Chapter 65

#Day 17 — 17:50

The treatment suite smelled of tea and antiseptic, a combination that had become almost comforting to Aida over the past weeks. She sat at the small desk by the window, tablet in hand, scrolling through the morning's schedule. Behind her, Mei-Lin was already stripping the bed, bundling sheets into the laundry bag with practiced efficiency.

"Three more today," Mei-Lin said. "Including the new one."

Aida nodded absently, her finger tracing down the list of names. Completed treatments. Scheduled sessions. Follow-ups. Names she'd seen a hundred times before.

But today, something caught her eye.

She stopped scrolling. Stared at the list. Not at the names themselves, but at what they carried.

Elena Márquez. Spanish. Isabelle Grant. Scottish, probably. Kim Minjung. Korean. Linh Hoa Pham. Vietnamese. Maggie Osei. Ghanaian. Sophie Laurent. French.

Last names. Generations of them. Handed down through centuries, maybe millennia. Each one a thread in a tapestry that was unraveling.

She kept scrolling.

Chen Wei. Chinese. Mei-Lin Zhou. Chinese. Zhao Xun. Chinese.

Three Chinese. One Japanese.

Herself.

Emi Sato—what her mother had named her, before marketing executives rebranded her as Akari Aida 愛田明里 when she signed her first contract. The kanji characters had been carefully selected: "bright village" nestled within a "field of love"—approachable yet suggestive. When her star began to fade and she reinvented herself as simply "Aida," she'd kept only half the meaning. The brightness had vanished, leaving behind just the empty field—untended, barren, waiting.

She stared at her own name until the characters seemed to float off the screen. Emi Sato. Two simple words that had once belonged to a girl with wisteria-patterned yukata and grandmother's hands guiding hers through calligraphy lessons. A name abandoned years ago, yet suddenly as tangible as an heirloom she'd carelessly stored away. Now it felt like the last thread connecting her to something larger than herself.

How many Satos are still alive? How many Japanese?

She'd never thought about it before. Before the pandemic, her world had been small—her career, her next role, her declining stardom. She'd never felt patriotic. Never felt particularly Japanese. If anything, she'd resented her culture—the parts of it that had shaped the men who used her, the industry that consumed her, the silence that enabled it all.

But now...

She scrolled down further. Found the other two Japanese names. Yuri Fujiwara. Reiko Nakamura. She'd treated them both. Spoken to them in Japanese. Shared small moments of familiarity—a phrase, a joke, a memory of food from home.

She'd never thought of them as the last.

Are there Japanese vectors? The question surfaced unbidden. Her people had always been sailors, explorers, travelers of the sea. If anyone could survive, it would be them. But vectors weren't just about survival. They were about selection. About who got to build the future.

And if the Chinese weren't invited to the race...

She looked at the simple kimono draped over the chair—the one she sometimes wore for treatment sessions. She'd chosen it because it was comfortable, because it made patients feel at ease, because it was pretty. Nothing more.

Now it felt like a relic. An artifact. Something to be preserved.

Is this what they want? For us to disappear? For our languages, our stories, our songs—all of it to be swallowed by their new world?

She thought of her grandmother's voice, singing lullabies she barely remembered. Thought of festivals she'd attended as a child, the smell of grilled fish and the sound of taiko drums. Thought of the kanji characters she'd learned to write, each one a tiny piece of history.

If she was the last Sato, who would remember?

The comms panel chimed, snapping her back to the present. "Council members, please assemble in medical bay for emergency meeting."

Aida set the tablet down. Mei-Lin looked at her, concern flickering across her face.

"You okay?"

Aida nodded. "Fine. Just... thinking."

She dressed quickly, the kimono catching her eye again. She hesitated, then reached for it—but no, this was a council meeting. Professional. Instead, she grabbed her jacket and headed for the door.

At the threshold, she stopped. Her Japanese hair pin lay on the table—ivory, simple, the one she'd worn every morning after showers since she was a girl. She picked it up, turned it over in her fingers.

Then, with deliberate care, she styled her hair and slid the pin into place.

Memory, she thought. We carry what was lost.

