The ruins still smoked from the collapse. The air tasted of metal and rain, a reminder that even the sky bled rust in this world.
Kaodin stood amid the dust, chest heaving.
He didn't remember when he started moving — only that his body had chosen for him.
Gunfire shattered the silence.
Cee-Ar-Tee's shouted with amplified synthetic voice cut through the noise, calm yet urgent:
"Multiple hostiles approaching — fourteen, triangulated flanks!"
"Move!" Kaodin shouted, grabbing Cee-Too by the shoulder and dragging him behind a shattered support beam. The boy stumbled, eyes wide with panic.
Talgat crouched nearby, breathing hard, feigning confusion — but his gaze flicked upward, tracing the motion of the enemy line like a soldier, not a victim.
Kaodin didn't notice. His blood had already begun to hum again.
His breath steadied, his vision tightened — the world slowing to rhythm and pulse.
The ruins still smoked from the collapse. The air tasted of metal and rain, a reminder that even the sky bled rust in this world.
Kaodin stood amid the dust, chest heaving.
He didn't remember when he started moving — only that his body had chosen for him.
Gunfire shattered the silence.
Cee-Ar-Tee's unfazed, immediately notified the boys, calm yet urgent:
"Multiple hostiles approaching — fourteen, triangulated flanks!"
"Move!" Kaodin shouted, grabbing Cee-Too by the shoulder and dragging him behind a shattered support beam. The boy stumbled, eyes wide with panic.
Talgat crouched nearby, breathing hard, feigning confusion — but his gaze flicked upward, tracing the motion of the enemy line like a soldier, not a victim.
Kaodin didn't notice. His blood had already begun to hum again.
His breath steadied, his vision tightened — the world slowing to rhythm and pulse.
One soldier broke formation and rushed through the dust. Kaodin stepped forward.
His heart beat once. Twice.
"Kua Sat Hawk."
Right Spear Thrust.
He ducked low, slipping past an imagined left punch, and struck — his right elbow cutting upward through the air, smashing into the man's jaw.
A shock of red light rippled outward — not blood, but Qi.
The man dropped without sound.
Another figure lunged from the flank. Kaodin pivoted fluidly.
"I Nao Tang Grid."
A Man Stabbing a Dagger.
He turned sharply, catching the opponent's right strike, stepping into the inner circle and driving his elbow like a hammer into the ribs.
A crack — sharp, final — echoed through the mist.
Dust curled around his feet in swirling rings, drawn by the energy pouring from his center.
He didn't understand how he was doing it — only that every motion felt inevitable, remembered rather than learned.
Cee-Too stared, awestruck. "What is that…? He's glowing."
Cee-Ar-Tee analyzed in silence, the faint mechanical hum beneath his tone:
"Qi emission. Biological anomaly consistent with historical martial energy recordings. Source: Kaodin."
Kaodin barely heard him. The rhythm carried him. The strikes flowed like a chant.
"Kua Sat Hawk."
"I Nao Tang Grid."
Two more fell before he even realized he was speaking the names aloud.
Then — silence.
The survivors froze, rifles trembling in their hands. The light that surrounded Kaodin dimmed, fading into the faint pulse of breath and heartbeat.
He stood amid the fallen, his hands shaking — not from exhaustion, but from fear.
Not of them.
Of himself.
Far above, Korren adjusted the focus of his recon lens.
Through the storm haze, he watched the boy move with impossible grace — not mechanical, not augmented, but alive in a way most men had forgotten how to be.
"Not a weapon," he murmured. "A phenomenon."
Beside him, Nyla crouched low, her scope tracking Kaodin through the chaos. "He's just a kid," she said softly.
Korren's reply was quiet, but sharp.
"Everything born in this world learns to kill early."
She said nothing. But when her finger touched the trigger, it trembled.
Kaodin looked up. Across the haze, Nyla's scope reflected a red glint — a target bead locked on his chest.
He didn't move.
He simply stared back.
