Night fell with a clear sky, but inside the house, the atmosphere felt heavy, as if every unspoken word floated between the walls.
Alma stood by the dining room table, her arms crossed, her gaze fixed on the floor. The cup of tea she'd poured had cooled without her touching it.
Iker entered quietly. His jacket still bore the dust from the estate's basement, where he'd been checking the laboratory's air-conditioning systems. He gently closed the door.
She didn't look at him.
"Where have you been?" she asked, her voice more hurt than annoyed.
He stopped halfway, knowing he could put it off no longer.
"Working," he said calmly.
"Where?" she insisted, now looking up. "Where do you work, Iker? You're not with your father. You don't have any partners. There's nothing of yours anywhere. Not a receipt. Not a call. Not a clue. What are you doing?" Silence fell like a slab. Only the faint murmur of the television could be heard in the children's room. Iker sighed.
"Come with me," he finally said. "I'm going to show you something. Not everything. But enough so you understand why."
Minutes later, the two of them were descending into the hidden basement of the estate. Alma didn't say a word, but her steps were firm. She went down the stairs as if heading toward a truth that would change her forever.
The lights in the lab turned on by themselves when they detected her presence. The place glowed white and blue, clinical and cold. In the background, Kara-H1 rested in its maintenance module. Motionless. Silent.
Alma stopped dead in her tracks.
"Is it... a person?"
"No," Iker replied, without drama. "It's an android. The first one I designed."
Alma approached slowly, like someone confronting a mirage. Kara-H1 seemed to sleep upright, with a serenity that seemed human… but wasn't.
"Why would you do something like that?" she finally asked. "What are you looking for?"
Iker didn't answer. He walked to the console and slid his hand across the panel. A holographic projection rose before them. First, it was a jungle-covered island, shrouded in mist. Then, impossible structures: a command center hidden in the jungle, underground factories, self-sufficient towers, androids moving silently.
"This… I built it," he said quietly. "Without my father's money. Without his influence. Without his shadow."
Alma turned her face toward him. Her eyes were moist.
"Why, Iker? To play God?"
He shook his head.
"So that Alex and Dana don't grow up in a power struggle." So you don't have to pretend to be okay while everything falls apart around you. So we can have something of our own... for real.
She looked away. Silent tears rolled down her face.
"And why are you telling me this now?"
"Because in a few months... we'll be gone. And I want you to come with me. Not out of fear. Not out of obligation. But because you want to."
Alma slowly approached the console and touched an image: androids unloading materials onto a hidden platform.
"Did you do it... alone?"
"With help. But no human. No one who could sell me out or betray me."
"And what else are you hiding from me?"
Iker hesitated.
"I'm hiding the most dangerous thing from you: that I no longer know if I'm the same person who came back. But I do know that for the first time... I want to build something for you. For us."
She looked at him for a long time.
And for the first time in a long time, there was no anger in her eyes. No fear.
Only wonder… and a spark.
A silent promise that, perhaps, there was still something left to save.