A flashing red circle appeared on the room’s main screen, and everybody stared in silence for a moment as the enormity of what it represented sunk in. The screen displayed a map of the country, with shifting borders showing the rapidly-evolving frontline of the war.

“Someone confirm the accuracy of that data,” a woman demanded in a voice that clearly announced that she was used to getting her way, and that anyone who dared to question her would be in for a world of hurt. “Right goddamn now.”

A man across the room typed quickly, fingers flying across the keys as he pulled up half a dozen separate feeds. They all confirmed what everyone in the room was seeing. “Con-confirmed strike of an IA missile, captain. Medium payload. It’s, uh…”

“God have mercy,” another man whispered. “The whole metropolitan area? The population was more than ten million. Most of those were civilians…”

“Cut the chatter,” a second woman ordered. She was a full foot-and-a-half taller than the captain she stood behind, roughly on-par with the man she’d just verbally slapped down. As a first-generation supersoldier, Lieutenant Cianna sported a batch-designation in place of a surname, to denote when she had been created. Most of the other assembled soldiers had similar designations, although none of the others had one from earlier than Delta, the fourth batch.

Their genetic augmentations came in one of a few packages, predisposing each supersoldier to a specific role: superior eyesight and hearing for scouts, denser bones and muscles for the “heavies”, beyond-human levels of speed for the skirmishers. Other traits were universal, like the increased size that let them take advantage of the square cube law for greater armour coverage, the faster reflexes that enabled them to better pilot suits of power-armor and shuttles alike, and their greater reserves of stamina to keep them going during extended encounters.

Cianna had come by her fair skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes naturally however, as the genetic programmers had been too worried about making fitter soldiers to worry about aesthetic considerations. She might have even been considered beautiful, if not for her habitual no-nonsense expressions… and the thick metal-and-glass helmet that concealed all of the soldiers’ faces.

The other soldier responded to his lieutenant’s words instantly, giving her a crisp salute before falling into a steady parade rest.

As second-in-command of Fireteam Victor-Foxtrot, Cianna had participated in no fewer than a dozen operations, and had helped guide the team until it boasted the highest kill-count and success rate in the country. “What are our orders, Captain Lanney?”

The captain studied the display in silence for another moment, and her face didn’t betray a hint of emotions. Whatever anger, fear, or sadness she may have felt was packed up efficiently and tucked away where none of her subordinates could see. She was the only non-augmented individual in the fireteam, and thus never participated directly in operations, but her personal strength was unquestionable. “The same as before, lieutenant. We hold our current position until we receive orders from—” The team’s captain froze mid-speech, displaying more emotion in that reaction than any of them had ever seen from her in all of their combined years of service. All bodies present watched in mute horror as another red circle appeared on the digital map, this one large enough to encompass two cities and a major military base. A third appeared, and then a fourth. On the far side of the map, in the enemy's territory, matching circles appeared as Cianna’s side delivered its own payloads from the stations orbiting high above.

Everyone watched as the red circles expanded, representing the total destruction of millions, if not billions, of lives. Not to mention huge swathes of military assets. They witnessed the exact moment that their nation lost the war. The moment that everyone, everywhere, lost the war. Mutually assured destruction.

If the team still intended to wait for orders from their military command, they would be waiting a long, long time.

“Change of plans, team.” The captain spoke to the silent room in a somber voice. “Initiate operation Snow White. Operators, begin surface decommissioning and shut-down of this installation. Godspeed to you all.”

“Yes, captain,” the man at the keyboard whispered. They had all heard what she’d said, and they’d all understood what the captain meant: they were to initiate the closing protocols, then abandon the base. They would have no more support, no more military to back them. They were on their own.

“Soldiers, fall in!” Captain Lanney turned and strode from the room. She didn’t need to look back to see if her team of genetically-augmented soldiers were following— Victor-Foxtrot had followed her to hell and back on more than one occasion, and she knew that she commanded their absolute loyalty even as she led them into the sealed bay in the back chamber of the base.

Fluorescent bulbs lit up the room as the team marched in single-file. These were the only source of light, since this was the deepest room of a base built into a mountainside. Inside, thirteen pods stood in neat rows: one for each of the twelve soldiers assigned to Victor-Foxtrot, and one for Captain Lanney.

The team had been briefed on what to do in the event of a catastrophic military loss. They each moved to stand before their assigned pod, and nobody commented on the ones that would be empty. They had lost two of their comrades mere weeks ago, and the wound was still fresh.

A hiss of hydraulics announced the closing of the main door, sealing the ten remaining soldiers and their captain in this room as the rest of the base evacuated around them. Outside, lights would be turning out for the last time as the operators and regular soldiers shut the outer doors and left behind an empty base. All non-critical systems began shutting down, as the on-site nuclear reactor ceased powering anything outside of this room.