For a long heartbeat, neither of them breathed.
Then, Nyla lowered her rifle.
"Enough," she whispered into the comm.
Her voice reached Korren through static.
"Pull back," he ordered.
"You're letting them go?" she asked.
"Letting," Korren said, his voice unreadable. "Observing."
Silence fell again, broken only by the soft rasp of Talgat's breathing.
Kaodin turned toward him, the adrenaline draining away. "Who are you really?"
Talgat hesitated, then let himself fall to his knees, coughing. "A man who's done too many wrong things to be afraid anymore."
Kaodin's expression softened, though he didn't lower his guard.
He wanted to ask more — but the whir of propellers cut him off.
A drone descended from the clouds, its red light scanning them all in rapid pulses.
[CENTRAL SECTOR SETTLEMENT ENTRY CLEARANCE PROTOCOL INITIATED]
[IDENTITY VALIDATION: CEE-AR-TEE, CEE-TOO, KAO-DIN]
[ADDITIONAL ENTITY DETECTED: UNKNOWN. STATUS—NON-HOSTILE.]
A soft chime followed. The drone projected a green glyph onto the ground.
[ACCESS GRANTED.]
Talgat blinked against the sudden flash. "What… is that thing?"
Cee-Ar-Tee's voice was level. "Authorization from the settlement perimeter AI. It's granting us passage."
The drone's lens tilted toward Kaodin, its display flickering with a cartoon smile.
[GOOD WORK, KID.]
Kaodin frowned. "What?"
Then the voice continued:
[FOLLOW THE ESCORT ROUTE. REPORT TO MR. ZHANG BO. DON'T BREAK ANYTHING.]
Cee-Too snorted. "He definitely likes you."
Kaodin said nothing. He turned once, looking back at the wrecked ruins in the far distant. Talgat was still kneeling, his expression unreadable.
"Come on," Kaodin murmured. "Let's move before the storm closes."
They followed the drone's flickering beacon across the barren plain.
Each step felt heavier than the last. The adrenaline that had carried Kaodin through battle had drained away, leaving behind only the pulse of warmth still beating faintly at his core—the lingering echo of the energy that had burst from him.
He couldn't explain it, but it didn't frighten him as much now. What scared him was how right it had felt.
The sky above had gone from gray to bruised blue, streaked with smoke and radiation clouds rolling like slow tides.
Cee-Ar-Tee walked ahead, silent, scanning the perimeter. Cee-Too hummed softly, half to keep himself awake, half to fill the empty air.
As the horizon shimmered, Kaodin saw it—faint at first, like a mirage: a domed structure buried half beneath sand and time.
It wasn't until the drone chirped an alert that he realized what it was.
[SETTLEMENT PERIMETER FIELD DETECTED. PLEASE REMAIN WITHIN BEACON RANGE.]
Cee-Ar-Tee stopped. "Field barrier confirmed. We've reached the outer wall."
Kaodin turned once more to glance back toward the wasteland. The ruins stretched endlessly—gray, cracked, and hollow. The wind carried only the faint echo of collapse.
He exhaled slowly. "It's over."
Cee-Too tilted his head. "The fight?"
Kaodin nodded faintly. "No. Just… one of many."
.
The storm trailed them like a dying beast — a wall of red sand and static rolling over the horizon.
By the time the winds began to fade, the jagged silhouette of the scrap barrier loomed ahead — a tangled wall of corroded metal and fractured glass that stretched from one end of the valley to the other.
Talgat slowed his pace, squinting at the immense structure. "This can't be a settlement," he muttered. "Looks more like the carcass of a dead city."
Cee-Ar-Tee's optics flickered, scanning. "False assumption. Structure is a photonic veil projected by the Central Sector Dome Settlement. Concealment system fully operational. Pattern variation: version eighty-two."
Kaodin smirked faintly. "Still looks ugly from the outside."
The escort drone pulsed overhead, its mechanical voice cutting through the static:
[CENTRAL SECTOR DOME SETTLEMENT PERIMETER FIELD DETECTED.]
