“Hey, Rei! How are you?”

“Oh uhh, I’m pretty good.”

“What you doing here?”

“Just wanted somewhere relaxing to work on my book.”

“How’s it coming along?” Tyler asked as he sat down next to Rei.

“Pretty good.”

“Can I read it?”

“Sure.”

Rei pushed the computer to Tyler, who quickly skimmed over the text that was shown. His eyes fell upon a word, which made him narrow his eyebrows and exhale through his teeth.

“One-five…” he said to himself. “Haven’t been called that in a long time.”

“Was about time that you got a proper name.”

“Yeah I guess.”

“Why Tyler though?”

“I just saw it on a magazine, and I just kind of liked it. Two... I mean, Serene also said she likes it, so I just went with it.”

“Hmm…” Rei nodded, taking a sip from his coffee. “Oh, by the way, hows the trading business thing you’ve been looking into?”

“Pretty good, I managed to find an old military cargo freighter for an absolute bargain. I personally inspected the plane, everything looks in decent shape.”

“You signed the papers?”

“Not yet, still waiting to see if spare parts are available.”

“And if they are?”

“I’m gonna buy it, and start trading as a merchant.”

“You know the trading business is hard to make money in nowadays right? The only routes that are profitable are considered too risky by most.”

“Adds to the spice of life, you know?”

“Won’t you also need a team of mechanics and helpers? Can’t just be yourself right?”

“Of course not.” Tyler smirked. “But finding those people won’t be hard. Serene’s already onboard, so I just need a few more.” He narrowed his eyes playfully at Rei.

“Oi oi, not saying I’m not down for an adventure but, you’re gonna have to convince Lenn and the others first.”

“That won’t be hard.”

“That’s very true.” Rei chuckled. “Oh yeah... how on Earth did you find that plane for sale? Since when did you become so good at negotiations? You didn’t uhh... do anything shady, did you?”

“...”

“Did you??”

Tyler chuckled. “You want the short version or the full version?”

“The full one, of course.”

“It’s a long story.”

“It’s fine, I’ve got all day. Say, the almond milk cappuccino here is absolutely amazing…”

*****

Lenn opened the door to the small but clean hangar. It’s his own hangar, where he keeps his little plane.

It’s a dinky little thing compared to the VX-200 he piloted during the war. It has just one engine, and could only seat a maximum of 4 people with zero space for cargo.

“Mr. Lenn?”

“Oh.” Lenn mumbled in surprise. “You’re already here?”

“Yeah… just wanted to come and do some inspections on the plane.” Eden said, sliding off of the fuselage and hopping lightly onto the ground.

“Well… did you find anything?”

“Umm… the left aileron axel is showing slight signs of wear. The nose landing gear pressure is a little low… Oh also the engine fire warning light is broken.”

“Hmm…” Lenn nodded, very impressed. “That’s a very good inspection. How long did it take you?”

“Thirty minutes.”

“Wow… for less than a year of training, that’s very impressive.”

“Hum hum!” Eden chuckled smugly, puffing her chest out. “I guess I’m just a good student.”

“No credit to the teacher?”

“Well… maybe a little bit.”

Lenn had not forgotten the promise he had made to Eden during the war. So when he heard that Eden was moving to the city, he reached out to her and asked if she wanted to learn how to fly.

Of course, Eden agreed without hesitation.

“Woah woah! Slow it down with the turn, not so aggressive.” Lenn told Eden, who was holding the control stick.

“Okay…”

“You’re reminding me of how I used to fly the fighters.” Lenn joked.

“Maybe I’m just a fighter pilot at heart.”

“They say the student always follows the teacher.”

“I guess they’re right.”

*****

The alarm bell rang loudly in the relative silence of the morning.

“Ughh…” Kang gurgled, stretching his arms out. He loved Saturday mornings, because it meant he could sleep in. But today was different, since he had to take Ying for a checkup. “Burrr…egh…”

He slowly sat up in his bed and stumbled out of his room.

“Ying?” He knocked on the door to her room. “You up yet?”

“Mhm…” He heard a sleepy moan from inside the room which answered his question.

“Can I come in?”

“Uhum…”

He gently opened the door, and saw a barely awake Ying in loose pajamas rubbing her eyes. The scene made his heart skip a beat, just a little, and he had to force himself to not aww out loud.

“The checkup is in an hour.”

“I know…” Ying whispered. Then she looked up at Kang with her barely open eyes. “Why are you here?”

“To tell you that you have a checkup in an hour.”