Eleven pods hissed in perfect synchrony, and the eleven remaining members of Fireteam VF stepped into their respective machines. Mechanical arms began attaching tubes to the ports on each soldier’s set of power armour, or directly into the veins in Captain Lanney’s case.

Knowing the team had mere moments before cryogenic sleep took them, Cianna’s captain cleared her throat and delivered what she knew would likely be her final speech to her loyal crew. “Soldiers… friends. We’re going under now, and I honestly don’t know when we’ll wake again. And when we do, I don’t know what kind of world we’ll find. A barren wasteland, an enemy-occupied industrial zone, an overgrown jungle… we have no way of knowing. But it doesn’t matter, because our orders are the same: establish a stronghold, rebuild our military, and wait for the day the republic is ready to wield its armies once more.”

Quiet sirens in the room announced the imminent closing and sealing of the pods. Around them, the lights started shutting down, section by section. Now, the only illumination left was the faint glow of the screens on the inside and outside of each pod.

“For the republic,” the captain finished, and ten voices echoed the mantra as the doors of their machines closed before them.

A powerful mix of cutting-edge pharmaceuticals flooded the veins of each member of the fireteam as cooled, compressed nitrogen flooded the tanks to almost instantly drop their body temperatures to below zero. None knew how many years, or even decades, it would be before they woke again. They couldn’t even say with absolute certainty that they would wake again, but not one member of the team questioned their orders.

“For the republic,” Cianna whispered one more time as her heavy eyelids finally shut. The frozen darkness took her, and for a time, she knew nothing but silence.

The next time Cianna opened her eyes, she knew immediately that something was wrong.

For starters, she was horizontal, lying on her back in the pod, despite having fallen unconscious on her feet. And there was the issue of the light: far too much of it was coming in through the transparent panel of the device that was supposed to keep her asleep, or mostly dead, until her captain awoke her.

But the most pressing issue was that damned beeping. It was loud, shrill, and it wouldn't stop.

She groaned and shifted slightly, and found problem number four: she could barely move her limbs. Her arms were leaden and her legs felt like concrete, and it took a massive effort of will just to lift a hand up high enough to tap the darkened screen to her left.

“Battery levels critical,” a soft, digital voice chimed in response to her touch. “External power disconnected, power reserves depleted. Reanimation process triggered automatically.”

Cianna let her arm fall and closed her eyes for another long moment. That wasn’t right, there was no reason for her pod to have been disconnected from external power. Their base’s generator should have been able to run autonomously for a few centuries, and it’s not like the unit could have just gotten unplugged— the cryogenic chambers were hardwired directly into the grid. Had the wiring somehow disconnected when her pod fell over?

With another deep, fortifying breath, Cianna forced her eyes open and blinked until she could see through her helmet’s visor again. A simple, red lever served as the pod’s emergency release, and she pulled it sharply towards her. There was a hiss of displaced air as the seal broke, then nothing. What happened to the hydraulic release?

She pressed both hands against the lid of her metal coffin, pressing up like a backwards push-up. The hinges creaked in protest for a long moment, then another, before whatever was blocking the door’s movement finally gave way.

All at once, the door released and flew open, swinging upwards and outwards violently enough that it slammed against something beside it with a resounding boom. Cianna winced at the loud impact, then levered herself up so she could survey her new environment. Even that motion was difficult, and she frowned beneath her helmet at her own weakness. A bit of fatigue might be expected after spending an unknown number of years in a near-death state before being dramatically reawakened, but her armour’s powered motion-assistance should have made up the difference…

“Ah, shit,” she hissed as she finally caught on to the obvious detail. The huge metal frame around her wasn’t assisting her movements the way it should have been. A quick press of a few buttons on her steel-clad wrist confirmed it: the armour was dead. Its battery had been connected to the pod’s main power supply, to keep her armour charged during her long sleep, and the pod must have cannibalized the charge to maintain her cryogenic state for a little while longer after its power source was severed.

She had to strain against the armour’s massive weight to grab the latch under her chin and disconnect her helmet, but her reward was a lungful of fresh air and an overwhelming amount of… natural light?

A quick check around confirmed that hypothesis: she was outside. Her pod was on its back, half-buried in the dirt and covered most of the way in what looked like moss. She crouched down and examined the greenery on the metal’s surface, and found it to be a thick, green blanket of living moss and grass.

All around her was more of the same, the moss and grasses spread out in every direction as far as she could see. It was even clinging to… trees.

Cianna’s breath caught in her throat as she stared at the trees around her, her tactical survey forgotten. These were real trees, like the ones she’d seen in the biodomes or in the occasional city park that hadn’t been paved over or built on top of. And they weren’t scraggly little desiccated things like he was used to, but tall, broad trunks with lush yellow and red leaves. The air around her was purer, fresher, full of the scent of falling leaves decaying. There was no hint of the tang of the chemical decontamination sprays they had all used on almost every surface since the biochemical weapon had been released on their countryside when she was young.

