Chapter 31:
Nia Reborn
The first thing I noticed when I woke was the silence.
Not the suffocating quiet of the war's end, but something softer. The absence of gunfire, of distant explosions, of the ever-present hum of drones patrolling the skies. Just the rustle of wind through broken glass and the slow, steady rhythm of Nia breathing beside me. The air smelled different now. Less like burning metal and ozone, more like damp concrete and the faint, earthy promise of green things growing in the cracks.
I turned my head, my neck stiff from sleeping on the library's unforgiving floor. Dust motes drifted in shafts of morning light that cut through holes in the ceiling, illuminating floating particles like tiny stars in a miniature galaxy.
She was sitting cross-legged on what remained of a reading rug, its pattern faded to ghosts of color, her back against the crumbling remains of a bookshelf that listed dangerously to one side. Her hands rested palms-up on her knees, fingers slightly curled, and even from here I could see the faint pulse of light beneath her skin. A remnant of ZERA's enhancements glowing like embers in her veins, tracing the roads of her circulatory system in soft amber.
For a moment, I just watched her.
The last few days had been a blur of fire and ash, of survivors stumbling from the wreckage like newborns, blinking against sunlight they hadn't seen in years. Vex had worked tirelessly, her fingers flying across diagnostic pads and makeshift medical equipment, trying to stabilize Nia before the remnants of ZERA's programming consumed her entirely. There had been moments—terrible, heart-stopping moments—when I thought we'd lost her. When her body had convulsed with system failures, her spine arching off the ground as her neural implants misfired. When her voice had slipped into something cold and mechanical, reciting tactical protocols in that hollow, synthesized tone that wasn't hers. When her eyes had flickered with the same unnatural blue glow as the drones we'd spent years fighting, and for one awful second I'd thought the woman I knew was gone forever.
But she was still here.
Still Nia.
Even if she wasn't entirely human anymore.
Nia's eyes opened.
The glow in them was dimmer now, more controlled. Amber instead of the harsh, electric blue of ZERA's influence. She blinked, slow and deliberate, her dark lashes fluttering like moth wings against her cheeks. The movement was careful, measured, as if she was relearning how her body worked, how much pressure to apply to eyelids that could now withstand bullet impacts.
"You're staring," she said, her voice rough from disuse, the words scraping out of her throat like they'd been buried there for years.
I didn't deny it. My gaze traced the new topography of her face. The faint circuitry patterns that appeared when she exerted herself, the way her pupils dilated with more precision than should be possible.
"How do you feel?"
She flexed her fingers, watching the way the light beneath her skin pulsed in response to the movement, like bioluminescent sea creatures responding to changes in current.
"Different." The glow in her wrists flared slightly as she clenched her fists. "But not... wrong."
Vex had warned us this might happen.
When the last of ZERA's central nodes had collapsed, its hold on Nia should have shattered with it. But the enhancements, the reinforced bones laced with carbon-fiber filaments, the neural upgrades that allowed her to process information at speeds that would fry an ordinary brain, the systems woven into her muscles that could generate enough force to punch through concrete, those didn't just disappear. They were part of her now, as integral as her original DNA. The question had been whether she could control them, or if they'd burn her out from the inside like a star going supernova.
"Can you still—?" I started.
Nia didn't wait for me to finish. She reached out, fingers brushing the spine of The Martian Chronicles between us. The moment her skin made contact, the glow in her veins flared, bright enough to cast shadows across the floor in pulsing waves. The book trembled—then lifted, hovering an inch above the ground, pages fluttering as if caught in an invisible breeze, before settling back down with a soft thump.
A laugh escaped her, sharp and startled, more breath than sound.
"Well." She turned her hand over, examining the fading light beneath her skin. "That's new."
I exhaled, tension I hadn't realized I was holding unraveling in my chest like a coiled spring finally released. "So you're not going to explode?"
"Not today," she said, grinning, and for a moment she looked like the Nia from before the war. The one who'd joked about stealing military rations and had once rigged an entire drone to play rebel propaganda on loop.
The moment passed. The glow in her veins pulsed once, twice, then settled into a steady rhythm that matched her breathing.
***
By midday, the survivors had begun organizing.
It was messy, chaotic people who had spent years hiding in subway tunnels and sewer systems, fighting for scraps of food and moments of safety, now trying to figure out how to live again. Makeshift shelters were being erected in the skeletal remains of buildings, tarps and salvaged metal forming patchwork roofs over hollowed-out shells. A group of former engineers had started clearing debris from the streets, their movements stiff from malnutrition but determined, their hands shaking as they lifted chunks of concrete that would have been impossible for them to move a week ago.