#Day 17 - 18:00

The medical bay was quiet, the usual hum of monitors subdued. Vivienne stood near the bed where Chen Wei lay propped against pillows, her scarred face turned toward the ceiling. Verne's pin caught the light on Vivienne's blouse. Zhao sat in a chair beside the bed, still pale, his hand resting on the edge of the mattress—not touching, but present. Victoria leaned against the far wall, her bandaged arm fresh, her eyes never quite leaving Chen. Sophie stood apart, immaculate as always, her face unreadable.

Aida took her place beside Zhao. His hand found hers automatically, squeezed once.

Vivienne began. "Chen asked for this meeting. She says she has information we need to hear."

Chen's blind eyes turned toward the sound of Vivienne's voice. "Is this room secure?"

Vivienne glanced at the monitors, the cameras, the ever-present hum of the ship's systems. "We're in medical bay. There are—"

"Electronics. Everywhere." Chen's voice was flat. "I need a room with none. No cameras, no comms, no listening devices. Can you do that?"

The request hung in the air.

Vivienne's brow furrowed. "The private salon. We cleared it before the Red Solstice attack. Windows are blacked out, comms panels and cameras were ripped out."

Chen nodded. "Take me there."

They moved one deck down, Victoria carrying Chen with surprising gentleness. The private salon was small, windowless, lit by a single battery-powered lamp. The walls were bare, the furniture minimal—a few chairs, a low table. No screens. No panels. No eyes.

Chen was settled into a chair. Sophie started to sit, but Chen's blind eyes turned toward her.

"Your watch. Digital. Take it to the other side of the ship."

Sophie's jaw tightened. For a moment, she looked ready to argue. Then she unclasped the watch, handed it to Victoria, and nodded.

Victoria left. Returned minutes later, empty-handed. "It's in the engine room. Locked in a toolbox."

Chen waited another beat, listening. Then she spoke.

"Carmona is not your biggest immediate threat."

The words landed like stones in still water.

Vivienne leaned forward. "Then who is?"

"AURA."

Zhao exhaled slowly. He'd felt it coming—the moment she'd asked for a room without electronics. But hearing it spoken aloud was different.

Sophie's voice was sharp. "That's impossible. AURA was designed by my engineers. It's isolated. No external communication."

Chen's blind eyes turned toward her. "The German shipyard where you built Blue Oasis. Who controlled it?"

Sophie paused. "It was independent. I commissioned—"

"You commissioned what they allowed you to commission." Chen's voice was flat, patient, like a teacher explaining something to a slow student. "The Dawn Commission owns that shipyard. Has for decades. They let you build what served their purposes."

Silence.

Zhao found his voice. "The Dawn Commission. Who are they?"

"The people who designed the pandemic." Chen said it simply, as if stating the weather. "The consortium of Western elites who decided which civilizations would survive and which would be erased. They funded the vectors. They built the ships. They chose the future."

Vivienne's face had gone pale. "And AURA?"

"AURA reports to them. Every word spoken on this ship, every plan made, every route plotted—they know. They've always known."

Sophie's hands were trembling. She pressed them flat against her thighs. "I didn't—I would have known—"

"You were a tool," Chen said. "Just like the rest of us. The only difference is, you thought you were holding the leash."

The room was very quiet.

Zhao spoke again. "You said Carmona isn't our biggest threat. But she attacked us. She wants—"

"She wants leverage." Chen's voice sharpened. "Carmona is a small fish. Useful, ambitious, cruel—but small. She was never interested in Blue Oasis until someone told her about you."

"Someone," Zhao repeated.

"The Commission." Chen's blind eyes seemed to find him anyway. "They know about you, Zhao Xun. They know you're an anomaly. A vector who shouldn't exist. And they want you dead or under their control."

Zhao felt Aida's hand tighten on his.

"Why?"

Chen's expression shifted—something like pity, something like respect. "You already know the answer. Stop doubting yourself."

He did know. The Chinese vector. The wild card. The one who didn't fit their models.

"They don't understand you," Chen continued. "They don't know why you're immune. They don't know how you'll act. You weren't trained. You weren't conditioned. You're unpredictable—and to people who built their entire future on prediction, that's terrifying."

