she did not know how high.
But higher.
High enough.
High enough to have a child.
She was going to ask Jae-min.
She was going to ask him now.
— • • • —
Day 184. 06:15 hours.
The Third Floor.
The Master Attic Sanctuary.
The Command Bed.
Jae-min was asleep on his back with one arm across his chest and the other across Hua, who was curled against his side, three and a half months pregnant, her crimson hair on his shoulder, her violet-blue eyes closed.
The sleep of a man who had fought for eleven days and had given blood and had spent the night after the war with his wives and with Gabriel and whose body was, finally, done.
Alessia stood in the doorway.
The standing of a woman who was about to wake her husband at six in the morning to ask him for essence — a woman who had been awake since five and standing in this doorway since five-thirty, working up the courage to wake him because waking him meant asking and asking meant admitting that she wanted a child and admitting that she wanted a child meant admitting that the seven percent was not just data but was a wall between her and the thing she wanted most.
"I want a child. I have wanted one since Day Twenty-Four. Before the upgrade. Before the seven percent. Before any of this. I kept filing it under compatibility... under investigation... because that was easier than admitting what I wanted. I am a doctor. But I am not only a doctor. I am a woman... and I want a child with my husband. I am done filing it away." Alessia admitted to herself, her fingers tightening around the doorframe until her knuckles turned white, because admitting the truth to herself was harder than asking for it, and the asking was already going to be difficult.
"Jae-min," Alessia called, her voice low, the low of a woman waking a sleeping man.
Jae-min's dark eyes opened — the eyes of a man who was always alert even in sleep, whose spatial awareness was always on, who had felt her in the doorway before she spoke.
He looked at her, at her blue eyes, at her indigo ponytail, at the way she was standing — rigid, determined.
"Alessia," Jae-min responded, his voice low and sleep-rough. "What is wrong?"
"Nothing is wrong — I need to talk to you in the infirmary, now." Alessia directed, her voice carrying the carrying of a woman who was not going to have this conversation in a bedroom with a sleeping pregnant wife six inches away.
Jae-min looked at Hua — asleep, curled against him — then back at Alessia, at the rigid-determined.
He understood.
He extracted himself from Hua carefully and pulled on a shirt and followed Alessia down the Third Floor stairs, down the Second Floor corridor past the sleeping rooms, down to L2, to the infirmary.
Alessia closed the door.
Locked it.
The lock of a doctor who was about to have a private conversation and whose private conversation was not for anyone else — though the infirmary was empty, Ji-yoo and Yue released yesterday to light duty, the space hers.
"Sit," Alessia instructed, pointing at the cot.
Jae-min sat on the cot with his dark eyes on hers, patient, waiting for his wife to say the thing she had brought him here to say.
"I need the essence," Alessia stated, her voice steady and deliberate.
Jae-min looked at her — the look of a man who had heard the word essence and whose mind was running through what essence meant: the void, the absorption, the bestowal, the upgrade.
"The Snake Woman's essence — the full essence, the one you absorbed in the cavity, the one in your void right now." Alessia clarified, her blue eyes holding his. "I need it."
"Alessia —" Jae-min started.
"I know what you are going to say." Alessia cut in, her hands tightening at her sides. "You are going to say it is dangerous, that the decoy was a fragment and the full essence is not a fragment, and we do not know what it will do. You are going to say the void might not be able to transfer that much essence, that the risks are unknown. I know. I know all of it. I am a doctor. I know the risks."
She paused.
The pause of a woman who was about to say the thing she had not said out loud.
"My compatibility with you is seven percent — seven, and I cannot have a child with you at seven percent." Alessia continued, her voice dropping but not weakening. "The decoy raised me from five to seven. Two points. A fragment. The Snake Woman's essence is not a fragment — it is the full essence of a First Generation Enhanced, the real thing, and it should raise me higher. Maybe much higher."
She looked at him — at his dark eyes, at the dark eyes she had been looking at since Day 24 and that she wanted to see in a child and that she could not see in a child because her compatibility was seven percent.
"I want a child, Jae-min." Alessia breathed, her voice breaking on the word child in a way it never had over medicine, impossible diagnoses, or life-and-death decisions.