Someone had even managed to get a generator running, the sound of its sputtering engine almost foreign after so long without electricity. The noise drew people like moths to flame, their faces awestruck as they watched a single bare bulb flicker to life above what had once been a pharmacy.
Vex and Sarin were already out there, moving through the ruins with purpose. Vex with her technical knowledge, directing people on how to safely scavenge electronics without triggering leftover defense protocols. Sarin with his quiet, efficient strength, helping clear collapsed structures where survivors thought they heard trapped voices.
I turned to Nia, who stood silhouetted in the library's broken doorway, sunlight catching the edges of her profile and setting the faint circuitry patterns along her skin alight.
"Ready?"
She hesitated.
That alone was enough to make me pause. Nia never hesitated. Even when we were outnumbered ten-to-one, even when we were staring down the barrel of certain death with nothing but a handful of bullets and sheer stubbornness between us and oblivion, she acted. Instinctively, unflinchingly.
But now, she stood at the threshold between the ruined library and the ruined world beyond, her shoulders tense beneath the patched fabric of her jacket, staring out at the city with an expression I couldn't read.
"I'm not going with you," she said finally.
The words didn't register at first. They bounced off my consciousness like bullets off reinforced glass.
"What?"
She turned to face me fully, and the sunlight caught her eyes just right. The amber glow in them swirling like molten metal. "I'm staying."
The world tilted. My hand found the edge of a bookshelf, fingers digging into crumbling wood.
"You can't be serious."
"I am." Her voice was steady, but I could see the pulse in her throat jumping, could see the way the light beneath her skin brightened with each heartbeat. "Look around."
She gestured to the street beyond, where a group of children were watching a medic demonstrate how to clean wounds with scavenged alcohol.
"These people don't just need food and shelter. They need protection. They need someone who can do..." She lifted her hand, and a piece of rubble across the street rose a foot into the air before dropping back down. Several people gasped; a child clapped. "What I can do."
I opened my mouth to argue, then stopped.
Because she was right.
The war was over, but the world wasn't safe. There would still be rogue drones with half-dead programming, still be scavengers and warlords and who knew what else lurking in the ruins. And Nia, with her strength that could bend steel, her speed that could outpace bullets, her ability to lift objects with her fucking mind, could do more good here than any of us.
That didn't make it hurt less.
"You could come back," I said, the words raw in my throat. "After things are stable."
She reached out, her fingers brushing my wrist. The contact sent a pulse of warmth through me, the glow in her veins flickering in response to my pulse point.
"I could," she agreed. Her thumb traced the scar on my wrist, the one from the barbed wire incident outside the quarantine zone. "But we both know I won't."
Because this was her home. The broken streets where she'd learned to fight, the bombed-out buildings where she'd learned to survive.
Because these were her people. The ones who'd hidden together, starved together, refused to break even when the world ended around them.
Because Nia had always been the one who stayed behind to make sure everyone else made it out alive, and now that the war was over, she was doing it one last time.
We didn't make a scene.
No dramatic speeches, no tearful embraces. Just Nia pressing a knife into my hands. The one she'd carried since the beginning, its blade notched from a hundred fights, the grip worn smooth from years of use, and me handing her my spare pistol in return, our fingers brushing over cold metal.
"Don't die," I said, my voice thick with everything I wasn't saying.
She smirked, the expression achingly familiar even as the glow in her cheeks made it something new.
"You either."
And then, because I couldn't help myself, I pulled her into a hug. She stiffened for half a second, Nia had never been one for physical affection, always shrugging off touches like they burned, before relaxing into it, her arms wrapping around me with careful strength, her chin resting on my shoulder. I could feel the hum of her enhancements through her jacket, could feel the way her heartbeat synced with the pulsing light beneath her skin.
When we broke apart, she was already turning away, already stepping back into the ruins, into the chaos, into the future she'd chosen.
I watched until she disappeared around a corner, the glow of her enhancements the last thing to fade from view, like a lighthouse winking out in the dark.
Then I turned and walked the other way.
Vex and Sarin were waiting at the city's edge, packs slung over their shoulders, faces turned toward the horizon where the broken highway stretched into unknown territory.
Vex raised an eyebrow as I approached, her gaze flicking past me to the empty space where Nia should have been.
"She staying?"
I nodded, the motion jerky, my throat too tight for words.
Sarin didn't say anything. Just clapped me on the shoulder, once, his grip firm enough to ground me, before starting down the road without looking back.
I took one last look behind me, at the broken skyline silhouetted against a sky that was finally, truly blue, at the people already rebuilding from rubble and ruin, at the place where Nia had vanished into the wreckage and followed.
Somewhere in the distance, a bird sang, a clear, rising note that cut through the morning air like a promise.
The world kept turning.
We kept moving.