She must have been in some kind of agricultural dome, to have so many living plants in one place. But a quick look upwards was enough to tell that there was no glass ceiling above.

It was all so much, so beautiful, so overwhelming. But Cianna wasn’t some civvy to be standing around and gawking all day, and she quickly mastered her emotions and pulled her attention to the present situation.

“Tactical assessment,” she whispered to herself, the familiar words working like a mantra to center and ground her. “Armour is unpowered, therefore a liability. The area appears uninhabited, but is likely patrolled by scouts. Heavy armour can only slow me down.”

Tactics and planning quickly replaced shock and awe, and she established her next steps. Usually, she would have assistance in donning or removing her armour, but she had learned how to do it herself, of course. You couldn’t always guarantee a team of mechanics to help you in and out of your armour when you were moving behind enemy lines.

It was harder in the heavy, unpowered frame, but she managed to strip out of the armour. She undid the wrist latches to free her hands first, then the heavy chest and back pieces. Once those were gone, she removed the layers from her shoulders and upper arms, then started on her legs. All told, it took her the better part of ten minutes to remove the pieces and disentangle herself from the metal framework.

Stepping out of her armour had always left her with mixed feelings. On one hand, she was now six inches shorter and the better part of two hundred pounds lighter, and had no hydraulic assistance fueling her every motion. She’d gone from being able to shoulder-check a car aside and deflect a barrage of gunfire to being a mere mortal. On the other hand, the armour wasn’t powered and couldn’t lend her its enhanced strength, and at least now she was much more agile and limber.

After another quick survey of her immediate surroundings and a quick series of stretches she had been taught to maximize joint mobility, she was ready to move. The side of the armour had a large pouch that had been designed to be detachable and carried via a single strap, which she now wore over one shoulder. She pulled out the armour’s depleted powercore, a tube-shaped battery the size of two fists stacked on top of each other, and tucked it into her makeshift messenger-bag. She also loaded up all the extra ammunition she had been carrying, piling those two boxes beside the other emergency supplies in the bag, then added the communicator from inside her helmet.

She dropped everything else that couldn’t be carried, including the armour itself, back into the pod and shut the lid. After a moment’s consideration, she grabbed a nearby bush and pulled it over to cover her cache. The bush’s roots were deep, but even outside of her armour, Cianna was still a bit over seven feet tall and had the trim strength that came from a lifetime of working out and training. A mere plant didn’t stand a chance.

Satisfied that the pod wouldn’t be easily spotted unless someone knew what they were looking for, she took a final inventory of her assets and liabilities. She had a pistol on her waist and a small, lightweight submachine gun on a backstrap. She’d had to leave the heavy assault rifle behind— without the armour’s enhanced strength, the rifle was just too heavy to carry conveniently. Not to mention that the kickback would knock her over without the frame’s extra weight, or at least a stable tripod. She had some ammo, a basic survival kit, and a long knife. What she didn’t have was any way to use her communications device without power, any clue as to where the facility was and why her pod wasn’t there anymore, or any idea where she actually was.

Still, it was a start.

Her orders in this case were clear: replenish her armour’s battery, repair any damaged equipment, locate the facility, and wake her commander. Then she would contact whatever remained of their military command structure to receive new orders.

The first step was to find a source of power, which meant people, which meant finding a settlement or military structure. Hopefully whoever she found wouldn’t be hostile.

A quick circuit of her immediate area revealed a large river cutting a rocky path roughly east to west. She couldn’t resist a quick double take at the water… It was so clean. It had been a long time since she’d seen such clean water coming from something other than an industrial purification unit.

She took a moment to wash her hands in the clear water, marvelling at its crystalline beauty. The thick dirt and grime caking her knuckles flaked off and disappeared downstream.

“Where there’s water, there’s people,” Cianna whispered to herself. Clean water was one of the most valuable commodities on the planet, which meant that if there were settlements anywhere nearby, they would be close to this water source. There was no sign of debris in this water, save for some brown leaves floating past where she knelt, so if there was a community by this river, it was probably downstream.

One of the first steps upon becoming lost in unfamiliar terrain was to find memorable landmarks, and this river would be hers. She turned and followed the stream’s course.

Hours passed as she followed the water’s twists, moving roughly northwest and down a gentle slope. She refilled her water from the stream twice, counting on the chemical filter to purify any potential contaminants. The trek was long, and the rough terrain made it tougher, but her genetically-enhanced stamina held out. As the sun started approaching the high, wall-like mountains that dominated the environment to her left, she was beginning to search for a sheltered area to bed down in when she passed through a thicker copse of trees and finally saw the settlement she had predicted.

