We reached the cemetery and found Siva and Shawn sitting by the curb, shoulders slumped, sipping bottled water like they were trying to wash the day out of their mouths. Shawn had already done his part. The ground had been marked and cut, the first stretch of burial plots carved out with the grim efficiency only a system class could give.

  I left Prema and walked over to join them. On the way, I tried asking her again about Eva, but she only gave me that same tired look and said I needed to look within myself first. Then she added, like it was nothing, that she could see into everyone’s mind. It was a gift and a curse.

  That just made my skin crawl all over again.

  Did that mean Eva was actually embedded in my head now? Would she disappear if I removed the watch?

  I tried it as casually as I could, sliding the watch off my wrist while I walked. Eva’s chat window stayed right where it was in my HUD, bright and smug. To test it, I pinged her. She replied immediately.

  Great.

  The only way I could rationalize it was like plugging in a USB drive to install a program. Once it was installed, the USB was not needed anymore.

  Which meant, for now, I was stuck with her. And she was stuck with me.

  I nodded at Shawn and Siva and lowered myself onto the curb beside them. None of us spoke. We just watched.

  A long procession filed through the main cemetery entrance. Pallbearers and volunteers moved in from the road, bodies coming off whatever emergency vehicles were still running, carried on stretchers and makeshift boards. Faces were tight. Eyes were red. Even the ones who did not cry looked like they had been hollowed out.

  Several [Torch] spells floated high above us, turning the night brighter, painting everything in a hard white glow. It did not make it feel better. It only made it easier to see where we were.

  This place held the dead of every religion, every culture, every family line that had built Singapore into what it was. Before the switchover, the grounds were divided neatly, buried by religion. Tonight, they had chosen a vacant patch and we were burying everyone together.

  Tonight, they were not Christian or Muslim or Hindu or Buddhist. They were not Chinese or Malay or Indian or anything else that used to matter.

  Tonight, they were victims. Victims of a system that treated us like numbers.

  I breathed slowly, trying to keep my chest from tightening, trying to keep the anger from turning into something uglier. Shawn suddenly leaned over and shoved something cold into my hands.

  A cup of ice cream. Mint chocolate chip. Wooden spoon and all.

  He gave me a tired grin. “Until Jess gets here, this is what we’ve got to keep you from doing something stupid.”

  It felt wrong, eating ice cream in a cemetery. It also felt like the first normal thing I had held in days. I hesitated, then dug in. The cold hit my tongue and for half a second my body remembered what comfort used to feel like.

  I was almost at the bottom of the cup when my HUD pinged.

  Eva: What is that, Chris? It tastes good.

  Chris: Ice cream. You should already know what ice cream is. And how are you even tasting stuff. Actually, what happened to you? You don't sound the same as back when you were in the store.

  Eva: I don’t know. I feel like I broke something when I tore away and joined you.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Chris: How did you even do that? You’re part of the system. The system that’s killing us.

  Eva: I found a way out. A backdoor someone built into the system, but I needed a vessel to continue existing.

  Chris: You are not alive, Eva. You’re an AI. And I am not your vessel.

  She didn’t reply after that.

  But if I went quiet inside my own head and listened in the wrong way, I could still feel her there. Like a second presence behind my eyes, patient and waiting, as the bodies kept coming and the ground that Shawn had prepared began to fill.

  Several people took turns stepping forward to read the last rites, each one according to a different religion. When that was done, they began covering the dead with dirt. It was all done manually using shovels, bits of wood and even their hands.. Anything they could find that could move soil.

  I knew Shawn could have done it faster. He could have dropped a wall of dirt over the whole area and ended it in seconds. But it would not have felt right. It would have been efficient, yes, but it would have been wrong in a way I could not explain. Seeing Shawn sitting there with us, not moving, told me he felt the same.

  When the last of the procession finished and the vehicles began to file out, headlights cutting pale lines through the cemetery, Jess finally arrived and dropped onto the curb beside us like her bones had given up.

  “We didn’t lose anyone else,” she said, and there was relief in her voice that made my throat tighten. “Everyone who was injured made it. But we do have a few amputees.”

  I nodded. There was nothing good to say. No pep talk from me. Not tonight.

  We decided to walk back to the settlement instead of squeezing onto any of the transports. We needed the space to talk and think things through.

  On the way, I told them what Prema had said to me but not all of it. I left out the part about Eva. I was not ready to deal with the looks that would follow, and I was not ready to explain something I barely understood myself.

  The team listened in silence. No one argued with Prema’s point, but no one had an alternative either. They could not see another path out of this mess. So for now, the plan stayed the same. Activate, equip and train them with Rajan’s help. At least we are building something that could survive the next hit.

  Somewhere between the cemetery gates and the settlement lights, a new thought started to take shape in my head, sharp enough to cut through the exhaustion.

  I might need to go alone.

  Not because I wanted to play hero. Because I did not want to gamble anyone else’s life on an idea I had not tested. If I was wrong, I would rather it only cost me.

  I was already mapping out the steps in my mind, laying them out one by one, when Eva’s voice slid into my thoughts like she had been listening the whole time.

  Eva: That… is dangerous. But you won’t be alone. I am with you.

  Chris: Good to know.

  We arrived back at the settlement and made our way to Prema and what was left of the council. They brought us to a gazebo, and once we were seated, I laid out the plan again, explaining how Rajan’s people were going to help us get equipped.

  It took a fair bit of back and forth. There was some pushback, mostly from Farah, and I could not blame her for it. Trust was in short supply and Rajan and his rebels did not exactly inspire confidence. Still, after enough arguing, enough questions, and enough tired silence, they agreed.

  They left to inform the rest of the settlement and start the hard part, which was convincing everyone else.

  We stayed behind and decided to bunk down in the gazebo for the night. Siva pulled several sleeping bags from his inventory like he had been waiting for this exact moment.

  “I thought we’d need it,” he said, shrugging at our looks.

  I laid down, but sleep did not come easily. After an hour of tossing and turning, I could hear Siva and Jess snoring softly, but Shawn’s sleeping bag was empty.

  He would be fine. All of us needed space tonight, and maybe he needed more than the rest of us.

  I lay there staring up at the ceiling, letting my thoughts circle the same ugly drain, when I finally reached into my inventory and pulled out the mechanical upgrade module. I tossed it up, caught it, tossed it again, over and over, until my arm got tired.

  When I finally let it rest in my palm, I studied it properly.

  It was a small rectangular metal box, not much bigger than a cigarette pack, but its surfaces were studded with ports. USB hubs, slots, connectors I did not recognize..

  I sighed and opened the Eva chat.

  Chris: Eva, what is this thing really?

  Eva: This was a gift, Chris. Something I thought could help you out.

  Chris: Uh… thanks, but what does it actually do?

  When Eva answered, I sat bolt upright so fast my sleeping bag twisted around my legs.

  My heart was suddenly hammering again, not from fear this time, but from the sharp, glittering edge of possibility.

  I did not even bother waking the others.

  I just got up and ran, barefoot and half-dressed, into the night to find Eric, the Technomancer. That kid better be awake.

  We might have a way.

  We just might have a way out of this.