“Oh… I already forgot.”

“What?!”

“Hemhem… sorry.”

“Don’t apologize and look at me like a hurt puppy!” Kang exclaimed. “My heart can’t stand it!”

Kang and Ying had been living together ever since they moved into the city. At first it was because Kang volunteered to care for Ying while she recovered from her injuries, but it turned out they both were pretty fond of each other as housemates.

Maybe as something more intimate too, but neither would admit it.

“I’m sorry…” Ying chuckled, getting up from the bed, her mechanical left leg unfolding gently and lifting her up. It made almost no sound when it moved, and looked almost perfectly natural.

It’s a leg that Kang, Lenn, Rei, Tyler and Serene had designed together. They wanted Ying to be able to walk properly again, and to get rid of the excuse for Kang to keep pushing her around in a wheelchair. The prosthetic leg is able to recognize nerve signals, allowing Ying to control it like it was part of her body.

Ying had to have checkups every few weeks to determine how her body was adapting to the prosthetic leg, and how the joint motors were working.

“Does this leg make me a bit taller?’ Ying asked.

“No? Why?”

“Because…” Ying mused, looking down at the slightly shorter Kang. “You look shorter than before.”

“You know I’m insecure about my height!”

“I’m sorry… I just thought that a height-gap couple is kind of cute.”

“Yeah yeah… wait… what did you just say?”

“Hm? I don’t remember saying anything.”

“No, you definitely did."

“Must be the memory loss from that battle.”

“You don’t suffer from memory loss! The doctor didn’t even list it as an affect of your injuries!”

“I’m very sure he did.”

“No, he didn’t.”

“Oh well, guess it must be my memory loss.”

*****

“So if this…”

“…yeah…no? The scan will determine…”

“Debug?”

“…How much time…”

The brand new office was filled with the sounds of rapid typing and quiet discussion.

Robotics had become a huge thing after the war, and they were currently developing the next generation of self-learning robots for commercial use.

In one corner of the office walled off by clear glass planes, their manager was trying to sell their product to a few potential buyers, who all seemed to be somewhat interested.

The rest of the office was filled with cubicles, with a coffee machine and a vending machine in one corner of the room.

Serene sat in her spot, typing away on her keyboard.

The lines of code on her large monitor shifted and changed as she edited it with practiced fluidity.

She had been working on this specific part of the program for almost a week, trying to iron out all sorts of problems. Here and there she would need to add feedback loops then ensure it wouldn't interfere with other parts of the code. In other places, she’d have to tune values for hours on end to get the code to run as smooth as possible. Other times, the machine learning system would go haywire, and she would need to redo everything manually.

Now, she was almost done with the code, and was just checking to make sure there weren’t any bugs.

“Serene, how’s the code coming along?”

“Pretty good, just going through debugging.”

“What does this bit do?’

“Oh… it uh…” she explained for several minutes, going through everything that bit of code does, and how it ties in with the rest of the program. She even went over some of the problems that may arise, and how she would deal with it.

“You seem to know everything.” Her supervisor remarked once she was done with her explanation.

“I only know what I know.”

“Why do you always check and double check your code so much?” Her supervisor asked. “You even enter in values that’s completely outside the probable range. Your code has only ever had a single significant bug, and that time you spent the entire night fixing it and checking it.”

Serene looked at him and smiled. “I just like to be sure.”

*****

It was a lush green field which he had woken up in. The birds were chirping, the bugs were buzzing, and the sun was shining brightly. Daisies poked their flowery heads out from between the tall blades of grass, painting the landscape with spots of white and yellow. The clear blue sky was broken apart here and there by white clouds which drifted along in the mellow breeze.

“What a perfect day to go on an adventure…” Two-six whispered to herself as she walked though the tall grass. The smell of fresh soil and blooming flowers filled her nose.

And then she found him, sitting there, in the middle of the field, looking around idly.

It was still the same person she had known her whole life. Only now, he looked a little bigger, a little more heroic, and a little less frail, maybe.

Then he saw her, and their eyes met. Even from a distance, Two-six could see its beautiful hue.

“Why are you here?” He asked.

“Why do you think?”

He smiled and sighed. “Yeah, of course I know why you’re here.”

Two-six walked up to him and stood there, looking down at One-six sitting among the grass. Butterflies danced around them, as Two-six offered One-six her hand.

If the past world didn’t welcome them, maybe this new world would.

Even if it doesn’t actually exist.

“Let’s go, One-six…”

“Where?”

“Anywhere.”

————— FIN —————