There were several rounded, dome-like structures dominating the central area, and a large, multi-story complex built into the side of a cliff. Those would probably be residential in nature. What stood out the most were the smaller, independent housing units, each separated by fields— not enough to be farmland, but more than the government ever would have allotted for a single-dwelling lot anywhere Cianna had ever been.

But the buildings were green as much as steely-grey, overgrown with mosses and plants, with trees and bushes growing between and around them.

“Abandoned,” she sighed to herself as she scanned over the buildings in the last light of early evening. The overabundance of plantlife clearly told her this wasn’t a lived-in community: plants were to be cut down and cleared out to make room for buildings, not allowed to grow up and around them.

Still, there were lights clearly visible in some windows, on the sides of buildings, and even mounted on poles along a strip that ran through the center of the settlement. Each of the street lights was shaded on the top, so that their light was directed entirely downwards, instead of up into the night. No doubt to make it harder for enemy aircraft to spot the community.

There was clearly power still running through this abandoned community, probably courtesy of the water turbines she could see spaced along the river in regular intervals, the windmills on top of the western rocky cliff, and the solar panels on almost every roof. These were slow, ineffective sources of power compared to large-scale damming and large geothermal power fields she had been assigned to protect— or attack— at various points in her service, of course, but they might still be adequate to her needs.

Curious that all of these were still functioning despite the abandonment of the community, and even more curious that the solar panels looked shiny enough that they had likely been cleaned and maintained somewhat recently. Something didn’t add up.

Cianna proceeded cautiously, in case enemy combatants had seen fit to take over this old settlement. By the time she reached the outskirts of the town, if something this small could even be called that, she started spotting more signs of recent life. There were clothes hanging on lines outside of houses, like you might do if rolling brownouts meant you couldn’t use a dryer for your laundry, and the cobblestones had been traversed enough that they were flat and not swamped with weeds.

And then she heard something she didn’t expect: music. Faint chords drifting in the early evening.

Against her better judgment, Cianna found herself drifting towards their source, walking along a road flanked by green and orange trees. She paused when she saw motion off to her right, ducking into a shadow and counting on her grey-black uniform to keep her mostly concealed despite her large size.

The door of one of the small dwellings opened, shedding light on the surrounding yard as the occupant walked out with a paper bag in hand. Cianna watched as the woman strutted across the grass and between rows of growing food to a large bin of some kind— most likely holding compost, based on the smell that arose when the person opened it to drop her bag inside. The woman never even looked around, didn’t check for dangers as she binned some organic waste before returning to her home.

So, the settlement was occupied. Maybe… maybe they just didn’t have enough tools to clear the greenery that was pressing in all around them? It made sense to fill spaces with growable food, to make the community more self-sufficient, since Cianna hadn’t noticed any nearby food depots for the people to rely on. But there was no point in having tall pine trees or non-edible fruit trees around.

Still the music called to her, and Cianna drifted towards the rock wall that flanked the small community on one side. There, built against the wall, was a small clay-brick building.

It was several floors high, with greenery-covered balconies on the upper two levels, and rows of angled glass panels that probably collected solar energy during the day. Wiring ran from the top and sides of it, connecting it to the nearby buildings and up the cliff’s face to the wind turbines above. The bottom floor was flanked by two tall oak trees, whose limbs were used to support powerlines. Light and music spilled out through the open front door, and Cianna paused to watch through the doorway as a boy inside worked at a long bench covered in the copper-wire innards of disembowelled machinery.

He picked up a small tool and undid some bolts by hand, then removed a small plate and began inspecting the gears inside. Was that a… a real analogue clock? The idea that someone would take the time to replace all those small gears and pins just to fix an old piece of machinery like that, instead of just checking the time on a digital readout, was positively baffling for Cianna. The youth seemed to be competent at repairs, at least.

With the battery dead, Cianna couldn't tell for sure if her communicator was still in working condition, but she would need it to check for signals and to locate the facility where her comrades were stored. It was risky to approach the locals without knowing the situation, but she had to try.

Cianna squared up her shoulders and prepared herself for possible conflict, then strode towards the shop and its occupant. She faltered as she reached the open doorway… How was she supposed to interact with this civilian? She usually counted on her military rank to give her authority over any civilians she interacted with, but she had no way to tell if members of her military were considered allies or enemies in this area, or if her side even still existed. Would the symbol and rank on the breast of her uniform mark her as an enemy?

She was spared any further consideration as the boy turned around to scan the surrounding shelves and spotted her. He gasped and jumped in shock as he noticed the large figure standing in his doorway, and Cianna had to fight down the reflexive urge to draw her sidearm.

“Um,” she stammered as she scrambled to come up with an appropriate greeting, “I come in peace?”

