We don’t breathe until Catalina’s palanquin disappears into the trees.

  Minutes drag like wet stone. Only when the last echo of chains fades into the night do my muscles finally unlock. I collapse onto my knees—bare cheeks on cold basalt—my Corset of Compelled Charisma shrinking back from the rough rock like it’s embarrassed to be touching it. Or maybe it’s punishing me for surviving by the skin of my teeth.

  The adrenaline drains all at once. Tremors ripple through my hands, leaving me shivering in the damp canyon air. Mist curls along the loch’s surface, swallowing the footprints of the enslaved as if the world itself wants to erase what we just saw.

  My voice comes out thin. “Tess… what happens if my VR body dies?”

  She kneels beside me, gentle as ever. “You rest inside your Core until a woman chooses to become a mother.”

  “So I’d be reborn? As an infant?”

  “A level-zero character,” Tess explains softly, “carrying the traits of your VR parents.”

  “My memories—everything I’ve learned?”

  “They return as you grow,” she promises. “Familiar things come easily, as if you were born with the knack.”

  I stare at the cold stone beneath us, the words sinking through me like anchors. “And Daddy? All of you?”

  Tess’s smile fades, becoming something distant and unbearably kind. “A vivid dream.”

  “That’s not what I learned in Sunday school,” I whisper.

  A maternal warmth softens her features. “Lizzy, this is a training simulation. Would dying and going straight to Paradise, Heaven, or some glorious Celestial Kingdom help anyone prepare to become a colonist?”

  “No,” I admit. “But starting over as a helpless infant?”

  “It makes sense,” Solenne murmurs beside us—her voice small, frayed, and full of hurt she can’t outrun.

  “How?” I snap, sharper than intended. “If you hadn’t caught me—if I’d fallen—how would me becoming Jenny’s baby help anyone?”

  Jenny immediately scoops her arms as if cradling an infant. “Ah, little Princess Liz. Such a cute smile. Want some of Mommy’s milk? Was Frankie or Lenora your daddy? I’ll never tell…”

  The last of my shivers melts into a smirk. “I’m asking a serious question.”

  “And I’m givin’ ye a serious answer,” she coos, wiggling her pretend baby’s chin.

  “Fine. Jenny learns to be a mom. Someone else learns to be a dad. Great. But couldn’t they practice with an NPC? Why not bake me into a new adult body and let me keep going?”

  Tess nods thoughtfully. “And what survival skills would that teach you?”

  “Nothing?”

  “Wrong.” Tess gives me a patient little try again gesture.

  I shrug helplessly.

  Rhea leans forward. “What’s Newton’s third law?”

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction,” I recite.

  “Exactly,” Tess says. “Life works the same way. Every choice sends ripples somewhere—sometimes across centuries.” Her gaze softens toward Solenne. “The system doesn’t punish or reward. It balances.”

  Solenne’s head drops, her voice quiet but steady. “Everything ’as a consequence,” she says—like a confession. “One we don’t always see… or get to pick.”

  Silence follows. Even Jenny lowers her invisible baby. Wind threads through the stones around us like breath through a sleeping giant’s ribs.

  Then Solenne’s voice slips into the quiet—soft, uncertain. “So… if I went into Catalina’s base and they killed me… I’d come back as Lizzy’s baby?” Her words tremble between dread and wonder. A fragile smile touches her lips, eyes shining with a one-in-a-million spark of hope. “I could start over, yeah? Clean slate… with a mum what actually cares…”

  My hand drifts to my belly, stroking the smooth skin like I might find a baby bump there. A tiny crack opens inside me when I don’t.

  “Can I be your daddy?”

  Lenora’s question—deadpan yet somehow sincere—floods me with warmth and earns a startled laugh.

  Solenne sniffles, half-grinning. “Love, you ain’t got the bits to be anybody’s daddy.” Then her face falls. “Ah, bloody hell… I’m proper screwed, ain’t I?”

  Everyone freezes.

  “Why?” Tess asks, voice cautious.

  Solenne stares at the dirt. “Ain’t no men—least not in our bit o’ the ship. Catalina’s got ’em penned up.”

  “Penned up?” I whisper.

  Her lips twist, bitter and ashamed. “Usin’ ’em like livestock, she is. Breedin’ stock t’ feed the women.”

  I gag. “She’s what!?”

  Solenne rubs her neck. “Think about it. How many blokes d’you really need to start a colony? Ain’t nothin’ a man can do that a woman can’t—’cept plant babies. Only need one fella for every forty, fifty women, tops.” Her voice warps into a jagged growl. “But that witch—she’s hoardin’ the lot of ’em. All locked away. If I die, I won’t come back—not here, not ever. Not unless she says so.”

  A sharp, humorless laugh. “An’ that ain’t bloody happenin’. Shite.”

  Tess folds her arms around herself as if holding back a rising chill. “Catalina’s logic… it’s a twisted echo of the experiments that made me. She talks about efficiency and purity, but what she’s building is butchery. Family isn’t a calculation of gender or number; it’s love woven between souls.”

  Her eyes soften with memory. “I grew up with three fathers and six mothers. We didn’t always agree, but I never once doubted I was wanted. That’s what raises a child—not anatomy, not quotas. Care. Choice.”

  She lifts her chin, eyes hardening. “Catalina’s stolen both. She’s repeating the same mistakes that sparked the Nanobot War—trying to engineer love instead of letting it grow.”

  Solenne huffs. “Tell her that, love, and she’ll have ye in the stew pot before ye finish preachin’.”

  Something tugs at me. “You grew up in a polycule?”

  Tess smiles, warm as oven-fresh bread. “Everyone should. If two parents are good, nine is heavenly.” She chuckles at our faces. “Oh hush—you always have someone awake to help with homework, braid your hair, or chase nightmares away.”

  She turns to me. “Lizzy, if your dad had brought Rhea into your family before your mum died… how would that have changed things?”

  I glance at Rhea. We share a crooked smirk. “Today would’ve been awkward… but yeah. Dad wouldn’t have spiraled so badly.”

  Tess’s eyes soften further. “One dad read from the Codex of the Living every night while one mum baked bread. The smell of yeast and ink still makes me feel safe. That’s family—a net big enough to catch you.”

  She straightens. “Catalina hasn’t stolen men or women. She’s stolen choice.”

  Solenne touches the glowing seams of her explosive suit, fingers trembling. “I… I’d like a daddy,” she murmurs. “’Specially if everything goes to hell. Not sure I’d fancy a cartload o’ parents, but…”

  A shy shrug. “‘Spose I’d settle for six mums an’ one dad.”

  Smiles bloom around the circle like dawn.

  Then she swallows hard. “I… might know where the blokes are.”

  A beat. Rhea brushes a stray lock from her cheek. “Then let’s make sure no one else loses their family that way.”

  Frankie cracks her knuckles. “Aye. Time we evened the odds.”

  I can’t help it—a grin tugs at my mouth and I hum the old Wonder Woman theme under my breath. If the goddess of truth had a battle hymn, this would be it. The melody thrums in my chest, bright and defiant, echoing against the canyon walls like a rallying cry.

  I rise, trembling fading into resolve. “Then it’s settled. We’re not just training anymore—we’re saving the men.”

  Lenora chuckles, low and knowing. “About time you found your theme song, luv.”

  The laughter that follows is soft, fierce, shared—seven voices in the dark.

  And for the first time in days, the air feels lighter. Hope hums between us like a living thing.

  Tomorrow will bring blood and mud and pain…but tonight, at least, we sound like heroes.