"I have wanted one since Day Twenty-Four. Before the upgrade. Before the seven percent. Before any of this." Alessia confessed, lowering her eyes as her fingers tightened around his hand.
"I kept telling myself it was a medical problem to solve. A compatibility issue. Another case to investigate." Alessia admitted, a faint, self-conscious smile appearing despite the tears gathering in her eyes. "It was easier to think of it that way. Doctors solve problems. They do not dwell on what they want."
She lifted her gaze to meet his.
"But I am not only a doctor," Alessia whispered, her composure finally beginning to give way. "I am your wife... and I want a child with you."
Her breathing faltered.
"I am done pretending it is only data," Alessia confessed, tears finally slipping down her pale cheeks.
She swallowed hard.
"Please... I need the essence." Alessia pleaded, her voice barely above a whisper as she held his hand a little tighter.
The please.
The please of a woman who did not say please often and whose please was the thing that Jae-min could not — he could not say no.
The could-not-say-no of a man who was clingy and handsy and possessive and who loved his wives and who could not say no to a wife who was standing in front of him at six in the morning with rigid, determined eyes saying I want a child and saying Please.
"The full essence — the Snake Woman's." Jae-min acknowledged, his voice low and careful. "It is large. The decoy was a sip. This is a flood. I do not know what it will do to you."
"I know, and I am going to find out." Alessia countered, her chin lifting.
"And if it hurts you —" Jae-min pressed, leaning forward on the cot.
"Then you stop, you pull the essence back — the void can remove, you have shown that, if it hurts me, you remove it." Alessia interrupted, her doctor's voice overriding his concern with the override of a woman who had already considered every risk and had already decided that the risk was worth the reward.
Jae-min looked at her — at the blue eyes, at the rigid-determined, at the woman who was his wife and who wanted a child and who was asking him for the thing that might give her one.
"Okay, let's do it." Jae-min agreed, the word quiet and final.
"Okay." Alessia confirmed.
— • • • —
Day 184. 06:30 hours.
The infirmary. L2.
Jae-min stood in front of her with his hands on her shoulders and his dark eyes on her blue eyes.
The void — the void that held the essences of the Snake Woman and sixty-seven raiders and every dead Enhanced Jae-min had ever killed — was humming, the humming of a power that was about to release what it held.
"The Snake Woman's essence first — the full essence, all of it." Alessia directed, pulling her shirt off, her chest bare, her skin carrying the Life-hum that was her power and that was, under Jae-min's hands, steady.
"All of it." Jae-min confirmed, his hands on her shoulders.
The void tear opened — not to store, to give.
The void tear split the air between his palms and her skin, and the essence — the Snake Woman's essence, the full essence, the gold light that had flooded into Jae-min in the cavity — was there, in the void, waiting.
Jae-min released it.
The gold light flowed.
Not a trickle, not a sip — a river.
The river of a full essence flowing from the void through Jae-min's hands into Alessia.
The Snake Woman's power, her scales, her arms, her regeneration, her minions, her acid venom, her titanium scales, her everything — flowing into Alessia in a transfer that was not a fragment but the real thing, the full thing, the flood.
Alessia felt it — the felt-it of a woman whose body was receiving an essence that was not hers and whose body was changing.
The Life-hum that was her power was shifting, the shifting of a hum being augmented by a new frequency.
The Snake Woman's essence was entering her, and the essence was adding — not replacing, adding.
The Life power was still there, but the Snake Woman's power was being layered on top of it, the layer of two powers becoming one.
The gold light flowed, and Alessia's body absorbed it — the absorption of an Enhanced body designed to hold essence, the necromantic authority, the first-generation ability to absorb dead Enhanced essence.
The flow was controlled, Jae-min's hands regulating, the void metering the release, but it was flowing, and Alessia was absorbing.
The last of the gold light left the void and entered Alessia.
The transfer was done.
The Snake Woman's full essence was in Alessia now — not in the void, in her, in her cells, in her essence genome, in her blood.
Alessia sat on the cot with her eyes closed, her body adjusting.
The Life-hum was still there but different — louder, fuller, the fuller of a hum that had been one note and was now a chord.