“Oh, beans!” He put a hand on his chest, over a heart that was no doubt pounding, and visibly tried to force himself to relax. “You scared me half to death.”

He wasn’t a boy after all, Cianna decided, but a young man. While she was used to being significantly taller than anyone outside of her fireteam, this civilian was short even for non-augmented humans— she doubted he was even as much as five-and-a-half feet tall. His short stature and delicate frame had led her to assume he was young, but now that she could see his face, she put his age somewhere between mid-teens and early twenties. A decade or so younger than her, in all likelihood.

Cianna privately thanked her lucky stars that he happened to speak her language. It seemed like her home country hadn’t been fully conquered and assimilated during the years she’d been asleep. However long that had been.

“I apologize for frightening you, sir,” she answered stiffly. “I’m lieutan— my name is Cianna.”

She caught herself before she could divulge her rank and position by pure force of habit. Better to keep it to herself, if possible. He seemed friendly enough, at least.

“Cee… Cianna?” he repeated, and she nodded.

“Correct. Again, I am sorry for having approached unannounced. I did not know if this settlement was occupied when I arrived.”

“Occupied?” he asked, looking just as startled as before, and even more confused. He flicked a switch on the radio beside him, cutting the music off abruptly. “Um, yeah. Yes? Uh, yes, people live here. Where did you come from?”

“What is the name of this settlement?” Cianna asked, ignoring the young man’s question.

“Elk River Valley?” he answered, although it was more like a question. Clearly he was not very confident, possibly because of his young age.

“Elk River Valley,” she mused as she thought back to the landscape surrounding the base where she'd gone into a cryogenic state. The name wasn’t familiar, but it was a small enough community that it might not have even appeared on the tactical maps she’d studied. “Good to know. I’m here in search of a recharge station, and possibly a technician capable of working on a LX-200 communicator. Once I have what I need, I will be on my way.”

“A recharge station?” he repeated, and Cianna’s heart sank. This man had seemed clever and capable in her brief observation, but now she was beginning to suspect he might be a simpleton. “And an LX… I haven’t seen an LX model since I was a kid. Where did you find one?”

That made her even more concerned. The LX-200 was cutting-edge, of course, but the older LX models were plentiful enough on the civilian market. Had she been gone long enough that her tech was now redundant?

He was waiting for an answer, and obviously saw the mix of emotion cross Cianna’s face. She had clearly become too reliant on having a mask and display screen between her and anyone she spoke with, and wasn’t doing an adequate job of keeping her face neutral.

“Can I see it?” he asked, and she hesitated for a moment with her hand hovering over the bag that she’d positioned to conceal the firearm on her hip. It was too late for her to pretend not to have the communicator now, so she might as well show him.

Besides, if he tried to keep it for himself, she could always overpower him and take it back.

Comforted by her physical superiority, she fished around in her bag for the small device and placed it in his waiting hand.

“Woah,” he muttered as he got a look at the high-tech, multi-purpose communications device. “That’s… tiny. And light, too. What’s inside of you?”

The last was obviously directed at the machine, not Cianna herself. In fact, it looked like he’d forgotten about the presence of the seven-foot tall woman entirely as he set the device on the counter and pulled a swivel-mounted magnifying glass into place. After a moment of consideration, he pulled two more lenses down into place, each consecutively smaller, to further magnify his target.

He studied the device in silence, and Cianna moved to stand just past the doorway and off to the side enough that a sniper wouldn’t be able to draw line of sight on her through the door or window without getting quite close. After a few minutes, the petite man looked back up at her and blinked in surprise. He craned his head up at her like he’d just now noticed how big she was, and Cianna felt momentary curiosity at his reaction. Had he never seen an augmented soldier before? But there were bigger questions at hand right then, and she was happy to just assume that this village was too small to have had any military contact.

“You must have found this in a really well-preserved cache,” he mused aloud. “Maybe even military…”

“That’s correct, sir. An old military cache.” The lie came easily, and she was happy to latch onto the explanation he’d offered. “That’s also where I got this military uniform.”

“That’s a military uniform?” he asked as he turned his focus from her face to the emblem on her chest. Then his face flushed a deep red, and he turned his gaze firmly to the floor. Obviously he wasn’t comfortable with seeing military insignia. “Also, uh… ‘sir’? I’m only eighteen. My dad’s a sir, maybe? You can call me, um… My name’s Zavier.”

Cianna scanned the young man as he stammered. If he was eighteen, he should still have been in mandatory military training for another year or so. Had he flunked out of basic training somehow? Maybe he was disabled and unfit for duty, or just passed over because of his small stature…

“Anyway,” Zavier said once he’d stopped speaking for long enough to take a deep breath. He was still staring at his feet, rather than looking at her face. “I can probably fix this if the problem’s really simple… But if it’s a complicated problem, it’s going to be out of my expertise.”