[INITIATING ACCESS SEQUENCE — AUTHORIZATION: CEE-AR-TEE, CEE-TOO, KAO-DIN, ADDITIONAL ENTITY NON-HOSTILE.]
A low hum rippled through the ground. The wall of debris flickered, its metallic surface bending and shimmering like water. Then, in a single sweep of blue light, the illusion peeled away — dissolving into a vast dome of glass-alloy and circuitry rising into the haze.
Talgat stopped dead, his eyes wide. "By the gods… it's real."
Cee-Too grinned, elbowing Kaodin lightly. "You should've seen him the first time he came through. Thought the world was melting. Nearly swung at the air."
Kaodin groaned. "You're never letting that go, are you?"
Cee-Too laughed. "Not a chance. You practically screamed when the wall disappeared. Whole market still talks about 'the boy who tried to punch a hologram.'"
Even Cee-Ar-Tee's optics flickered once — the android's version of amusement. "Historical record confirms that incident generated thirty-eight settlement memes in the first twenty-four hours."
Talgat blinked at them, baffled. "Wait—you're serious?"
Kaodin sighed, half-smiling despite himself. "I thought I was walking into a technicolor hallucination. Don't judge me."
Cee-Too spread his arms, teasing. "You're the legend now, hero. Scared of light, savior of the wasteland."
Before Kaodin could reply, the drone's tone shifted to a softer frequency.
[ENTRY AUTHORIZATION VERIFIED. PHOTONIC VEIL TEMPORARILY DISABLED.]
[ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE EQUALIZATION IN PROGRESS.]
A ripple of light unfolded ahead. The dome's surface parted like mist, revealing a corridor of warm, filtered air and soft amber glow. Inside, the city shimmered with layers of cultivated green and copper veins pulsing with energy.
Talgat took a cautious step forward, his voice low. "I've never seen anything like this… you people live here?" [No wonder why, even several months of scouting, we could never find an actual entrance]
"Live, work, and occasionally almost die here," Cee-Ar-Tee said dryly. "Welcome to CSDS — the pillar of hope for the humanity last stronghold to rebuild civilization, home of recycled dreams and half-decent meals."
The warmth from within brushed over them as they passed through the threshold. Kaodin barely flinched at the transition; he'd felt this sensation countless times before — the subtle static prickling across the skin, the pulse beneath the floor that synced faintly with his own heartbeat.
To him, it was no longer a marvel. It was home.
But for Talgat, the experience was nothing short of revelation.
He stared at the city beyond — tiers of glowing terraces, suspended platforms, and sky bridges framed beneath the dome's auric light. "You've built a whole world under glass," he whispered.
"Built?" Cee-Ar-Tee corrected. "Rebuilt. The CSDS predates the Great Calamity. Most of its infrastructure was preserved through autonomous maintenance AI systems. Human contribution: forty-two percent restoration efficiency."
Talgat gave a low whistle. "Forty-two percent, huh? Guess miracles don't come cheap."
Kaodin's gaze drifted toward the faint red pulse at the heart of the dome, where the thorium reactors glowed beneath the central spire. "Nothing here does."
The storm behind them fell silent as the veil resealed. The scrap wall shimmered back into illusion — just another ruin in a world full of them.
Inside, however, the Central Sector Dome Settlement thrummed with quiet life. Drones buzzed along suspended cables. Vendors called from the lower tiers. Hydro towers glowed with filtered light, nurturing pale-green vines that climbed toward the ceiling.
A voice echoed through the inner air, calm and measured:
[WELCOME BACK, CEE-AR-TEE, CEE-TOO, AND KAO-DIN.]
[NEW ENTRY DETECTED — TALGAT, STATUS: TEMPORARY GUEST.]
[REPORT TO CENTRAL REGISTRATION FOR CONFIRMATION AND ASSIGNMENT.]
"Guess that means we're home," Cee-Too said.