"Are you alright?" Jae-min asked, his voice tight, the tight of a man who had just given his wife a dead Enhanced essence and was watching for signs of hurt.
"I am alright — give me a moment." Alessia murmured, her eyes still closed, her hand reaching for the tablet on the nightstand.
She pulled up her own compatibility data — the essence genome analysis, the number that had been seven percent.
She ran it again with the new essence genome, the one that now included the Snake Woman's essence.
The number came up.
Seventy-eight percent.
"Seventy-eight. From seven to seventy-eight... one transfer raised it by seventy-one percentage points. That wasn't a trace. It wasn't even a dose. It was a flood. And it worked. But seventy-eight is still not one hundred. Close isn't enough. I need more." Alessia calculated, her blue eyes widening at the number on the screen while her hands trembled with the disbelief of a doctor staring at a result she had never thought possible.
"Seventy-eight." Alessia breathed, her blue eyes on the screen. "Seven to seventy-eight. The full essence — it worked. But I need more."
"More." Jae-min repeated.
"The raiders — you have sixty-seven raider essences in the void; I need ten." Alessia pressed, her eyes finding his. "Ten more essences should push me higher. Maybe one hundred. Maybe close."
"Alessia —" Jae-min started.
"Ten. Please." Alessia repeated the please, and the please was the thing he could not say no to.
"Ten." Jae-min confirmed.
The void tear opened again, his hands on her shoulders, the gold light flowing — not one river this time but ten streams, ten raider essences, individually smaller than the Snake Woman's but collectively significant.
The ten streams flowed, and Alessia absorbed them, the Life-hum shifting again, the chord adding more notes, the Snake Woman's essence as the base and the ten raider essences as the harmonics.
The last of the ten streams entered.
The transfer was done.
Alessia sat on the cot with her eyes closed, her body adjusting to a composition that now held her original Life plus the Snake Woman's full essence plus ten raider essences.
She reached for the tablet.
Ran the compatibility.
The number came up.
One hundred percent.
"One hundred. Perfect compatibility. Not seven percent. Not seventy-eight. One hundred. The wall is gone. I can have a child with Jae-min. I don't have to keep treating it like a case to solve anymore. I don't have to file it away. I can finally let myself want it... because now I can have it." Alessia realized, something deep inside her chest giving way as the number finally became real—the quiet release of a woman who had just learned that the future she had spent months convincing herself to stop wanting was finally within reach.
"One hundred." Alessia whispered, her voice not steady, not shaking, something else — the something-else of a woman who had just seen the number that meant she could have a child. "One hundred percent."
She looked at Jae-min.
At his dark eyes.
At the dark eyes that she could now — at one hundred percent — see in a child.
Not almost.
Not close.
One hundred percent.
Perfect.
But something was happening.
— • • • —
The change started with her hair.
Alessia's indigo ponytail — the indigo that had been her hair color for thirty-three years — was changing.
The indigo was darkening, not gradually but fast, the fast of a color being replaced.
The indigo went dark, then darker, then black.
The black of hair that was not indigo anymore and was Jae-min's black, Ji-yoo's black, Yue's black, Elena Cortez's black.
"Your hair." Jae-min blurted, his voice not low, not flat, the not-low-not-flat of a man watching his wife's hair change color.
Alessia's hand went to her ponytail.
Her fingers found the hair that was no longer indigo, that was black.
She pulled it forward and looked at it — the black hair in her hand, the black that was not hers, had not been hers, and was now hers.
Her skin was next.
Jae-min watched the pinkish white — the pinkish white of a Filipina-Italian woman who had been pinkish white for thirty-three years — paling.
Not sickly, not gray.
Pale.
The pallor of a complexion that was lightening, the light tan fading, the pale emerging — Jae-min's pale, Ji-yoo's pale.
"Your skin." Jae-min added, his voice still not working right.
Alessia looked at her hands — at the pinkish white fading to pale, at the pale that was the same as the man sitting in front of her.
Her eyes were last.
The blue — the blue that had been Alessia's eyes for thirty-three years, the eyes of a healer and a doctor, the eyes Jae-min had been looking into since Day 24 — darkened.
Fast.
The blue went dark, then darker, then black.