“Is there anyone else in this settlement who might be able to help me, Zavier?”

He looked up when she said his name, briefly meeting her eyes. He had rich green eyes that stood out sharply against his hazel-coloured skin. Freckles dotted his face, and even his hands now that she was looking, and they grew even darker as he flushed deeper. It was clear that she made him uncomfortable, despite her best efforts to smile and look non-threatening.

“Probably my mom could,” he suggested, again sounding like he was asking a question rather than making a statement.

“Excellent. Where can I find your mother?”

“A few hundred miles that way,” he said with a vague gesture, then stared at her expectantly. If that had been an attempt at humour, it was a poor one, which he quickly seemed to realise. “She and my father went back East to convene with the outquisition there, so they can gather workers and organise the supplies. It’s just me here, for now.”

Cianna looked upwards briefly, as if she could see through the ceiling to the floors above. His family must have been wealthy to afford a three-story dwelling for just three people. But if they were wealthy, why were they bothering to repair old machinery instead of just buying replacements? Perhaps the government had tightened restrictions on sales of valuable technology, to hoard it for military use. Also, what in god’s name was an “outquisition”?

“Do you have an idea of when they might return?” she finally asked, still frowning as she tried and failed to puzzle out the national political situation from the meagre context clues she was picking up.

“Spring?” he suggested, with a shrug. “There’s not much point trying to break ground until everything thaws out five or six months from now.”

That confirmed her assumption that it was autumn, at least. “Breaking ground on what?”

“On the new reactor, of course,” he beamed excitedly. “You must have heard. We’re going to replace the old junker in this town with something more efficient, then expand the infrastructure so it can power dozens of nearby communities. The extra power will jumpstart their own reactor projects, and eventually this area will have enough power for all the extra projects they want. CO2 extraction, research, medical facilities… everything. Not to mention, we're going to expand the solar railway out this way, so the smaller communities can have access to easier transportation and…”

Cianna tuned the young man out and considered what she’d learned. This Zavier and his parents, it seemed, were from outside this community, and had come to improve local power infrastructure. Why it was important to make sure such small communities had excess power, she didn’t know, but clearly this was a big deal in the local area.

“Yes, of course I have heard of that,” she lied smoothly. “I just… misunderstood the timeframe. To summarize, your parents are the only qualified technicians in the area, but they are far from here and not likely to return for half a year.”

“I’m pretty qualified too,” Zavier protested hotly. “Just not for… whatever the heck that is. That’s a lot fancier than anything I’ve seen. People around her tend to prefer larger technology, because it’s a lot easier to fix compared to that nanotech.”

So her technology might mark her as an outsider. Cianna noted that information for later, although it didn’t make much sense to her that after years of time passing, technology would get more primitive. Just how much had they lost in the aftermath of the war? And if the devastation had been widespread enough for technology to be set back, how much time would have had to pass for everything to be grown-over like this? A sinking feeling grew in Cianna’s gut as she realised that her grasp on the timeframe might be quite off, but she tucked that concern away for later.

“I didn’t mean to insult your capabilities, Zavier,” Cianna said in what she hoped was a soothing voice. “Six months might be too long of a wait for me, however. Can I at least charge my powercore here?”

“Yeah, you can charge a device for sure,” he said with a lopsided grin. He turned without another word and dropped to his knees, crawling under a table for a moment before returning with a cord in hand. It was quite thin compared to what she had seen used for charging cores in the past— it hardly seemed capable of carrying the amperage she’d need to charge the battery quickly. She pulled the device out and set it down on the table with a thump, and the young technician went quiet for a moment at the sight of it. “What on earth is that?”

“A powercore?” she repeated. “I just need to charge it up, so I can bring it back to power my, uh… house?”

“What kind of a house uses a core like this?”

He leaned forward to stare at the core, and Cianna crouched slightly to be on-level with him. “Is it… very different from batteries you’ve seen?”

“A battery is one thing, but this is on a whole other level,” he marvelled. “The charge this thing could hold… not to mention how much longer it would hold power compared to normal batteries. You must have gotten this from that same pre-war cache…”

Zavier looked at the connections on the top of the core and frowned, then began opening and closing drawers and cupboards around the shop and pulling out various bundles of wires. Once he had a good selection, he drew the magnifying lens over the core and began comparing sockets and prongs to find something compatible. It took more than ten minutes, and some soldering, but finally he had a plug that could attach the core to the main power line.

“There,” he declared, looking pleased with himself. “That should do it. Now it just needs time.”

“How much time?”

Zavier shrugged. “I have no idea what this thing’s capacity is. But in the meantime, I’m famished. I need to go get some food.”

