167
Lina’s gaze moved to Johnny.
His human eye was fixed on the passing window, but he wasn't seeing the highway. He was seeing ghosts. Scenes from a war. A funeral. A hospital room. Things that had happened and things that should have happened but hadn't.
Johnny's gaze slowly moved from the window to her hand. Then up to her face.
He looked at her. His one human eye filled with profound, agonizing doubt—still unsure if she was real, if this was all some new, intricate, corporate-implanted hell designed to torture him with hope.
Lina met his gaze.
She didn't flinch from the pain she saw there. She simply took her other hand and placed it over his, sandwiching his trembling hand between both of hers.
Her touch was a silent, unwavering promise.
I'm real. I'm here.
Johnny's eyes closed. He took a long, shuddering breath—the first real breath he seemed to have taken since leaving the outpost. The iron-clad tension in his massive shoulders eased. Just a fraction.
"Thank you," he whispered. The words were rough, broken, barely audible above the hiss of the road.
Lina smiled at him. A small, sad, and infinitely kind smile.
She didn't say more. She didn't need to.
She left her hands on his—a silent, shared anchor—and turned her gaze back to the road ahead, watching the sun bleed out behind the smog.
The Kurai Specter cut through the evening highway traffic like a predator through water. Its angled composite shell, coated in reactive matte teal-green, seemed to shift and shimmer in the fading light. The neon and LED wash from automated freight haulers and corporate sedans played across its surface, making it look alive—a hunting thing swimming through a river of light.
Inside, the atmosphere was different.
Not the heavy, past-tense grief of the other car. But a tense, uncertain, analytical silence. It was the quiet of four very human, very-much-on-edge passengers, all hyper-aware that their driver was not one of them.
Artemis was at the wheel.
Her posture was perfect—spine straight, shoulders relaxed, hands at ten and two. Her movements were unnervingly precise and economical, each tiny adjustment of the wheel calculated to the micron. She hadn't spoken a word since they'd left the city. Her ice-blue eyes were fixed on the taillights of Synth's vehicle, focused on the singular task of following with an intensity that bordered on religious devotion.
The red and blue neon of the highway washed over her silver hair, making it glow like captured moonlight.
In the front passenger seat, Julia was practically vibrating with suppressed scientific excitement.
She—a doctor, a scientist, a woman who had spent her entire adult life elbow-deep in meat and metal and the grey area between—was sitting an arm away from a living, breathing Asura. A machine of myth. A walking, talking scientific miracle that shouldn't exist outside of classified military files and fever dreams.
She'd been told what Artemis was. But seeing her acting so... human... was a logical paradox that her analytical mind couldn't quite resolve.
Artemis had told her some things. About her life in the Green Hell. How she'd ruled over the mutant jungle, maintained the brutal harmony of the ecosystem, made sure no one trespassed her territory and lived to tell the tale. An apex predator managing her hunting ground.
But when Julia had asked why she wasn't living there anymore, Artemis had simply... stopped talking. The silence had been absolute. Final. A door closed and locked.
In the back, it was a portrait of fragile, wary-eyed support.
Alyna was huddled by one window, her face turned away from the others, watching the highway lights blur into streaks of painful memory.
Selena slumped by the opposite window, sprawled out. Her eyes lazily tracked every vehicle that came too close.
Between them sat Max who was playing on his data pad.
The hypnotic passing lights reminded Alyna of another night. Another car. The same highway.
The memory rose unbidden, a perfect, painful phantom.
She was trapped.
Lying in the back seat of her parents' utterly unremarkable grey groundcar. The highway in total gridlock. Smoke—thick and acrid—stung her nostrils. The distant wail of sirens was a constant, looping scream. She was pale, her eyes wide and haunted, a prisoner in her own life.
In the front, her parents were cocoons of digital denial.
Her father—thinning grey hair a perfect map of middle-management anxiety—hunched over his datapad. His fingers went tap-tap-tap. He hadn't looked up once in the past hour.
Her mother—small and bird-like—clutched her own datapad. Her lips moved in a silent mantra of grievances, her sharp, nervous eyes pointedly ignoring the chaos outside to jab at her screen with renewed fervor.
Then, a light tap on the rear window.
Alyna jolted. Her head snapped around.
Her heart stopped.
He took off his helmet. His dark, unkempt hair was plastered to his forehead with rain. His blue eyes were sharp and intense and real in the flashing emergency lights.