The black of eyes that were not blue anymore and were Jae-min's black, Ji-yoo's black, Elena Cortez's black.
"Your eyes." Jae-min breathed, his voice barely there, the barely-there of a man watching his wife's eyes turn from blue to black.
"Black hair. Black eyes. Pale skin. I look like them now. The essence didn't just change my blood. It rewrote my body... my essence genome. I'm not Group Three anymore. I'm Group One. I'm Fundamental." Alessia realized, raising the small mirror from the nightstand. The reflection looking back at her belonged to the same family of Fundamentality as Jae-min and Ji-yoo, not because she had been born that way, but because the upgrade had remade her into something entirely new.
She looked like Jae-min.
She looked like Ji-yoo.
She looked like Yue.
She even looked like Elena Cortez—the anomaly, the elemental whose appearance matched the Fundamentality blood group despite awakening a non-fundamental ability.
Now Alessia shared that same appearance.
She was Group One.
Fundamental.
Then her power stirred.
A soft violet glow bloomed over her black irises. It did not replace the black. It rested above it, shining from somewhere deeper within—the color of the Void, the color of the seed, the unmistakable mark of a Fundamental awakening.
The same violet Jae-min's eyes carried whenever the Void answered his call.
The same violet that filled Ji-yoo's eyes whenever Gravity awakened.
The violet of the Fundamentality blood group.
"Alessia," Jae-min said, his voice back but barely, the barely of a man looking at his wife and seeing not his wife but a fundamental-type, seeing the violet, seeing the fundamental.
"I can feel it — the Life is still there, but it is more." Alessia marveled, her violet-glowing black eyes wide with the discovery, her hands turning over as though seeing them for the first time. "The Life is larger, fuller. I can feel the compound — every living thing, every heartbeat, every flame. The way Life feels when it is at its fundamental tier."
She could feel Life.
The fundamental ability — not the void, not Space, not the spatial awareness that Jae-min and Yue had.
Life.
The ability to feel every living thing — every heartbeat, every flame, every breath.
Alessia could feel it now, for the first time, the Life healer who had been Group Three now Group One.
Fundamental.
The essence had changed her.
The Snake Woman's full essence plus ten raider essences had rewritten her essence genome, changed her signature from C to A, changed her blood from Group Three to Group One, changed her appearance, and changed her powers.
Changed her from Body Enhancement to Fundamental.
"Your scars." Alessia noticed, looking at Jae-min's chest — at the chest covered in scars from eleven days of war, from raiders and minions and things and every fight he had ever been in.
The scars written on his body like a history.
She reached out, her pale hand on his chest, on the first scar.
The Life activated, but the blue light was not blue anymore.
Violet.
The violet of a Healing Hands that was not just Life but was Creation — a healing that was not just accelerating cell division but was rewriting.
The scar vanished.
Not healed, not covered, not reduced.
Gone.
The skin smooth, the tissue whole, as if the scar had never been, as if the wound had never happened.
"That —" Jae-min started, his voice gone again, looking down at his chest, at the place where the scar had been, at the smooth skin.
"My ability is different now — it is not just accelerating cell division; it is rewriting." Alessia explained, her violet-glowing eyes on the scar, on the smooth skin. "The space component, the void — I can reach into the tissue, into the cells, into the space between the cells. I can rewrite the wound, not heal it, rewrite it, as if it never happened."
She reached for another scar, touched it, and it vanished.
Another vanished.
Another vanished.
Scar after scar, her hand moving across his chest, each one vanishing under her touch, the skin smooth, the body whole.
"She is erasing my scars—not healing them, erasing them. I know what healing feels like. Healing closes wounds. Healing leaves scars behind. This is different. This is Creation. The wounds are being unmade. Their history is disappearing. Her hands are rewriting me... and I do not know who I am without the scars that have always been part of me." Jae-min reeled, sitting perfectly still on the cot while his wife's hands moved across his body, each touch quietly erasing another piece of the history carved into his skin.
His dark eyes remained wide, his breathing growing shallow as he struggled to process a sensation unlike anything he had ever experienced.
"Enough." Jae-min said, his voice rough—not from pain, but from the weight of feeling too much all at once.
Alessia stopped.
Her hand rested against his chest.
