"This is Kael Voss. Miss Solis?"
"It's me! Just call me Lyra, hehe. I finally got through to you! It's been almost a week—I thought…"
"A week?"
Kael frowned slightly. That couldn't be right. The last time he spoke to Lyra should've only been two days ago. How could it have been a whole week?
Still, although Kael felt something was off, he figured maybe Lyra had just gotten the dates mixed up, so he didn't dwell on it.
Soon, Lyra's voice came through the receiver again: "Kael, I've purchased ten million pounds' worth of goods. They're all stored in several large warehouses. But that's a lot of stuff—do you even have somewhere to put it all?"
"Uh…"
Kael's face lit up at her efficiency and the scale of her preparations, but her follow-up question left him stumped.
Right. He'd been so focused on having her gather supplies, he hadn't thought about where he'd store them. Forget whether his phone could even transfer everything—where would he put all that stuff if it could?
That was the real problem. He had no secure base to speak of. This wasn't the pre-apocalypse world where you could just rent a few storage units. The place was crawling with the undead—there was no truly safe location anymore.
The more he thought about it, the more his head throbbed. Kael stood frozen in place, face grave, his mind racing with one idea after another.
Meanwhile, in the present-day world, Lyra sat on her long couch at home in a comfortable tracksuit. Picking up on Kael's frustration, she hesitated for a moment before offering a suggestion. "Kael, I actually have an idea… but I'm not sure if it's even possible."
Hearing the implication in her tone, Kael quickly pressed, "Tell me! I'm listening."
Lyra didn't hesitate any further. She jumped into her explanation: "Here's my thinking. I'm in the year 2025, and you're ten years ahead in 2035. What if… I bury a cup underground somewhere in 2025—would you be able to dig it up in the exact same spot in 2035?"
Kael fell silent, processing her words. After a moment, realization dawned, and his eyes lit up.
"You're saying… if that actually works, you could bury supplies in 2025, and I could dig them up ten years later?"
Although Lyra knew Kael couldn't see her, she still instinctively nodded—then shook her head. "Yes, and no. I want to take it a step further. I could build an underground warehouse in 2025, load it up with supplies…"
"As long as nothing catastrophic happens to that location in the next ten years, it should still exist in your time. Theoretically, you'd just need the password I set to access the warehouse. You could enter, collect everything I've left behind, and maybe even…"
Kael interrupted, fully grasping her intent now. "Even use it as a shelter—a base to build my own faction from."
"Exactly!"
Lyra couldn't help blurting it out. She loved how talking to someone clever made communication so effortless. A little hint was all he needed to connect the dots.
Kael took a deep breath to calm his racing heart. He mentally reviewed their conversation, growing more convinced that the plan was viable. "This is an interesting idea. But how do we prove it's actually possible?"
Lyra thought for a moment. "Kael, I never asked—what city are you in during 2035?"
"London," Kael sighed. "My hometown is in Surrey, but when the world collapsed, I was working for a logistics company here in London. Got stuck ever since… and now it's nearly New Year's. Been nearly half a year."
"Oh…"
Hearing the heaviness in Kael's voice, Lyra fell silent for a few moments. Then she asked, "Do you know how the other cities are doing?"
"Not exactly, but I assume they're all the same—streets full of man-eating monsters."
"What about Cambridge? Do you know anything about what's happening there?"
Lyra finally voiced the question that had plagued her these past few days. If the apocalypse truly began in 2025, would her future self—and her family—still be alive ten years from now?
"Cambridge?" Kael looked puzzled at first, but then he remembered that was where Lyra lived in the present. He scratched his head helplessly. "Lyra, phones and the internet have been dead for ages. I've got no idea what things are like in Cambridge."
"I see."
Though slightly disappointed, Lyra accepted that Kael was telling the truth. There was no use obsessing over whether her future self would live or die.
Bringing her focus back to the issue at hand, Lyra thought for a moment and proposed a test: "Kael, I'll fly to London tomorrow. I'll bury something there. If you can find it, we'll know for sure my plan works."
Kael nodded instinctively. It was a solid idea. "I'm not far from the London Zoo. I visited before the collapse—there's a monkey enclosure near some dense trees. Bury it beneath one of those trees. Mark it clearly so I can spot it."
"Got it. I'll book the flight right away and head over first thing tomorrow."
Suddenly, Kael thought of something. "By the way… that lottery ticket I gave you—did it win?"
A grin spread across Lyra's face. "It did! Shame I didn't buy more than one."
Kael clenched his fist in excitement. He'd been worried his knowledge of the past might have altered the future—but clearly, history still played out as it should.
The winning ticket… still won.
"I'll give you two more sets of numbers. Just be careful. Best to switch cities when you claim them. If you win too often, someone's bound to get suspicious."
"Good point. Maybe we should think about other ways to make money too."
Lyra agreed with Kael's caution. Winning the lottery repeatedly would definitely attract government attention. That kind of scrutiny could be dangerous for her.
Even now, after that one big win, she'd already decided never to do it more than a couple of times. Any more would be reckless.
"What date is it on your end? Last time we talked, it was March 2."
"It's March 7 now."
Using Lyra's timestamp, Kael quickly scrolled through the data on his phone and found the notes he'd saved.
"Lyra, I've got two sets for you this time. You can buy a few more tickets—building a bunker is going to need a lot of funding. Just don't overdo it."
"March 12, numbers: 02, 06, 13, 27, 28, 32. Bonus: 13."
"March 17, numbers: 12, 18, 23, 25, 28, 33. Bonus: 04."
Lyra jotted them down quickly. Just as she finished, she suddenly remembered something. "Almost forgot—I've prepared the supplies for you, and I also found something really special the other day. Hang on!"