It was him.
Ray.
Her parents' gazes lifted—annoyed at the interruption, at this intrusion into their carefully maintained bubble of complaint and screens.
Her father's frown deepened into that familiar, overt scowl of silent accusation. Her mother's lips thinned into a tight line of pure distaste before she deliberately, pointedly, turned back to her screen.
But Alyna couldn't look away.
Her sapphire eyes were wide with wild, impossible disbelief. A single, silent question: You came?
She scrambled over the seats, her hands fumbling with the door handle. It was locked. Of course it was locked. Her father's control. She pulled at it, frantic, a sob of pure desperation rising in her throat.
Ray simply placed his gloved hand over the lock mechanism on the outside.
A faint click.
He pulled the door open.
She didn't think. She didn't hesitate.
She threw herself out of the car and into his arms, her body trembling, clinging to him with desperate, surprising strength. She felt the frantic, bird-like beat of her own heart against his solid chest.
For a moment, the chaos of the highway, the smoke and the sirens—it all faded away.
There was only the surprising warmth of him. The undeniable reality of him. His arms secure around her. A small, fragile anchor in a mad world.
He had come for her.
A fresh, silent tear escaped and tracked down Alyna's cheek as the memory dissolved, leaving her back in the cold, humming silence of the Specter.
That Ray—the boy who had pulled her from a life she hated, who had seen her when no one else had—was gone.
He was gone. Replaced by the silver-eyed being driving the 4x4 in front of them.
She turned her face deeper into the shadows of the window, hoping no one would see.
But Max, sitting in the middle, did see.
He understood this kind of deep, silent pain. The kind that had no words. He hesitated for only a second, then slowly, silently, he reached out from the middle seat and placed his small, warm hand on her arm.
He didn't say anything. He just looked at her with sad, quiet understanding that no kid his age should have.
A small, broken smile touched Alyna's lips. She sniffed and, with her other hand, gently patted him on the head.
Selena, sitting on Max's other side, saw the entire exchange.
She watched Alyna pat her brother's head. Then met Alyna's eyes across Max.
Selena's expression was unreadable for a moment. Then she reached over, placing her own hand over both Max's and Alyna's. Her grip was firm and warm.
You're not alone.
The gesture said everything.
The silence in the car stretched. Broken only by the near-silent hum of the Specter's engine and the soft whoosh of passing vehicles.
Thirty minutes crawled by.
Finally, Selena couldn't take the quiet anymore.
"Do you have any idea where we are headed, exactly?" Her voice was sharp, directed at the back of Artemis's perfectly still head.
Artemis's head didn't move, but her clear voice filled the car. "I do."
A beat of silence.
Selena's eyes narrowed in the rearview mirror. "And?"
"Synth instructed me not to disclose the final destination to anyone," Artemis stated. Her tone was perfectly calm, as if this was the most reasonable thing in the world.
"What?" Selena bristled. "Why not?"
"He didn't provide me with that data," Artemis clarified.
Selena let out an exasperated huff and crossed her arms. "Fine. Is it far away?"
"Three-thousand, five-hundred kilometers," Artemis stated.
"What?"
Selena shot forward, leaning between the front seats. Her voice cracked with disbelief. "Three-thousand... are you serious? Are we going to be in this car for days? He could have at least told us to pack for a cross-country trip!"
"We should arrive in approximately 4.7 hours," Artemis replied.
The car went silent.
But this time it was a different silence. A silence of pure, dumbfounded confusion.
Julia, who had been listening with sharp, analytical interest, finally spoke. "I'm sorry," she said, her voice precise and measured. "Did you say 4.7 hours?"
"That is the current ETA, correct."
Julia's fingers flew across her datapad, pulling up maps and calculations. "That's... that's a mathematical impossibility, Artemis. An average speed of over 740 kilometers per hour." She looked up from her screen, her eyes wide. "This car is fast, but it is not that fast. It's not a jet. How are we getting there?"
"I don't know," Artemis said. "Synth said it was 'easier this way' and provided the route. I am simply following it."
The answer was so literal, so perfectly unhelpful, that it left Julia momentarily speechless.
Selena slumped back in her seat, frustrated and bewildered.
Max, who had been watching the highway blur past, glanced west toward the unseen ocean. "Are we gonna take a boat?" he asked quietly.