"Speak for yourself," Talgat murmured, still staring at the skyline that looked more like a dream than a city.
High above, a surveillance lens rotated once, tracking their movements.
Inside the central command spire, Zhang Bo stood before the live feed. The holographic display cast reflections of shifting light across his calm, expressionless face.
Three familiar identifiers blinked green — and one, newly added, pulsed yellow.
[SUBJECT: TALGAT — NEWLY REGISTERED. RISK CLASS: UNCERTAIN.]
[SUBJECT: KAO-DIN — BIOLOGICAL ENERGY OUTPUT EXCEEDS BASELINE BY 3,200%. QI RESONANCE ACTIVE.]
Zhang Bo's gaze lingered on Kaodin's reading. "Still rising…" he murmured.
The central AI responded with even precision:
[RECOMMENDATION: CONTINUED OBSERVATION. PATTERN CONSISTENT WITH POTENTIAL HYPER-QI FEEDBACK EVENT.]
"Potential?" Zhang Bo repeated, faint amusement flickering behind his tone. "No, not potential. Inevitability."
He watched the boy's image shimmer across the screen — red Qi faintly echoing against the gold light of the dome.
"The last anomaly we found reshaped history before my time, and here I'm a best seat for the witness to the one," he said quietly. "Let's see how he would surprise me next."
Later That Night______________
Steam rose from the recycled steel pots, swirling in the amber light of the compact kitchen. The aroma of broth—savory and faintly metallic—filled the air, carried by the quiet hum of old vent-fans. The Hong family's quarters were modest but alive: walls lined with worn tools, disassembled augment parts, and stacks of handwritten blueprints for circuits and mechanical joints.
Mrs. Hong stood at the stove, her synthetic hand stirring the soup with calm precision. The rhythmic clink of ladle against metal carried a soft, almost meditative quality. Across the counter, her daughter, Xiao Ying, arranged bowls with surgical care, each one placed exactly an inch apart.
The door slid open.
Cee-Too stepped inside first, his scavenger pack slung over one shoulder, a thin layer of dust clinging to his hair. "We're back," he said, voice tired but bright.
Mrs. Hong turned immediately. Her composure softened. "You're late. The dust storm didn't catch you, did it?"
Cee-Too grinned. "We outran it. But we brought home more than scrap today."
He motioned toward the doorway.
Kaodin followed behind—mud-stained, shoulders squared yet visibly weary. His steps were quiet, careful. The warmth of the room hit him like a memory; the scent of boiling broth and oil stirred something deep in his chest.
Mrs. Hong's eyes met his. There was no judgment in them—only calm observation, the kind that seemed to see straight through armor. "You look exhausted, child," she said gently. "Sit. Warm food helps more than pride."
Kaodin bowed slightly, his Thai upbringing evident even in his fatigue. "Thank you… Mrs. Hong."
"Ah, polite as ever," she replied with a small smile, gesturing to the table. "You're no longer a guest here, Kaodin. Eat like family."
Xiao Ying placed a bowl before him, steam curling upward between them. "It's hot," she murmured. Her tone carried quiet warmth, but her cheeks flushed slightly when their hands brushed.
Cee-Too immediately noticed. "She always serves you first," he teased. "Favoritism, Mom. Clear as day."
"Don't talk nonsense," Xiao Ying muttered, fumbling for the spoon. "He's just… tired."
Kaodin looked up at her awkwardly and offered a small, shy smile. "Thank you. It smells wonderful."
Mrs. Hong turned off the stove, her movements unhurried. "It's not much," she said, carrying the final bowl to the table. "But it's made with care. That's worth more than rare metal out there."
They ate together. The sound of spoons against metal, quiet laughter, and the occasional hum of the power grid filled the air.
For a moment, Kaodin almost forgot the world outside—the smoke, the scavenger fights, the long silences that filled every dawn.