Cianna belatedly realised how late it was, and that she had probably kept this man from the scheduled evening mealtime. A moment later, she also realised how hungry she was— she hadn’t eaten since she’d woken up from cryosleep that morning.

“Where can we acquire food around here?” she asked, trying to stay circumspect.

“I mean, we have an oven and stuff upstairs,” he said, sounding a bit sheepish, “but I was going to just go to the communal kitchen.”

Ah, a communal kitchen. The phrase brought to mind the large cafeteria she had eaten at four times a day during her days in training camp. This was something she was used to. “Please, lead the way.”

“Sure. Do you want to leave your bag here, Cianna? No sense carrying it.”

“No thank you.” There was no way she was going to leave behind her ammunition and survival gear. Bad enough that she was walking away and leaving the powercore unattended.

“Suit yourself.” He shrugged and gestured for Cianna to step out first. She expected him to close and lock the door behind them, to safeguard the variety of valuable tech around their shop, but to her shock he simply unrolled a thin net from the top of the doorway to cover the opening. The netting would keep insects out, but not much more than that. He left the door itself entirely open, leaving the cool evening air— and any unwelcome intruders— free to roll into the shop. She was glad she hadn’t left anything else of hers behind.

Zavier stepped around her to lead the way, and Cianna rotated her body to keep her weaponry concealed as they moved. Once she was behind him, she pulled the strap of her SMG from her shoulder and dropped it into the bag to keep it out of sight, and slid the gunbelt up so her shirt would conceal her pistol. It would impede her ability to quickly draw her firearms, but it seemed wiser to blend in with the unarmed civilians around her.

She followed Zavier down a warmly-lit street to an open, half-dome structure where a few other citizens were eating in small clusters. They quieted as she arrived, stopping mid-conversation to stare at the newcomer.

“You get used to it,” Zavier assured her in a quiet voice. “Folks here… take a while to get used to new people. They still call me ‘the new kid’, and I’ve lived here for more than a year now.”

Cianna nodded and hummed noncommittally, walking at a slight angle to keep the others in her peripheral vision as she crossed the space.

Zavier picked his way around a few benches and tables, stopping in front of a row of industrial-sized fridges. He opened each of them in turn, picking through and coming out with a variety of ingredients that he laid out on a wrap-around counter.

“Who do we pay for this?” Cianna did another scan as she spoke, not finding any tills or other locations where someone could check out the items they were taking.

“It’s a communal kitchen,” Zavier explained as he fished around under the counter and came back with a metal mixing bowl. “You don’t pay for things from here, they’re just… communal. I’m going to make up some salad with chicken. Do you want some as well?”

He rinsed off the produce as he spoke, and at Cianna’s nod retrieved a second bowl. He cut the various vegetables and sliced the meat as she watched. It felt awkward having someone make food in front of her, but Cianna didn’t know anything about food preparation beyond adding boiling water to pre-packaged MREs.

A few moments later, Zavier had two bowls of salads and was gesturing for Cianna to join him at a nearby table.

“So, where did you say you came from?” Zavier asked around a mouthful of salad.

“Here and there. I travel a lot.” That wasn’t a lie, at least— she had been stationed in dozens of bases across the globe. She figured that sticking to half-truths would be easiest for the time being.

“I can relate. We’ve packed up everything and moved a few times. Mom and… I mean, my mother and father’s responsibilities with the outquisition require them to travel to various small communities. I’ve been dragged around behind them most of my life.”

Cianna nodded, and that was apparently all the prompting the young man needed. While he was initially shy, having a captive audience seemed to be enough to get him to open up. He spoke at length about his parents’ organisation, this outquisition, slowly filling in gaps in Cianna’s knowledge. It was a widespread, decentralized organisation that helped pair experts with small communities that were missing technical expertise, so that even those far from the large cities could enjoy a high quality of life. They also distributed textbooks, collaborated with farmers to increase crop biodiversity, helped establish sustainable power sources, and did almost anything else local communities needed.

Apparently there was no “standard” for this organisation, and instead the wandering outquisitors would approach settlements and work with them to determine what that community actually needed, wanted, and could support, instead of simply giving them a pre-packaged service.

This outquisition seemed like a vast sinkhole for resources to her, but Cianna kept her opinions to herself.

The soldier polished off her bowl in near record time, and when he caught her glancing at his food, Zavier slid his remaining portion towards her. It might have been impolite to accept it, but Cianna hadn’t eaten in what felt like years.

Once she was finished, Zavier took the bowls from her and brought them over to a pair of sinks on one end of the kitchen. Washing dishes was something Cianna was familiar with at least, since pot-scrubbing duty had been a fairly common form of mild punishment when she was in basic training. Of course, the bases had their own industrial dishwashers that could power through hundreds of dishes in mere minutes, but those would be periodically turned off to create a backlog of dirty dishes for errant cadets.

