The sun was shining brightly, warming the crisp autumn air. Red, yellow, and brown leaves contrasted beautifully with the deep green carpet of grass. It was a peaceful day—one he intended to savor fully. Days like these had been rare lately.

  “Holy shit, is this an IBS!?”

  “Shut up and help me connect it.”

  His little gremlin of a daughter wiggled impatiently on his shoulders, no longer content now that they'd reached the park. She was a whirlwind of childish energy, a tiny maestro of chaos. She would be… would be… how old this October?

  He couldn’t remember.

  What had he been thinking about? It wasn't important. Nothing would shatter the tranquility of this moment.

  A piercing shriek—his daughter's voice—jolted him violently. He crashed to the floor as the door slammed into him.

  “It’s connecting! Do you think it'll work?”

  “How would I know? It’s tech from before I was born, you idiot.”

  He shouldn't eavesdrop on strangers' conversations. Besides, it was all incoherent babble anyway. No. He would enjoy this walk, come hell or high water.

  A cool hand enveloped his own—a comforting cold he'd grown to love years ago. She was wearing a colorful dress today, its floral motif starkly different from her usual sterile white lab coat.

  “I wanted to enjoy the last bit of summer,” she said when putting it on. He couldn't say no, even though she'd probably catch a cold.

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  Her high-pitched screams of defiance transformed into choked sobs, drowned out by the thunderous stomping of military boots. What could they possibly want from his family?

  His little gremlin grinned mischievously. “Race me, daddy!”

  He could never say no. It felt good to move, to feel blood pumping through his veins. Running gave him a fleeting yet addictive illusion of freedom. His evening runs kept him in shape too—a fact his wife appreciated, he thought with a rakish smile.

  He couldn't move, couldn’t blink. His eyes burned with pain. Bastards. Another needle pierced his skin. Agony. Then darkness.

  “Why in God's name would you touch that button, you absolute buffoon?” A grime-covered woman of indeterminate age waved some sort of electrical device angrily at a younger man, the device's flickering screen illuminating their faces.

  Jagged machinery and broken structures surrounded them, their outlines swallowed by darkness beyond the dim glow.

  “I slipped! I didn’t mean to press it!” the younger figure protested—a thin, pale teenager with short, irregularly cropped dark hair. Both wore old, weathered winter clothing: puffed jackets, mismatched shoes.

  “You know exactly how long we've been searching for an intact IBS unit! Be more goddamned careful. Nobody on the planet knows how to fix these anymore!”

  The young man began stammering an apology when a sudden green light enveloped them both.

  Their surprised, hopeful expressions would have given him pause on any other day. Now, contrasted against the backdrop of broken machinery and crumbling concrete walls, those expressions chilled him to the bone.