The violet glow faded, leaving only black eyes behind.
She looked down at her hands. The same hands that had once healed wounds now did something different. They had not repaired his scars. They had erased them.
Her gaze shifted to the apple resting on the nightstand. A doctor's habit. A snack she had saved before the Freeze because fresh fruit had become a rarity.
She picked it up.
The red apple rested quietly in her pale palm.
Life answered.
Violet light bloomed across her black irises.
The apple changed.
Not ripened.
Renewed.
The wrinkles in its skin smoothed away. The flesh beneath grew firmer. The faded red deepened into a richer color. Every sign of age quietly disappeared as though time itself had stepped backward.
Alessia watched without blinking.
"It isn't healing," Alessia murmured, her eyes fixed on the fruit. "Healing restores damaged tissue. This..." She turned the apple slowly between her fingers. "...this is restoring something to a state it no longer occupied. It's reversing deterioration."
She fell silent for a moment.
"Or..." Alessia corrected herself, the physician refusing to accept her own first conclusion without questioning it. "...perhaps it isn't reversing anything at all. Perhaps it's replacing what was lost with something entirely new."
The thought lingered.
Her fingers tightened slightly around the apple.
"If that's true... then this isn't regeneration. It isn't healing." Alessia theorized, unable to look away from the flawless fruit in her hand. "It might be Creation."
She set the apple down and looked at her empty palm, the violet glow still in her eyes, the Creation still humming. She thought about the apple, about the growing, about the un-decaying, about Life making dead things live. And she thought — the thought that came from the upgraded Life, the fundamental-tier Life that could feel the fabric of living things — if Life can make dead things live, what happens when Life itself becomes Creation? When the power to make things live becomes the power to make things be?
She focused. Not on healing, not on growing. On creating.
The air above her palm shimmered — the shimmer of space being bent, not the way Jae-min bent it with the void but bent outward, expanding, the expanding of a space being filled with something that had not been there a moment ago.
A seed appeared in the air on her palm. Not from nowhere — from Life. From the power of creation. The power that took nothing and made something. Creation in miniature.
The seed grew. In the air. Not on a tree, not in soil. In the air, because the power was Creation — Life at its fundamental tier, and Creation could hold things in the air, and Creation could make things grow from nothing. The seed became a sprout, the sprout became a stem, the stem became a branch, the branch became a tree — a tiny tree, no bigger than her hand, growing in the air on her palm.
The tree bore fruit. One fruit. An apple. A new apple — not the apple from the nightstand; that apple was still there. This was a different apple, an apple that had been nothing thirty seconds ago and was now an apple. Red. Round. Perfect. Created from nothing.
The apple dropped from the tiny tree into her palm. The tree dissolved — its purpose done, the Life that had made it releasing it back to the space it had come from. The apple remained. Red. Round. Real.
"I created an apple — from nothing, from air, from Creation, and the apple is real, and the tree was real, and the power that made them is Creation, and Creation is the fundamental force, and that is why Life is fundamental — not because healing is fundamental, but because Creation is fundamental, the power to make something from nothing is the power that makes everything possible, and I am holding it in my hand." Alessia realized, the realization hitting her with the force of something tectonic, the force of a doctor who had just discovered that her power was not what she thought it was and was larger than she had imagined and was the force that makes everything possible.
"The Life power — it is not just healing, it is not just growing, it is Creation." Alessia explained, her violet-glowing black eyes finding Jae-min's, her voice quiet with the quiet of a woman who had just discovered something large about herself. "Life at its fundamental tier — making something from nothing. Creation. The force that makes everything possible. That is why it is fundamental. Creation is the most fundamental force. The force that makes everything else possible."
She set both apples on the nightstand — the original and the created, two apples that were both real, one that had been real and one that had been nothing.
"I am not Body Enhancement anymore — I am Fundamental." Alessia declared, her voice gaining certainty. "The Life power, when combined with the Void, becomes Creation. And Creation is fundamental. The most fundamental. The force that started everything."
"Alessia." Jae-min said, his voice the voice of a man who did not know what to say and was saying her name because her name was the only word he had.
"I know." Alessia answered, the two apples sitting on the nightstand like evidence.
