Chapter Twenty-Two

Eva much preferred her lab to Rosa’s. While his was much larger to accommodate his nuclear equipment, hers was pristine, tidy, and elegant.

And his had the underground hangar, which had been used to house a reactor in times past, then a collider.

Nowadays, though, it was home to their secret HH190-spaceship, or at least its framework as they worked on it.

Before the second annual United Nations TITAN Summit, they first thought of their plan to flee Earth.

Initially, they brought the idea to their peers. Still, everyone imagined it was a fool’s errand, Earth’s technology not being nearly capable of getting humanity that far or even remotely close.

And they were right.

Theirs was a fool’s errand, but it was also their only hope.

So, when Halikkon rejected their proposal entirely, they had to—quite literally—move their operations underground.

They both resolved to tell no one.

Eva twirled in her swivel chair.

They should have told Aura. She would have certainly been on their side and kept their secret. Besides, they needed all the help they could get.

“All right,” Rosa announced, rounding the corner of one of the nuclear generators he was tinkering with for their ship. iNASA-Climate was quite liberal with letting them use reclaimed parts for experiments. Eva sighed. If only they knew.

“This generator seems to be in excellent shape. I can bring it down to the ship tomorrow.” He looked over the platform’s railing, musing at the vessel below. “She’s shaping up nicely—”

“It’ll still take us nearly a millennium to get there, and that’s assuming we can crack the code on long-term cryostasis. Something that, may I remind you, has never been done.”

“Whoa, whoa,” he said, holding up his hands. “What’s wrong? This generator working is a good thing.”

She pinched the bridge of her nose.

“Rosa, we should have told Aura.”

“Hun, now you know we will eventually, once it’s ready.”

“But what if we need her to be ready? What if she could solve the frozen embryo problem?” she asked, sighing.

“Rosa, we need help. We’re still so far from completion, and every moment we’re on this Earth, things are just getting worse. Eventually, we’ll see economies and governments collapse. It’s only a matter of time.”

He walked to the small conference table and pulled out a rolling chair without responding.

Eva watched silently as he plopped himself down. “I know. I doubt we’ll even make it to the next summit. The world is so devoid of hope, and without it, humanity is doomed to fail.”

She huffed, “Like that makes me feel any better. And I’m not going to the next summit. I can’t take it anymore.”

“But dear, we have hope,” he stated as he wheeled himself over and took her hands in his. “We’re building our hope. It’s right here!”

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“Hope for us,” she said. She pulled her hands from his. “And maybe a few dozen other people we can take along. But how do we choose?”

He wheeled himself even closer. Their legs interlocked, and their noses almost touched.

“Listen to me,” he said. “We promised to protect our family, and that is what we’re doing. Anyone else who gets to come with us, they’re just a plus. I’d build this and go even if it was just the three of us, even if we knew we’d be the last. Just to give our family a little more time.”

She nodded, holding back the tears in her eyes. He was right, of course. He always was. This was for them, for their family.

Nobody else mattered.

The blaring ring of Rosa’s cellphone clattered off the metal walls of the lab. Eva watched as he stumbled out of his chair and scrambled to his desk, trying to find his device.

Finally, the obnoxious ringtone ended.

“Hello?” he answered. Rosa brought his phone to where they were sitting. “Edmund? Yes, yes, Eva is here. Wait a minute, no, just wait, I’ll put you on house comms.”

Rosa pulled out the earbud and tapped the button to broadcast the call.

“Edmund?” Eva said upon hearing the beep indicating it had connected to the speakers.

“Evata, good, good. Now, you’re both going to want to be sitting down for this.”

She smiled at Rosa, who swiveled in his chair. “Not a problem, boss; we’ve got you covered.”

There was a pause from the other side of the call. The only thing coming through was the faint sound of static. Then Edmund said,

“There has just been an attempted attack on TITAN.”

Eva leaned forward, closer to the phone.

“An attack? What do you mean?”

“A cyberattack. Hackers. An unknown group—Argosys. They weren’t on anyone’s radar. The iCAI had barely even heard of them. They were almost completely off the grid, underground.”

Rosa leaned toward his phone, even though the call was on the loudspeakers. “What does this mean, boss?”

“We don’t know their motives or demands. But they have attempted to insert a rogue code-base algorithm that was isolated and quarantined. It nulled itself upon containment. So, we’re holding now for validation that the removal and remediation of the vulnerabilities were successful. Thankfully, our security developers have the most advanced next-gen AI algorithms anywhere and obliterate the insertion as soon as it touched our systems.”

“What do we do?” Eva said, running her fingers through her hair.

The question was for Rosa, but Edmund replied before he opened his mouth.

“The president ordered our team to go on full-lockdown.

“They are sending troops to protect your home—wait a second. Hold on. What was that again? Ah, they have just arrived at your gate. Please let them pass and bring them in. Two teams, stationary and mobile units. You should see each of their InIDs showing up now on your watches.”

Eva shook her head. “Lockdown? But we can help!”

“Lockdown,” Edmund repeated.

“We don’t know what these people are capable of, and right now, anyone who was even within a stone’s throw from the TITAN project is considered a potential target.”

“Target?” Rosa whispered. He locked eyes with his wife.

“Viktoriya!” they said in unison.

Both jumped up from their chairs at the same time.

“What’s wrong?” Edmund asked.

“Viktoriya isn’t here! She’s visiting Choe at Aura’s,” Eva said, grabbing her things.

“We need to go get her now to make sure she’s safe.”

“Listen, she’ll be fine! We already have troops on the way to Aura’s as well—”

Rosa snatched the coat from the back of his desk chair, already wrapping it around his shoulders. “With all due respect, sir, she’s our daughter.”

“We’ll call you once we’ve got her safe.”

A beep sounded through the room.

Eva followed Rosa across the grated floor, out the hydraulic door, and then into the hall.

“Rosa! Did you just hang up on him?”

He ignored her.

“Rosa! You can’t go out like that. You’ll freeze to death,” she said, tugging at his arm. “Slow down for just a minute—”

“We have to get her!”

“She’s at Aura’s. They’re also in lockdown. She’ll be safe. Ed already has personnel on the way to her apartment.”

Eva caressed her husband’s face with both her hands. “Just breathe. You won’t be any help in this scattered state.”

His chest expanded, and she felt his body heave as her husband took a deep breath.

“You’re right, but I’m going,” Rosa said unconvincingly, his quivering lip displaying how troubled he was.

“And I’m coming with you—”

“No,” he retorted, and shook his head.

“No, you’re not. Our home is safe, especially with the troops already here, but the roads are not—Not with us both. We can’t risk Vik losing both of us.”

“But—”

“We cannot be together outside of our home—this Argosys group. It is too dangerous for us both to be at risk. You’ll be safe here, inside, with the soldiers. I’ll take the mobile security detail with me to Aura’s. We’ll be okay.”

It was now Rosa that took her face in his hands. He pulled her into a soft kiss.

Her lips trembled on his.

She pressed her forehead to Rosa’s.

Finally, she nodded.

“All right,” she whispered.

“Go get our daughter.”