Chap 187: I Would Care If You Died

The Vergants were strengthening the barrier around Primus Village, but it required a massive power surge to attack and test it. Tee was asked to do that, and she created the most powerful blast she could make.

A flash shot across the sky. All the Sentinels felt it, especially Saeda. Their eyes glowed blue briefly. It wasn’t a warning signal. Little did they know, they all had varying levels of aura-sensing as Sentinels.

Unfortunately, the barrier broke. But as a contingency plan, a double barrier had already been put up. It was much larger and far beyond the reach of her blast.

The Sentinels who were playing bat and ball outside stopped after analyzing the strange force that passed over them for only a second. 

Kie panicked, remembering the elder’s words—that when any of the Sentinels died, they would feel it. Was that what he had just felt? Only Tee was not around, which meant she must have mutated. She had the Balance Seal, which meant no MegaSapian, but she would still be dead.

Saeda stretched out her hands and pointed. “The source is the Primus Vergant Village.”

That was where Tee was. Kie ordered Saeda to take him to the exact location of the surge. The others followed, and they were taken to a large underground, lab-like facility. Massive tubes were connected to the earth, pumping out Ether energy. Everything seemed to glow white.

On a high platform connected to several pathways stood Tee—the only girl with white hair—surrounded by Vergant scientists. She was alive. In Kie’s eyes, she seemed to glow with beauty. He remembered that he had kept his telecom and could have simply checked her location tag for life instead of rushing there like a lunatic. It confirmed the worst had happened. He cared too much about her.

The Vergant scientists began to leave Tee, and she turned to see her teammates. Shocked, she stepped back slightly.

“Wha—What are you guys doing here?” she asked.

Kie stepped forward. “We all felt a strange feeling, and we thought you had died.”

“False alert,” Saeda said, already walking away.

Zod took that opportunity to explore the Vergant village again, and Miko tagged along, leaving Kie and Tee to chit-chat.

Tee kept staring at Kie, noticing the worry in his eyes. Did he really think she had died and come to see for himself if it was true? Was he really that concerned about her? Her chest tightened. But then she remembered he had said she had a dead heart and that they were over.

Any hope she had faded, dulling her eyes. She placed her hands on her hips and spoke down to him from the platform.

“Well, as you can see, I’m alive.” She leaped down from the platform and moved closer.

Kie reached out, touched her shoulder, and sighed, confirming she was real.

“Why can’t I stop thinking about you?” he asked.

Her heart skipped a beat. “What?”

He pulled his telecom from his pocket and checked her location. “Damn, I’m an idiot.”

“Why do you have that?” she asked.

He looked up at her and frowned. “I keep a telecom back after recent missions so I can… I’m going to stop talking now.”

Tee’s brows knitted together. “Are you checking up on me?” She then looked away and folded her arms. “Well, you’re the one who said you hoped to never see me again, meaning we’re over. Plus, I’m still a Xeno-victim, so you must despise my guts.”

Kie shook his head. “That’s not true.”

He thought hard before continuing. She was right. She was a Xeno-victim. She was going to die on him. Plus, why did he care for her after all she had done to him?

“You’re right. Goodbye,” he said before marching away.

Tee reached one hand out after him but didn’t say a word. She let him walk away.

Back at the living complex, inside his room, Kie stuffed the telecom into his drawer to get it out of sight. Why didn’t he return it? He was so mad at himself.

Meanwhile, Tee couldn’t stop thinking about Kie. Was he really that worried about her to keep a telecom and check up on her? And his face—so full of worry when he thought she had died.

Aven asked, “Why are you smiling so much?”

He noticed she had been staring at the same page on her tab for a while.

Tee fumbled, “Oh, it’s nothing,” then gave a nervous laugh.

That night, Tee twisted and turned, unable to sleep. Kie filled her thoughts—his voice, his eyes, the way he had looked at her earlier. She wondered if he still had the telecom. A strange, unsettling thought crossed her mind. What if the Commander answered instead of Kie? The idea made her chest tighten. She missed his voice.

Doing something reckless, she clicked his tag and opened a private channel.

Kie also couldn’t sleep. The telecom was buried in his drawer, but his super hearing picked up the signal immediately. He pulled it out, already knowing whose voice it would be.

Was she going to mock him for what he had said earlier? He listened in silence for a while before finally answering.

“What is your problem?” he said. “I already can’t sleep, and you’re making so much noise.”