She looked at him—at the dark eyes that now matched her own. Black when at rest. Violet when their Fundamentality awakened. She looked like Jae-min. She looked like Ji-yoo. She belonged to the same blood group now. Group One. Fundamental. One hundred percent compatible.
Alessia walked to the infirmary door and tested the lock. Once. Twice. Satisfied, she turned back.
Her violet-glowing black eyes met his.
"We are staying here until I get results." Alessia declared, her voice carrying neither the calm authority of a doctor nor the detached precision of an investigator. It carried only the resolve of a wife who had finally decided what she wanted.
"Results?" Jae-min echoed, still trying to catch up with the direction the conversation had taken.
"A child." Alessia answered without hesitation, crossing the room until she stood before him. "We're staying in this infirmary for three days. We are not leaving. We are not opening that door. And we're going to try until I become pregnant... or until the three days are over. Whichever comes first."
"Three days..." Jae-min accepted inwardly. "She had already made up her mind. And after everything we had gone through—after the upgrade, after the impossible became possible—I wasn't about to be the one who argued with my wife."
A helpless smile found its way onto his face.
"Three days." Jae-min agreed.
"Three days." Alessia repeated, her pale hands finding his shirt and pulling it off — the off of a shirt that was in the way.
His chest was smooth now, the scars erased, and her hands were on it, the on-it of a woman whose hands were Creation and whose hands were now on the chest of a man who was one hundred percent compatible.
She kissed him — not the kiss of a wife saying goodnight, but the kiss of a woman who had wanted a child since Day 24 and who was now, at one hundred percent, in a locked infirmary, for three days, going to get one.
His arms went around her, his hands on her back, on her waist, on the waist that was pale now and was the waist of a powerful woman and was his.
His mouth on hers.
Her mouth on his.
The mouth-to-mouth of two people who were one hundred percent compatible and who were in a locked room and who had three days.
The cot — the cot that was an infirmary cot and was not the Command Bed and was not large but was enough.
Enough for two people who were going at it for three days and whose going-at-it did not require a large bed.
She was on him, straddling, in control — the in-control of a woman who had been a doctor her whole life and who was now, in this room, on this cot, the one who was going to make this happen.
Her pants off, his pants off, her hands fast, not wasting time.
His hands on her breasts — the breasts that were full and pale.
His mouth on her nipple, and she gasped — the gasp of a woman whose body was more sensitive now, the upgrade amplifying everything, every touch, every breath.
"Oh —" Alessia breathed, the oh of a woman who had been with this man since Day 24 and who was now, at one hundred percent, feeling him for the first time, the first-time of a body that had been seven percent and was now one hundred and whose one hundred was a different experience, a different feeling, the different of a compatibility that was perfect and that made the physical perfect.
She rode him with the ride of a woman in control whose body was now stronger, more endurance, the more-endurance of a fundamental-type Enhanced whose body had been rewritten for this.
His hands on her hips, gripping, guiding, the gripping that bruised and that was the thing.
His hips thrust up to meet hers, and the meeting was synchronized — perfectly, the perfectly of a compatibility that was not just data but was physical and was real and was happening.
The violet glow in both their eyes — his and hers, the same violet, two pairs of violet-glowing black eyes looking at each other while their bodies moved.
She came — and the orgasm was different, more, the more of a body that was perfectly compatible and whose perfection was expressed as a climax that was not just physical but was everything.
The Creation hummed, cresting, the cresting of a power that was orgasm and was life and was the everything that a one-hundred-percent compatible body felt.
Her insides clenched around him — the clenched of a body that was coming and whose coming was pulling him, the pulling of a one-hundred-percent compatible body designed to pull him in and hold him and take what he was giving.
He came inside her — the inside of a man who did not pull out, and whose not-pulling-out was, at one hundred percent, the thing that was going to make a child.
The thing that was the goal.
She did not climb off.
He was already hardening again, inside her, and she whispered again, we have three days, and he gave her again.
Three days.
— • • • —
Day 184. 06:30 hours to Day 187. 06:30 hours.
The infirmary. L2.
Locked.
For three days, the infirmary was not an infirmary.
