The ridge presented itself as exposed rock and stubborn scrub, and the incline had the audacity to ignore the existence of people who relied on neural interfaces more than leg muscles. Proxy focused on the next handhold, then the next, putting his attention only to what his hands required, and avoiding acknowledging what his eyes kept trying to prioritize.
Nyx was above him.
She had been above him since the mont the jungle floor surrendered to actual rock face, when the slope stopped pretending to be nice.
She paused on a ledge four ters above him, turned, and looked down with warm patience.
"You’re going slowly," she said.
"I’m going carefully," he replied. "Those are not the sa thing, at least in principle."
She tilted her head, considering the distinction as if it were an object she could rotate. "From up here they look the sa."
He shifted his right hand to a new hold and declined to answer, which was itself an answer. She watched him climb with attention that implied the activity itself was worth studying.
"The view from here is very steamy, very nice." she said.
"I’m glad it ets expectations," he said.
She looked down again, and the warmth in her expression gained a slightly more patience, as if she were approaching a conclusion. "I imagine the view from down there is also," she paused, selecting the word with care, "quite steamy."
He adjusted his left foot against the rock. "The slope has so technically demanding parts," he said, which was technically true and strategically incomplete.
"Mm," she said, leaving the sound suspended in a way that suggested she knew everything he had omitted and was deciding whether to pursue it.
She allowed him nearly two ters of progress before revisiting the topic, which in her case qualified as restraint.
"You know," she said, in that tone she reserved for observations she found personally delightful, "if you were actually looking at the slope, you would not have slipped on that rock earlier."
He had recovered from that slip imdiately, and at no point had gravity been a serious concern. "The rock there was wet," he said.
"Its been wet since the start," she replied, pleasantly
He pulled himself up and paused, allowing his breathing to catch up to his effort. She stood nearby, watching him with eyes that combined care and quiet satisfaction.
"I wasn’t looking at you," he said.
"I didn’t say you were," she replied, her very wide, very pale eyes attempting innocence with a level of effort that made the attempt visible, though technically successful.
He looked at her. She returned the look.
"I was only thinking," she continued, "that the slope has been straightforward for so ti, and that you seem to have been occupied with other thoughts." She tilted her head slightly. "Little, perky thoughts?"
"I’m glad you are enjoying this," he said.
"You never say anything about it. There’s no need to be polite, you see."
There were multiple possible replies to that, which made choosing one unnecessarily complex. He opened the pack instead and retrieved the water unit, because hydration was important and also because it provided a neutral action to occupy divert his attention.
He drank. She watched him drink with softness, and sothing beneath it. He handed the water to her without ceremony. She accepted it with both hands, drank, and returned it with a loud press of her wet lips.
She turned away and looked out over the island, and whatever she had been about to say dissolved into the view. From this elevation, the island truly looked beautiful, the canopy forming a continuous dark green mass, the resort concealed beneath it, coastal structures barely visible at the horizon, the jungle larger and denser than their ti inside it had suggested.
"It’s really big," she said.
"Probably most of the island is that jungle," he said.
"It didn’t feel this big when we were inside it." She paused, considering the scale. "Wouldn’t it beco hard for people to find each other when there’s only a few left?"
He followed her gaze and watched the landscape as a map to refine.
"We should keep moving," she said, turning back toward the ridge.
He agreed, and as he turned, the cyberware resud its passive scan loop out of habit.
He stopped.
She noticed the change imdiately, her attention shifting to him with precision. She waited, studying his expression.
"There’s a node in the rock," he said, simplifying a situation that resisted simplification. "Hardwired, not networked in the modern sense." He extended his reach toward it. "It’s part of a structure built into the ridge."
She looked at the rock face beside them curiosity. "So, a bunker?" she said.
"Sothing like one," he confird.
"Is it dangerous?"
"It’s dormant," he said. "And old enough that whatever danger it once had is no longer relevant." He was already moving along the rock face, tracking the signal.
"Mm, then it’s worth a look," she said.
"Sure," he agreed.
The thing revealed itself only at close range, a door disguised as rock, visible only if one already suspected its existence. Through the network he located the chanism, an electrochanical lock reliant on physical current rather than encryption. He issued the command in the language it recognized.
It opened inward. Slowly at first, like sothing rembering motion, then with increasing certainty as the chanism reasserted its purpose.
The air that erged was cold, sealed, and had the distinct taste of prolonged isolation.
They entered, and he closed the door behind them.
The ergency lighting hesitated, then activated thin amber strips along the floor, sufficient to outline the room of bare concrete. A row of hardwired panels along the far wall, switches, indicator lights, screens designed for a world that trusted physical systems under pressure. There were no signs of recent activity.
"What was this for?" Nyx asked, studying the panels.
"Nuclear contingency," he said. "Or sothing from that era. Whoever built this island prepared for the nuclear war." He examined the panels. "It didn’t help, apparently."
"I guess they didn’t manage to get here in ti," she said with the casual tone she had used for the casino chip, applying it now to systemic collapse. She moved to the storage containers, examining them with genuine curiosity, hands clasped behind her back.
"Don’t open them yet," he said.
"Okay," she replied imdiately, without hesitation.
He was already interfacing with the bunker’s network, which moved slowly in the way outdated systems do. He navigated it carefully, node by node, the structure appearing in his perception, and toward the rear he found sothing inconsistent with the rest.
A signal built on the sa architecture as the corporate cache in the resort’s east wing.
He looked up. Nyx was reading a faded label on one of the containers, tilting her head to match with the text.
"There’s a cache here," he said.
She turned imdiately, her attention sharpening.
"How far?" she asked.
"In the back section," he said, already moving.
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