There is something easier about Nari’s manner than there has been on previous loops. She is facing the door once more as she keeps watch, but I can see her profile, that dark energy illuminating her skin.
My disobedient mind casts itself back to our last loop, after Nari and Finian fell asleep and Scarlett made herself comfortable beside me.
“Nari Kim’s growing on me,” Scarlett admitted softly.
“Finian would suggest that you can get a cream for that sort of thing,” I had informed her gravely.
She’d snickered. “She’s growing on you, too, Zila.”
“Oh?”
Scarlett’s tone turned sly. “She’s … not tall.”
I rue the day I spoke to Scarlett Jones about my taste in women.
“Zila?”
Nari’s voice recalls me to the present.
What were we discussing?
Home.
“You have a large family, Lieutenant?”
“Oh yeah, huge. But my halmoni still likes us all to report in every week. I swear she’s got a schedule, and if you miss your slot … It took a long, long time to convince her I can’t phone home from a black-ops posting.”
“And have you visited her often, in Gyeongju?”
“Every year, until I enlisted. Now it’s more like every second year.” Nari sighs. “It’s great there. I mean, I’m always sharing a room with half a dozen cousins, because we’re trying to cram so much family into her apartment. But there’s always so much food—she makes the best doenjang stew in Gyeongju, plus a dozen little dishes on the side, and that’s for an informal meal—and one of my cousins is a tour guide on Jeju Island. They’ve got this fruit there—huuuuuge citruses called hallabongs. Stupidly juicy, they end up all over you, but they taste amazing. I took my ex-girlfriend with me once, and I swear the only reason we’re still in touch is that she wants me to bring her back a box of them when I visit. Anyway …”
She trails off, perhaps aware she has spoken at length. Or perhaps—I am not skilled at divining such things—attempting to gauge my reaction to the mention of the ex-girlfriend?
“I have not encountered a hallabong before. But I enjoy citrus.”
“What about the rest of it?” she asks softly.
“The rest of it?”
“Family? Somewhere you’ve been? I’ve talked about me, what about you, Futuregirl?”
“WARNING: RADIATION DETECTED ON DECK 13, ALL DECK 13 STAFF PROCEED FOR IMMEDIATE DECONTAMINATION PROCEDURES.”
“I can offer only disappointment, I am afraid.” I switch my attention to a new set of entries, intrigued by the methods used in the scientists’ attempts to power up the crystal. “I grew up in state care with no family members. And I have not taken a vacation.”
She blinks. “What, ever?”
I shrug. “It was more fruitful to spend my academy leave studying.”
We are both silent after that, and I choose to devote the better part of my attention to the results of the power cycle experiments.
“Were you … always in state care?” she asks eventually, quieter now. Gentler. “Is that common, in the future? I mean, you don’t have to talk about it. If you don’t want.”
I hesitate, which is uncharacteristic. “It is not common,” I say after a while. I am about to continue, to inform her that I do not wish to speak of the experience, when I look across at her.
Our eyes meet.
“Perhaps we can speak of it during another loop,” I say instead.
She smiles, and in that moment there is something so familiar about her that my attention is caught entirely.
I feel my mind trying to switch gears, to fire up the search routines that will help me match her to some memory or experience that explains this familiarity. But I do not have time to study her smile, her eyes. I clear my throat, turning back to my console.
“You want to hear some more ancient history while you work?” she asks. “Or am I distracting you?”
“Both,” I realize.
As she keeps speaking, I let myself sink into her voice, and into the lines of data before me. Unless we find a way to break out of this loop, this will be my life. This will be my day.
Over, and over, and over again.
This will be my home.
“I think I—”
The loudspeaker cuts me off.
“WARNING: CONTAINMENT CASCADE IN EFFECT. CORE IMPLOSION IMMINENT, T MINUS THREE MINUTES AND COUNTING. ALL HANDS PROCEED TO EVACUATION PODS IMMEDIATELY. REPEAT: CORE IMPLOSION IN THREE MINUTES AND COUNTING.”