“Evelyn, my love,” Liam began. “I’m sorry.”

She said nothing from the kitchen, instead continuing to dice their meal together. It was a mix of mushrooms and spam, with an attempted reduction of spices and soy sauce to give the mess some flavor. Liam’s tongue retracted at the sight, knowing it would weather the fifth variation of the same attempted recipe this week. Why couldn’t she just leave the cooking to him again?

He shook his head, remembering the words he’d been formulating. “I know that things have been more difficult than normal lately. We both knew there’d be extra trouble once your pregnancy became too much, and I am hardly a worthwhile substitute for your expertise in maintaining our home. We are still recovering from my mistakes in that time, all these months later. That, compounded with the care that we must spend on our daughter, it does not take a genius to see that Cheyenne has never been in worse shape than now.”

She continued to ignore him.

“I also know you are feeling intense pressure for what is to come. Your biological window is only open for so long, and if we miss that window, then this will all have been a waste. Between the post-birth complications and my own… Performance issues of late, we are behind schedule. I know that the only way to ensure that humanity can safely repopulate assumes that we have as many children as possible. But if Leah is any clue for our future, this will create more complications since more children will need more attention from us, which means that less can be focused on our security. That we are currently in a state of decline with just one child is worrying, to say the least.

“I want to be clear, though, that you should accept no blame for how we’re doing on these fronts. They are entirely my failure as a man to provide what you need.”

Evelyn stayed in place, though the knife had stopped in her hands.

Liam took a step forth. “But please, love, try to understand this from my perspective. All I want for us is to be happy, and that won’t ever happen if we cling to this idea that our lives are defined by how thick our walls are or how much longer our food supply lasts. Our children can’t exist under those terms. We have to be willing to close our eyes and embrace the peace sometimes. If not for our sake, then Leah’s. What will she become if this keeps up? A woman who appreciates the life that she’s been given? Or will she be some mindless creature who hides in the shadows and murders anything that gets too close?”

“You mean like me?” Evelyn said, her eyes watering.

Liam grimaced. “Of course n–”

“Tell me that you love me, Liam. Tell me that our marriage isn’t some godless sham cobbled together because you had no other choice.” She closed her eyes. “Tell me that you’d rather spend your life with me and not that you wish you’d died with her.”

There it was. The truth unearthed. While some reason came with everything else that Liam had said, it was all empty noise compared to the root of it all.

Liam loved his first wife, Nelly. Even to this day, he could close his eyes and picture her smiling back. He could feel her blonde hair flowing in the wind and taste the smell of her organic perfume at the base of his nose. The two had met in high school and found a shared passion for the natural kingdom, and their relationship had grown stronger with each passing day they had spent together. Only when Liam had made the mistake of abandoning her did their relationship fall apart. If there were any moment to take back in his life, it would have been to avoid his intercontinental trek and spend his final days with her.

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And with Evelyn, it was the opposite. The longer they were together, the more of a stranger she became. When he awoke in that post-sleep, pre-awakened miasma and looked to his side, she always rested miles across the bed, if still there at all. Never could he find her in his arms.

But that was Evelyn Jones. Sure, she desperately wanted to believe she could be the dutiful wife after a deeply religious upbringing with her single father, but her time under Mother had all but expunged those impulses. Regardless of her spiritual troubles, she threw up barriers rather than allow herself to feel the least bit exposed. Even in this moment, as she played the vulnerable spouse in search of a hug, her body language betrayed her words. She had twirled her kitchen knife in hand and angled it in front. A defensive reverse-grip posture that could easily slice open his throat, should she suddenly decide the need. Perhaps a subconscious maneuver in her juxtaposed world, but readily apparent to anyone else who’d pay her mind.

How could Liam ever love a woman like that? How could he be expected to open his heart to someone who refused to do the same? In the end, his feelings for her came in waves, and only when no crises were at play. The more complicated their lives evolved, the longer apart those waves became, and the shorter they grew in intensity. There was only so much he could do to bridge this gap if she was unwilling to resolve them herself.

“Evelyn…” he began, but no more words came out.

She gripped her knife tighter, the wall between them hardening stronger still.

A distant beep broke the tension. Before either could fully pay it mind, the wider alarm system activated. The room went dark, replaced with oscillating red lights that sprung to life every couple seconds. Liam’s ears filled with the screech of the base-wide alert, interspersed by the sound of Leah crying out from the other room.

Both nodded before launching into action. Evelyn went straight for the door to the outer bunker while Liam rushed for Leah. There was no way to quiet her until they deactivated the alarms, but he preferred to have his daughter in his arms first.

Leah squirmed against the loud noises and bright lights, trying in vain to shield herself from both. Liam scooped her with both arms and wrapped her tight, bobbing her back and forth before following in Evelyn’s wake. The alarm’s strength dwindled as they hit the outer bunker.

She was working at the computer terminal in Ops when he arrived. The system closed down, and Leah’s crying dwindled.

“Looks like we got two pings out in Section K,” Evelyn said, clattering the keyboard. “Both less than a minute apart.”

“Section K?” Liam tried to tie the location to his cognitive map of the outside world but came up short. “Where the hell is that?”

“Southern entrance. Mountainside.” She pulled up the topographic map of the surface world. They had an established network of strategically-placed motion sensors, broken up by zone to act as an advanced warning system should anything have broken through the fences. Two red dots appeared in a sea of blue. “K-2 and K-3 were the ones that got tripped.”

Liam rubbed his chin now that he could visualize the intrusion. “Might be a mountain goat. If I recall correctly, Section K is an open zone because of the steepness of the terrain. Nothing else would be able to get through there.”

“Nothing intelligent, anyway.” She let out a deep breath and leaned back. “But you’re probably right. I can do the sweep if you want, Liam. Today’s been stressful enough as is.”

Another light flashed red. This alert came from K-1 – back a hundred meters from the others. Before Liam could float the possibility of a second mountain goat passing through, K-2 got triggered again, along with K-4 entering the mix. He gulped as more lights flared, now spilling in from Sections H and L.

Within a minute, the entire southern entrance was alive with red lights.