The water didn't just feel cold. It felt like a heavy, liquid tomb pressing against my ribs.
Every time a wave crested over my head, I expected to hear the digital scream of the singularity again, but there was only the primeval roar of the Pacific. No data-streams, no neural-links, no buzzing filters. Just me, the salt in my wounds, and the terrifying weight of my own solitude.
I managed to hook my arm over a piece of floating debris. A blackened chunk of Kael’s cargo hold. It bobbed rhythmically, an analog metronome in a world that had forgotten how to count.
"Elian! Give me your hand!"
Kael’s voice was hoarse, stripped of its tactical edge. I looked up to see her on a partially inflated life raft, her face a mask of dried blood and soot. She looked human, unbearably, painfully huma