Tee gasped, then squealed quietly with excitement when she heard him. His voice sounded grumpy, which meant he really couldn’t sleep either.

She whispered so only his super hearing could catch it. “I did a one-to-one convo, but just to make sure—no one else is listening, right?”

Kie went over and sat on the edge of his bed. “Our teammates? No, for sure. But anyway, what do you want?”

The harshness in his tone made her blink. She pushed herself up on her bed and spoke.

“Need I remind you that you were the one who came worried about me not long ago? What’s with the attitude?”

He leaned back onto his bed and set the telecom beside him. Tee did the same, imagining he was lying there next to her.

“I also couldn’t sleep,” she said softly, “and I thought I would talk to you…”

Kie wasn’t flattered. He laced his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling. His voice came out low and drawn out. “I must be so boring that my voice would put you to sleep.”

Tee covered her mouth to hide her chuckle. “Not really,” she said. She bit her lip, debating whether to say what was really on her heart. “I fall asleep faster when I’m happy. That’s why I wanted to hear your voice again.”

She imagined his half-open red eyes staring deep into her soul. She wanted so badly to tell him how much she missed being around him, but fear stopped her. What if he ended the call?

Kie wanted to ask what she had been up to. He missed her presence more than he cared to admit—even her annoying death list. But he kept those thoughts to himself.

“What have you been up to?” he asked instead.

“I’m making small progress with finding a cure to the Xenogene,” Tee replied.

Silence followed. Then Kie broke it.

“The Commander and Lieutenant went on vacation together. Odd. Shouldn’t they have alternated or not gone at the same time? Anyway, they hinted that the Harbingers are slimming down. What’s your plan after Primus?”

Tee sighed. “I plan to stay in the village and complete my studies in finding a cure. I know—boring. But I already know about your plan to destroy every Xeno-victim on the face of the planet and become a god.”

Kie let out a laugh-chuckle. “Wow, you are really naive. I was kidding about the Xeno-victim part. I thought you were a Xenogenist and was trying to impress you.”

Tee sat upright and yelled, “What?” The echo reminded her she was alone in her room.

“Anyways,” he continued, “you are so wrong. After Primus, I look forward to becoming a parent. I think I’ll make a great one. A little human to care for and give them the world you never had.”

He pulled a pillow beneath his head and rested his hands on his abdomen as he spoke.

“I had this dream of my older self coming home from work, and a little me running toward me the second I opened the door.”

Silence.

“Say something,” he said.

“What can I say?” she replied. “You finally snatched a kid and got away with it?” She turned her head to the side and laughed.

Kie knitted his brows and gasped in horror. “Any sensible person would know the kid is mine. He was a legit lookalike.”

When she finally stopped laughing and he could get through to her, he asked, “What do you think about parenthood?”

“I already told you, I don’t know. I never had real parents to sit around a table and have dinner with,” she said quietly. “A scientist looked after me—treated me more like a niece than a daughter. You know I didn’t have a dad, so I can’t really comment on your desire to be one.”

Then she asked, softly, “What did the wife look like in the dream? Was she pretty?” She wanted to know what kind of person he imagined beside him.

“There was no one else but me and the kid,” he said casually.

“Oh no,” she replied. “That’s not good.”

His brows twitched.

“That means you’ll be a single dad,” she said carefully.

“Impossible. Forget I ever told you anything.”

Tee almost made a joke about him being a pedophile, but she stopped herself. He might take it too seriously, and she didn’t want to hurt him.

“Good night,” he said, and the line went silent.

“Night,” she replied, smiling brightly in the darkness of her room.

Another night, they found themselves lying in silence, listening to each other breathe through the telecom. Neither of them was sure what to say.

“Bet I can make you laugh,” Tee said.

“Try me.”

“You wouldn’t believe the eye-sore I got some days ago,” she said. “Aven making out with his granny girlfriend, Hana.”

When no reaction came through the telecom, she added, “Bear in mind, Aven is like two years older than me, and Hana looks near the grave. Imagine pinching her loose, wrinkly skin.”

Kie sat up abruptly, swearing he was about to vomit.

“No—stop—just stop! You’re making me sick,” he begged.

Tee laughed. “I thought you liked older women.”

“Not the wrinkly type,” he replied, lying back down. “Yeah, all the girls I’ve ever been with were older, but that wasn’t intentional.”