"I don't know if we're taking a boat," Artemis replied. "Synth didn't tell me."
Selena saw her opening. She leaned forward again, but this time her voice was laced with a mischievous, probing smirk. "He didn't tell you, huh? And you didn't ask?"
She let the question hang.
"Aren't you... you know... his girlfriend or something? Is he keeping secrets from you?"
Artemis's head—which had not moved an inch—now turned.
It was a smooth, unnerving pivot. Her ice-blue eyes, utterly devoid of human social cues, locked onto Selena in the rearview mirror.
"We share a unique bond," Artemis stated, her voice thoughtful as she processed the query. She paused, as if tasting the word. "So, yes. 'Girlfriend' is the correct human analogue."
A beat.
"And I did not ask because I had no reason to ask. I am uncertain if he is keeping secrets from me."
"Lovers should share everything," Selena said, her tone deliberately provocative.
Max looked at his sister, a slight frown on his face.
"What's the problem, Max?" Alyna asked gently, noticing his expression.
Max leaned closer, signaling for Alyna to come nearer. "Lena never had a boyfriend," he explained in a whisper that wasn't quite quiet enough. "She always scared away any boy that tried to approach her."
His voice dropped lower. "One time a boy confessed to her and asked for her contact. She told him to send her some creds first, which he did. And then she left."
Alyna pressed her hand to her mouth, trying to suppress a laugh that threatened to escape. But Selena's words—lovers should share everything—resonated differently for her.
She remembered the many moments with Ray. Huddled together in quiet corners of the city. Speaking of their deepest fears, their secrets, their dreams for a future that seemed impossible. The intimacy of being truly seen by another person.
"Noted," Artemis responded. Her expression remained still as a statue.
She didn't say anything more.
Selena scoffed—a small, disbelieving laugh. "Okay, fine. Can I at least get a hint?"
Artemis seemed to consider this. "A 'hint' is a piece of partial, non-critical information designed to assist in logical conclusion."
Selena's smirk widened. "Yeah. That's the one. So...?"
Artemis turned her gaze back to the road. "Providing partial data would still violate the directive."
Selena threw her hands up and slumped back against the seat. "You are a real blast at parties, aren't you?"
Artemis's head tilted slightly—a faint, almost imperceptible frown. "I have no data on my performance at 'parties.' My primary function was ecosystem management."
Julia snorted into her hand in the front seat, trying to cover a laugh.
The conversation died, sputtering out against the wall of Artemis's flawless, alien logic.
The car sank back into heavy, awkward silence.
Julia stared at her datapad. Selena stewed. Alyna retreated back into the window's reflection.
Artemis glanced at each of them in the rearview mirror. Their discomfort was palpable, a thing she could measure in micro-expressions and body language.
She accessed her communication link with Synth.
Query: The passengers are uncomfortable. I have attempted conversation but results are suboptimal. Requesting guidance.
A moment later, the reply came.
Just be interested.
Artemis processed the words.
Be interested.
"I've spent... a lot of time with Max," Artemis said suddenly, her voice filling the quiet car and making everyone jump.
It was clear and human, though perhaps a bit too formal for the setting.
"But I don't know the rest of you, and I wish to know more."
The car was silent.
Julia, Alyna, and Selena exchanged glances of pure, baffled astonishment.
She wants to... talk?
Julia, the scientist, couldn't resist. The clinical curiosity from the driver was a mirror of her own. She was the first to speak, a small, dry smile on her lips.
"Well," Julia said, turning in her seat. " I'm a doctor. A modder. I run a small clinic in Hollow Verge." She paused. "I'm an old friend of Lina's."
Artemis processed this. "A doctor," she repeated, her voice holding a flicker of genuine curiosity. "You repair biological systems. You reverse entropy."
"I... suppose you could put it that way, yes," Julia said, intrigued. "It's mostly organ replacements, limb replacements, and maintenance work."
"Fascinating," Artemis said.
And it sounded genuine.
"The concept of a system that actively fights its own decay... is it a rewarding process?"
Before Julia could dive into a medical philosophy debate, Selena cut in. Her voice still held a sharp edge, but her curiosity was piqued.
"I'm Selena. That's my brother, Max. I want to be a techie." She paused. "And Max has a talent for creating sculptures. But I think you know this by now."
Artemis's gaze met Selena's in the rearview mirror. "He did show me many of his creations. I find them very interesting."