For three days, the infirmary was a room with a cot and a locked door and two people who were one hundred percent compatible and who were going at it with the going-at-it of a fundamental-type and his wife, who was now a fundamental-type Enhanced.
The cot was not large enough, so they used the floor.
The floor was not comfortable, so they used the station.
The station was not wide enough, so they used the cot again.
The again of two people going at it for three days, whose going-at-it did not care about the surface.
She rode him.
He took her from behind.
She was at the station.
He was on the cot.
She was against the wall.
He was on the floor.
The every-position of a man whose libido was high and whose high-libido was, for three days, the thing that was happening.
His hands on her breasts, on her ass, on her hips — the on-everything of a handsy man.
Her hands on his chest — the smooth, scarless chest she had healed — on his back, on his shoulders.
The on-everything of a woman whose hands were Creation.
The violet glow in their eyes, on and off, the on-and-off of two fundamental-type Enhanced whose powers activated during sex.
Two pairs of violet-glowing black eyes in a locked infirmary.
He came inside her again and again and again, the again-and-again of a man who did not pull out.
She came again and again, the again-and-again of a body that was one hundred percent compatible and whose one-hundred was making every orgasm more, different, the more-different of a compatibility that was perfect.
Three days.
Seventy-two hours.
The seventy-two of a man and a woman in a locked room whose going-at-it was the thing that was happening and whose happening was the thing that the household — outside the locked door — was beginning to notice.
— • • • —
Day 187. 09:00 hours.
The Command Deck. L2.
Mei was at her console with Chocho in her lap, the white fox's blue eyes bright, the tablet on Mei's knees.
Aiko was beside her with her loupe down and her black eyes on the turret linkage she was cleaning.
"Have you seen Jae-min?" Mei asked, her voice casual, the casual of a woman asking because Jae-min had not been seen in three days.
"Have you seen Alessia?" Aiko returned, her loupe clicking up. "She has not been in the infirmary — I went down there yesterday for a bandage, and the door was locked."
"Locked." Mei repeated.
"Locked from the inside — I knocked, no answer." Aiko continued, her black eyes widening slightly. "I heard sounds."
"Sounds." Mei said.
"Sounds." Aiko confirmed, the sounds of a woman who had heard sounds through a locked infirmary door and whose hearing-the-sounds had made her eyes widen and whose widening was the thing she was not going to describe.
Mei looked at Aiko.
Aiko looked at Mei.
The looking of two women putting together the data — Jae-min not seen for three days, Alessia not seen for three days, infirmary locked from the inside, sounds — and whose putting-together was leading them to a conclusion they were both arriving at simultaneously.
"Oh." Mei said.
"Oh." Aiko confirmed.
Chocho — the white fox in Mei's lap, the nine-tailed fox whose blue eyes were bright and whose nose was twitching — sniffed the air.
The sniff of a fox whose sense of smell was better than any human's and whose better-than-human nose was picking up something coming through the ventilation from L2.
Chocho's nose twitched, her blue eyes narrowed, her nine tails curled.
Her face made an expression — the expression of a fox who knew what she was smelling and whose knowing was making her face do the thing a fox's face did when the fox was aware, the aware of an animal who had smelled the thing and whose smelling was making her face scrunch and whose scrunch was the face of a fox who knew exactly what was going on in the infirmary and was not going to tell anyone but was going to make a face about it.
"Chocho, what is it? What do you smell?" Mei asked, looking down at the fox.
Chocho looked up at Mei.
The looked-up of a fox whose blue eyes were knowing and whose knowing was in her face — the face that said I know exactly what it is, and you do not want to know.
"Oh." Mei said again, but differently — the differently of a woman who had just seen Chocho's face and whose seeing-the-face had told her what the sounds were.
"Oh." Aiko said, also differently — the differently of a woman who had also seen the face and whose seeing had completed the data and whose completed data was the conclusion.
The three of them — Mei, Aiko, Chocho — sat in the Command Deck.
A woman with a tablet and a fox, a woman with a loupe, and a fox with a face.
The four of a household that was missing two people, and whose missing-two was in a locked infirmary, and whose locked-infirmary was the thing that Chocho's face had confirmed.
The compound held.
The investigation continued.
The infirmary was occupied.
And Chocho's face was the face of a fox who knew.