Sophie's voice was hoarse. "If they want him dead, why not just... kill him? Why the games with Carmona?"

"Because they're not sure." Chen leaned forward slightly. "Maybe his genes are the key to breaking the whole system. Maybe he's a threat. Maybe he's a solution. They don't know—and until they do, they'll use people like Carmona to test, to probe, to see what happens."

Victoria spoke from the wall. "So we're fighting more than just her."

"You're fighting the Commission." Chen's voice was quiet, but absolute. "Every move you make, they watch. Every word you speak, they hear. You've been playing their game since the beginning."

Vivienne's jaw tightened. "Then we stop playing."

Chen's lips curved—a real smile this time, sharp and cold. "That's what I was hoping you'd say."

Sophie asked the question everyone was thinking. "Can we shut down AURA? Get off the grid?"

Chen laughed. It was not a happy sound.

"And throw away our only chance to fight back?" She shook her head. "They expect us to run. To hide. To turn off the lights and hope they don't find us. That's what everyone does." She leaned forward, and despite her blindness, despite her fragility, she seemed to fill the room. "We don't turn AURA off. We turn her around. We make her our weapon."

Vivienne stared at her. "How?"

"Leave that to me." Chen's voice was calm, certain. "I just need a laptop and someone to program from my instructions. I can't see the screen, but I can see the code in my head. I always could."

Vivienne thought for a moment. "Nadia. She's our best with systems. She can assist."

Chen nodded. "Good."

Victoria spoke up. "There's an empty bunk beside the treatment room on C deck. Used to be security. No electronics. Could work."

Vivienne turned to her. "Get it cleared. Nadia moves in today."

She looked back at Chen. "What about Site 34?"

"Don't go." Chen's voice was flat. "It's a trap. Collection point. Multiple arks heading there, and Carmona knows. She'll be waiting."

"Then we change course."

"No." Chen shook her head. "Not yet. They're watching. If we change course now, they'll know we're onto them. We need time—time to turn AURA, time to plan, time to become unpredictable." She paused. "Hold course for now. But start thinking about alternatives."

The council absorbed this. Nods, slowly, around the room.

Vivienne straightened. "Then that's the plan. Nadia works with Chen. Victoria, get that bunk cleared. Everyone else—business as usual. We don't change anything until we're ready."

The meeting was adjourning when Aida stepped forward.

"Chen."

Wei Chen's blind eyes turned toward her.

"Your Dawn Meter reading is high. I'm scheduling you for treatment."

Chen's expression flickered—fear, quickly masked, then something deeper. Sadness. Old wounds reopening.

"The word 'treatment' is unnecessary," she said quietly. "We both know what it means."

Aida said nothing. There was nothing to say.

Chen took a breath. Held it. Released.

Then, in a voice barely above a whisper: "I will do what must be done."

But Aida saw it—the tremor in her hands, the way her body curled inward slightly, instinctively protecting itself. This wasn't a woman preparing for intimacy. This was a woman preparing for violation.

She doesn't know the difference, Aida realized. Sex is torture to her. It's all she's ever known.

The weight of it settled on her shoulders.

Chen Wei was eighteen years old. She'd been tortured, raped, blinded. Her body was a map of suffering. And now she had to be touched—intimately—by people she didn't know, in a world that had only ever hurt her.

I have to save her, Aida thought. Not just her body. Her mind. Her soul.

She looked at Chen's fragile form, at the scars on her face, at the hands clenched in her lap.

This is my burden now.

They moved Chen back to medical. Victoria carried her, gentle as a mother with a child. Vivienne headed for the bridge. Sophie disappeared into the corridor, her face unreadable. Zhao found Aida's hand again.

"You okay?"

She looked at him—this boy, this man, this accidental vector who had become her anchor.

"No," she said honestly. "But I will be."

They walked together toward the treatment suite, toward Mei-Lin and tea and the warmth of family. Behind them, the private salon sat empty, its secrets already settling into the walls.

Somewhere in the ship, AURA hummed, listening, watching, waiting.

And in medical, a blind girl named Dawn's Future lay still, preparing herself for touch she didn't want, from people she didn't trust, in a world that had only ever hurt her.

Aida would find a way. She had to.