“Yeah, right,” she said. “You went to the Mid-Guard before your time. Plus, you were with me, and I’m five days older—”

He blurted, “You don’t count.” He smiled at the brilliant diss. “Besides, you just need a few wrinkles to compete with that Hana lady, since you already have white hair.” With a wide grin, he added, “I should start calling you Granny-Tee.”

He shut his eyes, turned to his side, and burst out laughing.

Tee knew he only had the courage to say that because she wasn’t there. To think that jerk was the one she longed to hear?

“Did you have a girlfriend before me?” she asked. “It’s hard to believe you were single before you came to Primus.”

Kie stopped laughing. “Not important.”

Tee stared at her telecom, thinking. Kie—single? How? But then she reminded herself he hadn’t always looked that way. The scars must have repelled girls.

In his mind, he remembered ending things with his previous girlfriend, Sirsy, in a letter before he got to Primus. But he wasn’t bringing that up. The last thing he wanted was Tee asking nosy questions.

He continued speaking.

“Getting with someone that old is self-sabotage. They’ll die soon, leaving another lonely person. There’s a reason the child bearer is usually younger… Do you know why that is?”

Tee raised her right brow. She didn’t like being talked down to, but answered anyway.

“No.”

“Because having children sheds years off their life. To make sure they don’t die before the other, they’re usually younger.”

Tee wanted to swallow her tongue. With the amount of children he said he wanted, how young did his life partner need to be? Instead of asking directly, she decided to lead him there.

“Tell me about the ten children you wanted.”

“What about it?”

“Have you thought of any names? For someone with their future planned out, you must have ideas.”

When he stayed silent, she added, “Well, you’ve got time now, and I’m excellent at naming. My loyal companion Patience is proof.”

“Your what?” Kie asked.

Tee shot upright in panic. He didn’t know she had gone back for the ice-saber against his order.

Quickly, she blurted, “How about Leonard? That’s a nice male name.”

Kie scrunched his nose in disgust, turned to one side, and yelled, “No.”

Tee leaned back toward the telecom. “It’s a nice name. Anyway, you should try to get a child that at least looks like you. Avoid the ‘I’m adopted’ drama.”

“No adoption.” Kie said. “They will all be mine.”

Tee’s brows rose. “Oh, you plan to have multiple ladies?”

Kie paused, then said seriously, “Wow. Your perception of me must be so low.”

Tee leaned up onto her chest, resting on her pillow, staring down at the telecom as if she were looking him dead in the eye.

“Huh? Not polygamy? You plan to have all those kids from one person?”

She laughed. “Good luck finding that paragon of a lunatic.”

She imagined some desperate homeless woman smiling with all her teeth missing and burst into laughter, pressing her face into her pillow to muffle the snort.

Kie didn’t like her calling his future soulmate a lunatic—it felt like an insult. Was she trying to hurt him? It hurt. One of the downsides of distant communication was that he couldn’t see her face to know. He decided not to speak again, just lay there listening to her failed attempts to hide her laughter. But he ended up smiling, imagining her white, pearly teeth. She always did have a beautiful laugh.

When Tee finally stopped laughing, she asked, “Why so many children, though?”

There was a long pause before he answered.

“I won’t always be around—hero or god stuff—and I don’t want them to ever be lonely since they’ll have each other… unlike me.”

Tee replied, “So what about their mother? Oh, so you intend for their mother to die? I thought you couldn’t stand getting near someone who was just going to die. Plus, children will die too. There are lots of loopholes in your plan, Mr. I-Will-Become-a-God.”

Kie went silent. She was right. But his plan to be with a female Sentinel was more like an ambitious fool’s dream than something practical. Miko was taken, she turned out to be a covert Xeno-victim who would die soon, and… there was no other option.

The silence was broken by Tee’s yawn. She was no longer interested in asking about age. Her mind was stuck on what he had said about being alone like him.

“I remember what you said about being alike—having no one to care if we died. Well, I would care if you died.”

Silence.

Kie thought about her words, remembering how alone he had always been in the world. Well, maybe not anymore. But she was a Xeno-victim—so did it even matter? Still, she was all he had, whether he liked it or not. It touched his heart so deeply that tears welled in his eyes. He sat up and wiped them away, his pink eyes burning. He was glad she wasn’t there, or he might do something he’d regret.

Tee said something, but got no response.

After a long stretch of silence, Kie realized his telecom had died of energy.

Tee, sensing something was off with the telecom, eventually relaxed—and fell asleep with a wide smile on her face.