Cianna washed with methodic efficiency while Zavier dried and put away their few dishes. He wiped down the table they’d eaten at too, making sure it was usable for the next person to come in.

“Everyone does their part,” he explained, and Cianna managed to refrain from frowning. Surely some people took advantage of the system, counting on others to do all the work while they just passively syphoned off of the system. But she wasn’t about to offend her guide by saying as much.

As soon as they were done, they returned to his parents’ shop to check on the status of her powercore.

“Yeah, it’s definitely charging,” Zavier confirmed as he checked the connection and then looked at the device’s small screen. “I was worried it might not be compatible, but we lucked out.”

“What’s the charge at?” Cianna leaned over Zavier’s shoulder as she spoke, looking down to check for herself. “Wait, it still says zero percent!”

“Yeah, this thing definitely has a huge capacity. If it charges all night, we might be able to fill it one or two percent.”

“Two percent in eight hours?” she asked, trying to remain calm. It wouldn’t do to lose her temper, even if she felt like screaming. “How is… the systems I’m used to could charge one of these in just a few hours.”

“Where did you have that kind of power available to you?” He turned to find her looming over him, and almost dropped the powercore as he flinched away from her. “Whoops, sorry. You just, um… you startled me.”

Cianna took a few steps back, conscious of how nervous Zavier seemed to get whenever she was too close to him. He must have suffered some kind of trauma to be so anxious about the presence of an unarmed woman— even one who was a foot-and-a-half taller than him.

“There was a moderately-sized fusion reactor,” she explained. “Lots of power to spare.”

“Well, I mean, there you have it,” he said with a shrug. He had started blushing again when he found her standing so near to him, Cianna noticed, and the way he stumbled over his words made it clear how nervous he was. “We, ah, that is… Elk River Valley mostly relies on an old geothermal plant, and it’s running at less than half-capacity while they repair it. It gives out enough power to heat houses and run the lights, but not much more than that. During the day, when everyone’s using more devices and machines, there probably won’t be any to spare for charging your core.”

While Cianna would prefer a full charge, she figured sixty or seventy percent capacity should be enough to last her for the duration of the search for her facility. If they could only charge the core at one to two percent per night, she’d be here for at least a month, probably two. Shit.

“And how long are those repairs slated to take?”

“They’ve been doing repairs off-and-on for the last decade,” he said flatly, and again Cianna had to fight the urge to scream and kick something. “That’s why they agreed to our suggestion of building a whole new facility.”

She couldn’t find the base easily without her communicator, which couldn’t be fixed until Zavier’s family returned in half a year. She wouldn’t be able to move her armour very far without the powercore, which would take months to charge. And she wouldn’t know where to start her search until she had more information about the local region, and the history of the world since the war.

“I guess I’m stuck here,” she finally conceded. “For now.”

“Where are you planning on staying?”

Cianna glanced down at her bag and considered the supplies she carried. There was a rolled-up thermal blanket that would probably be sufficient to get her through the nights out here, but she was reluctant to camp in the dirt and come back into this town looking like a vagrant. And she only had one set of clothing. Maybe there was an empty home she could make use of, or someone she could trade with for shelter…

The direction of her thoughts must have been obvious on her face, because Zavier added a moment later, “You could stay here, if you wanted.”

“It wouldn’t be appropriate for me to stay with you,” Cianna answered immediately.

“Not, ah, not with me,” Zavier stammered, his flush immediately returning in force. “I mean, with me, but not with-me-with-me. I mean, um… There’s a spare bedroom? The bottom floor here is all workspace and storage, and the next floor up is our kitchen and stuff, but there’s three bedrooms on the top floor. Mine, my mom and dad’s, and one setup in case any of their colleagues need to stay here. And plus, their room is empty.”

“I wouldn’t want to impose…”

“You wouldn’t be imposing,” he cut in. “Really! It would actually… it would be nice to have someone else around. This house is way too big for just one person.”

“Alright, fine,” she finally conceded. “But just until my core is charged. What can I do to help you out in the meantime? I’m not looking for a free ride.”

“Great!” Zavier beamed up at her, his innocent smile making him look even younger. “I’ll show you your room. And I’m sure there will be work you can do around here, or around the rest of Elk River. There’s always room for an extra hand.”

Cianna picked up the satchel containing her few belongings and followed Zavier, resolving to endure this change of plans. She could use the extra time to perform reconnaissance and start learning about where she was and how long she had been unconscious anyway. All she had to do was keep her origin and her mission a secret while she waited for the powercore to be charged. Then she would wake Captain Lanney and the rest of her fireteam.

“I’m coming soon,” she silently mouthed as she walked up the stairs behind Zavier. “Hold on, everyone.”