He looked around the table—Cee-Too grinning as he slurped his broth, Xiao Ying sneaking glances his way, and Mrs. Hong watching them all with that steady, unreadable calm. It was the first time since waking in this future that he felt the weight in his chest ease.
Mrs. Hong broke the silence first. "You know," she said softly, "I once believed love could be programmed."
The others looked up.
"I was my father's apprentice," she continued, her tone steady but distant. "He was a robotics engineer before the Fall. His machines could think, react, even predict emotions. But they couldn't feel them. When his creations turned on him, I realized he'd built reason without empathy—intelligence without compassion. Cruelty dressed as progress."
She stirred her bowl absently, as if lost in the rhythm. "When I started again, I swore my work would never repeat that mistake. So I built differently. I made machines that could learn… kindness."
Her eyes flicked briefly toward Cee-Too. "I didn't just want logic. I wanted heart."
Cee-Too's grin softened into something gentler. "You did more than build it, Mom. You raised it."
Mrs. Hong smiled faintly. "Perhaps. But I didn't raise you alone. You were made from parts of what was left of your grandfather's brilliance—and my stubbornness. That makes you family, by design."
Then, almost without pause, she added, "I didn't marry. I didn't want love anymore. I chose creation instead. I gave myself a son, and later, a daughter, through the labs. That was enough."
Xiao Ying looked down at her bowl. "You say that like you regret it sometimes."
Kaodin blinked, confused but too polite to interrupt. Build? Create a son? And lab to create a daughter?
He frowned slightly, forcing himself not to ask. No… it's not my place. It must be an adult thing. Better to stay quiet. If I say something strange, it might embarrass her—or me.
Mrs. Hong's expression softened. "Not regret," she said quietly. "But creation carries its own loneliness. We build to fill something the world has taken."
Kaodin listened in silence. Her words lingered—creation born from loss. It echoed something within him he couldn't yet name.
He looked into his soup, watching the reflection of his faint Qi shimmer beneath the surface like a hidden ember. His mind drifted to the battle days before—the burning red that had consumed him, the men he'd struck down without thought.
He clenched his hands beneath the table. "Mrs. Hong," he said softly, voice trembling with an unspoken question. "When the world takes too much from someone… and what's left of them doesn't feel human anymore… what do they become?"
She paused mid-breath. Then, slowly, she answered, "They become something new, Kaodin. That's what survival is—remaking yourself until the pain no longer defines you."
Her tone was neither gentle nor cold. It was truth, spoken like an oath she'd lived by.
Cee-Too gave a small laugh, trying to cut the heaviness. "You hear that, Kao? Mom's basically saying being weird is a family tradition."
Xiao Ying shot him a look, but Kaodin smiled faintly, bowing his head. "Then I'm honored… to be part of it."
Mrs. Hong chuckled softly, reaching across the table to adjust his bowl like a mother would for her own child. "You already are, dear. Family isn't in blood or code—it's in what we choose to protect."
Later that night, after dinner, the module was quiet except for the soft mechanical hum of the ventilation.
Kaodin lay on the small cot near the workshop wall—Cee-Too's spare bed, covered in a threadbare blanket that smelled faintly of metal and detergent. From the kitchen came the faint murmur of Mrs. Hong and Xiao Ying's voices, followed by laughter—gentle, human.
He stared at the ceiling, tracing the web of wiring that ran across it like constellations.
Family, he thought.
The word carried a warmth he had almost forgotten.
And yet, beneath that warmth, there was something else—a quiet ache. The knowledge that everything fragile in this world could vanish again, just as quickly as it came.
He closed his eyes, hearing his father's voice somewhere between dream and memory.
"Strength isn't for hurting, son. It's for keeping what you love from being lost."
He exhaled slowly, syncing his breath with his heartbeat—steady, measured, calm.
Within him, the Qi stirred, faint and alive, pulsing once in rhythm with that memory.
For a fleeting moment, Kaodin smiled—the kind of small, genuine smile only found in moments that feel too human to last.
And in the faint hum of the Hong household, it almost felt like peace.